Pennsylvania, University of
Pennsylvania, University of, a nonsectarian, privately controlled institution of higher learning. The main campus is located near downtown Philadelphia. The university includes the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Wharton School, and the School of Nursing, all with graduate divisions. In addition, there are schools of law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, communications, social work, graduate fine arts, and graduate education.
The university has many affiliated institutions, including the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the Fels Center of Government, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Morris Arboretum, the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Wharton Entrepreneurial Center.
There are separate libraries for most of the colleges, schools, and affiliated institutions of the university. The Van Pelt Library houses the general book collection and also the main catalog for holdings of all the university's libraries.
The University of Pennsylvania was founded as a charity school in 1740 and was made an academy in 1749. Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the board of trustees. The school became the College and Academy of Philadelphia in 1755. Its medical college, the first in the colonies, was founded in 1765. In 1779 the college was taken over by the state and renamed the University of the State of Pennsylvania—the first officially designated university in the United States. It returned to private control under its present name in 1791. The Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, first college-level business school in the United States, was founded in 1881.