Boston College is a private university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Its historic
campus, one of the earliest examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America, is set on a hilltop six miles (10 km) west of downtown
Boston. Although chartered as a university by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1863, Boston
College's name reflects its early history as a liberal arts college and high school in Boston's South End. It was the first institution of higher education to be founded in the city of Boston, though it moved
from the South End to then-rural Chestnut Hill as a result of rapid growth and urbanization in the late nineteenth century.
Boston College is one of the oldest Jesuit universities in the United States, and its president serves as chairman of the Association of
Jesuit Colleges and Universities.