Paul, approximately 3 mi 4. The Twin Cities campus is the oldest and largest in the University of Minnesota system and has the ninth-largest as of the β academic year main campus student body in the United States, with 54, students at the start of the β24 academic year. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature drafted a charter for the University of Minnesota as a territorial university in , seven years before Minnesota became a state.
The university is currently classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities β Very high research activity". There are 25 Nobel laureates associated with the university. The University of Minnesota was founded in Minneapolis in as a college preparatory school , seven years prior to Minnesota's statehood.
In , the university received land grant status through the Morrill Act of An donation from flour miller John S. Pillsbury is generally credited with saving the school. Academic milestones began with Warren Clark Eustis and Henry Martyn Williamson graduating in as the university's first graduates. As the 20th century began, the university expanded its academic offerings. In , the university inaugurated the Program of Mortuary Science, becoming the first state university in the United States to do so.
The nursing school later opened its doors to male students in In , C. Walton Lillehei and F. John Lewis performed the world's first successful open-heart surgery using cross-circulation. Paul and Minneapolis, the latter divided into areas on both the east and west banks of the Mississippi River. Administratively, these are all one campus, but for purposes of simplicity, this article will apply "campus" to its component parts where necessary to avoid confusion with the names of cities.
As the largest of five campuses across the University of Minnesota system, the Twin Cities campus has more than 50, students; this makes it the ninth-largest campus student body in the United States overall. It also has more than research, education, and outreach centers and institutes. The original Minneapolis campus overlooked the Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River , but it was later moved about a mile 1. The original site is now marked by a small park known as Chute Square at the intersection of University and Central Avenues.
