Saint Louis University

For the university in the Philippines, see Saint Louis University (Baguio).
Saint Louis University
Motto Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Motto in English For the greater glory of God
Established 1818
Type Private
Religious affiliation Roman Catholic (Jesuit)
Endowment US $880.3 million
President Fr. Lawrence Biondi, S.J.
Academic staff 3,307
Students 13,785 (Fall 2010)[1]
Undergraduates 8,406 (Fall 2011)
Postgraduates 5,379 (Fall 2011)
Location St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Campus Urban, 235 acres (95.1 ha)[2]
Colors Blue and White         
Mascot Billikens
Website www.slu.edu

Saint Louis University (SLU,  /ˈsluː/) is a private, co-educational Jesuit university located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg[3] SLU is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River. It is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.[4] SLU's athletic teams compete in NCAA's Division I and the Atlantic 10 Conference. It has a current enrollment of 13,785 students representing all 50 states and more than 77 foreign countries. There are currently 8,406 undergraduate students enrolled in SLU as well as 2,437 graduate students and 2,942 professional students. This year’s enrollment marks the first year that SLU’s enrollment passed 13,000. Of all the students, 59 percent are from out of state. The university provides undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. Its average class size is 23 and the student-faculty ratio is 13:1.

Its Madrid, Spain campus has from 600–650 students, a faculty of 110, an average class size of 18 and a student-faculty ratio of 8:1.[5]

Saint Louis University (SLU) is located on Lindell Boulevard, originally outside the City of St. Louis in an area originally called Lindell's Grove, and is the second-oldest Jesuit college in the nation (only Georgetown University has been in existence longer). The first M.D. degree awarded west of the Mississippi was conferred by Saint Louis University in 1836.

Contents

History

Saint Louis University traces its origins to the Saint Louis Academy, founded on 16 November 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg, Bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas, and placed under the charge of the Reverend François Niel and others of the secular clergy attached to the Saint Louis Cathedral. Its first location was in a private residence located near the Mississippi River in an area now occupied by the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Already having a two-story building for the 65 students using Bishop Dubourg's personal library of 8,000 volumes for its printed materials, the name Saint Louis Academy was changed in 1820 to Saint Louis College (while the secondary school division remained Saint Louis Academy, now known as St. Louis University High School). In 1827 Bishop Dubourg placed Saint Louis College in the care of the Society of Jesus, not long after which it received its charter as a university by act of the Missouri Legislature.[3] In 1829 it moved to Washington Avenue and Ninth at the site of today's America's Center by the Edward Jones Dome. In 1852 the university and its teaching priests were the subject of a viciously anti-Catholic novel, The Mysteries of St. Louis, written by newspaper editor Henry Boernstein whose popular paper, the Anzeiger des Westens was also a foe of the university.[6]

In 1867 after the American Civil War the University purchased "Lindell's Grove" to be the site of its current campus.[7] Lindell's Grove was the site of the Civil War "Camp Jackson Affair". 0n May 10, 1861 U.S. Regulars and Federally enrolled Missouri Volunteers arrested the Missouri Volunteer Militia after the militia received a secret shipment of siege Artillery, infantry weapons and ammunition from the Confederate Government. While the Militia was arrested without violence, angry local citizens rushed to the site, and rioting broke out, in which 28 people were killed. The Camp Jackson Affair lead to open conflict within the state, culminating with a successful Federal offensive in mid-June 1861 which expelled the state's pro-secession governor Claiborne Fox Jackson from the state capitol (Jefferson City). Jackson later led a Missouri Confederate government-in-exile, dying of cancer in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1862.

The first (and most iconic) building on campus, DuBourg Hall, began construction in 1888, and the college moved to its new location in 1889.

During the early 1940s, many local priests, especially the Jesuits, began to challenge the segregationist policies at the city's Catholic colleges and parochial schools.[8] After the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper, ran a 1944 expose on St. Louis Archbishop John J. Glennon's interference with the admittance of a black student at the local Webster College,[9] Father Claude Heithaus, professor of Classical Archaeology at Saint Louis University, delivered an angry sermon accusing his own institution of immoral behavior in its segregation policies. By summer of 1944, Saint Louis University had opened its doors to African Americans, after its president, Father Patrick Holloran, secured Glennon's reluctant approval.[10]

Expansion

During the past twenty years, the University has seen the modernization and construction of campus buildings as well as the revitalization of surrounding Midtown St. Louis. Some of the highlights of Biondi's tenure at SLU include the investment of more than $840 million in enhancements and expansions including the major expansion of the John Cook School of Business; construction of McDonnell Douglas Hall, home to Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology; the Center for Advanced Dental Education; the Doisy College of Health Sciences Building and the expansion and renovation of the Busch Student Center. Part of this expansion was the closing of two blocks of West Pine Boulevard (the section between N. Vandeventer Ave. and N. Grand Blvd.) and two blocks of N. Spring Ave. (between Lindell Blvd. and Laclede Ave.), both public streets which the campus had previously expanded across, converting them into a pedestrian mall. Furthermore, the University completed construction of the $82 million Edward A. Doisy Research Center in 2007 and the on-campus Chaifetz Arena in 2008.[11]

In addition, for over thirty years the university has maintained a campus in Madrid, Spain with a student body of around 700.[12] The Madrid campus was the first freestanding campus operated by an American university in Europe and the first American institution to be recognized by Spain's higher education authority as an official foreign university. In the early 1970s, the campus was the site of an emerging new stream of Bible-based liturgical music that has enjoyed a worldwide impact. The composers were known as the St. Louis Jesuits. After a twenty-year hiatus, they released a new album in the fall of 2005.

Shift to majority lay board of trustees

In 1967, Saint Louis University became one of the first Catholic universities to increase layperson decision making power. At the time, then board chairman Fr. Paul Reinert, SJ, stepped aside to be replaced by layman Daniel Schlafly. The board also shifted to an 18 to 10 majority of laypeople.[13] This was largely instituted due to the landmark Maryland Court of Appeals case, Horace Mann vs. the Board of Public Works of Maryland, in which grants to "largely sectarian" colleges were declared unconstitutional. The Second Vatican Council has also been mentioned as a major influence on this decision for its increased focus on the laity, as well as the decreased recruitment of nuns and priests since the council.[14]

From 1985 to 1992 the Chairman of the Board of Trustees was William H.T. Bush (younger brother of former President George H. W. Bush). The younger Bush also taught classes at the school.[15]

Since the move to lay oversight, debate has erupted many times over how much influence the Roman Catholic Church should have on the affairs of the university. The decision by the University to sell its hospital to Tenet Healthcare Corp. in 1997 met much resistance by both local and national Church leaders, but went ahead as planned.[16]

Timeline

Academics

Colleges and schools

Undergraduate and Graduate Programs Graduate and Professional
Frost Campus Frost Campus

Medical Center

Additional programs

Campus

SLU's campus consists of over 235 acres (95.1 ha) of land and 7.2 million GSF, with 131 buildings on campus.

Libraries and museums

Saint Louis University has four libraries. Pius XII Memorial Library is the general academic library. It holds over 1 million books, 6,000 journal subscriptions, and 140 electronic databases. The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library holds a unique collection of microfilm focusing on the manuscripts housed in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. The Omer Poos Law Library houses the law collection and is within the School of Law. The Medical Center Library serves the health and medical community at SLU.

Every year the Saint Louis University Library Associates present the St. Louis Literary Award to a distinguished figure in literature. Sir Salman Rushdie received the 2009 Literary Award. E.L. Doctorow received the 2008 Saint Louis Literary Award.

The University also has several museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art.

Housing

Saint Louis has both dormitory and apartment space on-campus. As part of the First Year Experience (FYE) program, resident freshman students are required to live on campus (unless a commuter from the Saint Louis area) for the first two years of their careers at SLU, before being released to move into Upperclassmen or off-campus housing. The sophomore residency requirement caused controversy when initiated in the 2009-10 school year, as the University lacked adequate housing to house all sophomores and upperclassmen who requested on-campus housing. Around 1000 juniors and seniors were pushed off campus when sophomores were granted access to traditionally Junior and Senior housing options. In the 2010-11 school year, the school announced the transfer of the Student Housing Scholarship (of $1,000 to $2,000) to Tuition Scholarship, which made off-campus housing more affordable and pursued by upperclassmen.

Freshman Year Experience options

The Griesedieck Complex (also known as "Gries", pronounced "greez") contains 16 stories of living space in its main building, with additional dorm space in its two wings: Walsh, all girl wing, and Clemens, all guy wing. Gries is located in the heart of the campus, in front of the quad, and has an average freshman living space, 10' 7.5" by 18' 2", with community showers and bathrooms. Reinert Hall, named after Jesuit Father Paul C. Reinert, is located two blocks south of the main campus in a converted Marriott hotel. Where the building lacks in location it makes up for in living space, containing some of the largest dormitories across the country, 12' 1" by 27', complete with private full baths in each room, though each room houses three to four roommates. Reinert also has access to 24-hour in-building study/meeting rooms and its own dining hall. Other on-campus housing is the site of several different FYE Learning Communities, which allow freshmen to live and study with like-minded or like-majored peers. Fusz Hall houses the Honors Learning Community, while Marguerite Hall houses both the Micah Program and the Business Learning Community.

Upperclass options

Several housing choices exist for sophomores, juniors and seniors. SLU has one Greek house; the Sigma Chi chapter owns a house located less than a block from campus, and DeMattias Hall acts as a Greek dormitory and de facto community House. Next to DeMattias Hall is Marguerite Hall, which offers 8 floors of suite-style two-occupancy dorm rooms. Continuing up West Pine Mall, is Pruellage (formerly Notre Dame Hall). While many honors students once chose to live here, in 2008 it was changed to "The Language Villa," where foreign students and language students can live together. The choice of moving the foreign and language students from the Language Houses on Laclede Street to Notre Dame Hall created some controversy in both the language and honors communities. The former Language Houses,once French,German, and Spanish, are now occupied by upperclassmen notably from the Micah Program. Another dorm option is Fusz Hall, catercorner to the University's Clocktower. It contains a food court.

Grand Forest, the Village, and the Marchetti Towers are the on-campus apartment options available. Because of its proximity to the Chaifetz Arena, many student-athletes live in Grand Forest. Similarly, the Village, just across from DeMattias, houses many Greeks. The Marchetti Towers are just west of Grand Forest and consists of two, 12-story towers. During the summer of 2008, Marchetti Towers underwent a $3.8 million renovation.

Major building and renovation projects

Edward A. Doisy Research Center

SLU recently completed building a $67 million, 10-story tall research center connected to its Medical Campus Building. It is designed to be a green building and is named for Edward Adelbert Doisy, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate of 1943 and a long-time faculty member at SLU's medical school.[21] With improvements to other research building facilities, the total cost of the project is forecast to be around $80 million. The building had its official dedication ceremony on December 7, 2007, with faculty and staff having begun to move in during the previous weeks.

In July 2010, the Edward A. Doisy Research Center became home to the Center for World Health and Medicine, a non-profit drug discovery group dedicated to developing therapies for orphan and neglected diseases.

Chaifetz Arena

Main article: Chaifetz Arena

The multi-purpose arena, construction of which was completed in early April 2008 at a cost of $80.5 million, contains 10,600 seats for basketball, a training facility, state-of-the-art locker rooms, and a practice facility that can house an additional 1,000 spectators. It is located on the eastern-most end of campus, just north of I-64/U.S. Highway 40. The arena replaced Scottrade Center as the University's primary location for large events, notably Commencement celebrations and varsity sports. On February 28, 2007, the arena was named in honor of University alumnus (1975) Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, founder and CEO of ComPsych Corp., who made a $12 million naming rights gift to the Arena.[22] The University's official dedication ceremony for the Arena was held on April 10, 2008.[2]

Saint Louis University School of Law

The law school also recently unveiled plans for a new building. The law school is currently attempting to raise the estimated $30–35 million necessary, with the original estimation of groundbreaking in 2010. Plans for the new building were postponed indefinitely after the financial crisis of 2007–2010. [3]

Athletics

Main article: Saint Louis Billikens
See also: Saint Louis Billikens men's basketball and Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer

The St. Louis Billikens are the collegiate athletic teams from Saint Louis University. This NCAA Division I program has teams in soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, swimming and diving, cross country, tennis, track and field, and field hockey. They compete in the Atlantic Ten Conference (where they are the westernmost member, and both the first member located west of the Mississippi and in the Central Time Zone). The school has nationally recognized soccer programs for men and women. The school has heavily invested in its on-campus athletic facilities in the past twenty years with the creation of Hermann Stadium and Chaifetz Arena. Chris May is the current director of athletics.

Student life

Student organizations

Saint Louis University has a large number of student organizations that cover a variety of interests: student government, club sports, organizations focused on media and publications, performing arts, religion and volunteerism and service.

Student Organization Controversies

On several occasions, controversies have arisen when student groups organized events that SLU considered to be inconsistent with its Catholic, Jesuit mission. Controversial programming included:

Non-Greek student groups

Greek life

Saint Louis has ten fraternities and six sororities on-campus.[28]

Fraternities
Sororities

Notable alumni

Academia

The Arts

Business

Politics

Science

Sports

Miscellaneous

Notable faculty

Past

Present

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.slu.edu/Documents/2011_Profile.pdf
  2. ^ 2009 SLU facts, p. 2
  3. ^ a b "University of Saint Louis". Catholic Encyclopedia Online. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13363a.htm. 
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ About SLU Madrid - Madrid Campus Profile
  6. ^ Catholicism and American Freedom,, John McGreevy Norton and Co., New York 2003, p. 22-23.
  7. ^ The University's main campus is named "Frost Campus" in honor of General Daniel M. Frost, commander of the Missouri Militia during the Camp Jackson Incident. After being exchanged for a captured Federal officer, General Frost "went south" and was commissioned as a General in the Confederate Army. The University named the campus after General Frost at the request of his daughter Mrs. Harriet Frost Fordyce, who contributed $1,000,000 to the University, allowing a major expansion in 1962. Frost Campus Ironically, part of the Frost Campus covers the former "Camp Jackson" militia encampment site.
  8. ^ Donald J. Kemper, "Catholic Integration in St. Louis, 1935-1947", Missouri Historical Review, October 1978, pp. 1–13.
  9. ^ Ted LeBerthon, "Why Jim Crow Won at Webster College," Pittsburgh Courier, 5 Feb. 1944, p. 13.
  10. ^ "Pressure Grows to Have Catholic College Doors Open to Negroes," Pittsburgh Courier, 19 Feb. 1944, p. 1; "St. Louis U. Lifts Color Bar: Accepts Five Negroes for Summer Session," Pittsburgh Courier, 6 May 1944, p. 1.
  11. ^ "Biography of Lawrence Biondi, S.J.". Saint Louis University. http://www.slu.edu/x5504.xml. 
  12. ^ "Facts and Figures". http://spain.slu.edu/asi_somos/asi_facts.html. 
  13. ^ "A Louder Voice for the Laymen". Time Magazine. 1967-02-03. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901994,00.html?promoid=googlep. Retrieved 2008-01-24. 
  14. ^ Pamela Schaeffer (1997-10-31). "St. Louis U. showdown could draw in Vatican - high church officials vs. university officials in the selling of Catholic teaching hospital for $3 mil to for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp". National Catholic Reporter. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n2_v34/ai_19967466/pg_2. Retrieved 2008-01-23. 
  15. ^ William H.T. (Bucky) Bush - bushodonnell.com - Retrieved January 28, 2008
  16. ^ Tim Townsend, Deirdre Shesgreen, Tom Timmermann (2008-01-23). "Burke would deny Majerus holy Communion". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/30545D6CFAE202E1862573D90017AE3B?OpenDocument. Retrieved 2008-01-23. 
  17. ^ When College Football Was an Olympic Sport
  18. ^ Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1943
  19. ^ SLU Press Release: Maronite Patriarch Receives SLU's Sword of Ignatius Loyola
  20. ^ Billikens Player Profile
  21. ^ SLU Press Release: SLU Research Building Named in Honor of Nobel Laureate Following $30 Million Gift
  22. ^ "SLU Arena Named for Alumnus Richard A. Chaifetz". http://www.slu.edu/x13954.xml. Retrieved 2007-10-23. 
  23. ^ http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/02/14/support-v-day-at-st-louis-university/
  24. ^ http://www.slu.edu/x35027.xml
  25. ^ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77297623317
  26. ^ Sludems.com
  27. ^ Unewsonline.com
  28. ^ "Fraternities and Sororities". http://www.slu.edu/fraternities_sororities.html. Retrieved 2007-10-23. 
  29. ^ "Zeta Tau Alpha has arrived at Saint Louis University!". http://www.zetataualpha.org/default.aspx?action=Content&ContentId=190. Retrieved 2007-10-23. 
  30. ^ Avstop.com
  31. ^ "John F. Kavanaugh, S.J.". List of articles by Fr. Kavanaugh. America Magazine. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/column.cfm?id=25. Retrieved 25 February 2011. 

External links

Saint Louis University
Undergraduate
Arts and Sciences  · Business  · Engineering, Aviation and Technology  · Social Work  · Nursing  · Health Sciences  · Education and Public Service  · Universidad de Saint Louis · Philosophy and Letters
Graduate
Law  · Medicine  · Business  · Public Health  · Social Work · Graduate School · Nursing · Doisy College of Health Sciences · College of Education and Public Service  · Professional Studies
Museums
Museum of Contemporary Religious Art · Saint Louis University Museum of Art · Cupples House · Pere Marquette Gallery · Henry Lay Sculpture Park
Athletics
Campus
Publications
East
Mid West
South
West
Graduate
 
Links to related articles
Public institutions
Private institutions
Nursing schools
Two-year colleges
Two year colleges
Four year colleges
Six year colleges