The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is a public historically black land-grant university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1851 and is the only public university in the city. UDC is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The full university system offers workforce and certificate programs in addition to Associate, Baccalaureate, Master's, professional, and Doctoral degrees. The university's academic schools and programs include the UDC Community College, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Business and Public Administration, Colleges of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability & Environmental Sciences, and David A. Clarke School of Law. The university operates a flagship campus at Van Ness in the North West quadrant of the city with several branch campus across Washington, DC. Other campuses include the Bertie Backus Campus, Union Station Campus, Congress Heights Campus, and the UDC Firebird Farm. History University of the District of Columbia was consolidated in August 1, 1977 with the merge of Teachers College, Federal City College, and Washington Technical Institute. Normal School for Colored Girls Myrtilla Miner with six pupils founded the Normal School for Colored Girls against considerable racist opposition. On December 3, 1851, it started operations in a rented room about fourteen feet square, in a frame house then owned and occupied as a dwelling by African American Edward Younger. This was the first normal school in the District of Columbia and the fourth one in the United States. The school trained young black women to become teachers. Among its benefactors were the Society of Friends, Henry Ward Beecher, and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe; Stowe donated $1,000 from the sales of her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although Mayor Walter Lenox believed that education would make Blacks a "restless population" and local residents formed some mobs in opposition to the school, the school remained open until the Civil War began. By 1879, the Normal School for Colored Girls was then known as Miner Normal School. It joined the D.C. public education system. In 1873, Another institution for white girls was established in Washington D.C. in 1913 was named the Washington Normal School, and it was renamed the Wilson Normal School In 1977 the schools were merged and consolidated into the only public university in Washington, D.C. District of Columbia Teachers College In 1929, the United States Congress made both schools Miner Normal School and James