By Philip Newman
St. John’s University, founded in Brooklyn and flourishing in Queens, has come to Manhattan after 130 years in a merger with The College of Insurance at a new campus within sight of the towers of Wall Street.
In a ceremony last Thursday that included both a welcome to Manhattan and a spiritual blessing by Edward Cardinal Egan, Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, St. John’s officially opened its fifth campus.
“This is a historic moment in St. John’s University history,” the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, president, said in an address before an audience of St. John’s trustees, educators, Roman Catholic officials and friends of the 130-year-old university.
“We have long had as one of our strategic goals a Manhattan presence. As we welcome The College of Insurance, its students, faculty and alumni into the St. John’s University community, we enrich the academic possibilities for all our constituencies.”
He said “the combination of two highly respected business curricula with the rich resources of both St. John’s and TCI will provide tomorrow’s business leaders and with the tools they need to be a success.”
Under the merger agreement, Ellen Thrower, president of The College of Insurance, becomes president of the School of Risk Management of the university’s Tobin College of Business.
The 10-story building that becomes St. John’s new home in Manhattan was built in the mid-1980s. It is located at 101 Murray St. near the Hudson River, almost directly west of City Hall and close to the Financial District.
The origins of the College of Insurance reach back to the dawn of the 20th century when prominent insurance leaders decided a formal insurance education program for young professionals was needed.
The School of Insurance, established in 1947, received its New York state charter in 1962 and became the College of Insurance, accredited by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges. At the time of the merger, the private college had 600 full-time and part-time students.
Students at the Manhattan campus will be candidates for undergraduate, graduate and professional business degrees.
St. John’s University, which has 18,600 students at its five campuses, including its main facility at 8000 Utopia Parkway in Jamaica, was first established in Brooklyn in 1870 by Vincentian priests. It is the nation’s largest Roman Catholic university and also has campuses on Staten Island, in Oakdale, L.I., and in Rome.
The university has expanded its Jamaica campus in recent years, adding new dormitories to accommodate the school’s first residential students.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
