Loras College

Loras College is a private Catholic college in Dubuque, Iowa. It has an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students and is the oldest post-secondary institution in the state of Iowa. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It is one of four four-year post-secondary institutions in the City of Dubuque, one of four Catholic colleges in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, and one of six Catholic colleges in the state of Iowa. The campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Loras College Historic District in 2020. History Loras College, a liberal arts college, was founded in 1839 by Mathias Loras, first bishop of Dubuque, who established Saint Raphael's Seminary to educate young men for the priesthood with the expressed intention of also providing an opportunity for higher education to the citizens of the area. Loras later became president of the college. His statue on campus was removed on September 8, 2020 after it was discovered he was a slave owner from 1836 to 1852. The college has functioned under several different names: Saint Raphael's Seminary and later Saint Raphael's Academy (1839–1850), Mount St. Bernard's College and Seminary (1850–1873), St. Joseph's College (1873–1914), Dubuque College (1914–1920), and Columbia College (1920–1939). The present name was adopted during the school's centennial in 1939. That same year, the national Catholic honor society, Delta Epsilon Sigma was founded at the college, by Father Fitzgerald. From the time of its founding, the college has devoted its faculty and facilities to an undergraduate program; it conferred the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. In 1963, when The Catholic University of America decided to discontinue its branch program of graduate study on the Loras campus, Loras College, realizing the growing need in the locale for study beyond the baccalaureate degree, initiated its Graduate Division offering the Master of Arts degree in some fields. The College became coeducational in the fall of 1971. In 1973, the Associate of Arts and the Associate of Science degrees were introduced. The Division of Community Education was initiated in 1975.