Shahid Beheshti University was formerly The National University of Iran (NUI). The university's name was changed during the cultural revolution in Iranian universities, 1980-82. It is located in Evin District and extends into Velenjak District in northwestern Tehran, Iran, on a main campus of approximately one million square meters. The university was founded in 1959. Due to an academic reform in 1986 the medical schools were separated from the main universities and became Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences working within the purview of the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. In 2007, the SBU signed an agreement with the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences which would reunite the two universities under the one name Shahid Beheshti University. Shahid Beheshti University was founded as the National University of Iran in 1959 by Dr. Ali Sheikholislam only to be the first private university in Iran. The university was originally planned to be devoted to graduate studies. At its opening, it consisted of two schools, Architecture and Urban Planning and Banking and Economics, with just 174 students in total.