Aquinas College history

They arrived in Grand Rapids in 1889, incorporated as the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, and unanimously elected Sister Mary Aquinata to lead them as Mother Superior.

In 1910, they established the novitiate normal school to which Aquinas College traces its beginnings.

By 1914, over 300 sisters who had been trained at the Novitiate Normal School are teaching in 38 parochial schools in Michigan, and run academies in Traverse City, Essexville, and Grand Rapids.

In 1922, the sisters' newly created college for lay women merged with the normal school.

In order to provide professional preparation for the sisters, the Congregation established St Cecilia Normal School in 1928.

In 1929, the St Cecilia Normal School became the first institution of its kind to be affiliated with The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

In 1931, it was reorganized as Catholic Junior College, transferred to a site on Ransom Street adjacent to the Grand Rapids Public Library, and became the first Roman Catholic college in the United States governed by women religious to become coeducational.

In 1939 Catholic Junior College added a third year to its curriculum.

The College began to operate as a four-year institution in 1940.

In 1944, the first Aquinas College prom is held.

In April, 1945, Father Bukowski announces the College’s move.

Students form a chapter of the Dominican Tertiaries (3rd order), and plan construction of the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (dedicated May, 1950). The money for the shrine was raised by students and alumni in memory of the Aquinas community members who died in World War II.

The first new residence halls built on campus since the 1960's provide apartment-like housing for upper-division students, allowing them to live on campus but in apartment-like dwellings rather than traditional residence halls.

The first students in the fall of 1961 included 50 nursing students from St Thomas School of Nursing, 13 sisters, and five lay women.

Marie Celeste Miller, O.P., the college undertakes a major redesign of the General Education component of the bachelor's degree program. It is first major curriculum redesign since the 1970's.

The College welcomed its first freshman class in 1971, and it has remained faithful to its founding mission ever since.

In 1977 the college was accredited to award its first graduate degree, the Master's of Management in business, which was distinct from the conventional Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree awarded by other institutions because it was primarily based on the humanities and not mathematics.

St Thomas Week began in 1987 as a project of the self-named Committee on New Traditions.

In the 1990's, Bocian led his teams to three consecutive baseball state championships in addition to winning his 1,000th game.

(Above) In 1992, benefactor Ralph Baldwin donates $30,000 to create an astronomical observatory on the roof of Albertus Hall.

In 1993 the college awarded its first doctorate degree, albeit honoris causa.

In 1994, thanks to another gift by Baldwin, an 18" Meade telescope is installed in the observatory building and "First Light" is celebrated.

Alpha Sigma Lambda, honor society for continuing education students, has its first initiation in Bukowski chapel. (At left) Aquinas College students of color visit the nation's capital in 1995 for a national conference.