Founded in 1867, as 'Illinois Industrial University', its name changed officially to the 'University of Illinois' in 1878, followed by a further modification, in 1977, to the 'University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.' The Architecture programme is one of the oldest and largest in the USA, with one it's early students, Nathan Clifford Ricker, becoming the first graduate of an architecture program in the United States, in March 1873. He subsequently became the first Director of the Department of Architecture, a role which he was to hold for the next 37 years, until 1910. In 1879 another of the University's students, Mary Louisa Page, became the first woman in North America to graduate with a degree in architecture.