Lasell University

PresidentEric TurnerStudents1,628 (2022)Undergraduates1,236Postgraduates392Location

Newton

,

Massachusetts

,

United States

42°20′29″N 71°14′36″W / 42.3413°N 71.2434°W / 42.3413; -71.2434CampusSuburban 54 acres (218,530.2 m²)Colors   Blue & whiteNicknameLasers

Sporting affiliations

ECAC, NCAA (NAC, GNAC)MascotBoomer the TorchbearerWebsitewww.lasell.edu

Lasell University (LU) is a private university in Newton, Massachusetts.

History

Lasell was founded in 1851 as the Auburndale Female Seminary by

Lasell also offered two years of standard collegiate instruction as early as 1852 and is cited as having been the "first successful and persistent" junior college in the United States.^[7] In 1932, the college changed its name to Lasell Junior College, and the school officially began offering associate degrees in 1943.^[8] In 1989, Lasell adopted a charter to become a four-year institution (it no longer offers any two-year undergraduate degrees), and began admitting male students in 1997.^[9] Lasell also began offering master's degrees in 2002.

Lasell faced controversy in 2000 when seven former students sued and claimed that the nursing program, which had been discontinued in 1999, had been a "sham."^[10] The following year, the college built Lasell Village, an elderly education facility in which residents paid to live and attend classes. Although the college argued that the property was in line with its non-profit mission and exempt from property taxes, the city successfully sued the college for not paying property taxes for the property.^[11][12]

In September 2010, a settlement was also filed in Suffolk Superior Court stipulating that Lasell would have to pay $191,314 to over 1,000 students over a

The college explored merging with Mount Ida College, another liberal arts institution located in Newton, in February 2018. The reasons given for the proposed merger were to help keep tuition cost as low as possible and maintaining academic quality.^[14]

In 2019, the institution's application to become a university was approved by the state board of education and it changed its name to Lasell University.^[15]

Academics

Lasell has been accredited by multiple agencies, including the

In 2018, U.S. News & World Report listed Lasell College among only five other colleges with having 100 percent of its graduating seniors participate in an internship experience.[20]

Master of Science in Criminal Justice Program Recognition

In February of 2024, U.S. News & World Report named Lasell University's Master of Science in Criminal Justice Program one of its 2024 Best Online Programs^[21].

Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program

In 2022, Lasell acquired the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program^[22] from Pine Manor College, where it had been hosted since 2006.^[23] Solstice is four-semester Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. In the low-residency format, students complete five 10-day, on-campus residencies and four semesters in which they work with their faculty mentors remotely from their homes. Residencies occur in January and July and start the spring and fall semesters, respectively. Solstice students may concentrate in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, comics & graphic narratives, or writing for children and young adults.^[24]

Campus

The Lasell campus covers roughly 54 acres (22 ha) in the

In 2018, of the 1,650 undergraduate students who attended Lasell, 73% lived on campus, 40% came from out-of-state, and 22% were students of color.[27] Roughly 36% of students at Lasell were male.^[28]

In Fall 2023, Lasell had 1,152 undergraduate students and 389 graduate students. The majority of both groups were white (63.28% of undergraduates, and 46.27% of graduates). The majority of both groups were also from in-state (62.2% and 63.9%, respectively). About 65% of Lasell's student population was female, and 34% male; the remainder were transgender/non-binary.^[29]

Athletics

Lasell University is a member of the

The student newspaper is called the 1851 Chronicle in reference to Lasell's founding year, and the student yearbook is called the Lamp. Polished Magazine is made by Lasell students/[33] A student-run online college radio station began operation in the fall of 2004;^[34] in 2016, the radio station began broadcasting on FM as WLAS-LP (102.9).^[35]

Notable people

Alumni

This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. (July 2023)

• Annie Montague Alexander – explorer, naturalist, paleontological collector, philanthropist
• Martha Atwood – operatic soprano
• Sarah Lord Bailey – elocutionist and teacher
• Ada Langworthy Collier – poet, writer
• Nancy Donahue – fashion model
• Elizabeth Jane Gardner – American painter
• Louisa Venable Kyle – historian, author, journalist

Faculty

• James Anderson – government defense official and academic
• Anna Barrows – pioneering woman in the field of home economics
• Todd J. Leach – president of Granite State College, began his academic career at Lasell
• domestic science
  movement in the United States, taught at Lasell from 1885 to 1889
• Florence Jepperson Madsen – contralto singer, vocal instructor, and professor of music
• George McKendree Steele – educator and Methodist minister, former president of Lawrence University
• Lucy Johnston Sypher – children's book author

References

Further reading

• ISBN 0-9619720-0-9
  .

• Official website