Upsala College - History

History

The school was founded on the initiative of the Swedish-American Augustana Synod and immigrant Swedes, and received its name partly in reference to the historic University of Uppsala in Sweden and partly in memory of the Meeting of Uppsala, which had taken place in 1593 – exactly 300 years before the founding of the college – establishing Lutheran Orthodoxy in the country after the attempts of King John III to reintroduce Roman Catholic liturgy. (Upsala is an archaic spelling variation of Uppsala, replaced in the early part of the 20th century by the version with two Ps, except in some proper nouns which have retained the old spelling.)

The college originally opened in Brooklyn, New York City, New York and later moved to Kenilworth, New Jersey in 1898 before settling in East Orange in 1924.

The school maintained high academic standards for many years, gaining a fine reputation as an excellent small college, with a vibrant campus life. After the passage of Title IX, Ms. Audrey Donnelly became the school's Women's Tennis Coach. Unfortunately as the surrounding community's crime rate increased, the student enrollment at the college declined throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. However, the college remained committed to the city of East Orange, and chose not to move to land donated to the school in rural Sussex County. Once the decision was made to stay in their current location, Upsala worked hard to boost its sagging enrollment, but it was to no avail, and the school closed its doors at the end of the 1995 academic year.

After the school was closed, the campus was sold to the East Orange School District, which built a high school on the site's eastern half and sold the western portion to the City of East Orange.