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Former names | List
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|---|---|
| Motto | Repulsae Nescia[1] |
Motto in English | Ignorant of Defeat |
| Type | Private university |
| Established | 1851; 174 years ago (1851) |
| Endowment | $55.6 million (2022) |
| President | Eric Turner |
| Students | 1,628 (2022) |
| Undergraduates | 1,236 |
| Postgraduates | 392 |
| Location | , Massachusetts ,United States 42°20′29″N71°14′36″W / 42.3413°N 71.2434°W /42.3413; -71.2434 |
| Campus | Suburban, 54 acres (218,530.2 m2) |
| Colors | Dark and light blue |
| Nickname | Lasers |
Sporting affiliations | NCAA Division III (ECAC,GNAC) |
| Mascot | Boomer the Torchbearer |
| Website | lasell.edu |
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Lasell University (LU) is aprivate university inNewton, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1851 as a women's seminary. It became a college in 1932, a four-year institution in 1989, coeducational in 1997, and a university proper in 2019. The campus spans 54 acres and is located in the village ofAuburndale.
Lasell offers bachelor's, master's, and graduate degrees in several disciplines. The university participates inNCAA Division III athletics, as well as having a student newspaper, a student yearbook, and a student-run radio station.
Lasell was founded in 1851 as the "Auburndale Female Seminary" byWilliams College Professor of Chemistry, Edward Lasell, after he took a sabbatical from his job inWilliamstown to teach at theMount Holyoke Female Seminary inSouth Hadley,[2] where the experience inspired him to invest more personally inwomen's education. He died oftyphoid fever during the first semester, but his school proved highly successful as a first-rate educational institution and was soon renamed "Lasell Female Seminary" in his memory.[3]
Its name later changed to "Lasell Seminary for Young Women", and in 1874, governance was given to a board of trustees and Principal Charles C. Bragdon.[4] Bragdon further expanded the faculty to make Lasell renowned as a more academically rigorous institution, a prestigious school with a highly scientific approach todomestic work,art, andmusic.[2] As an innovative institution, known for a radical approach to women's education at the time, Lasell also administered the Harvard exams and offered law courses for women.[2][5][6]
Lasell also offered two years of standard collegiate instruction as early as 1852 and is cited as having been the "first successful and persistent"junior college in the United States.[7] In 1932, the college changed its name to "Lasell Junior College", and the school officially began offeringassociate degrees in 1943.[8] In 1989, Lasell adopted acharter to become afour-year institution (it no longer offers any two-year undergraduate degrees), and began admitting male students in 1997.[9] Lasell also began offeringmaster's degrees in 2002.
Lasell faced controversy in 2000 when seven former students sued and claimed that the nursing program, which had been discontinued in 1999, had been a "sham."[10] The following year, the college built Lasell Village, an elderly education facility in which residents paid to live and attend classes. Although the college argued that the property was in line with its non-profit mission and exempt from property taxes, the city successfully sued the college for not paying property taxes for the property.[11][12]
In September 2010, a settlement was also filed in Suffolk Superior Court stipulating that Lasell would have to pay $191,314 to over 1,000 students over aconflict of interest in theirFinancial Aid Department. The investigation was done by the office ofAttorney GeneralMartha Coakley.[13]
The college explored merging withMount Ida College, another liberal arts institution located in Newton, in February 2018. The reasons given for the proposed merger were to help keep tuition cost as low as possible and maintaining academic quality.[14]
In 2019, the institution's application to become a university was approved by the state board of education and it changed its name to Lasell University.[15]
Lasell has been accredited by multiple agencies, including theNew England Commission of Higher Education,[16] and offersbachelor's degrees in theliberal arts and professional disciplines.[17] Through its "Connected Learning" program, students work on off-site projects and assignments.[18] Lasell also offers graduate degrees in education, communication, sport management, athletic training, criminal justice, human resources, marketing, management (MS and MBA), and rehabilitation science.[19]
In 2018,U.S. News & World Report listed Lasell College among only five other colleges with having 100 percent of its graduating seniors participate in an internship experience.[20]
In February of 2024, U.S. News & World Report named Lasell University's Master of Science in Criminal Justice Program one of its 2024 Best Online Programs.[21]
In 2022, Lasell acquired the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program[22] fromPine Manor College, where it had been hosted since 2006.[23] Solstice is four-semesterMaster of Fine Arts program increative writing. In the low-residency format, students complete five 10-day, on-campus residencies and four semesters in which they work with their faculty mentors remotely from their homes. Residencies occur in January and July and start the spring and fall semesters, respectively. Solstice students may concentrate in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, comics & graphic narratives, or writing for children and young adults.[24]
The Lasell campus covers roughly 54 acres (22 ha) in theNewton, Massachusetts, village ofAuburndale, adjacent to theLasell Neighborhood Historic District. There are approximately 58 buildings, 27 of which are studentdormitories.[25] The campus is roughly bounded by Grove St to the west, theWoodland Golf Club to the south, Washington St (Route 16) to the east, andCommonwealth Avenue (Route 30) and Central St to the north. Woodland Rd cuts east-west through the middle.[26]
The campus is located about half a mile from theAuburndaleCommuter Rail station on theFramingham/Worcester Line, and about one mile away from theRiverside MBTA Station on theGreen Line's D train, which takes commuters into thedowntown Boston area. A shuttle runs regularly between the campus and Riverside Station.[27]
In 2018, of the 1,650 undergraduate students who attended Lasell, 73% lived on campus, 40% came from out-of-state, and 22% were students of color.[28] Roughly 36% of students at Lasell were male.[29]
In Fall 2023, Lasell had 1,152 undergraduate students and 389 graduate students. The majority of both groups were white (63.28% of undergraduates, and 46.27% of graduates).
The majority of both groups were also from in-state (62.2% and 63.9%, respectively). About 65% of Lasell's student population was female, and 34% male; the remainder were transgender/non-binary.[30]
Lasell athletics teams are nicknamed theLasers. The university is a member of theNational Collegiate Athletic Association'sDivision III. The Lasell Lasers compete as members of theEastern College Athletic Conference and theGreat Northeast Athletic Conference[31] inbaseball,basketball,volleyball,soccer,cross-country,field hockey,softball,lacrosse, andtrack and field asintercollegiate varsity sports.[32]
In 2009, amascot was introduced: Boomer the Torchbearer, named for the industrialists who sponsored Lasell's founding.[33] Among the school'sclub sports, women's and men'srugby are popular. There areintramural sports such as flag football in the fall, as well as basketball in the winter.
The student newspaper is called the1851 Chronicle in reference to Lasell's founding year, and the student yearbook is called theLamp.Polished Magazine is made by Lasell students.[34] A student-run online college radio station began operation in the fall of 2004;[35] in 2016, the radio station began broadcasting onFM asWLAS-LP (102.9).[36]
 | This article's list of alumnimay not follow Wikipedia'sverifiability policy. Pleaseimprove this article by removing names that do not have independentreliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this articleand are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriatecitations.(July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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