University of Massachusetts

The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, a medical school in Worcester and a law school in Dartmouth), a satellite campus in Springfield and also 25 campuses throughout California and Washington with the University of Massachusetts Global. The University of Massachusetts system is governed by a president and a 22-member Board of Trustees, which functions as a legislative body. The system administration is in Boston and Shrewsbury and is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and across its campuses enrolls 73,979 students. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is the largest school in the UMass system. It was also the first one established, dating back to 1863, when it was founded as the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School was founded in 1962, and is located in Worcester. The University of Massachusetts Boston, originally established in 1964, was merged with Boston State College in 1982. In 1991, the University of Lowell and Southeastern Massachusetts University joined the system as the University of Massachusetts Lowell and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, respectively. University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst is the flagship and the largest of the UMass campuses, as well as the first established. Like many colleges and universities, the Massachusetts Agricultural College (as it was originally called) in Amherst was founded as a land-grant college in 1863, receiving initial start-up funding as part of the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. It became "Massachusetts State College" in 1931, and "University of Massachusetts" in 1947. The library system is the largest state-supported library system in New England with over 6.1 million items. The campus has many architecturally distinctive buildings commissioned by the Commonwealth and designed by world-renowned architects.