The university's Medical Center and University Hospital are located in Kansas City, Kansas. The Edwards Campus is in Overland Park, Kansas, in the Kansas City metropolitan area. There are also educational and research sites in Parsons and Topeka, and branches of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita and Salina.
Enrollment at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses was 23,597 students in fall 2014; an additional 3,371 students were enrolled at the KU Medical Center for a total enrollment of 26,968 students across the three campuses. The university overall employed 2,663 faculty members in fall 2012.
The 2014 U.S. News & World Report rankings listed KU as 101st in the category "national universities" and 47th among public universities. The U.S. News & World Report "Americas Best Graduate Schools" rankings have ranked 49 KU programs since 2008, 35 of which are ranked in the top 40 among public university programs. The university is one of the 62 members of the Association of American Universities.
On February 20, 1863, Kansas Governor Thomas Carney signed into law a bill creating the state university in Lawrence. The law was conditioned upon a gift from Lawrence of a $15,000 endowment fund and a site for the university, in or near the town, of not less than forty acres (16 ha) of land. If Lawrence failed to meet these conditions, Emporia instead of Lawrence would get the university.
The site selected for the university was a hill known as Mount Oread, which was owned by former Kansas Governor Charles L. Robinson. Robinson and his wife Sara bestowed the 40-acre (16 ha) site to the State of Kansas in exchange for land elsewhere. The philanthropist Amos Adams Lawrence donated $10,000 of the necessary endowment fund, and the citizens of Lawrence raised the remaining cash by issuing notes backed by Governor Carney. On November 2, 1863, Governor Carney announced that Lawrence had met the conditions to get the state university, and the following year the university was officially organized. The school's Board of Regents held its first meeting in March 1865, which is the event that KU dates its founding from. Work on the first college building began later that year. The university opened for classes on September 12, 1866, and the first class graduated in 1873.
During World War II, Kansas was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
The University of Kansas is a large, state-sponsored university, with five campuses. KU features the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, which includes the School of the Arts and the School of Public Affairs & Administration; and the schools of Architecture, Design & Planning; Business; Education; Engineering; Health Professions; Journalism & Mass Communications; Law; Medicine; Music; Nursing; Pharmacy; and Social Welfare. The university offers more than 345 degree programs.
In its 2015 list, U.S. News & World Report ranked KU as tied for 106th place among National Universities and 50th place among public universities. World War II Memorial Campanile
The city management and urban policy program and the special education program are ranked first in the nation by U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools" among public university programs. It also recognized several programs for ranking in the top 25 among public universities. The University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design, and Planning (SADP), with its main building being Marvin Hall, traces its architectural roots to the creation of the architectural engineering degree program in KU's School of Engineering in 1912. The Bachelor of Architecture degree was added in 1920. In 1969, the School of Architecture and Urban Design (SAUD) was formed with three programs: architecture, architectural engineering, and urban planning. In 2001 architectural engineering merged with civil and environmental engineering. The design programs from the discontinued School of Fine Arts were merged into the school in 2009 forming the current School of Architecture, Design, and Planning.
According to the journal DesignIntelligence, which annually publishes "America's Best Architecture and Design Schools," the School of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Kansas was named the best in the Midwest and ranked 11th among all undergraduate architecture programs in the U.S in 2012.