Lewis & Clark College


Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Clark College after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Contemporarily, it has an undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a School of Law, and a Graduate School of Education and Counseling.
Lewis & Clark is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges with athletic programs competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III Northwest Conference. Just over 2,000 students attend the undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, with a student body from more than 50 countries across six continents as well as most U.S. states. The School of Law is best known for its environmental law program, while the Graduate School of Education & Counseling is active in community engagement and social justice.
Today, the three schools and their supporting offices occupy the campus, centered on the M. Lloyd Frank Estate on Palatine Hill in the Collins View neighborhood of Southwest Portland.

History

Like many modern universities, the institution that would eventually become Lewis & Clark was initially intended to provide secondary as well as higher education for a specific religious community, in this case Presbyterian pioneers in Oregon's Willamette Valley. To this end the Presbyterian church incorporated Albany Academy in 1858, making Lewis & Clark one of four Oregon colleges with foundations predating Oregon's statehood.
Within a decade of its founding, Albany Academy began to focus more exclusively on higher education, changing its official name to the Albany Collegiate Institution in 1866. Lewis & Clark's official founding date comes from the current charter, which has been legally valid since the Presbyterian church reincorporated the Albany Collegiate Institution as Albany College in 1867. Unlike most Oregon colleges of the pioneer era, the college has been coeducational since the first class, which graduated in 1873. The early campus of in Albany was situated on land donated by the Monteith family. In 1892, the original school building was enlarged, and in 1925 the school relocated south of Albany where it remained until 1937.
Albany College established a junior college to the north in Portland in 1934, with the entire school moving to Portland in 1939. The campus grounds later became home to the federal government's Albany Research Center. In 1942 the college trustees acquired the Lloyd Frank "Fir Acres" estate in southwest Portland, and the school name was changed to Lewis & Clark College. The original school mascot, the Pirates, was changed to the Pioneers in 1946.

Academics

The three schools of the college include the College of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, and the Graduate School of Education and Counseling.
CAS departments include Art, Art History, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biology, Chemistry, Chinese, Classics, Computer Science, Dance, East Asian Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Ethnic Studies, Foreign Languages, French Studies, Gender Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, History, International Affairs, Japanese, Latin American Studies, Mathematics, Music, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Physics, Political Economy, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Rhetoric and Media Studies, Russian, Sociology and Anthropology, and Theatre.
Lewis & Clark offers approximately 36 study abroad programs in various countries, and since the 1960s, more than 60% of all Lewis & Clark undergraduates have studied abroad.

Admissions profile

For the Class of 2022, Lewis & Clark received 6,139 applications, admitted 4,528, and enrolled 562 students. For the freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% range of SAT scores was 1230-1390, the ACT Composite range was 27–31, and the average high school grade point average was 3.90.

Rankings

The 2020 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes Lewis & Clark as 'more selective' and ranks it tied for the 72nd best liberal arts college in the U.S.; U.S. News & World Report also ranked it tied for 51st in undergraduate teaching and 89th for "Best Value" among liberal arts colleges. Forbes in 2019 rated it 184th in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges and 69th among liberal arts colleges. Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Lewis & Clark at 66th in its 2019 ranking of 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States. Money magazine ranked Lewis & Clark 585th out of 744 in its "Best Colleges For Your Money 2019" report.

Campus

Campus overview

Lewis & Clark's forested campus sits atop Palatine Hill in the Collins View neighborhood of Portland and is contiguous with the Tryon Creek State Natural Area. Campus buildings include an award-winning environmentally sustainable academic building, as well as notable historic architecture such as the Frank Manor House and Rogers Hall.
Due in large part to the college's natural environment, Lewis & Clark was named one of America's top ten "Most Beautiful Campuses" by the Princeton Review,
Travel+Leisure
as well as an independent architecture blog.

Residence halls

All students are required to live on campus for the first two years, unless already a Portland resident. Residence halls include SOA, Forest, Hartzfeld, Holmes, Platt-Howard, Copeland and also include East, Roberts, and West, the on-campus apartments.
Lewis & Clark College residence halls are co-ed. While individual rooms generally house one gender, students may opt otherwise under the college's gender-neutral housing policy.

Student life

Sustainability

provides 100% of the college's total electricity, and LEED-"certified" level must be met for all of the college's projects.

Athletics

Lewis & Clark maintains 9 male and 10 female varsity sports teams, and athletic facilities including Pamplin Sports Center and Griswold Stadium.
Lewis & Clark athletic teams are called the Pioneers, and team colors are orange and black. The Pioneers compete mainly in the Northwest Conference against eight other NCAA Division III institutions in the Pacific Northwest. One in five undergraduates are officially designated student athletes.
Recent accomplishments in varsity athletics include the men's rowing team winning its conference, women's swim team winning third in conference, and men's and women's basketball both earning third in conference.
In the 2011 season, the women's cross-country team placed seventh at West regionals, with the men's team placing 13th.
The 2011-2012 men's basketball team lost in the NWC semifinals putting them in 4th place in the conference.
Additionally, the women's team of that same year placed second in the NWC and made an appearance in the NCAA DIII National tournament. The volleyball and basketball teams play in Pamplin Sports Center. The football, soccer and track and field events take place at Griswold Stadium.
A large number of smaller club and intramural sports such as Rugby, Ultimate Frisbee,
and Boffing enjoy broad participation. Lewis & Clark students have invented several intramural competitive sports, including Ninja and Wolvetch, which are popular at Lewis & Clark but seldom played elsewhere. While some varsity athletic events are well attended, there has long been tension between varsity athletes and non-athletes regarding perceived social and cultural differences, as well as the substantial financial support varsity sports teams enjoy.

Food

Lewis and Clark has two on-campus dining halls: Fields Dining Room and the Trail Room. Meal services are provided by Bon Appétit Management Company. Fields Dining room is often referred to as "The Bon." Additionally, there are two cafés on campus: Maggie's Café on the residential side and The Dovecote on the academic side.

Transportation

Throughout the year the college operates a shuttle bus between campus and downtown Portland, the Pioneer Express. TriMet line 39 operates between the college and the Hillsdale neighborhood, where students can transfer to buses to downtown Portland. First-year students are not permitted to have cars on campus.

Notable faculty, staff, and trustees