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Saint Joseph's University

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Saint Joseph's University is a private, coeducational Roman Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The school was founded in 1851 as Saint Joseph's College by the Society of Jesus. Today, Saint Joseph's University is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. Saint Joseph's University educates over 7,000 students each year in over 40 undergraduate majors, 10 special-study options, 20 study abroad programs, 52 graduate study areas, and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership. The school is one of 142 nationwide with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and AACSB business school accreditation.

Beyond the influences of the Jesuit community, the Roman Catholic Church, the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and the requirements of American higher education as a whole, Saint Joseph’s has been shaped by a multitude of wider forces. These have ranged from the Civil War, World War I and World War II, and the Great Depression, to the counterculture of the 1960s and the information age of the twenty-first century.

In 1970, ownership of Saint Joseph's College was transferred to a private corporation governed by a Board of Trustees. That same year, women were admitted for the first time. In 1978, Saint Joseph's College was elevated to the rank of university.

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History

Saint Joseph’s University
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Saint Joseph’s University

In telling the story of Saint Joseph’s in Saint Joseph's, Philadelphia's Jesuit University: 150 Years, author David R. Contosta examines five intertwined and shifting forces that have shaped the university since its founding in the mid-nineteenth century. These have been the fortunes of Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Roman Catholic Church, the overall development of American higher education, and a welter of external events during 15 decades of national and world history.

In the book, Contosta shows how four successive locations of this institution have paralleled the development of Philadelphia itself. Starting out in 1851 on the site of Old Saint Joseph’s Church, the city’s first Roman Catholic parish, the fledgling college soon outgrew an increasingly noisy and commercialized location on Willing’s Alley, near Fourth and Walnut Streets. From there the college moved in 1856 to a building at Juniper and Filbert Streets, then in a prosperous residential neighborhood near the future site of City Hall. In 1889 Saint Joseph’s inaugurated its third site at Seventeenth and Stiles Streets in North Philadelphia, in the heart of Philadelphia’s booming industrial zone. Then, in 1927, in recognition of population shifts toward the western part of the city and into the western suburbs, the college moved to 54th and City Avenue in Wynnefield, at the very entrance to Philadelphia’s fashionable Main Line. In the post-World War II period, Saint Joseph’s began to acquire properties across City Avenue on the Main Line itself, propelling the institution physically as well as culturally into the suburbs proper.

As Saint Joseph’s was evolving with the city and its suburbs, it became more and more enmeshed into the mainstream of American higher education. In the process, the college had to abandon the Jesuit tradition of a seven-year course of studies, which combined both secondary and higher education. Saint Joseph’s also greatly altered its governance system in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in concert with many other Catholic colleges and universities, when it legally separated ownership of the college from the Society of Jesus. In 1970, Saint Joseph’s admitted women to all its programs for the first time, and in 1978 it took the additional step of becoming a university.

As a Jesuit institution, Saint Joseph’s was by definition Catholic. A militant Catholicism, often typical of the Jesuits, was evident during the college’s earlier decades, when Catholics found themselves a somewhat spurned minority in an overwhelmingly Protestant nation. But with the election of John F. Kennedy as the country’s first Catholic president in 1960 and the emphasis on ecumenical dialog coming out of Vatican II, such militancy vanished quickly.

Most recently, religious debates have centered on the real and potential conflicts between the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the rights of academic freedom. These matters came into sharp focus after Pope John Paul II issued Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990 , an apostolic constitution on Catholic universities which sought to ensure that institutions calling themselves Catholic were faithful to Church teachings. This document also caused Saint Joseph’s to focus on just what it meant to be a Catholic institution of higher learning at the dawn of a new millennium. And at a time when there were fewer and fewer members of the Society of Jesus, Saint Joseph’s was forced to ask how it could maintain its Jesuit identity when the overwhelming majority of faculty and administrators were lay men and women.

Following the success of the basketball team in the 2003-04 season, applications and enrollment at Saint Joseph's has increased, forcing the university to further expand. In 2004, the school opened two new dormitory buildings on City Avenue to accommodate the growing population. In 2005, Saint Joseph's University purchased the adjacent property of the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania. The school will gain use of this property after the Episcopal Academy moves into its new home in Newtown Square. The Episcopal campus will be renamed the James J. Maguire Campus, in honor of Maguire (Class of 1958) who donated $10 million towards the purchase of the land. In 2006, Nancy and Brian Duperreault (Class of 1969) matched the gift of $10 million.

Erivan K. Haub School of Business

The Erivan K. Haub School of Business at St. Joseph's University is ranked the #141 undergraduate business school in the nation by the 2006 edition of U.S. News.

The Haub School of Business is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), higher education's most prestigious and rigorous accrediting body for academic programs in business, stressing academic excellence and a commitment to continuous improvement. Less than 10% of the business schools in the United States and several selected schools internationally have earned this accreditation in business and accounting. In Pennsylvania, SJU is one of only four business schools to have its accounting program and business program AACSB accredited.

The Haub School is home to a Wall Street Trading Room. The Trading Room consists of a Trans Lux Ticker Board, Picture Wall and Data Wall, and 36 IBM Net Vista computers with 17" flat screens. Comprehensive financial data is provided through Reuters StockVal research software. Real-Time ticker data from the major exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq) is provided through Reuters 3000 Extra with up to the minute news reports provided through Dow Jones News. The Wall Street Trading Room is used by students taking courses in Investments, Portfolio Analysis, Financial Statement Analysis, and Information Systems. A student portfolio ("The Hawk Fund") is managed by the undergraduate Finance Club using the research capabilities in the Trading Room.

All students are required to participate in the laptop computer program. The objective of this program is to empower students and faculty with the necessary tools to benefit from the campus network, the internet, and course-specific software. Use of the laptop is an integral part of the business school curriculum, keeping HSB students current with today's business trends and proficient in the utilization of cutting edge technology.

HSB offers an innovative four-year Cooperative Education Program that provides students the opportunity to gain a year of work experience in two paid coop experiences and still graduate with your entering class in 4 years.

Undergraduate programs:

Graduate programs: Post-MBA Certificate Program:

Athletics

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Saint Joseph's University is home of the Hawks, the university's athletic program. It fields teams in 20 varsity sports. It competes in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. It belongs to the Atlantic Ten Conference. Because the Atlantic 10 does not support men's lacrosse, the Hawks play that sport in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Along with the Atlantic 10, Saint Joseph's is a member of the Philadelphia Big 5, enhancing rivalries with Temple University and Villanova University. In 2004, the Saint Joseph's men's basketball team almost finished with a undefeated regular season suffering their only loss to Xavier University in the Atlantic 10 tournament. In the NCAA tournament that year, they lost to Oklahoma State by two points in the Elite Eight. The Saint Joseph's basketball teams play most of their home games at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse on the school's campus, while some games are played at the Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Saint Joseph's University also offers 30 intramural and recreational programs.

Fans of the Hawks often chant "The Hawk Will Never Die!". Since the school's undefeated season, this chant has gained familiarity with the team's opponents. In 2003, Sports Illustrated listed that cheer among The 100 Things You Gotta Do Before You Graduate (Whatever the Cost), calling it "the most defiant cheer in college sports"[The 100 Things You Gotta Do Before You Graduate (Whatever the Cost)], Sports Illustrated.

Saint Joseph's University will host first and second round games of the 2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The games will be played at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 19 and March 21.

Notable alumni

References

External links

 

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