The University of Denver (DU), founded in 1864, is the oldest private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. The University of Denver is a coeducational, four-year university in Denver, Colorado. DU currently enrolls approximately 11,400 students, divided between graduate and undergraduate programs. The 125-acre (0.51 km2) main campus is a designated arboretum and is located primarily in the University Neighborhood, about seven miles (11 km) south of downtown Denver.
History
The university was founded in March 3, 1864 as the Colorado Seminary by John Evans, the former Governor of Colorado Territory, who had been appointed by President Abraham Lincoln. John Evans, who also founded Northwestern University prior to founding DU, is the namesake of the town in Illinois named Evanston (the site of the Northwestern campus) as well as Mount Evans, a 14,264 foot mountain visible from the DU campus.
Evans founded the school to help civilize the newly-created (1858) City of Denver, which was little more than a mining camp at that time.
As a co-educational institution, according to College Board, under a competitive standard, the average admitted applicant is at his or her top 25% of their graduating class.
The reverse initials "DU" are used as the university's shorthand moniker (rather than the more intuitive "UD") as part of a Rocky Mountain and midwestern tradition of initial reversal, similar to the University of Colorado's "CU", the University of Tulsa's "TU", the University of Oklahoma's "OU", the University of Nebraska's "NU", the University of Missouri's "MU", and the University of Kansas' "KU."
The 'Colorado Seminary' was founded as a Methodist institution and struggled in the early years of its existence. By 1880, the Colorado Seminary had been renamed the University of Denver. Although doing business as the University of Denver, DU is still legally named Colorado Seminary.[dubious – discuss] The first buildings of the university were located in downtown Denver in the 1860s and 1870s, but concerns that Denver's rough-and-tumble frontier town atmosphere was not conducive to education prompted a new campus (today's campus) to be built on the donated land of potato farmer Rufus Clark, some seven miles (11 km) south of the downtown core. The university grew and prospered alongside the city's growth, appealing primarily to a regional student body prior to World War II. After the war, the large surge in GI bill students pushed DU's enrollment to over 13,000 students, the largest the university has ever been, and helped to spread the university's reputation to a national audience.
Demographics
The University of Denver has 11,911 students in 2010. Of the 11,911 students, 5,502 are undergraduates. The ratio of undergraduate women to men is 53.8 : 46.2. Of the class of 2008, 67.0% are White, 2% are Black, 6.8% are Hispanic, 5.2% are Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.7% are American Indian, 8% are international, and 9.1% are race/ethnicity unknown. Around 60 percent of the student body is from outside the state of Colorado. For 2011 the average accepted high school student obtained a 3.8 GPA, SAT range of 1220 to 1480 and, an ACT of 28. Roughly 50% of the incoming freshman class for 2011 was in the top 10% of their graduating high school class.
Article Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Denver