Webster University Conservatory of Theatre Arts

Webster University

Webster University's Webster Hall in 2014
Type	Private
Established	1915
Endowment	$111.5 million
President	Elizabeth J. Stroble
Provost	Julian Schuster
Academic staff	14.7:1 student–faculty ratio; 184 full-time, 1,642 adjunct
Students	22,000
Location	Webster Groves, Missouri, United States
Campus	Webster Groves main campus 47 acres (19 ha),
Colors	Navy, gold, and white
Athletics	NCAA Division III, 7 Men's Sports, 7 Women's Sports
Nickname	Gorloks
Mascot	Gorlok
Website	Webster.edu

Webster University is an American non-profit private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, Missouri.

Webster operates as an independent, non-denominational university with multiple branch locations across the United States. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs in various disciplines, including the liberal arts, fine and performing arts, teacher education, business and management. In 2014, Webster enrolled about 22,000 students, representing all 50 U.S. states and 140 countries. The university has an alumni network of around 170,000 graduates worldwide.

It was founded in 1915 by the Sisters of Loretto as Loretto College, a Catholic women's college, one of the first west of the Mississippi River. The first male students were admitted in 1962. The Sisters of Loretto transferred ownership of the university to a lay Board of Directors in 1967. They were the first Catholic college in the United States to be totally under lay control.

Webster was involved in the early racial integration battles in St. Louis. During the early 1940s, many local priests, especially the Jesuits, challenged the segregationist policies at the city's Catholic colleges and parochial schools. The St. Louis chapter of the Midwest Clergy Conference on Negro Welfare arranged in 1943 for Webster College to admit a black female student, Mary Aloyse Foster, which would make it the city's first Catholic college to integrate. However, in 1943 Archbishop John J. Glennon blocked that student's enrollment by speaking privately with the Kentucky-based Superior General of the Sisters of Loretto. The Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper with national circulation, discovered Glennon's actions and ran a front-page feature on the Webster incident in February 1944. The negative publicity toward Glennon's segregationist policies led Saint Louis University to begin admitting African American students in summer 1944. In the fall of 1945, Webster College responded to pressure by admitting Irene Thomas, a Catholic African-American woman from St. Louis, as a music major.