| 1886 |
| The institution now known as Aquinas College starts its
life as the novitiate normal school of the Dominican Sisters
of Marywood. |
| |
| 1931 |
|
The novitiate
normal school changes its name to Grand Rapids Catholic
Junior College, the first co-ed Catholic college in
the United States. GRCJC continues at its downtown Grand
Rapids campus on Ransom Ave. until... |
| |
| 1940 |
| GRCJC grows
into the four-year college called Aquinas College. |
| |
| 1945 |
| The Dominican
sisters purchase the former Lowe estate on Fulton Street
in Southeast Grand Rapids and move the college to its
current location. |
| |
| 1960's-1970's |
| Aquinas College
becomes a leader in adult continuing education, all
the while building and maintaining its reputation as
a premiere Catholic liberal arts college. |
| |
| 1980's-1990's |
|
Further expansion
and growth of the campus, adding East area buildings,
Ravine apartments, soccer field, graduate programs.
|
| |
| 2000+ |
| Aquinas College
enters the 21st century ready to meet the challenges
of the new millennium. |
| |
| This web site is maintained
by the Aquinas College Historical Commission
whose mission is to preserve and promote the college's
history. The site is divided into sections which provide
a decade-by-decade snapshot of the college's growth and
its traditions. |
| No history of an institution that is over one hundred years old can be complete, and this web site can only highlight what seemed, to the editors and members of the Aquinas College Historical Commission, to be highlights and interesting sidelights of our heritage and traditions. |
| |
| Contact us: |
| We encourage alumni, former staff and faculty, and friends of the College to browse through these pages and to contact us with their own stories of Aquinas College. We are seeking further archival material, especially photos from the 1970's and 1980's, an era when college yearbooks went out of fashion and were not produced regularly by students. If you would like to talk with us about donating material to the archives, or would like to loan us materials for electronic scanning, please contact the Aquinas College Archivist. |
| |
|
Navigating "Heritage and Traditions": |
| This web site is arranged conveniently in a decade-by-decade timeline accessible through any page. You can browse through our history chronologically or you can link directly to the decades in which you are interested. |
| We hope you enjoy this scrapbook of memories and history, and we encourage you to contact us with your comments. |
| |
| Credits & Acknowledgements: |
| Web page project coordinator and text editor: Gary Eberle |
| Members of the Web page committee:
Sr. Jean Milhaupt O.P. '45, archivist; Chuck Frydrych
'63; Dick Sedlecky '51; Dr. Jason Duncan; Kelli Herm '05;
Katy Moore McAvoy '01; Dr. Norbert Hruby; Tony Nolan '66;
Rene Palileo '98. |
| Special thanks to Chad Buzckowski of the Library Media department for help in scanning images, to Katy Moore McAvoy for Web page content inputting, and Erika Brown for the design and layout of these pages. |
Special thanks to Peter Wege for underwriting past projects of the Aquinas College Historical Commission. |
| Special thanks to Brad Vedders for the digitalization of the audio
clips and ITS for help in scanning and converting the audio links from "Historically Speaking." |
