Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, also known as Penn or UPenn, is a private Ivy League research university. Founded by Benjamin Franklin, the university’s first president and founder, it is one of nine colonial institutions that was incorporated before the United States Declaration of Independence. Franklin pushed for the university to be an educational institution that developed leaders in scholarship, trade, and public service. Although other institutions contest this claim, Penn is regarded as the fourth-oldest university in the country. Franklin, on the other hand, may have been the fifth-oldest, having called the inaugural meeting of the board of trustees in 1749.