Hamline University is an American
private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, founded in 1854 and
named after BishopLeonidas Lent Hamline of the United Methodist Church. Hamline
is the oldest institution of higher learning in Minnesota and one of five
Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities.
The university comprises five
faculties, including Hamline University School of Law, and has an enrollment of
2,100 undergraduate and 2,800 postgraduate students. In 2011, Hamline was first
in Minnesota and ninth in the U.S. in the Regional Universities—Midwest
category of U.S. News and World Report's college rankings.Dr. Fayneese Miller
is the university's 20th and first African American President. Dr. Fayneese
Miller became President on July 1, 2015 succeeding Linda N. Hanson.
Hamline was named in honor of
Leonidas Lent Hamline, a bishop of the Methodist Church whose interest in the
frontier led him to donate $25,000 toward the building of an institution of
higher learning in what was then the territory of Minnesota. Today, a statue of
Bishop Hamline sculpted by the late professor of art Michael Price stands on
campus. Hamline is also distinct for being founded as acoeducational
institution, a rarity in 19th-century America. Hamline’s first home was in Red
Wing, Minnesota. The school’s charter stipulated that Hamline be located
"at some point on the Mississippi between St. Paul and Lake Pepin."
The city of Red Wing pledged about $10,000 to enable construction of a building
and the beginning of an endowment, and it also donated a tract of land on a
hillside overlooking the Mississippi River.
Hamline University holds the title
of the oldest university in Minnesota. It was charted in 1854 and began
offering collegiate courses in 1857. While the University of Minnesota was
chartered by the territorial authorities in 1851, it did not operate as a place
of higher education for nearly two decades.
The first classes at Hamline were
held in rooms housed on the second floor of the village general store while the
construction of the classroom building was in progress. Students moved into the
Red Wing building in January 1856. The original building contained a chapel,
recitation rooms, a school room, a library, laboratory, reading rooms, and
dormitory quarters. Seventy-three students enrolled at Hamline in the opening
year. The catalog lists them separately as “Ladies and Gentlemen,” but most of
them were children or adolescents. All were enrolled in either the primary or
the preparatory department. There was no collegiate division – the frontier had
not yet produced students ready for college. Tuition ranged from $4.00 to $6.66
per term. The collegiate program was introduced in 1857, and in 1859, Hamline
graduated its first class.
With the start of the American Civil
War, enrollment in the college division dropped from 60 to 16 in one year.
There was no graduating class in 1862. Records indicate that 119 Hamline men
served in the Union armies during the war. In 1869, the university shut down.
The first building at the Red Wing site was torn down in 1872.
It had been expected that Hamline
would reopen on a new site within two years after the closing at Red Wing;
however, indecision in the selection of a new site caused a delay. In the end,
a 77-acre (31 ha) Saint Paul prairie plot halfway between the downtowns of
Minneapolis and Saint Paul was selected. Construction began in 1873, but by
then an economic depression had overtaken the planners, and there were repeated
postponements and delays. University Hall, begun in 1873, was constructed in
installments as money came in, and was not completed until the summer of 1880.
The doors opened on September 22,
1880, and Hamline’s history in Saint Paul began. The catalog for that year
lists 113 students, with all but five of them being preparatory students.
Tuition in the collegiate division was $30 per year. Two degrees were offered
at the time: the B.A. and the B.S. In 1883, the bachelor of philosophy degree
replaced the B.S., and remained in use until 1914, when the faculty dropped the
PhB. and restored the B.S. degree.
On February 7, 1883, University
Hall, barely two years old, burned to the ground.To replace the structure,
plans for a new University Hall were prepared. Eleven months later, the new
structure, the present Old Main, was completed. Emergency space for classrooms
was provided by Ladies’ Hall, which had opened in 1882. Other new construction
included Science Hall, which was completed in 1887, the Carnegie library in
1907, and the new gymnasium, which was completed in 1909.
When World War I came in April 1917,
track and baseball schedules for spring were cancelled as enlistments and
applications of officers’ training depleted the teams. Hamline was designated
one of 38 colleges in the country to supply men for ambulance work in France.
Twenty-six men were selected for the unit and served in France with the 28th
Division of the French Army.In the fall of 1918, a unit of the Students’ Army
Training Corps was established at Hamline, and almost every male student became
an enlisted member. The Science Hall was used for military purposes, with the
basement becoming the mess hall and the museum and several classrooms being
marked for squad rooms and sleeping quarters.
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