Shenandoah University is a private university and conservatory of music located in Winchester, Virginia in the United States. It has an enrollment of approximately 3,800 students across more than eighty programs. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The U.S. News and World Report's 2011 Best Colleges and Universities listing placed Shenandoah University at 32nd (Tier 1) in its Regional Universities (South) category. The university was founded as Shenandoah Seminary in 1875 in Dayton, Virginia, by Dr. Abraham Funkhouser and Professor Jay Fries. Shenandoah Seminary became a junior college in 1924, changing its name to Shenandoah College the following year. Shenandoah Conservatory became a separate corporation in 1937 and began granting four-year degrees. In 1960, Shenandoah College and the Shenandoah Conservatory moved to the current seventy-five-acre (305,000 m²) Winchester campus and began offering four-year degrees in 1974 (at which time the college and conservatory corporations were merged). Having obtained university status on January 1, 1991, today the Shenandoah University student body represents forty-six U.S.