La Salle University
La Salle University is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle.
History
19th century
La Salle College was founded in March 1863 as an all-male college by Brother Teliow and Archbishop James Wood of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It was first located at St. Michael's Parish on N. 2nd Street in the Olde Kensington section of Philadelphia. La Salle soon moved to the building vacated by St. Joseph's College at 1234 Filbert Street in Center City Philadelphia. In 1886, due to the development of the Center City district, La Salle moved to a third location, the former mansion of Michael Bouvier, the great-great-grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, at 1240 North Broad Street.20th century
In 1930, due to space constraints, La Salle moved to its current campus at the intersection of 20th Street and Olney Avenue in the Logan neighborhood of the city. The new location had a suburban feel with ample land, but was linked to the city by trolleys and the newly constructed Broad Street Subway. The 1930s proved to be a tumultuous decade for La Salle, which was nearly bankrupt after being unable to sell the 1240 North Broad Street property. The main academic building on campus, College Hall was unable to be finished due to a lack of funds, and the college nearly closed in the late 1930s. The college's closing was prevented by a 75th Anniversary Fund Drive in 1938, spearheaded by Philadelphia businessman John McCarthy. Funds raised from this drive also enabled La Salle to purchase a tract of land to the east of 19th Street, where Philadelphia had intended to build a city college.During World War II, La Salle nearly closed again due to a lack of students, and the football team was disbanded due to a lack of players, but the college experienced a period of growth in the late 1940s. Several new buildings were constructed in the 1940s and 1950s, including a new library, student union, and a science building. It was also during this time that the first student residence halls were constructed at La Salle, mostly on land purchased from the former Belfield Country Club. Additional student housing was provided by purchasing or renting local homes, such as the house known as "The Mansion", on David and Logan Blain's Belfield Estate. During the 1960s, the high school section moved out due to the lack of space after many years of sharing the same campus with the College.
In 1970, La Salle admitted women to its regular classes, becoming a fully co-educational institution. A year later, La Salle opened Olney Hall, its main academic building. It also continued to expand its property throughout the 1970s and 1980s, buying land along Chew Avenue in the Germantown section of the city, along with the Belfield Estate in 1984, and to the south of main-campus, the orphanage run by the Sisters of St. Basil the Great. In 1984, La Salle was granted University status.
21st century
In 2007, La Salle acquired the former Germantown Hospital, now West Campus, and constructed The Shoppes at La Salle shopping center across the street in 2008. The construction of the Shoppes at La Salle and addition of The Fresh Grocer ended a decades-long food desert in Germantown.In the Fall of 2005, the $26 million first phase of this master plan was completed with the construction of Tree Tops Cafe and St. Basil Court. St. Basil's houses approximately 430 students. Three of the building's wings feature "suites", in which four students share two bedrooms and one bathroom. The fourth wing's rooms have the traditional one-room for housing two students with communal bathrooms. The facilities have lounges, study rooms, and special purpose rooms.
A $2.5 million athletic field renovation was completed in the Fall of 2006.
In May 2007, the university purchased adjacent Germantown Hospital for $10 million. The acquired has become "West Campus", and increased the campus size by 25 percent. A $15 million shopping center and supermarket complex opened in Fall 2008 across from the Germantown Hospital. In 2015, Hanycz led consolidation and prioritization efforts, ultimately firing a couple dozen prominent staff members and administrators. The university even cut six undergraduate majors, which were mostly in the foreign language department. However, just a year after her arrival, the school stated that it would decrease tuition by 29 percent. The reasoning for the significant tuition cut was to make La Salle more attractive and accessible for students from more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Shoppes at La Salle was formerly home to the university's softball field and other recreational areas. The renovated Holroyd Science Center was completed in Fall 2009 and a new business school opened in West Campus in January 2016.
In the summer of 2016, McShain Hall in the middle of campus was torn down and replaced with more green space. The new quad was named after its donor, the Hansen family.
A satellite campus and Conference Center in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the La Salle University Bucks County Center, offers graduate courses in various disciplines, undergraduate courses in nursing, and continuing education courses. The Conference Center comprises fifteen instructional rooms with seating capacities ranging from 20 to 40, along with four computer laboratories with 100 workstations. La Salle offers M.B.A. and Clinical-Counseling Psychology Master of Arts classes at the Plymouth Meeting Metroplex Corporate Center in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
In October 2015, La Salle inaugurated its first lay person and first woman president, Colleen Hanycz, former president of Brescia University College. In the fall of 2016, La Salle decreased tuition by more than 29 percent. In September 2020, during the COVID pandemic and following an assessment of the size of the athletic program, the university cut some of the sports, including baseball and tennis, from 25 to 18 programs. Enrollment had been dropping since the 2010s--from 3600 undergraduates in 2012-2013 to 2800 in 2020-2021, to 1700 in 2023, accompanied by a drop in net tuition revenue. According to the 2023 financial report, the university had $127 million in revenue but $140 million in expenses. Its credit rating by Fitch Ratings went down to BB- in March 2025. Daniel J. Allen became the new president in 2020. Since then, sports teams have been re-added, including baseball, and those, along with improved recruitment and enrollment procedures, are credited for financial improvement and an increase in enrollment, to 3263 in 2025.
Governance
The university is led by its board of trustees headed by a president and chair. The president serves one or more 5-year terms., there have been 29 Presidents. Students are represented through a democratically elected student government. The La Salle Students' Government Association sits on numerous committees led by staff and administrators, including some board meetings. La Salle's student government is a founding member of the American Student Government Association. The president's office, formerly located in the historic Peale House, is now in College Hall, the former business school building.Academics
Within La Salle is the College of Professional and Continuing Studies and its three Schools: Arts & Sciences, Business Administration, and Nursing & Health Sciences. Communication, Nursing, and Education are the largest majors at La Salle. Courses in the programs may be offered in traditional, online, or hybrid formats.Admissions
Undergraduate fall enrollment declined from more than 4,500 in 2012 to 3,900 in 2018.The average GPA for an admitted student at La Salle is a 3.35 on a 4.0 scale. Its acceptance rate is labeled as "moderately difficult" and admits about 75 percent of students who apply. La Salle requires SAT or ACT scores and an essay for admission. La Salle also uses the common application for prospective students in the United States.
According to The New York Times, the median family income of a student from La Salle is about $91,000 per year. 40 percent of La Salle students come from families in the top 20 percent of income. 37.1 percent come from families in the bottom 60 percent of income. Less than 1 percent come from families in the top 1 percent of income.
Academic rankings
| Publisher | Ranking System | Year | Ranking |
| The Economist | College Rankings | 2015 | 99 |
| Time Money Magazine | Colleges that Add the Most Value | 2016 | 5 |
| U.S. News & World Report | Best Colleges for Veterans | 2017 | 19 |
| U.S. News & World Report | Best Value Schools | 2017 | 16 |
| U.S. News & World Report | MBA Programs Where Graduates Find Jobs Quickly | 2017 | 4 |
| U.S. News & World Report | Best Colleges, Regional Universities North | 2018 | 34 |
Athletics
La Salle University's 23 varsity sports teams, known as the Explorers, compete in the NCAA's Division I. La Salle is a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference and the historic Philadelphia Big 5, an informal association of Philadelphia sports programs. As a member of the Big 5, the Explorers historically played against Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University and Saint Joseph's University at least once a year.File:JohnGlaserArena.jpg|thumb|left|alt=John Glaser Arena, March 22, 2025 |John Glaser Arena, March 22, 2025
Starting in 2023–24, with the retooling of the Big 5 into the Big 5 Classic and the formal addition of Drexel University to the rivalry, La Salle is only guaranteed games with Drexel and Temple, plus one game against one of the other three teams. They have won eleven titles. La Salle has sent 16 athletes to the Olympic a total of 22 times.
La Salle's teams have won two national championships: The 1954 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and the 1980 Division II AIAW Field Hockey Championship. The school also won the 1952 National Invitation Tournament. La Salle's major historic rival has been the Hawks of Saint Joseph's University, especially in men's basketball. Not only are both universities situated in Philadelphia, but they are also both Catholic, private institutions.
The name "Explorer" derives from a 1931 mistake made by a sportswriter, who thought the university was named after the French explorer Sieur de La Salle, when in fact it is named after St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle and was officially chosen in a student contest during the spring of 1932.
The men's basketball program has been rated the 53rd "Greatest College Basketball Program of All-Time" by Street & Smith's magazine and 71st by the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia.