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Graduate Announcements > Campus Overview > The Mission Statement of the Catholic University of America > History of the University

History of the University

Established as a papally chartered graduate and research center, The Catholic University of America officially opened as an institution of higher education on Nov. 13, 1889.

The first discussion about a national Catholic university came up at a meeting of U.S. bishops — the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866.

Most Reverend John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, Ill., later became the principal champion of the Catholic University cause. In the Third Plenary Council of the Bishops, in 1884, he was able to persuade a majority that so long as they would "look rather to the multiplying of schools and seminaries than to the creation of a real University," the progress of American Catholics would be "slow and uncertain. A University," he said, "is the great ordinary means to the best cultivation of mind." A gift from Mary Gwendoline Caldwell of Newport, Rhode Island made possible the foundation of a faculty of the sacred sciences as the nucleus around which a university could develop. Seen in the context of the development of American higher education as a whole, the institution that began with the decision of the Bishops in 1884 became the principal channel through which the modern university movement entered the American Catholic community. On Jan. 26, 1885, a committee appointed by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore chose the name The Catholic University of America.

As the article in its name suggests, The Catholic University of America was founded when it was thought that for some time to come American Catholics would be able to maintain only one institution of university standing. There had been occasional demands for such an institution for several decades. Meeting in their Second Plenary Council, in 1866, the Bishops, who were interested especially in the higher education of the clergy, had expressed a desire to have under Catholic auspices a university in which "all the letters and sciences, both sacred and profane, could be taught." Although some Catholic colleges of the period had announced graduate offerings in the 1870s, they had defined them by adding courses rather than by the pursuit of investigation that graduate work is understood to entail.

New York and Philadelphia were considered as possible sites for the university, but the nation's capital, with its national symbolism and importance as a political center, ultimately was selected. Land was purchased adjacent to the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, which had been built for Civil War veterans. On April 10, 1887, Pope Leo XIII sent a letter to Cardinal James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, giving his formal approval for the founding of The Catholic University of America, and in 1887 the University was incorporated in the District of Columbia on 66 acres of land.

On May 24, 1888, the cornerstone for Caldwell Hall was laid with President Grover Cleveland as well as members of Congress and the U.S. Cabinet in attendance, and on March 7, 1889, Pope Leo XIII formally established Catholic University with his apostolic letter Magni Nobis Gaudii.

Bishop John J. Keane of Richmond, Va., was appointed rector of the fledgling institution, and when the University first opened for classes in November 1889, the curriculum consisted of lectures in mental and moral philosophy, English literature, the sacred scriptures, and the various branches of theology. At the end of the second term, lectures on canon law were added.

At the time, the modern American university was still in its infancy. The opening of The Johns Hopkins University in 1876 had marked its beginning. This institution in Baltimore was the first in the country to dedicate itself, not only to the preservation of learning and to teaching, as universities had been doing since the Middle Ages and as American institutions had been doing since the foundation of Harvard College on an English model in 1636, but also to the advancement of knowledge through research. In this it was following the example of the Prussian universities of the 19th century.

Very soon the conduct of research and the training of graduate students to carry it on became the hallmark of university status. By 1900, fourteen institutions offering instruction for the doctorate, The Catholic University of America among them, considered themselves ready to form the Association of American Universities. In 1904 The University began to offer undergraduate programs as well.

The life of The Catholic University of America has been more or less co-terminus with the movement, seen now on an international scale. A particularly visible contribution of The University to the Church in the United States and to the nation at large has been its preparation of teachers, many of them diocesan priests or members of religious communities of men and women, for service in schools, seminaries and colleges throughout the country.

The expansion of The University into the arts and sciences began with the opening, in 1895, of what were called at the time the "faculties for the laity." Three years later, the School of Law was established. A structural evolution led to a comprehensive academic reorganization in 1930. In that year, in accord with patterns that had become general in the United States, the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were established. The School of Engineering and Architecture was also a product of this reorganization.

Several professional schools have been added since the 1930 reorganization:

• The incorporation of the National Catholic School of Social Service in 1947 and the integration of the former Columbus University in 1954;
• The establishment of the School of Religious Studies in 1973;
• The merging of the College and Graduate School into a single School of Arts and Sciences in 1975;
• The return of the School of Education to departmental status in the School of Arts and Sciences in 1986;
• The re-establishment of the School of Canon Law within The University in 2002;
• The establishment of Metropolitan College as a separate school in 2006;
• The creation of the Tim and Steph Busch School of Business and Economics in 2013;
• The return of the School of Library and Information Science to departmental status in the School of Arts and Sciences in 2013;
• The return of the Department of Economics to the School of Arts and Sciences in 2018; and
• The merging of the school of music with the departments of drama and art to create The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art in 2018.

These initiatives have built our present complex of 12 Schools: Architecture and Planning, Arts and Sciences, Tim and Steph Busch School of Business, Canon Law, Engineering, Columbus School of Law, Metropolitan School of Professional Studies, Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art, Nursing, Philosophy, Social Service, and Theology and Religious Studies.

Today the private and coeducational university, committed to being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, has approximately 6,500 students enrolled in the 12 schools. All of the schools offer graduate degrees and/or professional degrees, and students can choose from 103 master's programs and 66 doctoral programs.

The University continues to be the flagship Catholic educational institution in the United States and to maintain its unique status as the bishops' university. When The University was established, its governance was delegated by the bishops to a board of trustees of members. An act of Congress in 1928 amended the original certificate of incorporation to allow, among other things, an increase in the membership of the board. Lay membership, however, was minimal until 1968.

Under bylaws that it adopted in that year, the board, which now has 49 members, has an equal numbers of clerical and lay members. The Archbishop of Washington serves ex officio as the chancellor of The University, and in this capacity, is the liaison between The University and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as between The University and the Holy See.

Since its founding, The University has been led by 16 presidents, earlier known as rectors. The current president, Peter Kilpatrick has been at the helm since July 1, 2022.

Catholic University is one of only two universities in the United States to have hosted the pope on its campus and it is the only one to have done so three times — Pope John Paul II in 1979, Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and Pope Francis in 2015. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI both used the occasion of their visit to address educational leaders gathered from around the United States.

An official statement of the aims of The University that the trustees promulgated in 1970 transmits consistently the goals of the founders of a century ago. The first rector, Most Reverend John Joseph Keane, gave succinct form to these goals when he portrayed the institution that he was chosen to head as "a living embodiment and illustration of the harmony between reason and revelation, between science and religion, between the genius of America and the church of Christ." His words have been a guide for over 125 years and will be a continuing challenge as long as The University endures.