ndiana University of Pennsylvania (or IUP) is a public university in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, USA. The university is 55 miles (89 km) northeast of Pittsburgh. It is the largest university in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PaSSHE) and is the commonwealth's fifth largest university. It is governed by a local Council of Trustees and the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. IUP has branch campuses at Punxsutawney, Northpointe, and Monroeville. IUP was conceived as Indiana Normal School, first chartered in 1871 by Indiana County investors. The school was created under the Normal School Act, which passed the Pennsylvania General Assembly on 20 May 1857. Normal schools established under the act were to be private corporations in no way dependent upon the state treasury. They were to be "state" normal schools only in the sense of being officially recognized by the commonwealth. The school opened its doors in 1875 following the mold of the French Ecole Normale. It enrolled just 225 students. All normal school events were held within a single building which also contained a laboratory school for model teaching.