Siena College
Former names
St. Bernardine of Siena College (1937–1968)[1]
MottoThe Education for a Lifetime
TypePrivate college
Established1937
Religious affiliation
Roman Catholic (Franciscan)
Academic affiliations
AFCU
CIC
MSA
ACCU
Endowment$139 million (2010).[2]
PresidentCharles "Chuck" Seifert
Academic staff
317
Administrative staff
150
Undergraduates3,500[3]
Postgraduates33
Location
Loudonville, New York
,
U.S.

42°43′06″N 73°45′13″W / 42.71833°N 73.75361°W / 42.71833; -73.75361
CampusSuburban, 174 acres (70 ha) [4]
Fight song"When the Saints Go Marching In"
Colors    Green and gold[5]
NicknameSaints
Sporting affiliations
NCAA Division I – MAAC
MascotBaloo "Saint" Bernard (St. Bernard Dog)
Websitewww.siena.edu

Siena College is a private Franciscan college in Loudonville, New York.[6][7] Siena was founded by the Order of Friars Minor in 1937. The college was named after Bernardino of Siena, a 15th-century Italian Franciscan friar and preacher.[8] St. Bernardine of Siena Friary is located on campus. The college has 3,000 full-time students and offers undergraduate degrees in business, liberal arts, and sciences.[4]

History

Front view of Siena Hall, one of the primary academic buildings

In the late 1930s, Thomas Plassmann, president of St. Bonaventure University in Western New York, sent seven Franciscan friars to New York's Capital Region to establish a satellite campus. They converted the family home on the Garrett estate in Loudonville into classrooms, offices, and living space for the friars. This risky new venture turned into a success when double the registered students showed up on its opening day. The converted farmhouse became so crowded that some friars had to teach in a stairwell.[9] Shortly after, a new academic building was constructed to accommodate the students.

Siena Hall was home to classrooms, laboratories, faculty and administrative offices, a library, a bookstore, a cafeteria, and a chapel. Every year, for the first four years since its opening, the student class size doubled. The gymnasium was completed in 1941 and was home to Siena's first commencement exercises. The all-male day school welcomed coeducational evening and summer courses in 1928–39. In 1942, Siena received its permanent charter from the State of New York.

During World War II, enrollment dropped drastically. It was estimated that around 1,000 Siena students and alumni served in the armed forces. Luckily for the non-traditional students and the women in the evening classes, Siena was saved from becoming a casualty of the war. In 1948, the enrollment peaked at 2,752. This allowed for the construction of a free-standing library and friary with a chapel for the college community. The college also added course offerings with master's degree programs in ten fields.

Siena added three dorm buildings and a dining facility in its third decade, transitioning from a commuter college. The student population doubled once again. A new science building opened in 1967, called Roger Bacon, after a 13th-century Franciscan who was a champion of experimental research. In 1968, the school was officially renamed Siena College. Between 1962 and 1973, Siena expanded its course offerings by adding six majors and eliminating its graduate division to focus more on undergraduate education. There have been many additions to the course list over the past 40 years.[9]

A new rugby pitch was opened in fall 2016, which is home to Siena's men's and woman's rugby teams. In the fall of 2014, a new bookstore was opened. There is apparel, merchandise, and textbooks for sale. In the same year, Siena opened its very own Grotto. This is a special place where members of the Siena community can go for prayer, contemplation, healing, and peace.[10]  The college was listed as a census-designated place (Siena College CDP) in 2020.[11] Patricia Gioia Hall opened in the fall of 2022 to serve as the welcome center for prospective students and their families when they visit Siena, as well as the college's primary admissions building.

Academics

Siena College students attend three schools within the college:

School of Business

  • Accounting
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Business Analytics

(All accredited by AACSB International)[12]

School of Liberal Arts

  • Education
  • English
  • History
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Communications
  • Social Work

School of Science

  • Nursing
  • Data Science
  • Health Studies
  • Biology
  • Chemistry and Biochemistry
  • Computer Science
  • Physics and Astronomy
  • Environmental Studies and Sciences
  • Mathematics

Student life

Student organizations

Students are involved in a number of wide, specific, academic related, recreational, leadership building, and diverse organizations and clubs or campus. There are currently 85 organizations on campus, each with their own campus, local, or national impact.

Leadership organizations

Student Senate

The Siena College Student Senate serves as a liaison between student and both faculty and administration. It works to present and to interpret students’ attitudes, opinions, and rights to the teaching faculty and administration. The Senate is charged with the oversight of clubs and the distribution of the student activities fees. While Senate does not directly control college academic or social policies, it continues to work with a group of cooperative administrators to shape them in ways that will benefit the community.

The Student Senate has an executive board including president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. The rest of the Senate is representatives, hall and town house representatives, and commuter representatives. Student Senate is the governing body for all clubs and organizations on campus.

Student Events Board

The Student Events Board (SEB) sponsors traditional types of entertainment in the form of bands, comedians, and speakers, but also presents other non-traditional events designed for Siena such as coffeehouse acts, open mic nights, Winter Weekend, Siblings Weekend, Charity Week, big concerts, as well as SienaFest. SEB also oversees and regulates the sale and distribution of goods and services of campus clubs and organizations.

Residence Hall Association

The mission of the Residence Hall Association (RHA) is to act as a governing student body; to serve as the official liaison between the residential students at Siena College with Siena College staff and administration; to strive to make Siena's residence halls and townhouses a desirable community; to be the official voice of Siena's residential students; and to serve as a programming organization within residential communities.

Athletics

Siena guard Ronald Moore dribbles toward the basket in a game against Loyola in January 2010.[13][14]

Siena offers 21 NCAA Division I sports, all of which participate in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).[15][16]

The college generally only competed against local schools in athletics until being elevated to the Division I level in 1976. At this time, Siena became a member of the ECAC, and later the North Atlantic Conference, a forerunner to the present day America East Conference. In 1990, the college moved to the MAAC where it has remained since. Siena has not always been known by its present moniker. Athletic teams were first known as the Golden Hurricanes and later as the Indians. In March 1989, the school adopted its current nickname, the Saints.

Many of Siena's athletic teams have experienced success at the Division I level. The college's most well known squad is the men's basketball team. The Saints have appeared in six NCAA tournaments, advancing to the Round of 32 in 1989, 2008 and 2009. Siena has also played in the postseason NIT five times, capturing third place in 1994. In 2014, Siena competed in their first College Basketball Invitational tournament and won the championship defeating Stony Brook, Penn State, Illinois State and Fresno State two games to one in the best-of-three championship series. The women's basketball teams has also had a recent run of success, including a trip to the NCAA tournament in 2001, and appearances in the 1999, 2002 and 2003 WNIT. They finished second in the 2015 WBI.

Another team with recent high achievement is men's baseball. The Saints advanced to the 1999 NCAA Division I baseball tournament and in 2005 saw pitcher John Lannan drafted by the Washington Nationals.[17] Lannan has since become a regular starter in Washington's rotation.[18] They also participated in the 2014 NCAA Division I baseball tournament, after winning the MAAC Championship over Canisius.

Finally, the men's lacrosse team has also improved significantly in recent years. The Saints qualified for their first MAAC tournament in 2007 and their first NCAA tournament in 2009. That season, the Saints secured an automatic berth in the tournament after winning their first MAAC championship during a ten-game winning streak.[19][20]

Siena College Research Institute

Siena College Research Institute, an affiliate of Siena College, conducts expert and public opinion polls, focusing on New York State and the United States, on issues of public policy interest.

Campus demographics

Siena College is a census-designated place (CDP) with a population of 2,281.[21]

Siena College CDP, New York – Demographic Profile(NH = Non-Hispanic)
Race / Ethnicity Pop 2020[22] % 2020
White alone (NH) 1,841 80.71%
Black or African American alone (NH) 99 4.34%
Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) 0 0.00%
Asian alone (NH) 93 4.08%
Pacific Islander alone (NH) 0 0.00%
Some Other Race alone (NH) 1 0.04%
Mixed Race/Multi-Racial (NH) 28 1.23%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 219 9.60%
Total 2,281 100.00%

Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.

Notable alumni

Siena College has approximately 28,000 living alumni worldwide, including former college president Kevin J. Mullen. In the fields of journalism and literature, notable Siena graduates include William J. Kennedy, 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner; Erich Hartmann, international award-winning photojournalist and former president of Magnum Photos; David Hepp, award-winning journalist and creator of Inside Albany and Ed Henry, senior White House correspondent for Fox News. In the fields of law and government, notable Siena graduates include Francis Bergan, former presiding justice of the New York Court of Appeals; Michael Botticelli, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; Constantine George Cholakis, former judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York; George Deukmejian, 35th governor of California; former United States representatives from New York Jack Quinn and Gerald B. H. Solomon; and Henry F. Zwack, justice of the New York Supreme Court, Third Judicial District.

Notable faculty

References

  1. ↑ "HISTORY OF SIENA". siena.edu. Siena College. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  2. ↑ Siena College usnews.com
  3. ↑ "Siena College". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  4. 1 2 "FAQs: The Facts About Siena : Siena College". Archived from the original on 2007-06-13. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
  5. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ↑ 'About Siena', Siena College website Archived 2009-03-23 at the Wayback Machine; "Siena is...located in Loudonville, New York, a suburban community just outside the state's capital."
  7. ↑ "Colonie town, New York ." U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on December 4, 2010.
  8. ↑ Siena College Mission and History Archived 2010-03-06 at the Wayback Machine - Siena College website.
  9. 1 2 "History of Siena College | Siena College (New York)". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-04-02.
  10. ↑ "The Grotto at Siena College Wins Chamber of Commerce Award for Curb Appeal". Siena College.
  11. ↑ "State of New York Census Designated Places - Current/BAS20 - Data as of January 1, 2019". tigerweb.geo.census.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
  12. ↑ "College Maintains AACSB Accreditation | Siena College (New York)". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  13. ↑ "2009–2010 Siena Saints Yearbook". Siena College. 2010. Retrieved 2010-06-22.
  14. ↑ McGuire, Mark (2010-01-22). "Streaking Siena". Times Union (Albany). Hearst Newspapers. p. B1. Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2010-06-22.
  15. ↑ "FAQs for Athletics". Siena College. Archived from the original on 2008-09-28. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
  16. ↑ "Siena Field Hockey Selected Ninth in NEC Preseason Poll". Siena College. Retrieved 2009-08-26.
  17. ↑ "Mission Statement". Siena College. Archived from the original on 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
  18. ↑ "John Lannan". Major League Baseball. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
  19. ↑ Saints Face-Off with Syracuse in NCAA tournament Archived 2009-05-11 at the Wayback Machine, Siena College, May 8, 2009.
  20. ↑ Siena College Men's Lacrosse 2009 Quick Facts (PDF), Siena College, 2009.
  21. ↑ "Siena College CDP, New York". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
  22. ↑ "P2 HISPANIC OR LATINO, AND NOT HISPANIC OR LATINO BY RACE – 2020: DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171) – Siena College CDP, New York". United States Census Bureau.
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