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31.08.09 / 8pm

Alma Apartments

Coordinates: 44°56′24.92″N 93°11′36.33″W  /  44.9402556°N 93.193425°W  / 44.9402556; -93.193425

The University of St. Thomas (also known as UST or simply St. Thomas ) is a coeducational archdiocesan Roman Catholic institution of higher learning based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1885 as a Catholic seminary, it is named after St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Catholic theologian and philosopher who is the patron saint of learners in the Roman Catholic Church. Now a university, it currently enrolls more than 11,000 students, making it Minnesota's largest private college or university. St. Thomas' recently revised mission statement is as follows:

Father Dennis Dease became the 14th president of the University of St. Thomas on July 1, 1991.

History

Founded in 1885, St. Thomas began as an all-male, Catholic seminary. John Ireland, archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, started the St. Thomas Aquinas seminary, which became a liberal arts college in 1894. A gift from local railroad tycoon James J. Hill provided funds to establish the St. Paul Seminary apart from the college. In 1896, college officials made an artificial lake on campus, Lake Mennith, using water from an underground stream. Located in the lower quadrant, the shallow lake dried up in 1922. The College of St. Thomas became a military-based school for undergraduates in 1906 and awarded its first academic degrees in 1910. Before that, the school gave out two-year diplomas in commercial and classical programs. In 1915, the college and St. Thomas Academy for high school students split into two institutions and in 1965 the academy moved to Mendota Heights, Minnesota. The college later dropped its military distinction in 1922.

From the late 1920s through the mid-1930s, the Holy Cross Fathers, who run the University of Notre Dame, controlled the college's administration. The diocese called those priests in to help with the school's financial problems; those priests were known as a crisis intervention team of sorts for parochial schools of that time. During World War II, St. Thomas served as a training base for naval officers, which kept the school open when men who would have attended college were fighting in the war. After the war, in 1948, the college established 'Tom Town' on the eastern end of the lower quadrant, which is currently home to the O'Shaughnessey-Frey Library. Tom Town consisted of white, barrack-like housing units for faculty, students and their families. The units helped to meet housing demand after WWII.

In the latter half of the 20th century, St. Thomas started two of its most notable graduate programs: education in 1950 and business administration in 1974. The school became co-educational in 1977 and now St. Thomas' undergraduate student body is 51 percent women and 49 percent men, according to Institutional Research. Although women were not allowed to enroll until 1977, female students from St. Catherine University often took classes at St. Thomas. Women were also present as instructors and administrators on campus but the staff, faculty, and administration has seen a vast increase in female employment since the move to co-education. In 1991 the College of St. Thomas became the University of St. Thomas. The following year, the university opened the Minneapolis campus. In 2001 St. Thomas reinstated its School of Law at its Minneapolis Campus. The Law School had been shut down during the Depression. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the speaker at the Grand Opening.

Campuses

The University of St. Thomas has four campuses: St. Paul, Minneapolis, Owatonna in Minnesota, and Rome, Italy.

Saint Paul

The St. Paul campus is home to most undergraduate students. The main campus, built on a farm site once considered "far removed from town," is located where St. Paul's Summit Avenue meets the Mississippi River. The site was farmed by ex-Fort Snelling soldier William Finn, who received the property as a pension settlement after he accidentally shot himself in the hand while on guard duty.

The western edge of the campus borders the Mississippi Gorge Regional Park. Summit Avenue, which runs through the middle of the campus, is the country's longest span of Victorian homes. This tree-lined avenue includes the Governor's Mansion, F. Scott Fitzgerald's townhome, and James J. Hill's mansion.

The 78 acre (316,000 m²) St. Paul campus consists of the original 45 acre (182,000 m²) campus, five acres (20,000 m²) of adjacent properties and 28 acres (113,000 m²) of the St. Paul Seminary campus (informally referred to as the "south" campus) that was transferred in a 1987 affiliation between St. Thomas and the seminary. The campus has been used as a setting for two motion pictures.

St. Thomas is currently in the middle of expanding the St. Paul campus. In 2005 a new apartment-style residence hall was built on an existing parking lot, and in 2006 McNeely Hall was built—a large classroom building for business that replaced the smaller building of the same name. A new residential village, more parking ramps, and general civil engineering all have been negotiated successfully with the surrounding neighborhood. These developments are expected to begin within the next five years.

In addition, the designing of a new student center is currently in the works. The new student center is slated to be placed on an existing parking lot, hold underground parking, and be large enough to contain a new cafeteria, a ballroom, offices, a gathering area, and other facilities that are currently unavailable or inefficient.

Minneapolis

In fall 1992, the university opened a permanent, 150,000 square foot (14,000 m²) campus at 1000 LaSalle Ave. in Minneapolis. The first building, named Terrence Murphy Hall in May 2000, is headquarters to the university's Opus College of Business. Artist Mark Balma created one of the largest frescoes in the United States on the arched ceiling of its atrium. The seven-panel, 1,904 square foot (177 m²) fresco was completed in the summer of 1994 and portrays the seven virtues discussed in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Minneapolis campus also holds St. Thomas' School of Education, School of Law, and Schulze School of Entrepreneurship.

Gainey Conference Center (Owatonna)

The Gainey Center is located on 180 acres (728,000 m²) in Owatonna just one hour south of the Twin Cities. The conference center and satellite campus was built around the French Norman-style home of the late Daniel C. Gainey who bequeathed the property to the university upon his death in 1979.

Bernardi (Rome)

The University of St. Thomas Bernardi Campus is located on the west bank of the Tiber River on Lungotevere delle Armi in Rome, Italy. Purchased by St. Thomas in November 1999, the Bernardi Campus houses St. Thomas students participating in academic programs abroad, most notably the Catholic Studies Semester in Rome program for Catholic Studies majors, minors, and graduate students offerred through the Catholic Studies Department. The University of St. Thomas is the only university in the United States to have a formal affiliation with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, called the "Angelicum".

Organization

Presidents

1. Father Thomas O’Gorman (1885 – 1887)
2. Father Edward McSweeney (1887 – 1888)
3. Father James Keane (1888 – 1892)
4. Father James Byrne (1892 – 1899)
5. Father John Dolphin (1899 – 1903)
6. Father Humphrey Moynihan (1903 – 1921)
7. Father Thomas Cullen (1921 – 1927)
8. Father John P. Foley (1927 – 1928)
9. Father Matthew Schumacher (1928 – 1933)
10. Father James Moynihan (1933 – 1943)
11. Father Vincent Flynn (1944 – 1956)
12. Father James P. Shannon (1956 – 1966)
13. Monsignor Terrence Murphy (1966 – 1991)
14. Father Dennis Dease (1991 – Present)

Academics

Each year the university awards almost 2,500 degrees including five different bachelor’s degrees (B.A., B.M., B.S., B.S.M.E. and B.S.E.E.). There are 88 major fields at the undergraduate level, with 59 minor fields of study and seven pre-professional programs. At the graduate and professional level, the university offers 41 master’s degrees, two education specialist, one juris doctor and five doctorates.

Schools and colleges

The university offers its degree programs through nine divisions. The College