St. Catherine University Information

St. Catherine University (St. Kates) is a private Catholic liberal arts university in St. Paul and Minneapolis, 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. Kates 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. Catherines Weekend College — now College for Adults — was the second such program in the nation and the first in the Upper Midwest. St. Kates 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.

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. Kates was chosen atop the citys 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. Kates earned full accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

During World War II, St. Kates responded to a critical nursing shortage by expanding its programs to include a baccalaureate degree in nursing and assuming leadership of the St. Josephs and St. Marys 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 mens college.

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. Kates 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. Marys School of Nursing at St. Marys 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. Marys Junior College. St. Marys offered associate degrees in healthcare, including the first occupational therapy assistant program and the first physical therapist assistant program in the United States. St. Kates acquired St. Marys Junior College in 1985. In 1987, Fairview Hospital combined with St. Marys Hospital to become Riverside Medical Center.

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

Derham Hall and Our Lady of Victory Chapel are co-listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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

At St. Catherine University, students enroll in one of three colleges:

Students then pursue their majors or programs of study, either at the Universitys 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 (evening, weekend and online) formats. St. Kates 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.

St. Kates is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities (ACTC), 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. Kates students. Partner organizations include Allina Health System, Fairview Health Services, HealthEast Care System and HealthPartners.

In fall 2011, St. Kates became the first university in Minnesota to partner with the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program (formerly known as the Peace Corps Fellows/USA program) to offer Peace Corps volunteers a fellowship to earn a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership.

Unlike many colleges and universities that have established separate departments for Catholic studies, liberal arts and womens 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. Kates 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. Kates 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, bachelors program and 16 in the College for Adults, associate program. At St. Catherine, classes are lively, involving discussion to improve a students 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.

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