Marquette University

About Marquette University

Marquette University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States of America. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1881, it is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. It currently has a student body of 11,500, making it one of the largest Jesuit universities in the United States, and the largest private university in the state of Wisconsin. The largest college within the university is the Helen Way Klingler College of Arts & Sciences. Athletics programs at Marquette compete in the Big East Conference.

Marquette has also risen in stature and prestige academically in the past decade, along with increasingly selective admissions policies. This has culminated in Marquette being ranked 77th among National Universities in U.S. News and World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2009."

Marquette University was founded in 1881 by John Martin Henni, the first Catholic bishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, as Marquette College, and named after 17th century missionary and explorer Father Jacques Marquette, S.J. The highest priority of the new college was to provide an affordable Catholic education to the area's booming German immigrant population. The school attained its status as a university in 1907. Marquette University High School, formerly the preparatory department of the university, became a separate institution the same year. In 1912, the relatively young Marquette University became the first Jesuit university to admit women.