St. Catherine University


St. Catherine University is a private Catholic liberal arts university in St. Paul, Minnesota. Established as one of the first institutions of higher learning specifically for women in the Midwest, the school was known as the College of St. Catherine until 2009. Today St. Kate's offers baccalaureate programs for women plus graduate and associate programs for women and men.
The university averages about 5,000 students annually. It focuses on recruiting and enrolling minority students and nontraditional-aged students. St. Catherine's Weekend College — now College for Adults — was the second such program in the nation and the first in the Upper Midwest. St. Kate's was also the first private college in the nation to launch an effort to attract, welcome, and retain Hmong students, making it home to one of the largest populations of Hmong scholars in the nation.

History

Founders

St. Catherine University was founded as the College of St. Catherine in 1905 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, under the leadership of Mother Seraphine Ireland. The University is named for St. Catherine of Alexandria, the fourth-century Egyptian lay philosopher who suffered martyrdom for her faith.
A site for St. Kate's was chosen atop the city's second-highest hill in St. Paul — in the area now known as Highland Park. Hugh Derham of Rosemount contributed $20,000 for the first building. Derham Hall opened in January 1905, offering classes to high school boarding students and lower-division college students. The high school eventually moved to its own campus and merged with the Lasallian-run Cretin High School to form Cretin-Derham Hall High School in 1987. Upper-division courses were first offered in the academic year of 1911–12. In spring 1913, Bachelor of Arts degrees were conferred on the first two students to complete four years at the new institution. In 1917, St. Kate's earned full accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
During World War II, St. Kate's responded to a critical nursing shortage by expanding its programs to include a baccalaureate degree in nursing and assuming leadership of the St. Joseph's and St. Mary's hospitals and schools of nursing — and partnering with the U.S. Cadet Nursing Corps to provide students with financial assistance in exchange for nursing services. More than 170 St. Catherine alumnae served in military hospitals between 1942 and 1948.
Prior to the 1970s, students would take classes at the nearby University of St. Thomas, which was then a men's college.

Expansion to Minneapolis

The St. Paul campus is the location for most day, evening/weekend, and graduate program classes, with 110 wooded acres in the Highland Park neighborhood, a central location between the Twin Cities' downtowns.
St. Kate's coeducational Minneapolis campus in the Riverside neighborhood offers associate degree and certificate programs in numerous healthcare fields. In 1887, the Sisters of St. Joseph responded to a need for trained nurses in the region founding the St. Mary's School of Nursing at St. Mary's Hospital in Minneapolis. Student nurses in the three year Registered Nurse program lived in a dormitory at the hospital while studying first year academics at the College of St. Catherine. In 1964, the hospital program was expanded and opened under the title St. Mary's Junior College. St. Mary's offered associate degrees in healthcare, including the first occupational therapy assistant program and the first physical therapist assistant program in the United States. St. Kate's acquired St. Mary's Junior College in 1985. In 1987, Fairview Hospital combined with St. Mary's Hospital to become Riverside Medical Center. In 2019, St. Catherine University sold the Minneapolis campus and in 2020, moved all Minneapolis campus programs and staff to the St. Paul campus.

Move to University

On June 1, 2009, the College of St. Catherine changed its name to St. Catherine University.

National Register of Historic Places

are co-listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

St. Kate's presidents

Over the years, 11 women presidents have overseen the growth of St. Catherine University:

Schools and colleges

At St. Catherine University, students enroll in one of three colleges:
Students then pursue their majors or programs of study, either at the University's St. Paul or Minneapolis campus, through four disciplined-based schools:
The Schools, collectively, are home to more than 100 fields of study — many available in both traditional day and nontraditional hybrid formats. St. Kate's also has nearly 60 baccalaureate majors, plus another 35 or so through the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, as well as dozens of minors and nine pre-professional programs.

Partnerships

St. Kate's is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, a consortium of five private liberal arts colleges located in Minneapolis or St. Paul. The partnership allows students to take classes or complete a major at any one of the other colleges. The University also partners with 900 clinical training sites to make clinical education meaningful and relevant to St. Kate's students. Partner organizations include Allina Health System, Fairview Health Services, HealthEast Care System and HealthPartners.
In the fall of 2011, St. Kate's became the first university in Minnesota to partner with the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program to offer Peace Corps volunteers a fellowship to earn a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership.

Endowed Mission Chairshttps://www.stkate.edu/about/mission-and-vision/endowed-chairs Endowed Mission Chairs St. Catherine University. Retrieved June 11, 2018.

Unlike many colleges and universities that have established separate departments for Catholic studies, liberal arts and women's studies, St. Catherine University has established three distinguished chairs:
Each position is supported by endowed funds and a program endowment. The distinguished chairs will work as a team to:
St. Catherine is the first Catholic college or university in the world to be granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, in October 1937. St. Kate's graduates have earned advanced degrees at renowned institutions. This tradition dates back to the first president who regularly dispatched instructors for a term, a summer or an academic year to pursue graduate studies. St. Kate's has produced Fulbright Scholars as well.
St. Catherine educates women and men through undergraduate and graduate programs including associates, bachelors and graduate degrees. It has committed itself for more than a century to educating women to lead and influence.
The student/faculty ratio is 10:1. The average class size is 18 in the traditional/day program, 13 in the College for Adults, bachelor's program and 16 in the College for Adults, associate program. At St. Catherine, classes are lively, involving discussion to improve a student's communication and critical thinking skills. Students will find a free-flowing exchange of ideas, perspectives and life stories, as well as opportunities for fieldwork, internships, study abroad and collaborative research with faculty.
In addition to taking courses directly related to their chosen majors, baccalaureate students are required to complete one or two additional courses in the arts, humanities and sciences to meet the University's liberal arts requirements.

Online OTA Program

In 2014, St. Catherine University expanded its Occupational Therapy Assistant program to offer a blended learning option. Starting in Virginia, and then expanding to California and Texas, the Online OTA program features 80% online and 20% onsite curriculum, including skills labs and fieldwork experiences. The accredited program allows students to earn their associate degree in as few as 16 months.

Research and Academic Centers

St. Catherine University offers opportunities for faculty-student research and mentoring through department and grant-funded initiatives — as well as through these programs and national centers:
First-year students or sophomores who have achieved at least a 3.5 GPA are eligible to apply for the St. Catherine University's Antonian Scholars program, which offers a rigorous academic program for promising learners, leaders, researchers, writers, performers and creative thinkers. Antonian Scholars are required to complete an independent creative project during senior year. There are a total of 25 different Honor Societies.

Study abroad programs

St. Catherine University offers more than 150 study abroad options in 50 countries, ranging in length from January term to yearlong. More than 200 St. Kate's students study abroad each year.

Student life

Residence life

Eighty percent of St. Catherine's first-year students live in nine residence halls on campus. Students have access to computer labs in the halls and resident advisors who provide ongoing support, guidance and social activities. Each year, the university offers learning communities in some residence halls.

Clubs and organizations

St. Catherine University has more than 50 student organizations, including student Senate, intramural sports and a women's choir. Students can work on two student publications.

Athletics

The St. Catherine University Wildcats compete in 11 intercollegiate sports in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III and the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Women's sports include basketball, golf, ice hockey, cross country, softball, swimming and diving, dance, track and field, soccer, tennis and volleyball. Club and recreational sports include aerobics, volleyball, basketball, soccer, tennis and rock climbing. Remodeled in 2015, the Aimee and Patrick Butler Center for Sports and Fitness at St. Kate's is a women-oriented sports center, complete with an eight-lane swimming pool, weight room, suspended jogging track, spa and sauna. The benefits for student athletes are emerging at the University's Women's Health Integrative Research Center. WHIR's sophisticated equipment can establish baseline performance measurements and track athletic improvement over time.

Art and archives

St. Catherine University's fine art collection dates back to St. Kate's founding in 1905. Today, more than 1,000 pieces comprise the collection. Among them are works on paper — prints, watercolors and drawings — as well as paintings and sculpture by artists of different nationalities and periods, including:
In addition to paper files, the St. Catherine University archives contains more than 8,000 photographs and 4,500 artifacts. The archives are packed with rare and valuable items: some from before the Christian era, others from the early days of printing, including a Heritage Edition of The Saint John's Bible.
There is also the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, which is an extension of the University's mission to integrate the liberal arts and education. The gallery provides both the campus community and the public with access to art exhibitions, programming and the university's fine art collection, all of which seek to maintain a powerful women-centered presence in the local and regional arts communities. By showcasing contemporary as well as historical artwork by all genders, The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery emphasizes the visual arts as a method for illuminating and exploring global and emerging societal issues grounded in women's perspectives.

Notable alumnae