Loras College

The college has had different names during its existence; Saint Raphael's Seminary and then Saint Raphael's Academy (1839–1850) Mount St. Bernard's College and Seminary (1850 – 1873) St. Joseph's College (1873 – 1914) Dubuque College (1914 – 1920) Columbia College (1920 – 1939) [ 4 ] Loras College (1939 – present) Saint Raphael/St. Bernard College In 1839, Bishop Mathias Loras of the Diocese of Dubuque established Saint Raphael's Seminary for men in the back of Saint Raphael's Cathedral in Dubuque. His first students were four seminarians from France, two members of a Sioux tribe, and several local students. In 1850, Loras moved the seminary from downtown Dubuque to a more rural area in the city. He wanted fewer distractions for the students and farmland to grow food for the college. It was renamed Mount St. Bernard's College and Seminary . The first present of St. Bernard was Father Joseph Cretin , who later became the first bishop of the Diocese of Saint Paul . Loras became president of the college in 1855. [ 5 ]

The financial Panic of 1857 caused severe financial losses at St. Bernard, forcing it to close in 1860. When John Hennessy became bishop in 1866, he started holding college courses in private residences. In 1873, he established St. Joseph's College in Dubuque with a high school and four-year college program. By 1878, St. Joseph had three departments: preparatory, commercial, and ecclesiastical. The next year, the Franciscan Sisters of Dubuque started running the so-called domestic department and the college added theology courses for the formation of priests. [ 5 ] By 1886, enrollment at St. Joseph had fallen to 56 students. The college then added a classical, philosophical and theological course with Christian doctrine and foreign languages. The college was incorporated in 1893 and was able to start offering academic degrees.

In 1939, the year that Columbia College became Loras College, the national Catholic honor society, Delta Epsilon Sigma was founded at Loras. In 1963, when Catholic University of America discontinued its graduate program at Loras, the college initiated its Graduate Division, offering the Master of Arts degree in some fields. Loras became fully coeducational in 1971 [ 5 ] In 1973, Loras introduced Associate of Arts and Associate of Science degrees. The Division of Community Education was initiated in 1975. In 1987, the administrations of Loras College and Clarke College in Dubuque began exploring a merger. However, after receiving overwhelming opposition to the move from the Loras faculty and students, the initiation was abandoned. [ 5 ] The college removed the statue of Bishop Loras from the campus in 2020 after determining that he owned enslaved people from 1836 to 1852. [ 6 ]

Loras offers 49 majors, 11 stand-alone minors, and nine pre-professional programs for undergraduates. Undergraduates can also participate in summer classes, internships, field experience, study abroad, and other programs. For graduate programs, Loras offers a Master of Arts and a Master of Business Administration . [ 7 ] Loras is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission . The teacher education program, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, is approved by the Iowa Department of Education . The undergraduate teacher education program is also accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation . The American Chemical Society has approved the undergraduate chemistry program. The Council of Social Work Education accredits the social work major at the baccalaureate level.