Founded in 1846 as the nation's first Benedictine college, Saint Vincent College ranks as a first-tier National Liberal Arts College (US News and World Report).
More than ever, colleges must ask: what is our role in preparing young people for the future of work and for building a society of shared responsibility, values and justice?
At Saint Vincent College, faculty, students and staff learn to walk the walk, but never alone. You learn that only when we can lift up human dignity can we move the world forward.
Saint Vincent College is an educational community rooted in the tradition of the Catholic faith, the heritage of Benedictine monasticism and the love of values inherent in the liberal approach to life and learning. Its mission is to provide quality undergraduate and graduate education for men and women to enable them to integrate their professional aims with the broader purposes of human life. The programs, activities and encounters that make up student life at Saint Vincent College encourage the intellectual gifts, professional aptitudes and personal aspirations of students to mature harmoniously.
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The Rule of St. Benedict — a timeless 1,500-year-old book — reminds us that personal success finds meaning only when we come together to build a stronger and more inclusive society.
As Benedictines, we define hospitality as having the right approach to how we treat one another — as simple as checking in on a classmate or as transformative as rethinking long-held assumptions.
Saint Vincent faculty see value in delivering an education that asks students to perform at their best. Bearcats distinguish themselves each time they pass a test, master a skill and expand their views to see a new perspective.
College is a time to share between students, faculty, alumni and friends. We gather (for Mass in the Basilica, hikes in the mountains, weekend trips to the city) to celebrate art, beauty and love in our daily life.
Saint Vincent College attracts young people seeking a balanced mix of professional success and durable purpose and meaning. We graduate top scientists, teachers, health professionals, corporate executives, engineers, lawyers, doctors and other leaders.
Called "the greatest American Missionary of the Nineteenth century" by many, Boniface Wimmer started life as the son of tavern keepers in Bavaria. After studying law and theology and becoming an ordained priest at 22, he left Germany and founded Saint Vincent College as the first Benedictine Monastery in the United States at age 37. He welcomed hundreds of aspiring priests and inspired a self-sufficient community that ground its own flour, raised its own crops, mined its own coal and brewed its own beer – and founded another 10 Benedictine Abbeys across the US, along with 152 Roman Catholic Parishes and numerous schools.
Even after co-founding Genentech in 1976, the world’s first billion-dollar biotech company, Herb Boyer preferred the quiet of his research lab to corporate spotlight. After earning bachelor's degrees in biology and chemistry from Saint Vincent College, a Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh and spending three post-graduate years at Yale University, his lab at City of Hope National Medical Center described the first-ever synthesis and expression of a peptide-coding gene. In 1985, Genentech received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to market its first product – a growth hormone for children with growth hormone deficiency – and the first recombinant drug to be manufactured and marketed by a biotech company. Saint Vincent College named the Herbert W. Boyer School of Natural Science, Mathematics and Computing in 2007.
Using puppets, music, guests and a world of make believe, Fred Rogers honored both the inner and outer lives of children – tackling issues of race, grief, anger and divorce with poise and candor never before seen on television. His groundbreaking preschool series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood began at local PBS station WQED in 1968 and remained on-air and relevant for over three decades. By the end of his life, he had engaged, delighted and consoled millions of children and adults around the world – a legacy continued by the Fred Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College, where a new generation of educators, media creators and students imagine how to inspire children to thrive as confident, competent and caring human beings.
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After ending a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Coast Guard, Arnold Palmer won the U.S. Amateur Golf Tournament in 1954 and met Winifred (Winnie) Walzer, his future wife of 45 years. He left his job selling paint and turned pro. By the end of the decade, he would be called the first superstar of American televised sports. Palmer's plainspoken nature and modest small-town roots shattered golf’s privileged facade and made him an American folk hero. In a career spanning over six decades, Palmer won 62 PGA Tour titles including seven major titles. The legacies of Arnold and Winnie Palmer live on through environmental education and conservation at the Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve, adjacent to the Saint Vincent College Campus.
Whether he was serving as longtime owner and president of the Pittsburgh Steelers or co-founder of the peace-promoting Ireland Funds or later in life, United States Ambassador to Ireland, Dan Rooney largely avoided public attention. As he did with most relationships, Rooney steadily and quietly deepened a bond between the Steelers and Saint Vincent College that began in 1966. Over many seasons and six Super Bowl championships, the Steelers and Saint Vincent College union became a model partnership between a professional sports franchise and Benedictine stability. Elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000, Rooney is credited with challenging NFL teams to increase hiring diversity among head coaches and general managers.