Iona College (New York)
Iona College is a private Catholic college in New Rochelle, New York. It was founded in 1940 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers and occupies a campus of . Iona College offers more than 60 undergraduate programs and 45 graduate programs in the School of Arts & Science and the LaPenta School of Business. The college also offers graduate courses in Manhattan and has 14 study abroad programs. As of academic year 2018–2019, the institution enrolled approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds representing 35 states and 47 countries of origin. History. In 1919, the administrators  and board members of the Iona School – a grade school founded three years earlier by the Irish Christian Brothers – negotiated the purchase of an 18-acre parcel of land in New Rochelle's Beechmont neighborhood for $85,000 from the land owner, retired Presbyterian minister Thomas Hall. In 1940, the idea of the college's founding community of Brothers was to start a small, affordable college for the sons of New York's working class. At the time, the Christian Brothers taught in seven high schools in the Archdiocese of New York, including Iona Prep, All Hallows, Rice High School , and Power Memorial. They recognized that many of their graduates could not afford the cost of local universities, and so began to form Iona College. In June 1940, members of the Iona School community, along with members of the school's Mothers’ Club, gathered to dedicate a new science building on the school's campus – the building that the Mothers’ Club has raised $100,000 to build. It was there that they learned that just one day prior, not only had permission been granted to form Iona College on the same campus as the Iona School, but that the college  would be commandeering the new science building for its own. The building would be named Cornelia Hall after the first president of the new Iona College. On September 19, 1940, Iona College opened its doors with nine Christian Brothers and six lay faculty greeting the first class. The Christian Brothers named the college after Iona, the island monastery of St. Columba [in Irish: St. Colmcille] located off the west coast of Scotland. Columba founded the monastery in 563 AD. The Congregation of Christian Brothers was itself founded in 1802 by Edmund Ignatius Rice in Waterford, Ireland. Previous to opening in  New York, the brothers taught at Saint Mary's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They had been brought in from Bonaventure College in Saint John's, Newfoundland. They operated the Halifax institution until 1940 when they were given a tearful sendoff after a run-in with the new archbishop, John T McNally. In fall 1941, Iona College began its academic year with 121 freshmen and sophomores, but America's entry into World War II caused Iona's small enrollment to decline by the year's end. Only three members of the entering class went on to receive BA degrees in  August 1944. When World War II concluded, returning veterans, helped by the GI Bill and attracted by Iona's practical majors, soon stretched the college to capacity. In 1948, 71 men graduated; by 1950, the number was up to 300. In June 1966, Iona College issued diplomas to its first graduate students – which included two clergymen who earned their master's in pastoral counseling. By 1968, the college conferred its first MBA degrees. Three years later, the college, which was traditionally male, welcomed its first freshmen class that included women, officially making the college fully co-educational. Approximately 200 women , one-quarter of the freshmen class, registered that semester. Prior to this point, female students had been part of campus in graduate programs, summer classes, and cross-registration agreements with neighboring traditionally female institutions. In 1989, Elizabeth Seton College of Yonkers, New York, a two-year junior college, merged with Iona College, becoming the Elizabeth Seton School of associate degree Studies within the college. The program existed until 1995, when Iona College reevaluated and reaffirmed its mission to be a four-year institution, and the Seton School of Associate Degree Studies was closed. In 2011, Iona College stated that it  had reported inflated figures from 2002–2011 about "acceptance rates, SAT scores, graduation rates, and alumni who give annually" in a bid to influence college rankings. Afterward, an internal audit office was established to ensure data integrity. On January 28, 2021, the presidents of Concordia College and Iona announced that the Concordia campus would be acquired by Iona College forming part of a new Bronxville campus. Iona and Concordia made a teach-through agreement allowing most Concordia students to finish their degrees at Iona. Academics. The college is divided into two main academic units: a school of arts and science and  a business school. Through it 22 academic departments, the School of Arts & Science offers more than 40 BA, BS and BPS degrees and more than 25 master's degrees, as well as several non-degree certificate programs. Iona's School of Business offers degree programs leading to the Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting, business administration, finance, information systems, international business, management and marketing. The school also has a fast track MBA program, which is geared toward people who want to gain an edge in their chosen field. The Fast Track MBA shaves 10 months off the length of traditional  MBA programs by offering courses in a sequence that guarantees a speedy graduation. The Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation was established in 2017, thanks to the $15 million gift to Iona from alumnus and Trustee Chairman James Hynes and his wife, Anne Marie. Iona's study abroad program offers 14 different cultural immersion opportunities: Accreditations. Iona College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Several specific programs and units are accredited by specialized accreditors: Campus. Academic lecture halls at Iona College include Murphy Center, McSpedon Hall, Arrigoni Center, Doorley Hall, Cornelia Hall, Amend Hall, Ryan Library  and Hagan Hall. More recent additions to the campus include the Robert V. LaPenta Student Union, the expanded Hynes Athletic Center, the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, the residence hall in the heart of campus, East Hall, and the North Avenue Residence Hall. Hynes Athletic Center hosts training centers for the college's Division 1 teams in addition to the 2,611-seat multi-purpose arena which hosts year round activities. The Iona College Libraries hold over 250,000 volumes and multimedia resources as well as 500 current print periodicals. In addition the libraries provide access to thousands of electronic resources and  journals for both on and off-campus users. Iona became the first metro-New York college with a completely wireless Internet campus in September 2001. Residence Halls. Loftus Hall. Loftus Hall, designed to house first-year students only, is a 10-floor building. Each floor has six suites of two bedrooms (a double and a triple), one handicapped room which houses two people, and the RA (resident assistant) room. Loftus has a small computer lab, a kitchen, a laundry room, a quiet meditation room, a study lounge, and a vending lounge/game room. Conese and Hales Halls. Conese Hall (formerly  North) and Hales Hall (formerly South) were built in 2005. Both have six floors, with four rooms on each floor: one suite of seven and three suites of 10. Each suite has two bathrooms, a small kitchenette, and a common room/living room type arrangement. North Hall was renamed to Conese Hall at Homecoming 2008, October 4, 2008, to acknowledge a $5 million gift to the college from Anna May and Eugene P. Conese. In April 2017, South was renamed in recognition of Alice Marie and Thomas E. Hales ’58, ’04H for their leadership commitment to the "Iona Forever