In 1952 the decision was made to provide a university-level facility for the city. The buildings were designed and built by the Jesuits on a 195-acre campus south of Baghdad.
Library
In 1960, the construction of a new library building for Al-Hikma University commenced. It was funded by the Ford Foundation, but the foundation expected the university to find the money for furnishing it. The building was completed in 1962, when the collection was around 20,000 volumes. Although the library was not architecturally commendable, it was reported to have attracted some imitators. It had a collection of 327 manuscripts, a private collection donated in 1965, which were catalogued with support funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. In the late 1960s, Gurgis Awad donated his private collection to the Al-Hikma University Library.
Students and Staff
When it opened in 1956, the university's initial student body numbered 45 students. By the its closure, it was admitting about 150 each year, and there were 656 students in total. Al-Hikma University's student body was diverse in ethnicity, religion and gender. Students were roughly 40 percent Muslim, 32 percent Catholic, 21 percent Orthodox Christian, and about 7 percent Jewish. The staff were also mixed: roughly half were Jesuits, while Iraqi lay teachers, Fulbright professors, and a small group of volunteer teachers from abroad made up the rest.
Nationalization
In 1966, a law was passed under which the private universities were converted into public universities, but continued to charge tuition fees. In 1968, a new law nationalised Al-Hikma University. In autumn 1968, an Iraqi was imposed as president of the university. The university became the object of protests by groups of nationalist students. Eventually, in November, the American faculty of the university were expelled by the Baathist government and the institution was integrated into Baghdad University. The college was seized, along with all the Jesuits' property, by the government the following year, and the foreign faculty were also expelled.
Legacy
Reunions of graduates of both Baghdad College and Al-Hikma University continue to be held bi-annually. Recent ones were organised in Chicago in July 2006 and in Detroit in July 2009. The history of the Jesuit mission in Iraq has been chronicled by the Rev. Joseph MacDonnell, S.J., late of Fairfield University, in his book Jesuits by the Tigris.
