Stanford University
Stanford University, an institution of higher learning on the outskirts of Palo Alto, California, about 30 miles (50 km) south of San Francisco. It is privately controlled, coeducational, and nonsectarian.
The campus covers more than 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares). The university's original buildings are of native buff sandstone. Their long, low arcades and red tile roofs recall the old California missions. Other notable structures include the Hoover Tower, the Lou Henry Hoover Building, and the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building, which house the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (founded by Herbert Hoover in 1919); Stanford Memorial Church, with extensive Venetian mosaics; and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The Stanford Medical Center, which includes the medical school, was designed by Edward Durell Stone. The Stanford University Museum of Art houses the Stanford family collection and exhibits other art as well.
The university has schools of humanities and sciences, earth sciences, engineering, medicine, law, business (graduate only), and education (graduate only). Stanford has overseas centers in several countries. It maintains Hopkins Marine Station at Pacific Grove, on Monterey Bay.
The university was founded in 1885 by Leland Stanford and his wife as a memorial to their son, for whom it is officially named Leland Stanford Junior University. It opened in 1891.