St. Olaf College
St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf II of Norway and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
As of 2025, the college had 3,124 undergraduate students and 326 full and part-time faculty members. The campus, including its adjacent natural lands, is west of downtown Northfield, Minnesota. Northfield is also the home of its neighbor and friendly rival, Carleton College. Between 1995 and 2020, 154 St. Olaf graduates were named Fulbright Scholars and 35 received Goldwater Scholarships.
History
Seal and motto
The seal of the St. Olaf College displays the coat of arms of Norway, which includes the axe of St. Olaf.The motto Fram! Fram! Kristmenn, Krossmenn, written in New Norwegian, is adapted from the Old Norse battle cry of King Olaf. It means "Forward! Forward! Men of Christ, Men of the Cross".
Founding
Many Norwegian immigrants arrived in Rice County, Minnesota, and the surrounding area in the late 19th century. Nearly all were Lutheran Christians, and desired a non-secular post-secondary institution in the Lutheran tradition that offered classes in all subjects in both Norwegian and English. The catalyst for St. Olaf's founding was the Reverend Bernt Julius Muus; he sought out the help of N. A. Quammen and H. Thorson. Together they petitioned their parishes and others to raise money to buy a plot of land on which to build the new institution. The three received around $10,000 in pledges, formed a corporation and bought land and four buildings for the school. Muus came under scrutiny after a divorce case revealed extensive acts of domestic abuse. He fell out of favor with many of his predecessors, but the school did not officially denounce his abuses.St. Olaf's School opened on January 8, 1875, at its first site under the leadership of its first president, Thorbjorn N. Mohn, a graduate of Luther College. Herman Amberg Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, laid the foundation stone of the St. Olaf School on July 4, 1877. In 1887 the Manitou Messenger was founded as a campus magazine and has since evolved into the college's student newspaper, now called the Olaf Messenger. 1887 was also the year that the first female St. Olaf graduate, Agnes Mellby, joined the college. Mellby graduated in 1893. She was the first woman to graduate from a Norwegian Lutheran college in the United States. On June 20, 1889, the school's board of trustees renamed the school St. Olaf College.
In 1932, Red Wing Lutheran Seminary was merged into St. Olaf and its Red Wing campus was closed. The Seminary was an independent academic institution from 1879 to 1932.
Financial crisis
In 1893, St. Olaf faced severe economic difficulties. A national economic depression caused enrollment to drop from a high of 147 in 1892 to 129 in 1893. Also in 1893 the Norwegian Synod voted to cut ties with the college, greatly reducing its income. By the August 1893 board meeting, the college was $10,000 in debt. On August 2 the Board of Trustees appointed professor H. T. Ytterboe to travel around the Midwest and collect funds for the college. During this time President Mohn took over Ytterboe's responsibilities managing the college's finances. Over the next six years faculty and staff saw their salaries reduced, and the number of teaching faculty was reduced from eleven to seven. Ytterboe spent six years traveling the Midwest and was highly effective at fundraising, averaging $6,500 per year, mostly in small donations of a dollar or more from farmers and private individuals. By 1897, the debt was reduced to less than $4,000, and in 1899 the synod reinstated the college. Historians of the college widely regard Ytterboe's and Mohn's efforts as having saved the college from extinction.Scarlet fever epidemic
Following students' return from Christmas vacation in 1903, an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out on the campus and quickly spread. Twenty-eight out of St. Olaf's approximately three hundred students came down with the highly infectious disease. With no local hospital, the north wing on the third floor of the Men's Dormitory was used as a makeshift hospital and staffed with two nurses who worked tirelessly to contain the spread of the disease.1918 Spanish flu pandemic
At the beginning of the spread of the Spanish flu to the United States, St. Olaf went into voluntary quarantine in hopes of avoiding the epidemic, allowing students to leave campus only for emergencies once they had obtained a pass. The first cases on St. Olaf's campus occurred on November 11, 1918, and shortly thereafter the college hospital was filled to capacity. Ytterboe Hall was converted into a hospital for the sick once the temporary beds in had filled. St. Olaf officially closed for the year on December 7, due to a rapid rise of influenza cases. Four students died from flu complications.St. Olaf during the Second World War
At the beginning of World War II, St. Olaf was not directly involved with the conflict, with the extent of wartime activities including Red Cross drives and a “Bundles for Britain” project. But by the fall of 1942, over 400 undergraduates and alumni were serving overseas. The campus was also ordered to house 600 U.S. Naval recruits for flight training, leading to the conversion of Mohn and Ytterboe Halls from women's dormitories to housing for naval servicemen. Students living in Ytterboe and Mohn Halls were required to move to Agnes Mellby Hall to accommodate the naval personnel.Connections with Norway
visited the college in 1987 and King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway visited in 2011. Queen Sonja visited the college's campus again in 2022 as part of a tour to celebrate the connections between Norway and Minnesota's Norwegian-American community. She participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Special Collections vault at Rølvaag Memorial Library.Presidents
St. Olaf has had 12 presidents since its founding:- Thorbjorn N. Mohn, 1874–99
- John N. Kildahl, 1899–1914
- Lauritz A. Vigness, 1914–18
- Lars W. Boe, 1918–42
- Clemens M. Granskou, 1943–63
- Sidney A. Rand, 1963–80
- Harlan F. Foss, Ph.D., 1980–85
- Melvin D. George, Ph.D., 1985–94
- Mark U. Edwards Jr., Ph.D., 1994–2000
- Christopher M. Thomforde, D.Min., 2001–06
- David R. Anderson, Ph.D., 2006–23
- Susan Rundell Singer, Ph.D., since 2023
Church affiliations
- 1874–87 Norwegian Synod
- 1887–90 Anti-Missourian Brotherhood
- 1890–1917 United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America
- 1917–60 Evangelical Lutheran Church
- 1960–87 The American Lutheran Church
- 1988–present Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Campus
Two buildings on the campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Old Main, designed by Long and Haglin; and Steensland Library, designed by Omeyer and Thori. In 2011, Travel+Leisure named St. Olaf one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.
Edward Sövik, a liturgical architect and St. Olaf professor of art until his death in 2014, designed or assisted in the design of 20 campus buildings.
Notable buildings
Center for Art and Dance
The Center for Art and Dance is a collaborative project with offerings from the art, art history, and dance departments. It houses the Flaten Art Museum and studio spaces dedicated to painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, wood sculpture, digital media, photography, and a metal foundry, all named after alumni and educators who contributed to the development of each discipline. The Flaten Art Museum was founded as the Steensland Art Gallery in 1976. In 2002, it was moved to the Center for Art and Dance and renamed to honor Arnold Flaten, a past professor of art, and his family. The museum has a collection of regional, national, and international works and exhibits these as well as faculty and student work.The building underwent significant remodeling in the early 2000s and was initially dedicated as the Dittmann Complex, honoring Reidar Dittmann. Dittmann was born in Norway in 1922, and spent the better part of his youth working with the Norwegian resistance against the rising Nazi regime until his imprisonment in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After his immigration to the United States, Dittmann joined St. Olaf's faculty as a professor of art and Norwegian in 1947. In 1952 He and Ansgar Sovik co-founded the International Studies program, now known as the Office of International and Off-Campus Studies. After his death in 2010, serious sexual assault allegations from St. Olaf alumni surfaced under the revisions of Title IX Policy concerning Dittmann and other faculty members. The decision to rename the building was made in 2017, following the pattern of campuses around the country questioning the names of buildings dedicated to notable alumni with contentious histories.