< Return to Presidential Search Page

The Curriculum
Valuing its classic, four-year, residential program of study in the liberal arts, St. Lawrence espouses the philosophy that a liberal education requires breadth, depth and integration in learning. It also requires the cultivation of those habits of intellectual and moral selfdiscipline that distinguish a mature individual. To these ends, St. Lawrence seeks to provide an education that fosters in students an open, inquiring and disciplined mind, well informed through broad exposure to basic areas of knowledge; an enthusiasm for life-long learning; self-confidence and self-knowledge; a respect for differing opinions and for free discussion of those opinions; and an ability to use information logically and to evaluate alternative points of view.

Degrees Granted
Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science; Master of Education; Certificate of Advanced Studies in Educational Administration

Major Fields of Study
36, including many interdisciplinary options

Minor Fields of Study
37, including many interdisciplinary options

Honor Societies
20 for academic disciplines, and the Lambda of New York chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (founded 1899)

Graduation Rates: The average five-year graduation rate for the past six graduating classes (2001-2006) is 75.06%. The four-year graduation rate for the Class of 2007 is 78.6%.

Retention Rate for first year to second year: For those entering Fall 2006: 88.2%

Academic Centers
The Center for Teaching and Learning, founded in 2001, provides relevant, engaging and ongoing faculty development opportunities to promote innovative teaching practices and course design. The Center for Diversity and Social Justice is a collaboration between the academic and student life divisions, with the goal to foster an understanding and appreciation of diversity on campus and in the regional community, and encourage intellectual and practical understandings of social justice. The Center for Civic Engagement and Leadership, also a collaboration between Academic Affairs and Student Life, comprises the St. Lawrence Leadership Academy, David Garner Center for Collegiate Volunteerism and the Community-Based Learning Program. Together they offer workshops, guest speakers, credit-bearing programs, counseling, volunteer coordination and other resources to help students develop leadership skills and service experiences. The Newell Center for Arts Technology provides for the intersections of the fine and digital arts in a collaborative setting and in a state-of-the-art facility.

Academic Resources and Opportunities
Academic advising is coordinated by an Associate Dean for Academic Advising, who works with the Associate Dean of the First Year to assure an intentional and organized process of academic planning for first-year and sophomore students. Two offices, Academic Achievement and Academic Support, help students identify academic areas of strength and areas in need of improvement and implement specific strategies to achieve greater academic success. The new Quantitative Resource Center provides peer mentoring and consulting services in quantitative analysis, just as the WORD Studio (Writing, Oral Communication, Research and Visual Design) student staff provide mentoring for communications skills. St. Lawrence has a renowned Services for Students with Special Needs office to work with physically and learning-challenged students to assure a positive and productive college experience. The Community-Based Learning Programs offer students a variety of academic opportunities to combine community engagement and service with course-based activities and assignments in ways that are designed to promote student learning and personal development. By combining classrooms and communities, the students are learning by doing and doing by learning. Three government-funded programs provide services or enrichment to students of underrepresented or underserved populations; St. Lawrence has a strong Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, a Higher Education Opportunity Program and a McNair Scholars Program.

Libraries
The Owen D. Young Library, The Vance Archives, and the Launders Science Library provide students with “an increasingly sophisticated means of acquiring and evaluating knowledge during the course of their careers.” The librarians and staff prepare students for a lifetime of learning by teaching them not only how to locate information but also how to evaluate the sources retrieved; by building, maintaining and making accessible on-site collections that support the liberal arts; and by expanding gateways to scholarly resources beyond the boundaries of this campus.

As a secondary part of their mission, the libraries contribute to the growth of world scholarship. To assist the wider community of learners, librarians and staff members support faculty and student research beyond classroom needs; collect and preserve information that illuminates the intellectual, social and business life of the North Country; make St. Lawrence’s library resources available to other institutions through interlibrary loan; and allow persons not affiliated with St. Lawrence access to the materials in library collections.

In all of their activities, the St. Lawrence librarians and support staff maintain a strong commitment to intellectual freedom and subscribe to the tenets of the Library Bill of Rights. Finally, all library employees seek to achieve a positive and supportive working environment—one that encourages the development of well-trained and effective staff, working together toward the objectives outlined above.

The Owen D. Young Library and the Launders Science Library have over 1.5 million books, government documents, videos, microforms, journals and special collections. Special collections include the works of Robert Frost and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
The Brush Art Gallery is an academic resource whose mission is to acquire, preserve, interpret, exhibit and otherwise make accessible works of art for the benefit of a variety of audiences in support of the educational goals of the University. The stewardship of the University ’s 7,000-piece Permanent Collection and an ambitious program of 12-14 temporary exhibitions are the central components of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery. Related activities such as lectures, panel discussions, residencies, tours, digital initiatives, acquisitions, conservation projects and campus displays provide educational opportunities for students, faculty and the broader community.

The First-Year Program
St. Lawrence has one of the oldest and most nationally respected first-year living/learning programs in the nation. Each residential First-Year Program (FYP) unit (termed “college”) is built around a team-taught, multi-disciplinary course that explores a thematic, rather than narrowly disciplinary, issue or concept. Through innovative written and oral assignment sequences, smallgroup work and extensive feedback from instructors, mentors and peers, students develop competencies in critical reading, writing, speaking, listening, performing and researching skills, all critical literacies at the heart of a liberal arts education and upon which they will build in subsequent courses.

A major component of the FYP is the nexus among the academic, residential and co-curricular elements for the ideal of a living/learning community. Students in each college live together, providing opportunities for social and academic cooperation and community-building. The office of Residence Life oversees the residential staff in the FYP colleges, and many residential and co-curricular programmatic activities are keyed to the themes of each college.

In 2006 the faculty of the FYP passed a new Philosophy and Goals Statement that added new goals to the programmatic elements listed above that relate to “the social nature of knowledge production and social awareness, as well as self-reflectiveness and ethical concerns.” The new philosophy and goals were conceived in collaboration with the Rhetoric and Communication Program, which initially grew out of the recognition that the FYP needed to change the focus from teaching writing and speaking as separate components to a focus on the integration of speaking, writing and research skills under the rubric of information/communication literacy.

For the past 20 years at St. Lawrence, the FYP has been the site of exciting and innovative pedagogy, engaged learning and collaboration between academic and co-curricular initiatives. The new philosophy and goals are evidence of a program anticipating and responding to the expanding literacy goals of a liberal education in the 21st century.

Senior-Year Experience
Between 1996 and 2001, with a goal to engage students more deeply in their senior year, the University added 24 new faculty lines. The faculty voted to initiate a voluntary Senior-Year Experience (SYE) departmental requirement, rather than a mandatory one for all seniors regardless of disciplinary major. Many departments have implemented a required SYE, with many, especially in the sciences, also encouraging faculty-mentored independent research projects in the senior year. The SYE involves “course work or independent projects undertaken in the senior year and designed to provide the means of integrating work done both inside and outside a student’s major.” SYE courses “will demand significant academic integration and actively engage students in the distinctively challenging ways that transcend those of regular course offerings.” Many students devise independent writing or research projects with a faculty mentor; others take senior seminars with the SYE designation. Overall, 73% of the graduating seniors complete at least one SYE.

International and Intercultural Studies
Close to 50% of all St. Lawrence students have an international study experience, and more than 50% of the faculty consider international perspectives in their education and current teaching and research. St. Lawrence sponsors 14 international study programs on five continents, as well as summer courses offered abroad. Most programs immerse students in the national culture, thanks to home stay arrangements and internships. Oncampus students can opt to live in International House, a residence whose focus is on internationalization and multiculturalism. St. Lawrence is home to students from 46 nations. Many academic programs closely associate with off-campus study. The University offers travel enrichment grants and grants to support independent research abroad to its students in a competitive process.

Student Research Opportunities
The St. Lawrence University Fellows program provides new opportunities for student intellectual growth by funding, with a $3,500 stipend, student research by 25-30 students per summer, each student with a faculty mentor. Fellowships enable students to explore lines of inquiry without the immediate expectation of academic credit, in order to lay the foundation for integrative, credit-bearing activity that can take place during their senior year. The community looks forward to learning about student research work at several occasions during the academic year, including a well-attended Honors Reception during Family Weekend each Fall, and the celebratory Festival of Scholarship and Creativity and Festival of Science each Spring.

Graduate Studies
St. Lawrence has a small graduate program in education of about 120 full-time and part-time students each year that serves a regional population of adult, working teachers who seek to become school counselors or administrators— an absolutely critical service to the region given the North Country location. Over the years, the General Studies in Education Program has been refined to keep in mind the needs of parents, social service professionals, community college teachers, governmental agency personnel and other community leaders, in addition to the public school professionals for whom the program was created at its inception many years ago.