Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public university located in DeKalb (DeKalb, Illinois), Illinois, United States. It was founded on May 22, 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as a satellite campus for what is now Illinois State University. Today named Northern Illinois University, it is an independent public university and has grown larger than its parent school, having a student enrollment of more than 24,000. NIU is a member of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and is the second largest university in the state of Illinois after University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. NIUs main campus is located approximately 65 miles (104 km) west of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois). The university has satellite centers in Hoffman Estates (Hoffman Estates, Illinois), Naperville (Naperville, Illinois), Rockford (Rockford, Illinois), and Oregon (Oregon, Illinois).