GUILFORD COLLEGE

private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Greensboro, N.C., U.S. It is affiliated with the Society of Friends (Quakers). Guilford is a liberal arts college and offers bachelor's degree programs only. Campus facilities include an observatory, a telecommunications centre, and an art gallery. Total enrollment is approximately 1,600. The college was chartered in 1834 and opened three years later. It was then known as the Quaker New Garden Boarding School and was coeducational from the outset. The campus was a station along the Underground Railroad, the route taken by slaves escaping to freedom in the northern United States, and was a centre of resistance to Confederate conscription during the American Civil War. In 1889 the name of the school was changed to Guilford College. Guilford is the third oldest coeducational institution of higher learning in the United States, and the campus is a national historic district.