St. Martin's University
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| Saint Martin's University | |
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| Motto: | "Be the spirit" |
| Established: | 1895 |
| Type: | Private |
| Endowment: | 12,820,445 |
| President: | Douglas M. Astolfi, Ph.D. |
| Faculty: | 83 |
| Undergraduates: | 1,294 |
| Postgraduates: | 334 |
| Location: | Lacey, Washington, United States |
| Campus: | Suburban, 300 acres (1.2 km²) |
| Conference: | Great Northwest Athletic Conference, NCAA Division II |
| Mascot: | Saints |
| Website: | www.stmartin.edu |
Saint Martin's University (formerly Saint Martin's College) is a private, coeducational Roman Catholic liberal arts, research university in the United States. Located in Lacey, Washington, it was founded in 1895 as an all-boys boarding school by monks of the Benedictine Order. Saint Martin's began offering college-level courses in 1900 and became a degree-granting institution in 1940. The college began accepting women in 1965. In 2005, it changed its name from Saint Martin's College to Saint Martin's University. The school motto is "Be the spirit." According to US News, the college is the 44th best masters college in the western United States [1], and has a reputation for its diversity and small class sizes. It is also known for its first-year seminar which facilitates the transition of freshmen from high school into university academic life. It is one of the only schools in the country to have a functioning Benedictine monastery (with some members of the monastic community also serving as professors) on school grounds.
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[edit] Academics
The college offers 21 baccalaureate programs and six graduate degree programs but it is best known for its engineering (civil and mechanical), business administration and education programs. The University has extension campuses at Fort Lewis Army Post, McChord Air Force Base, Centralia Community College, Tacoma Community College and Olympic College (Bremerton, WA) as well as a campus in Hong Kong. The school's education is based around a Liberal Arts core with Benedictine values. All first-year students take a freshman seminar class to introduce them to college life. Classes have a 15:1 ration. For the last three years, the college has offered a Summer Bridge Program, which serves as a college writing workshop. General education requirements are as follows:
- Freshmen Seminar
- College Writing
- Philosophy
- Religion
- Physical Education
- U.S. History and International History
- Literature
- Fine Arts
- Science with Lab
- Computer Science
- Basic Mathematics (depends on major)
Most Saint Martin's students are from Washington state, but other states are well-represented, including Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Nevada and Hawaii. With its active international program, Saint Martin's also welcomes students from China, Korea, Japan and many other nations. The school has one of the lowest tuitions for private schools in the Northwest at $22,250. Many students benefit from generous financial aid packages. Saint Martin's graduates have pursued further study at institutions such as the University of Washington School of Medicine, Willamette University School of Law, and the Marquette University School of Dentistry. Others have worked for the American Red Cross; Dell Computers; Morgan Stanley; Peace Corps; Pierce County School District; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Puget Sound Naval Shipyard; Thurston School District; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
[edit] Colleges and schools
- Cebula School of Engineering
- School of Business
- School of Humanities, Art, and Music
- College of Education
- School of Natural Sciences
[edit] Athletics
The school's sports teams participate in the NCAA's Great Northwest Athletic Conference at the Division II level. The women's basketball team qualified for the NCAA Division II tournament in 1992 and 2008. In the 1940s and 1950s, Saint Martin's had a men's college football team and a boys' high school football team, which won the Washington Class A championship. In the 1990s, the name of the mascot was almost changed to the Ravens.
[edit] History
Saint Martin's patron saint is Saint Martin of Tours, a fourth century European missionary and later Bishop of France. The University and its founder, Saint Martin’s Abbey, sit on 300 acres (1.2 km²) of woodlands, meadows and meandering trails. The site was selected in 1893 by Abbot Bernard Locnikar, O.S.B., of Minnesota's Saint John's Abbey, Saint Martin's Abbey’s mother house. At a public auction on April 21, 1894, the wooded parcel that would become the Saint Martin’s campus was purchased for $6,920. Work began on Saint Martin’s first building in January 1895, and by late summer, a four-story structure housing both the school and a monastery was completed.
[edit] Residence halls
- Baran Hall
- Burton Hall
- Spangler Hall
- Parsons Hall, opening in August 2008
[edit] Student life and demographics
Saint Martin's University does not have Greek life and its campus is dry. Roughly thirty percent of Saint Martin's student body is of color. To support diversity on campus, the University features an Office of Intercultural Initiatives and hosts many clubs, such as the Black Student Union and a Hawaiian Club.
[edit] Presidents
- 1955-1959 Father Damian Glenn, OSB
- 1959-1964 Father Dunstan Curtis, OSB
- 1964-1971 Father Michael Feeney, OSB
- 1971-1975 Father Matthew Naumes
- 1975-1980 Father John Scott, OSB
- 1980-1984 Dr. John Ishii
- 1984-2005 Dr. David Spangler
- 2005-2008 Dr. Douglas Alstolfi
- 2008-Present Bryan M. Johnston, J.D.
[edit] Traditions
- Annual Food and Wine Festival
- Graduation Walk down the main staircase with traditional Scottish bagpipe music
- Scholars Day, in which students can present research projects
- Hawaiian Luau for all students that features traditional foods and dancing
- Student Liturgy every Sunday in the Abbey Church
- Evergreen State College Rivalry in Basketball
- Annual Basketball Exhibition between a NCAA Division 1 Team. Played Washington Huskies and Oregon Ducks
- The Belltower, is the student run newspaper
[edit] Engineering
Tapas K. Das, Ph.D., P.E., adjunct faculty member of Saint Martin’s University School of Engineering, has been named the recipient of the Development Organization for Sustainable Transformation (DOST) Professor S. K. Sharma Medal and CHEMCON Distinguished Speaker Award for 2007. The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers recently conferred the award upon Das to recognize his contributions to the profession of chemical engineering
[edit] NASA
SMU received a quarter million dollar grant from NASA for the 2006-2007 Heat Flux Simulator Senior Design Team Competition and engineered an apparatus to plot heat flux [2]. Heating lamps when arranged in various configurations will create certain heat flux (flow of heat across a given area). NASA will be using the apparatus for mapping heat fluxes to better understand heat flux when testing materials
[edit] Haunting
Old Main, the main academic building is haunted by the ghost of a former monk who passed way cleaning the windows. He plays pranks on faculty and students.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Butch Otter, Governor of Idaho (attended but did not graduate from institution)
- Thomas O'Grady, Former Vice Chairman of UST Inc. (Fortune 500 holding management firm for wineries and tobacco farms)
- Brady Halverson, 2006 Cleveland Indian's draftee
- Richard A. Jones, High School class of 1969. Federal District Judge of Western Washington
- Christine Reyna Maxwell, Ultimate Volunteerclass of 2003, Author of "Ultimate Volunteer Guidebook for Young People"
[edit] Notable faculty
- PhD.David Price Website(Author of Anthropological Intelligence series and commentator to Anthropology Today)
- PhD.David Suter (Professor of Religious Studies and Dead Sea Scrolls researcher)
[edit] Other
Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to the Heinz Corporation and wife to senator and presidential nominee, John Kerry, came to the school to campaign for her husband.
[edit] External links
- Saint Martin's University's home page
- President Douglas Alstolfi's Inauguration
- Saint Martin's Course Offerings
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