Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636 by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Originally called simply the New College, it was named Harvard College on March 13, 1639, after its first principal donor, John Harvard, a former student of Cambridge University. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" rather than a "college" occurred in the new Massachusetts constitution of 1780.