History
Nazareth was founded in 1924 by the Sisters of St. Joseph. The first class was composed of 25 young women who began their studies in a large mansion on Lake Avenue in Rochester, New York. The original mansion that housed the college is known as "the Glass House." At that time, the college offered Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, each with a liberal arts core.
In response to increasing enrollment, the college moved to a larger facility in 1928, located at 402 Augustine Street.
In January 1942, the college moved to its present-day campus on East Avenue in the suburb of Pittsford. In the 1950s, graduate programs were added. These were suspended in the 1960s, only to be reinstituted in the 1970s with a focus on teacher education.
The 1970s brought many changes to campus. The college became co-educational and independent of the Catholic Church and the Sisters of St. Joseph. Many members of the Order continued to work at the college though, but no official affiliation between the College and the Order remained. Study abroad programs were also added in the 1970s and intercollegiate sports teams debuted in 1974.
In the 1980s, the School of Human Services was expanded, and a five-year degree program in Health Sciences/Physical Therapy was added. In 1994, a Master of Science degree program was added to the graduate curriculum.
In the early 2000s, the college purchased adjacent land from the Sisters of St. Joseph, including the former motherhouse. This acquisition doubled the campus size to its current 150 acres. The College also underwent a reorganization of its academic departments.
In 2003, Nazareth College was removed from The Official Catholic Directory, having been declared no longer a Catholic institution by Rochestor Bishop Matthew H. Clark. It was the second time since Pope John Paul II issued Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the apostolic constitution on Catholic universities in 1990, that a bishop declared a historically Catholic college or university to be not Catholic.
Read more about this topic: Nazareth College (New York)
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“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
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