Santa Clara University is a private, co-educational Jesuit-affiliated university located in Santa Clara, California. Chartered by the state of California and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, it operates in collaboration with the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), whose members founded the school in 1851. Santa Clara is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California and the oldest Catholic university in the American West. It is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
About Santa Clara University
The university is situated in Santa Clara, California (2006 est. population 108,518), adjacent to the city of San Jose, California in Santa Clara County (est. population 1.8 million), which anchors the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Also known by the abbreviation SCU, its students and 71,000 alumni are called “Santa Clarans” and its athletics teams are called the Broncos. In many of its informational and promotional publications the school is billed as "The Jesuit University in Silicon Valley."
Built around historic Mission Santa Clara, the present university is home to a population of nearly 5,000 undergraduate and 3,500 masters, J.D., and Ph.D. students. The institution employs over 450 full time faculty members, who are divided between four professional schools and the College of Arts and Sciences, all of which are located on the 106 acre (0.4 km²) mission campus. In July of 2009, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (JST), formerly an independent school, legally merged with the university taking the name "Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University." Although a division of SCU, the school retains its campus in Berkeley, California. JST is one of two Jesuit seminaries in the United States with ecclesiastical faculties approved by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education. The other seminary, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, completed a similar affiliation with Boston College in June 2008, becoming Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.
For the 2008–2009 academic year, the university's operating budget was $311 million, and the university's endowment was over $697 million. For the same period, undergraduate tuition and fees was $34,950 and the average cost of room and board was $11,067.
Santa Clara is civilly chartered and governed by a board of trustees, which appoints the president. By internal statute, the president must be a member of the Jesuit order; although, the membership of the board is primarily lay. About forty Jesuit priests and brothers are active teachers and administrators in various departments and centers located on the main campus in Santa Clara. Additionally, fourteen Jesuits currently hold faculty positions at the university's Jesuit School of Theology located in Berkeley. In total, Jesuits comprise around seven percent of the permanent faculty and hold teaching positions in biology, computer engineering, counseling psychology, economics, English, history, law, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, theology, and theater arts. They also serve in campus ministry and residence-hall ministry, and some act as faculty directors in residential learning communities.
SCU maintains its Catholic and Jesuit affiliation and supports numerous initiatives intended to further its religious mission. Students are invited to attend the Sunday evening student Masses in the mission church and encouraged to participate in campus ministry programs and lectures. All bachelor’s degrees require three religious studies courses as part of the academic core. An emphasis on social justice is furthered through the Pedro Arrupe Partnership and Kolvenbach Solidarity Programs, which offer service opportunities in the community and immersion opportunities throughout the world. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Center for Science, Technology, and Society also have programs that serve the university's Catholic, Jesuit identity.
History
In 1777, the Blessed Junipero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan friar, had founded the Santa Clara church, as the eighth in the chain of Franciscan missions in Alta California, at the site of the future university.
In 1851, at the height of the California Gold Rush, at the request of the Bishop of Monterey, the Dominican Joseph Sadoc Alemany, Italian Jesuits John Nobili and Michael Accolti established the original Santa Clara College around Mission Santa Clara de Asís.
The year 1851 saw the foundation of California's first two colleges in the town of Santa Clara -- Santa Clara College and the Methodist-founded California Wesleyan College, now known as the University of the Pacific and located in Stockton, California. Because Santa Clara College began instruction before the Methodist campus, Santa Clara calls itself the first institution of higher learning in the state. With its 1851 foundation, Santa Clara College also became the first Catholic college west of St. Louis, Missouri, where the Jesuit Saint Louis University traces its origins to 1818. For its part, California Wesleyan obtained its state charter in July 1851, and for that reason its successor, the University of the Pacific, legitimately claims to be "California's first chartered university".
Santa Clara's Jesuit founders eventually accumulated the endowment required for a charter, which was granted on April 28, 1855.
In 1857, Santa Clara awarded the first bachelor's degree given in California. The recipient was Thomas I. Bergin.
In 1912, Santa Clara College became the University of Santa Clara with the addition of the School of Engineering and School of Law.
In 1925, the Leavey School of Business was added and became one of the first business schools in the United States to receive national accreditation.
In 1961, women were admitted to what had been initially an all-men's school. This step made Santa Clara University the first Catholic university in California to admit both men and women.
In 1985, in part to avoid confusion with the University of Southern California, the University of Santa Clara, as it had been known since 1912, changed its name to Santa Clara University.
In 2001, the School of Education, Counseling Psychology, and Pastoral Ministries was formed to offer master's level and other credential programs.
Campus
Over the last century, the Santa Clara University campus, located along the famed El Camino Real in Santa Clara, California, has expanded to more than 104 acres (42 ha). Amid its many mission style academic and residential buildings are the historic mission gardens, rose garden, and palm trees.
The modern campus
In the 1950s, after the University constructed Walsh Hall and the de Saisset Museum on two of the last remaining open spaces on the old College campus, Santa Clara began purchasing and annexing land from the surrounding community. The first addition, which occurred slightly earlier, brought space for football and baseball playing fields. Thereafter, particularly in the 1960s when women were admitted to the school, more land was acquired for the Benson Memorial Center, Toso Pavilion, Orradre Library, Kennedy Mall residence halls, and other facilities.
In 1989, the rerouting of The Alameda (California State Route 82), a major thoroughfare that bisected the university - and the closure of several interior roads unified the Santa Clara University campus. In place of these streets emerged sparsely landscaped pedestrian malls and plazas. The current five year campus plan calls for a better integration of these areas with the gardens of the campus core. Already, the Saint Clare Garden, designed in the medieval style, works to this end.
The 1990s brought a number of important campus additions, including the Music and Dance Building, a new science wing, the Arts and Sciences Building, the Malley Fitness Center, the Sobrato Residence Hall, and the first on-campus parking structure. Santa Clara also carried out all deferred maintenance, including the renovation of Kenna Hall, the Adobe Lodge, and many other historic buildings.
One unique feature of Santa Clara University's undergraduate education is the Residential Learning Community program. Eight Residential Learning Communities (RLCs), each with their own distinct themes, are charged with integrating the academic experience of the classroom and student communities in the residence halls.
Contemporary changes
Recently completed expansion projects include a new baseball field (Stephen Schott Stadium, 2005), a renovated basketball arena (Leavey Center, 2000), a Jesuit community residence (2006), a 194,000-square-foot (1.8 ha) state-of-the-art library (2008), and a new 85,000-square-foot (0.79 ha) building for the Leavey School of Business (2008).
Santa Clara Island
On May 24, 2007, an article published in The Santa Clara (campus newspaper) reported that SCU IT specialist Michael Ballen was heading a project to digitize the SCU campus in the virtual world Second Life. Ballen purchased Santa Clara I
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