Hamline University: A Saint Paul Institution With Deep Minnesota Roots

Hamline University is a private university in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with an institutional history reaching back to 1854. The school was founded during the period when Minnesota was still a territory and was named for Leonidas Lent Hamline, a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Hamline identifies its place in state history through a specific distinction: It was the first university in Minnesota to hold classes and award degrees. The University of Minnesota had received its charter three years earlier, in 1851, but Hamline says its own classroom and degree-granting activity came first. That history informs the university’s self-description as Minnesota’s first university.

The institution began as a coeducational school. Its early development was supported by a $25,000 contribution from Bishop Hamline, whose interest in the frontier helped fund the creation of an institution of higher learning in Minnesota. A statue of Hamline, created by sculptor Michael Price, stands on the university’s campus.

Hamline is one of five institutions in the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities. The university’s academic community includes undergraduate and graduate students; figures cited for 2017 list 2,117 undergraduates and 1,668 graduate students. Those numbers offer a snapshot of the school’s enrollment at that point, rather than a current enrollment count.

The university also became the subject of broad public criticism in 2022 after it dismissed an adjunct professor. The dispute followed the professor’s use of paintings depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in a course focused on the history of Islamic art. The episode placed questions about classroom material, religious representation and academic decision-making at the center of public discussion about the institution.

For Saint Paul, Hamline represents both a long-standing local institution and a place where debates about education and cultural expression can become part of the wider civic conversation. Its history includes an early role in Minnesota higher education, a continuing connection to the Methodist tradition through its namesake and a campus presence within the Twin Cities’ network of colleges.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5893132/the_ogden_standardexaminer/ - https://www.hamline.edu/education/undergraduate.html - https://www.hamline.edu/education/ - https://www.hamline.edu/cla/bfa/ - https://www.hamline.edu/undergraduate/admission/ - https://www.hamline.edu/about/virtual-tour/klas-center/ Image rights Photograph description: Old Main at Hamline University , in Saint Paul, Minnesota Creator: Eoin. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOld_Main_(Hamline).JPG. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.