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The George Washington University (GWU) is a private university in Washington, D.C., founded in 1821 as The Columbian College.

1 History

George Washington had long argued for the creation of a university in the District of Columbia, and in his will, even bequeathed fifty shares of the Potomac Company to it. "I give and bequeath in perpetuity the fifty shares which I hold in the Potomac Company (under the aforesaid Acts of the Legislature of Virginia) towards the endowment of a UNIVERSITY to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the General Government, if that Government should incline to extend a fostering hand towards it."[1] The Congress never acted on this bequest, though.

Aware of Washington's wishes, a group of men, both ministers and laymen, led by the Reverend Luther Rice later raised funds to purchase a site for a college to educate missionaries and the clergy. On February 9 1821, President James Monroe approved the Congressional charter creating The Columbian College. Its name was changed to Columbian University in 1873 and to The George Washington University in 1904. The university became one of the first institutions in the United States to grant a PhD in 1888.

In the 1970s, GWU was known mostly as a night school and graduate school. Since then, under the leadership of university presidents Lloyd Hartman Elliott and Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, it became a major undergraduate and graduate institution and grew immensely, and presently is the largest private landowner in the District of Columbia, and second largest overall (behind the federal government).

In June 1999, the university purchased the Mount Vernon College for Women near Georgetown, and it became the George Washington University Mount Vernon Campus .

2 Organization

3 Campus

The university has three campuses: The main campus in Foggy Bottom, the Mount Vernon campus in northern Washington, DC, and the Virginia campus. The university also owns land and buildings around the Foggy Bottom campus not used for academics; this includes owning the mall at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave, and the land under the International Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund IMF is an international organization responsible for managing the global financial system and for providing loans to its member states to help alleviate balance of payments problems. Part of its mission is to help countries building.

3.1 Foggy Bottom Campus

This is the main campus, occupying 43  acreThis article is about the unit of measure known as the acre''. For other definitions, see Acre (disambiguation). An acre is a measure of land area in Imperial units or U. customary units. It is equal to 43 560 square feet, or 4840 square yards. The preciss (170,000 m²) and over one hundred buildings on fourteen city blocks, plus portions of other blocks.

The major and notable buildings are:



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