The University of Chicago is a private university locate principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Founded by the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, the University has traditionally dated its establishment to July 1, 1891, when William Rainey Harper became President and the first member of the faculty. The University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892. Chicago was one of the first universities in the United States to be conceived as a combination of the American liberal arts college and the German research university. Notorious for its uniquely rigorous devotion to academic scholarship and intellectual life, the University of Chicago is sometimes jokingly referred to as the school "where fun goes to die."