Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. A land-grant by Asa Candler, the president of The Coca-Cola Company, allowed the small college to move to metropolitan Atlanta in 1915 and become rechartered as Emory University. The university's mission statement is "to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity."
Emory is ranked 20th among national universities in the U.S. News & World Report. Newsweek named it one of its 25 "New Ivies" in 2006. The university has nearly 3,000 faculty members; awards and honors recognizing Emory faculty include the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, National Humanities Medal, Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, and membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
The university has nine academic divisions: Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Oxford College, Goizueta Business School, Laney Graduate School, School of Law, School of Medicine, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Rollins School of Public Health, and the Candler School of Theology.
The university has more than two million square feet of building space certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program and has a commitment to having three-quarters of the food they serve on campus come from local or sustainable sources by 2015. The University holds the distinction of having one of the largest inventories by square footage of LEED-certified building space among campuses in America.