Saint Martin's University

Saint Martin's University
Motto "Think with heart"
Type Private
Established 1895
Affiliation Catholic Church
Endowment USD $12.8 million
President Roy F. Heynderickx, Ph.D.
Academic staff
 202
Undergraduates 1,412
Postgraduates 359
Location Lacey, Washington, United States
Campus Suburban, 380 acres (1.5 km2)
Conference Great Northwest Athletic Conference, NCAA Division II
Colors Red & Black         
Mascot Saints
Website St. Martin's University

Saint Martin's University is a coeducational, Catholic, liberal arts university in the United States. Located in Lacey, Washington, it was founded in 1895 as an all-boys boarding school by monks of the Benedictine Order. Saint Martin's began offering college-level courses in 1900 and became a degree-granting institution in 1940. The college became coeducational in 1965. In 2005, it changed its name from Saint Martin's College to Saint Martin's University. The school motto is "Think with heart." With a 12:1 student-to-teacher ratio and a minority student population of 45%, the college has a reputation for diversity and small class sizes. It has a functioning Benedictine monastery on school grounds, and some members of the monastic community also serve as professors. The tuition for 2013-2014 is $31,688 [1] although many students benefit from financial aid packages.

History

Saint Martin's patron saint is Saint Martin of Tours, a fourth-century Gregorian missionary and later Bishop of Tours. The University and its founder, Saint Martin’s Abbey, sit on 300 acres (1.2 km2) of woodlands, trees, rocks, and meandering trails. The site was selected in 1893 by Abbot Bernard Locnikar, O.S.B., of Minnesota's Saint John's Abbey, Saint Martin's Abbey’s mother house. At a public auction on April 21, 1894, the wooded parcel that would become the Saint Martin’s campus was purchased for $6,920. Work began on Saint Martin’s first building in January 1895, and by late summer, a four-story structure housing both the school and a monastery was completed. The school at that time offered preparatory classes for boys, plus commercial and classical education for older boys and young men. Boarding students who came from outside of town also were housed in the campus' one large building.[2] Today, that structure is referred to as Old Main and continues to house many of the university's classrooms and offices.


180° panorama on the campus of Saint Martin's University, Lacey, Washington on a sunny August afternoon.

Academics

The college offers 21 baccalaureate programs and seven graduate degree programs, and it is best known for its civil & mechanical engineering, business administration, and education programs. The University offers programs and courses at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Centralia College. The school's education is based around a liberal arts core with an emphasis on Benedictine values. All first-year students take a basic freshman seminar class to introduce them to college life. For the last three years, the college has offered a Summer Bridge Program, which serves as a college writing workshop for incoming freshmen. Classes have a 12:1 student-to-teacher ratio. General education requirements include:

Colleges and schools

Athletics

Main article: Saint Martin's Saints

The school's sports teams participate in the NCAA's Great Northwest Athletic Conference at the Division II level. The women's basketball team qualified for the NCAA Division II tournament in 1992 and 2008. In the 1940s and 1950s, Saint Martin's had a men's college football team and a boys' high school football team, which won the Washington Class A championship. In the 1990s, the name of the mascot was almost changed to the Ravens. In 2008, the Men's Basketball team defeated Division 1-A Colorado State University Rams, making it Saint Martin's first major publicized victory over a D-1 opponent. In 2009, the Men's Soccer team seized the first team title in any sport for Saint Martin's University, winning the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. In 2010, the university hosted a training camp which feature the University of Washington Huskies Men's Basketball Team. [3]

Scholars

Residence halls

Student life and demographics

Over 75% of Saint Martin's students are from Washington state, and most of those are from the immediate area. Some other states are represented, including California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Nevada and Hawaii. With its active international program, Saint Martin's also welcomes students from China, Korea, Japan and many other nations.

Roughly 45 percent of Saint Martin's student body is of color. To support diversity on campus, the University features an Office of Intercultural Initiatives and hosts many clubs, such as the Black Student Union and a Hawaiian Club. Students have the ability to serve as part-time AmeriCorps members through a program called Students in Service.

The transit pass program works seven days a week for travel to and from campus and anywhere else students want to go on any of the 22 routes provided by Intercity Transit, the region’s award-winning public transportation agency. Three bus routes accessible from campus (routes 66, 67, and 68) each run every half hour or so, depending on the time of day and day of week. And the Lacey Transit Center, one of Intercity Transit’s primary operating hubs for bus system, is a five-minute walk from campus.

Saint Martin's University is a dry campus.

Presidents

Traditions

Sister schools

Saint Martin’s has “sister university” agreements with four Korean universities; Sogang University, Konkuk University, Cheongju University and Sangmyung University. Saint Martin’s also has sister universities in other Asian countries, including five in Japan (including Mukogawa Women's University and Reitaku University), three in China (including Shanghai Maritime University), and one in Taiwan (Chung Shan Medical University).

Sustainability and technology

Under a new environmental program, between August 29 and December 11, 2008, the cafeteria collected an average of 243 pounds of compostables a day. Besides food waste, this includes biodegradable paper waste, like cups, soup bowls, compostable lids, napkins and paper towels. It also includes to-go containers, cup lids, and straws and portion cups made from sugar-based polylactic acid plastic. The composting program took about 27,216 pounds of materials out of the waste stream in Thurston County in the fall semester alone. This material was transported to the Silver Springs composting facility and will be used again in many different forms. Saint Martin's is also setting up a program with Standard Biodiesel to start picking up used cooking oil and rendered grease for use in biodiesel.

The Learning Garden was started at SMU in 2010 by students, staff and faculty under the direction of communication studies professor, Dr. Irina Gendelman.[4]

Tapas K. Das, Ph.D., P.E., adjunct faculty member of Saint Martin’s University School of Engineering, was named the recipient of the Professor S. K. Sharma Medal and CHEMCON Distinguished Speaker Award for 2007, given by the Development Organization for Sustainable Transformation (DOST). The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers recently conferred the award upon Das to recognize his contributions to the profession of chemical engineering.

Harned Hall is in accordance with LEED green standards.

In the fall semester, 2012, a new 22,000+ square foot engineering building is planned to open. The building is designed with the intention of meeting or exceeding LEED platinum standards.

Alumni

References

  1. ↑ "Tuition and costs". Saint Martin's University. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
  2. ↑ Scott, John Charles (1996). This Place Called Saint Martin's, 1895-1995: A Centennial History of Saint Martin's College and Abbey, Lacey, Washington. The Donning Company. ISBN 0-89865-982-5.
  3. ↑ SMU Saints Website — Saint Martin's University. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
  4. ↑ http://sustainablesaints.blogspot.com/

External links

Coordinates: 47°02′26″N 122°48′56″W / 47.04056°N 122.81556°W / 47.04056; -122.81556

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