ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Tempe, Ariz., U.S. The university offers bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in areas including agriculture, engineering, business, education, and the arts and sciences. The university also includes Colleges of Architecture and Environmental Design, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Law. Students can study abroad at locations throughout Europe, and in Mexico, Japan, and Israel. The university includes branch campuses in the nearby cities of Sun City and Phoenix (the Phoenix campus is known as Arizona State University West). Total enrollment exceeds 40,000. Arizona State University was created as a normal school by the territorial legislature in 1885. Instruction began in 1886. The university's Camp Tontozona, located in the Mogollon Rim area, allows for instruction and research in mountain terrain. The university also has a centre for meteorite study and a solar energy research laboratory. An important arts centre for Phoenix and its suburbs, Arizona State is home to the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1964 , and the Sundome Center for the Performing Arts, the largest single-level theatre in the United States.