The largest private university in New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University is an independent, nonsectarian, coeducational, multi-campus institution. It has campuses in Teaneck and Madison, New Jersey, as well as locations in Wroxton, England, and Tel Aviv, Israel. The university is the first American university to own and operate a foreign campus and the first comprehensive university in the world to require distance learning of its undergraduates. Founded in 1942 by Dr. Peter Sammartino and his wife, Sylvia (Sally), it was named for its benefactor Colonel Fairleigh S. Dickinson. It began as a two-year junior college in Rutherford, New Jersey. When it felt the need to grow, the college expanded its programs into a four-year curriculum. In the same year, the college got its first accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. In 1954, the first graduate program, a master's degree in business administration, was offered, and Bergen Junior College was purchased as a second campus in Teaneck. In 1956, as determined by the State of New Jersey Board of Education, the institution gained university status. In 1958, the College at Florham, a third campus, was created in Madison on the former estate of Florence Vanderbilt Twombly. The university opened its first overseas campus, Wroxton College in England in 1965. Its second overseas campus, the West Indies Laboratory at St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, was dedicated in 1972. Between 1982 and 1990, new programs and facilities were added. In 1992, as part of the implementation of a strategic planning process, a new University College for arts, sciences, and professional studies was created at Teaneck and Madison, offering honors-track programs in all disciplines. Today, FDU offers more than 100 bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degree programs to students from 82 countries.