Saint Xavier University (abbreviated SXU) is a four-year, coeducational institution of higher learning located in the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. Saint Xavier University is the oldest university in the State of Illinois and was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1846 at the request of Bishop William Quarter. With the City of Chicago less than ten years old, the Sisters of Mercy, under the guidance of Mother Mary Francis Warde, RSM, established Saint Francis Xavier Female Academy. The Academy, which would later become Saint Xavier College, and finally Saint Xavier University, was the first Mercy College in the world and is the oldest chartered College in the city of Chicago. The original campus, which burnt down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, was located on Wabash Avenue between Madison and Monroe in downtown Chicago. Soon after, the campus was rebuilt on a 5-acre (20,000 m) site on the southern boundary of Chicago. Saint Xavier's 109 acres (0.44 km) main campus is located in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood of Chicago, on the corner of 103rd Street and Central Park Avenue.