Seton Hall University

university, South Orange Village, New Jersey, United States
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Also known as: Seton Hall College
Quick Facts
Date:
1856 - present
Notable Alumni:
Chris Christie
Related People:
Anne Donovan

Seton Hall University, private, coeducational institution of higher education in South Orange Village, New Jersey, U.S. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic church, specifically the Diocese of Newark, and offers more than 80 undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs. Seton Hall comprises nine academic units: colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education and Human Services, and Nursing; schools of Graduate Medical Education, Diplomacy and International Relations, and Law; the W. Paul Stillman School of Business; the Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology; and University College. A doctorate in molecular biology is offered jointly with the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, which is connected to a pharmaceutical company. The Puerto Rican Institute; institutes of Jewish-Christian studies, collegiate education, and international business; and centres for archaeology are among the university’s research units. Total student enrollment is approximately 10,000.

James Roosevelt Bayley, the first Catholic bishop of Newark, established Seton Hall College in 1856, naming it for his aunt, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of the Sisters of Charity and the first saint born in America. In 1861 he founded the Immaculate Conception Seminary, based at the college. Seton Hall opened New Jersey’s first colleges of nursing (1937) and medicine and dentistry (1956); the medical and dental college was acquired by the state in the mid-1960s. When Seton Hall was organized into a university in 1950 it comprised divisions of arts and sciences, business, nursing, and education; the law school opened in 1951. The university became wholly coeducational in 1968. Seton Hall is one of the oldest and largest diocesan Catholic universities in the United States.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.