Wake Forest University was founded in 1834 by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The school was opened as Wake Forest Institute, with Samuel Wait as principal. It was located in Wake County, on the plantation of Dr. Calvin Jones, near which the village of Wake Forest later developed.

Rechartered in 1838 as Wake Forest College, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the state. It was exclusively a college of liberal arts for men until 1894, when the School of Law was established. The School of Medicine was established in 1902, offering a two-year program.

The School of Business Administration began in 1948 as an undergraduate division. It was renamed the Babcock Graduate School of Management in 1969, with a corresponding change in emphasis and program. The Division of Graduate Studies was established in 1961. It is now organized as the Graduate School and encompasses advanced work in the arts and sciences on both campuses in Winston-Salem.

In 1946 the trustees of Wake Forest College and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina accepted a proposal by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to relocate the College in Winston-Salem, where the medical school had moved five years earlier. The late Charles H. Babcock and his wife, the late Mary Reynolds Babcock, contributed the campus site. Between 1952 and 1956 the first 14 buildings were erected, in Georgian style architecture, on the new Winston-Salem campus. In 1956 the College moved all operations, leaving the 122-year-old campus in the town of Wake Forest to the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The decade that followed was the College’s most expansive, and in 1967 its augmented character was recognized by a change in name to Wake Forest University. Today, enrollment in the University stands at more than 6,000. Governance remains in the hands of the Board of Trustees, and development for each of the schools of the University is augmented by Boards of Visitors for the undergraduate College and Graduate School, the Divinity School, the School of Business and Accountancy, the School of Medicine, the School of Law, and the Graduate School of Management.

The hallmark of education at Wake Forest remains the devotion to liberal arts learning and professional preparations for men and women.

The College, School of Law, School of Business and Accountancy, Divinity School, Graduate School of Management, and part of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences are located on the Reynolda Campus in northwest Winston-Salem. The School of Medicine and the rest of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences are located approximately four miles away on what is known as the Bowman Gray Campus. The University also conducts classes regularly at Casa Artom in Venice, at the Worrell House in London, at Flow House in Vienna, and in other places around the world.

The College offers courses in more than 40 fields of study, leading to the baccalaureate degree. The School of Law offers the Juris Doctor degree, and the Graduate School of Management offers the Master of Business Administration degree. The School of Business and Accountancy offers five Bachelor of Science degrees and a Master of Science in accountancy. The Divinity School offers the Master of Divinity degree. In addition to the Doctor of Medicine degree and a Master’s degree program for Physician Assistants, the School of Medicine offers, through the Graduate School, programs leading to the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the basic medical sciences. The Graduate School confers the Master of Arts degree in most areas of the arts and sciences and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in biology, chemistry, and physics. Through a combined program of the School of Management and the Graduate School, students can earn both an M.D. and a Ph.D. degree.

The University’s libraries, with total collections of more than 1.15 million volumes, permit research for undergraduate education and in each of the disciplines in which a graduate degree is offered.

Wake Forest University is a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Southern Universities Conference, the Association of American Colleges, and the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States. The University has chapters of the principal national social fraternities, professional fraternities, and honor societies, including Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Alpha Omega Alpha.