The College
Lafayette is an independent, coeducational, residential college of approximately 2,000 students and 175 faculty members. Chartered in 1826, the College has grown in academic stature: mare than two-thirds of its students graduated in the top 10th of their secondary school classes. It has also grown physically. Today, there are 52 buildings on the 110-acre campus, centered around the 350,000-volume David Bishop Skillman Library. The newest building, the Morris R. Williams Center for the Arts, is scheduled for completion in the fall of 1983.
Lafayette has received national recognition for its exemplary alumni support, and its endowment figure of about $70,000,000 (as of January 1981) placed it in the top 2 percent of the nation's colleges in endowment per student.
A college in the truest sense of the word, Lafayette is exclusively an undergraduate institution with all programs and departments united. There is one administration, one faculty, one student body and one basic educational approach, but it offers a range of academic and extracurricular opportunities that rivals or exceeds those of many universities. In 1866, Lafayette became the first private college to incorporate engineering into an existing arts and sciences curriculum. The combination of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering is today a distinctive feature that sets Lafayette apart from other small undergraduate colleges.
The learning environment at Lafayette is characterized by a student body engaged in a wide range of academic pursuits and a faculty whose primary commitment is teaching. About one-half of the student body majors in the humanities and social sciences, while the other half specializes in the natural sciences and engineering.
Lafayette students may pursue the bachelor of arts degree in 24 majors or the bachelor of science degree in 10 fields.. in addition, there are 19 “course clusters”-- informal concentrations in specific interest areas such as Judaic studies, public power and policy, and urban studies-- as well as three interdepartmental majors, a program of studies in computer science and a five-year program that leads to two baccalaureate degrees. Beyond the traditional classroom experience, many students elect to collaborate with their professors in advanced research; enroll in one of several interim Sessions abroad offered each January; arrange internships with local businesses, government agencies and media; and prepare original theses to qualify for departmental honors.
More than 85 percent of the teaching faculty hold doctoral degrees, and many have earned wide recognition and financial support for their research and scholarship. Full professors and heads of departments, as well as junior faculty members, teach both introductory and advanced classes and advise students on an individual basis. Since most classes are small (the median class size is 18), students have frequent opportunity to interact with their professors.
With almost all students living on campus, the College is committed to providing a full range of student activities. Lafayette sponsors varied cultural activities including a concert series that brings professional performers to campus, a lecture series and a prestigious annual poetry festival. Direct student participation and responsibility sustains such activities as the Jazz Ensemble, Concert Choir, Little Theatre and Fine Arts Film Series. Nearly 60 clubs represent all areas of student life: musical, academic, religious, athletic, recreational and community/college service. Besides supporting 21 intercollegiate sports for men and women, the College offers a full program of organized intramural competition. Student groups, such as the Marquis Planning Board, residence hall units, fraternities, sororities, and the McKelvy Scholars House, provide activities that also complement the educational experience.
The Alumni Association
Lafayette graduates hold positions of leadership in virtually every major profession. Many of the College's 16,450 alumni have made significant contributions within their fields. Each year the Lafayette College Alumni Association recognizes publicly the outstanding professional achievements of some of these graduates.
Alumni of Lafayette reside in every state in the union, ranging from a lone alumnus in North Dakota to seven in Alaska, 22 in Hawaii, 590 in California, and 4,178 in Pennsylvania. Over 200 other alumni live and work in 66 countries on every continent. Complementing this geographical diversity is the equally wide variety of professional fields in which alumni work. Examination of a selective sampling of Lafayette alumni reveals that 25 percent of them are engaged in manufacturing; 10 percent in education; 8 percent in health services; 7 percent in government; 6.5 percent in legal services; 6 percent in business services; and 5 percent each in finance, merchandising and insurance.
The Alumni Association promotes the welfare of the College and encourages fellowship among its members. Forty-seven percent of them contributed $2,232,000 to Lafayette during 1980-81. in addition, the Alumni Association and the Admissions Office coordinate the activities of several hundred alumni on the National Schools Committee. These persons assist the College in identifying qualified high school students.
Social, cultural and educational gatherings of alumni are held each year on campus during a fall Homecoming Day and at the spring Reunion Weekend. Also, some 35 regional alumni clubs sponsor activities in locales ranging from New England to Florida and west to California. More than 50 class organizations plan other functions.
Undergraduates serve on several committees of the national Alumni Association, including the Executive Committee, thereby helping to facilitate cooperation and communication between alumni and have the opportunity to gain at first hand information about numerous career fields. The College provost surveys recent graduates to learn their attitudes toward their experience at Lafayette. These responses are helpful in evaluating faculty performance.
Through the Lafayette Alumni Quarterly magazine and the Lafayette Alumni News tabloid, both published by the Association, alumni are kept informed about the College, its people, its programs and one another.
The Lafayette College Alumni Association is a vigorous and vital organization of graduates, varying from those who were in College last year to those who studied more than 60 years ago.
~ Lafayette College 1981/82 Alumni Directory, Pages v & vii
