Motto | Fides et Veritas (Latin) |
---|---|
Motto in English
|
Faith and Truth |
Type | Private |
Established | 1856 |
Endowment | $230.3 million |
President | William L. Fox '75 |
Academic staff
|
168 full-time, 30 part-time (2012-13) |
Undergraduates | 2,398 (2012–13) |
Postgraduates | 90 (2012–13) |
Location | Canton, New York, US |
Campus | Rural |
Colors | Scarlet and Brown |
Athletics | |
Nickname | Saints |
Affiliations |
NAICU CLAC Annapolis Group CIC |
Website | www |
St. Lawrence University is a private, four-year liberal arts college in the village of Canton in Saint Lawrence County, New York, United States. It has roughly 2400 undergraduate and 100 graduate students, about equally split between male and female.
Though St. Lawrence today is non-denominational, it was founded in 1856 by leaders of the Universalist Church, who were seeking to establish a seminary west of New England and were enthusiastically courted by the citizens of Canton. The church almost did not place the school in Canton, however, as they felt students might be exposed to too much "excitement" within the village limits in 1856. The denomination, which has since merged with the Unitarian faith, was part of the liberal wing of Protestantism, championing such ideas as critical thinking and gender equality—attributes that surfaced in the new Theological School of St. Lawrence University, which was progressive in its teaching philosophy and coeducational from the beginning.
The university as it exists today was created as a "Preparatory Department" to provide a foundation for theological study. That department became today's liberal arts University, while the seminary closed in 1965 with the Unitarian/Universalist consolidation.
Early in the 20th century, the university's graduate program in education came into being; it has since served hundreds of North Country school teachers and administrators. Following a difficult period during the Great Depression and World War II that included the decision to shut down the Brooklyn Law School, the student population increased quickly, and with it, the physical plant. A four-building campus serving around 300 students in the early 1940s became a 30-building campus serving 2000 students within 25 years, partly through acquisition of the adjacent state school of agriculture campus when that facility relocated across town. The mid-1960s also saw the birth of one of St. Lawrence's nationally known programs: its international programs. In 1974, two early campus buildings, Richardson Hall (1855–56) and Herring-Cole Hall (1869–1902), were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.