Saint Mary's College of California

Saint Mary's College of California

File:SMC logo.gif
Type	Private
Established	1863
President	Br. Ronald Gallagher, F.S.C.
Academic staff	190
Undergraduates	1,350,876
Postgraduates	2,200
Location	Moraga , CA , United States
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Red and Blue
Mascot	Gaels
Website	http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/

Saint Mary's College of California is a private, coeducational college located in Moraga, California. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and administered by the De La Salle Christian Brothers. It is known for its strong Liberal Arts education, including its unique Great Books and Seminar programs, its business program, which in recent years has become the college's most popular program, and nursing school, Samuel Merritt College, whose campus is in Oakland, CA. Recently the college has garnered mild national attention for its men's basketball program. The college is located in Moraga, CA, a small, suburban community located about 12 miles east of Oakland, CA, and just 6 miles from Berkeley.

The college's official literature states that Saint Mary's mission is guided by three traditions: Liberal Arts, Catholic and Lasallian.

History

The Saint Mary's College chapel with the statue of St. John Baptist De la Salle in front.

St. Mary's College began in 1863 as a diocesan college for boys established by Most Rev. Joseph Alemany, OP, Archbishop of San Francisco, California. Unhappy with the archdiocese's operation of the college, Archbishop Alemany applied for assistance from Rome and St. Mary's College was handed over to the De La Salle Christian Brothers in 1868.

In 1889, the college moved east across San Francisco Bay to Oakland, California. The location on the corner of 30th and Broadway became affectionately known as "The Brickpile" and Saint Mary's College would call Oakland home until 1928, when it moved further eastward to Moraga. The Oakland site is a California Historical Landmark and is marked by a commemorative plaque.

During its first years in Moraga, the college nearly went bankrupt, but eventually managed to gain financial security when it was bought by Archbishop John Joseph Mitty, for whom a residence hall is now named. During World War II the college was used by the United States Navy for the training of pilots. Gerald Ford was briefly stationed at the school and served as a naval instructor. The navy erected many buildings, including the world's largest indoor pool, but only one, Assumption Hall, remains on the campus as the school had little use for most of the buildings after the war. Saint Mary's continued to be a male-only school until the early 1970s, when it became coeducational. Since then, more women have come to the college and by 2004, 60% of the students were women. For the 2006-2007 school year, the teacher-student ratio was 12:1 with no student-teachers leading classes.

There are still roughly two dozen Christian Brothers living and working at the school, and the school presidents have always been brothers. However, recognizing the dwindling number of Christian Brothers, in 2003 the college's bylaws were changed to allow the election of a non-Christian Brother to the presidency if no qualified Brother exists or steps forward. The current president is Brother Ronald Gallagher, FSC who took office in 2005.

Athletics

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The nickname of sports teams at Saint Mary's is the Gaels. Saint Mary's College was once known for its strong American football team. In 2004, however, after a long period of decline, the football team was finally disbanded after a dismal 1-11 2003 season. Because of Title 9 they were required to devote more funds to the school's other growing programs. Saint Mary's is currently well known for its basketball, baseball and women's volleyball teams. Almost all of the Division I varsity teams compete in the WCC. In 2001 the women's basketball team played in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the second round. In March 2005, the men's basketball team also competed in the NCAA championship tournament, though it lost its first game. The men's basketball team has gained national attention for its remarkable turnaround, going from two wins in 2001 to 25 in 2005. The women's volleyball team has played in the post season for the past three years, advancing to the "Sweet Sixteen" in 2004.

Another successful sports program at Saint Mary's is rugby, which, though not well known in the United States generally, is the oldest athletic club at Saint Mary's. The men's rugby team has enjoyed a rise in the past few years. Revitalized with a new coaching staff and increasing alumni support, the team has finished the season ranked among the top ten teams in the country for three consecutive years, competing with large high-profile schools such as California, Ohio State, and the military academies. A wide variety of intramural and noncompetitive sports are also available on the campus.

Academics

There are presently four schools of study at Saint Mary's: the School of Liberal Arts, the School of Science, the School of Economics and Business Administration (SEBA), and the School of Education. The school also had the School of Extended Education for adults seeking to further their education and other non-traditional undergraduate students, but the program has recently been discontinued. Saint Mary's College prides itself on being a Liberal Arts institution, and the majority of students are in the School of Liberal Arts. However, the most popular major is Business Administration. This is then followed by Communication, Psychology, Liberal and Civic Studies (primarily a major for students seeking to become teachers), and English.

The School of Science has in the past few years grown as a result of a new science building, Brousseau Hall, which has made the college more appealing to students wishing to major in the life sciences.

As a reflection of the school's liberal arts tradition, most students are allowed to take a broad array of courses to fulfill the college's general education requirement. Two courses in humanities, one each in math and science, two in social sciences, two in religious studies, foreign language as needed, and a diversity course are required of almost all students. However, aside from a common lower division religious studies course, students can take a variety of different courses to fulfill these requirements (for example, a course on U.S. History and a course on Psychology would satisfy the social science requirement). Freshmen and sophomore students who are undecided about their major often take advantage of the wide degree of flexibility offered in the general education requirements.

The school also has graduate programs in nursing, writing and business.

Collegiate Seminar

In addition to these general education courses, students must take four Collegiate Seminar or Great Books courses. This program is unique to Saint Mary's College. The four courses must be taken in order, two freshmen year, and the other two during the sophomore, junior or senior years. These classes deal with the most important literature and philosophy of the time, and are meant to include discussion of the text rather than lecture. Most notably, all teachers, even those who generally teach subjects far from literature and philosophy, teach seminar classes. Since all professors teach seminar, one criticism of the program is that the experience varies widely based on which teacher you receive for Seminar. Some are prone to lecture even during discussions and dominate the conversation, while others will remain silent even if the students are not discussing the text. However, the program's advocates argue that Collegiate Seminar encourages students to ask questions about the texts rather than rely on professors to dictate information, and teaches them to logically articulate their thoughts and ideas more than students who do not go through such a program.

Below are the four seminars and a sampling of some of the texts read:

Greek Thought

• The Odyssey
• Lisistrata
• Oedipus Rex
• Several dialogues by Plato including Plato's Republic, Meno and The Apology.
• Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle
• Poetry by Sappho
• Propositions by Euclid

Roman, Christian & Early Medieval Thought

• The Aeneid of Virgil
• The Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Dante's Inferno
• The Canterbury Tales
• Confessions by St. Augustine
• Visions by Hildegard von Bingen
• Poetry by Rumi

Renaissance Thought

• The Prince by Machiavelli
• Don Quixote
• On Christian Liberty by Martin Luther
• Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
• Discourse on Inequality by Rousseau
• Candide by Voltaire
• Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Modern Thought

• Wage-Labor and Capital by Karl Marx
• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
• Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Integral Program

For students who want to devote their entire four years of study to the Great Books, not just the standard four semesters, Saint Mary's offers the Integral Liberal Arts program, which was founded in 1956. Students spend all four years in seminar-style classes, and all courses are discussion-based, including math and science courses. Classes are led by professors, often referred to as "tutors," and students read all original or translated texts, not textbook reprintings or readers. Students also devote a portion of their studies to learning ancient Greek and Latin, which they then use to translate original texts themselves. Through the concept of almost total immersion in the classics, the Integral Program is much more inspired by St. John's College than traditional Seminar courses, even so far as to feature the annual Integral Waltz, a tradition brought over from St. John's as well.

There are roughly 100 students in the program at any given time, and it is not uncommon for class sizes to drop over the four years. For example, the class of 2006 began with over 40 students in the program but graduated just over 20. Many students decide after entering the program that the focus solely on the classics and the separation of the Integral program from the rest of the campus's academics is not for them. These students are usually allowed to transfer out of the program after two years having all but one of their general education requirements satisfied.

Generally speaking, students will share classes with the same set of classmates for all four years. Students are allowed a handful of elective courses which they can take in any other major or use to work towards a minor. Although administratively housed in the School of Liberal Arts, students in the Integral Program graduate separately and receive a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the Integral Program.

Jan-Term

Another unique feature of Saint Mary's Academics is January Term, or Jan-Term for short. During the month of January students are required to take a class that is supposed to have nothing to do with their major, though many students ignore this. This differs from many colleges at which January Term or "Intersession" is optional.

Classes during Jan-Term range from Shakespeare to Star Trek, and upperclassmen have the option to travel abroad for their January class. There are also optional quarter credit classes for Jan Term and during the semesters, such as Digital Photography or Weight Training. All students must take four Jan Term classes to graduate. Jan Term classes are more intensive than a normal fall or spring class. Instead of meeting twice a week or three times a week, they meet four times a week for two hours and 45 minutes. Some of the classes also have optional meetings beyond the class time.

Student Life

Since the 1990s, a wide variety of clubs for students have been founded at the college. They include political clubs such as the Republican, Democratic, and "SMC Progressives" clubs, ethnic clubs such as the Black Student Union (BSU), the Latin American Student Association (LASA), Asia-Pacific American Student Association (APASA), South Asian, Hawaiian, Italian, German and Irish student unions and clubs, which are open to all students regardless of ethnicity, and clubs for students with career interests and hobbies, such as the accounting club and the chess club.

The oldest club at Saint Mary's was the speech and debate club, which was founded in the late 1800s, was disbanded in the 1970s, and returned in 2003. In 2006, the club was replaced by a full-fledged forensics program, sponsored by SMC alum ('62) John Macken and headed by a Director of Forensics and full-time faculty member in the Communication Department.

Being a Lasallian school, community service plays a big role on campus. The Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action coordinates most service work on campus, and each year students perform tens of thousands of hours of community service. In January of 2006, twenty-five students and two professors travelled to New Orleans to help clean up parks and rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The current ASSMC student body president is senior Shane Keane. The student government is handled by the Associated Students of Saint Mary's College (ASSMC) and the office of Student Involvement and Leadership. Each class elects a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, as well as five student senators. The entire school elects the ASSMC president and the three executive vice-presidents (Administration, Student Affairs and Finance).

There are several organizations on campus related to the Catholic religion, including the campus ministry and the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action (CILSA). A main purpose for these organizations is to get students involved in community service activities. The campus has a chapel in which mass is held at least once a week. There are several priests who work on campus, some of whom also teach classes. It is not a requirement to be Catholic in order to attend Saint Mary's, and students do not have to take courses in Catholicism (two general Religious Studies classes are required, an introductory course of the Bible as literature and an elective of the student's choosing).

Saint Mary's has an academic support center which helps students who have disabilities and other special needs. There are also offices set up to assist students of color (41% of the student body identifies as an ethnic minority) and first-generation college students (over one-third of the total students).

The college has a weekly newspaper called "The Collegian", a yearbook known as "The Gael," a radio station, KSMC 89.5, and a television station, GaelVision (Channel 19).

Some student organizations sponsor a variety of people from around the world to speak at Saint Mary's College. Some of the most notable people who have spoken at Saint Mary's College are human rights activists Dolores Huerta and Mother Antonia.

Off-Campus Activities

Being a relatively small community of mostly long-time elderly residents or families with young children, Moraga is known for its lack of entertainment that caters to college students. As one sign of its suburban setting, Saint Mary's location is distinguished by having a Safeway at the bottom of the hill no matter which way you turn out of campus. However, there are several movie theaters, fast food places and restaurants within a short drive of campus, and the Orinda Theatre is only about ten minutes away. Bianca's Deli & Catering sandwiches are well-regarded by many students as well. Some students also go to nearby larger towns, such as Concord, Walnut Creek and Berkeley and the cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

Infrastructure

De La Salle Residence Hall and De La Salle quad.

Most freshmen at Saint Marys live on campus. There are six freshmen dorms (Augustine, Justin, Mitty, De La Salle, Aquinas and Assumption Halls). All freshman dorms are set up "community style," in which two or three students usually share a room and the entire floor shares a central bathroom. Floors are usually separated by sex in freshman halls (because of the shared bathrooms). The only exceptions are Aquinas hall which has students live in suites with their own bathroom, and the first floor of Assumption, which is coeducational with girls’ rooms having their own bathrooms. Aquinas is also open to upperclassmen. Floors are also co-ed in Aquinas.

Currently, freshmen living on campus are guaranteed a spot on campus for their second year. Sophomores live in Becket Hall, More Hall, North and South Claeys Halls, and Ageno A, B, and C Halls. All of these halls are "suite" style living and each suite comes with three or four bedrooms, accommodates six students, and has its own bathroom and shower. Floors on suite buildings are co-ed.

Juniors and seniors enter into a housing lottery to determine if they can live on campus. Upperclassmen live in "townhouse" buildings: Ageno East and West, Guerreri East and West, Freitas, Thille, Syufy and Sabatte Halls. All townhouses come with two or three bedrooms (accommodating five to six students), a bathroom and shower, kitchen and living room. Upperclassmen also live off-campus in Moraga, Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek and Berkeley. Upperclassmen resident advisers, as well as a few other upperclassmen, live in the traditionally freshman and sophomore halls. All residence hall rooms are fully furnished and come with two phones with free long distance, free Internet, and free TV cable outlet. Others often choose to live at home if they are within half an hour of campus. In addition to several student resident advisers, each residence hall also has at least one resident director, who is often a professor and lives in the residence hall.

Br. Alfred Brousseau Hall, where science classes are held.

The majority of classes are held in Galileo, Dante and Garaventa halls, which each have three floors. Most of the professors’ offices are also in these halls. A new science building, known as Brousseau Hall or Gatehouse, was built in 2000. Sichel Hall is a smaller, media-oriented classroom building, and Syufy Performing Arts Hall is the newest building on campus. There are separate classrooms for Fine Arts, Psychology, and the School of Education. The college broke ground on Filippi Academic Hall in May 2006, which will house the School of Education.

The cafeteria is called Oliver Hall, but is known as Saga to students. The Cassin Student Union features a sandwich shop and grill as well as a coffee shop. Also in the student union are Dryden Hall, a game room/lounge for all students, Delphine Intercultural Center, and the bookstore.

Athletics facilities include McKeon Pavilion (basketball and volleyball), the Saint Mary’s swimming pool, Saint Mary's stadium (soccer and lacrosse), Madigan Gym (Rec sports), Louis Guisto field (baseball), Cotrell Field (softball) as well as an additional soccer field, a rugby field and an intramural field. The college also has a tennis court area and frequently hosts the WCC tennis tournaments. The Power Plant, slightly old and antiquated, is where students work out, but the college hopes to replace it within a few years. There is also a new Cardio Workout Center on the second floor of the Madigan Gym.

Two other important buildings are the Soda Activity Center and the Lefevre Theatre, where various events are held. All buildings on campus except Assumption Hall are named after an important person in the Catholic religion or a person important to the school.

Semester Schedules

St. Mary's has a "4-1-4" system, similar to Middlebury College: Fall semester, January Term, and Spring Semester. Students are given three weeks off for Christmas following Fall semester, one week off following Jan-Term (which many students use to visit friends at other colleges, many of whom do not have a week off in January), and one week in the middle of Spring semester for Easter. Fall semester usually begins the Monday before Labor Day and runs through the second week of December. Graduation is usually the third or fourth week of May. St. Mary's also does not have a "week of preparation" for finals. The school goes directly from a regular class schedule to its finals.

Classes meet for one hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or for an hour and a half on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, beginning in the fall semester of 2006, classes midday on Monday and Friday were changed to an hour and a half, freeing up time during the middle of the day on Wednesday for what the college is calling "community time," during which events (guest speakers, cultural events, concerts, BBQs, special masses, etc.) can be scheduled by various campus groups (student, faculty or staff). No classes are held during community time and all offices are closed so that the entire campus has the opportunity to attend these events if they choose.

Transportation

Saint Mary's can sometimes be difficult to find as no major highways or freeways connect Moraga with the rest of the Bay Area. Two-lane roads connecting Moraga to Orinda to the northwest and Lafayette to the northeast are the main access points, although Moraga can also be reached by way of a long, narrow and winding road through the Oakland Hills connecting it with Oakland.

The Contra Costa County Connection provides two buses that serve the campus. Students currently can ride these lines for free, but must pay to use any other line in the system (unless transferring). Both bus lines make stops at local BART stations. Students can take BART to Oakland, Berkeley, downtown San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area including San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport.

Many students and faculty who live on campus and do not have cars believe that the public transportation for Saint Mary's College is not good enough. Over the past couple of years students and administrators have attempted to create a shuttle system for students to use, but have had no success.

Notable Alumni

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The chapel on campus hosts many weddings.

Some of Saint Mary's notable alumni are as follows: the two numbers after their name are the last two digits of the year that they graduated (in the twentieth century unless otherwise noted).

• Joseph Alioto '37, (dec.) former mayor of San Francisco
• Brother Mel Anderson '51, served as president of Saint Mary's College for 27 years
• Brother Alfred Brousseau '28 (dec.) mathematician, widely-renowned authority on the Fibonacci numbers. The recently built science building is named after him.
• Laura (Garcia)) Cannon '91, anchorwoman, NBC-11
• Jackson Graves '1872, (dec.) first graduate, Los Angeles historian
• Shirley Griffin '93, Executive Vice President, Wells Fargo Bank
• James Guyette '67, President & CEO, Rolls-Royce of North America, Inc.
• Robert Hass '63, Poet Laureate of the United States, 1995-97
• Jack Henning '38, former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand; California labor leader
• Ken Hofmann '45, owner, Oakland Athletics; developer
• Harry Hooper '07, (dec.) National Baseball Hall of Fame
• J.J. Jelincic, President of the California State Employees Association
• John Henry Johnson '53, Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Bob Ladouceur '89, head football coach, De La Salle High (Concord), holder of longest high school winning streak (151 games)
• Herman Lujan '58, provost, Cal State University, Los Angeles
• Manuel Lujan '50, former Secretary of the Interior, 1989-1993; Congressman (NM), 1969-1989
• Tom Lyons '50, activist, Catholic Relief Services; detention minister
• Ronald McArthur '49, founder, St. Thomas Aquinas College
• John Macken '62 scientist, inventor with numerous patents. Developed LaserCraft technology. Primary sponsor of the Saint Mary’s speech and debate team.
• Tony Martin '35, entertainer; member, Hollywood Walk of Fame
• Brother Leo Meehan '08 (dec.), famed academian; author; orator
• Tom Meschery '61, pro and college basketball great; teacher and poet
• George P. Miller '12 (dec.), Member of Congress from California, 1945-1973
• Nicholas Moore '63, Chairman (Retired), PriceWaterhouseCoopers
• Don Perata '67, Majority Leader & Senator, California State, 1998-
• Dr. Andrea Pernell-Sawicki '83, Surgeon; member, SMC Athletics Hall of Fame
• Quentin Reynolds '29 (dec.), former Chairman, CEO, Safeway Stores, Inc.
• Greg Reyes '84, Chairman & CEO, Brocade Communication; ownership group, San Jose Sharks
• George Schmitt '65, President (Retired), Omnipoint Communication & AirTouch International
• Raymond Syufy, Sr. '40 (dec.), Founder, Century Theaters
• Brother Jerome West '40 (dec.), Christian Brothers Provincial; founder of 3 high schools. The building in which the registration office is located is named after him.
• Herman Wedemeyer '49 (dec.), football star; Hawaii legislator; original cast of "Hawaii 5-0"
• Dr. Carl Wu '74, distinguished cancer researcher, National Institute of Health

External links

• Saint Mary's College of California