Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university with its main campuses in Madison, New Jersey. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University offers more than 100 degree programs. In addition to two campuses in New Jersey, the university has a campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, one in Wroxton, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, and an online platform. Fairleigh Dickinson University is New Jersey's largest private institution of higher education, with over 12,000 students.Fairleigh Dickinson University was founded as the Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College in 1942 as a junior college by Peter Sammartino and wife Sally, and was named after an early benefactor Colonel Fairleigh S. Dickinson, co-founder of Becton Dickinson.[4] Its original campus was located in Rutherford, NJ. By 1948, Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College expanded its curriculum to offer a four-year program when the GI Bill and veterans' money encouraged it to redesignate itself as Fairleigh Dickinson College. In that same year, the school received accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. In 1956, the institution was recognized as Fairleigh Dickinson University by the New Jersey State Board of Education. In 1958, the university acquired the former Twombly-Vanderbilt estate in Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey, to serve as its third campus.[5] Fairleigh Dickinson University is a member of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.[6]Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, had designed the landscape for the Twombly-Vanderbilt estate (now the Florham Campus). The main house of the Twombly-Vanderbilt estate, now Hennessy Hall, was designed by architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White in the Georgian Revival style. The mansion was completed in 1897 and was modeled after the wing of Hampton Court Palace designed by architect Sir Christopher Wren.[5] The Friends of Florham, founded in 1990 by Emma Joy Dana, university librarian James Fraser, and a group of friends and colleagues works with the mission of advising and assisting the administration and board of trustees in the care, maintenance, and preservation of the Twombly Estate, known as "Florham".