College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary}} (abbreviated as W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard University, and the ninth-oldest in the English-speaking world. William & Mary is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The university is among the original nine colonial colleges.

Alumni of the college include three presidents of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler, the first President of the Continental Congress Peyton Randolph, the first United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph, the fourth U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Speaker of the House of Representatives Henry Clay, U.S. Army Commanding General Winfield Scott, sixteen members of the Continental Congress, and four signers of the Declaration of Independence. Its connections with many Founding Fathers of the United States has earned it the nickname "the alma mater of the Nation". George Washington received his surveyor's license from the college in 1749, and later became the college's first American chancellor in 1788, a position previously long held by bishops of London and archbishops of Canterbury, though in modern times has been held by U.S. Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Benjamin Franklin received William & Mary's first honorary degree in 1756.

William & Mary is notable for its many firsts in American higher education. In 1736, W&M became the first school of higher education in the future United States to install a student honor code of conduct. Flat Hat Club, founded in 1750, was the first collegiate fraternity in the United States, and W&M students founded the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society in 1776, the first Greek letter fraternity. It is the only American university issued a coat of arms by the College of Arms in London. The establishment of graduate programs in law and medicine in 1779 makes it one of the first universities in the United States. William & Mary Law School is the oldest law school in the United States, and the Wren Building, attributed to and named for English architect Christopher Wren, is the oldest academic building still standing in the United States.

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