School:La Salle University
Contents
University Overview
La Salle University is a Catholic university in the tradition of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. To a diverse community of learners, La Salle University offers a rigorous curriculum and co-curricular experiences designed to help students gain theoretical and practical knowledge, deepen their ethical sensibilities, and prepare for a lifetime of continuous learning, professional success, and dedicated service.
As a Catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition, La Salle challenges students to contemplate life’s ultimate questions as they develop their faith, engage in a free search for truth, and explore their full human potential. As a Lasallian university, named for St. John Baptist de La Salle, patron saint of teachers, La Salle promotes excellence in teaching and scholarship, demonstrates respect for each person, nurtures mentoring relationships, and encourages authentic community.
As an urban university, La Salle invites students to enhance their academic experience by immersing themselves in the rich resources of Philadelphia and the region. All members of our community are called to maintain a heightened sensitivity to those marginalized within society as they practice civic engagement, provide leadership with a global perspective, and contribute to the common good
St. John Baptist de La Salle
De La Salle is our patron saint and is the founder of a congregation of laymen whose sole ministry is education. He was proclaimed a saint in the Catholic Church in 1900 and named the patron of teachers in 1950. He was raised in Reims, France, a son of a privileged family who gave up his wealth and status to live with the poor. During his life, he established a network of gratuitous schools for poor boys. His writings have influenced educational practice, school management, and teacher preparation for more than 300 years.
University History
Founded in 1863 in the Lower Kensington section of Philadelphia, the University is the largest and second oldest Lasallian college or university in the United States. At the time of its opening, it was Philadelphia’s only Catholic college. The college was initially established to serve the sons of immigrant populations in a religiously divided city, providing them with a quality education that helped them to assimilate into American society. The University has conferred more than 60,000 degrees. La Salle became fully co-educational in 1970 and achieved university status in 1984. It remains fully committed to the city and region with extensive community service and service learning initiatives.
Student Innovation & Entrepreneurship
La Salle University is a strong supporter of innovation and entrepreneurship. La Salle embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship by embodying the spirit on campus and in the La Salle Center of Entrepreneurship. La Salle believes that in today’s competitive economic environment, people with entrepreneurial spirits will not only succeed in their chosen careers but also will drive business creation, growth, and job opportunities for the larger business community.
Center of Entrepreneurship (LCE)
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you can find the support and inspiration you need through the La Salle Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE). Through mentoring, networking, and experiential learning, you’ll discover how to flex your innovative muscles, build leadership skills, explore the business landscape, and take measured risks to achieve your dreams. In addition, alumni and faculty will give back through mentoring as well as pursue their own entrepreneurial goals.
Open Minds Program
The Open Minds program is a 3-Day competition/ Startup opportunity for students to use and develop their innovation and entrepreneurship skills while generating ideas based on the concept of sustainability. The Open Minds Innovation Competition will be available to all students at La Salle University. This competition will yield individual cash prizes, paid internships, and winning teams will be sent to the NCIIA Open conference in Washington DC in March 2015 in addition to receiving a monetary as a group. The competition will begin in February 2015.
La Salle Enactus
Enactus is an international organization that connects student, academic and business leaders through entrepreneurial-based projects that empower people to transform opportunities into real, sustainable progress for themselves and their communities. La Salle Enactus is the premier student entrepreneurship group on campus. La Salle Enactus has lead the idea of entrepreneurship for over 15 years. In 2014, La Salle Enactus ranked Top 40 in the United States.
Guided by academic advisors and business experts, the student leaders of Enactus create and implement community empowerment projects around the globe. The experience not only transforms lives, it helps students develop the kind of talent and perspective that are essential to leadership in an ever-more complicated and challenging world.
Integrated Science, Business and Technology (ISBT) Program
Students in the Integrated Science, Business, and Technology (ISBT) Department study the process of innovation. Based on a sound framework of organizational dynamics, ISBT majors learn how new scientific discoveries develop into marketable products and services through collaborative business practices.
Large and small organizations rely on the process of research and development for the development of new products, the creation of new jobs and facilities, the increase of operational efficiency, and the reduction of waste. Traditional majors in the natural sciences, engineering, and business become experts in each of these separate disciplines. ISBT majors, however, become interdisciplinary leaders, having expert knowledge of how the natural sciences, engineering, and business divisions work together to define and solve complex problems.
ISBT majors share a common experience the first two years with courses that focus on the foundational concepts of physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and the life sciences as well as the organizational concepts of collaboration, project management, business analysis, and system dynamics. They then concentrate in one or both critical sectors of Biotechnology (BIO) or Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) that culminates in a senior thesis capstone experience.
ISBT majors use the computer throughout their studies as a tool to gather, present, and analyze data. They work in teams, in class, in the laboratory, and outside of class. Their professors encourage and support them in the pursuit internship and co-op opportunities.When they graduate, they secure positions in industry, government, and nonprofit organizations where they are recognized as analysts, problem solvers, decision-makers, and leaders.
Minor in Entrepreneurship
Obtaining a minor in entrepreneurship at La Salle helps students identify and exercise their latent entrepreneurial spirit. This minor differs from most other minors and majors in that the primary goal is not merely the acquisition of knowledge and the primary form of instruction is not lecture-based. Instead, the minor provides students with an opportunity to develop skills such as creative thinking, opportunity identification, problem solving, communication, comprehensive business planning and task execution, leadership, and collaboration.
Faculty Innovation & Entrepreneurship
The La Salle Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE) also provides support and engagement opportunities for alumni and faculty.The Center for Entrepreneurship has tailored programs that meets today business development needs. These needs may be:
- Working directly with the Center’s Executive Director and faculty on a business concept or collecting advice.
- Getting student assistance with market research, product development, business planning, or other activities.
- Accessing the extensive La Salle Entrepreneurs Network of experienced business professionals, investors, legal counsel, and providers of professional services.
The Lasallian Difference & Academic Curriculum
The Lasallian difference is personal. When you become a La Salle student, you join a community that includes teachers, scholars, and mentors who truly care about you, your academic and professional success, your intellectual and spiritual growth, and your potential to make a difference in the world. La Salle is one of six colleges or universities in the United States founded in the tradition of St. John Baptist de La Salle, the patron saint of teachers and founder of the Christian Brothers. At La Salle, you gain the skills and knowledge you need to succeed after you leave campus, and the values and traditions that will stay with you when you do.
Academic Mission (School of Business)
La Salle University’s School of Business offers educational programs that prepare students for a purposeful life by integrating Lasallian values with current business management skills. Through its faculty, curriculum, extracurricular activities, and relationships with the greater Philadelphia and national business communities, it provides a value-centered educational community as the locus for its educational programs. Within this context, the School of Business seeks to provide an appropriate blend of contemporary business theory and real-world practice, placing paramount importance on teaching and on learning enriched by scholarly research and professional activity.
The program leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in business consists of 120 credits (minimum of 39 courses) for business administration, business systems and analytics, finance, international business, management and leadership, and marketing majors, and 128 credits (minimum of 41 courses) for accounting majors. The liberal arts and science studies and business foundation courses tend to be concentrated in the first two years, and the professional studies in the last two years
Academic Mission (School of Arts & Sciences)
La Salle University’s School of Arts and Sciences offers general or liberal arts programs in science and mathematics. Within these two areas the student may further specialize in a major field of study. In the liberal arts, the Bachelor of Arts degree is offered in American Studies, Art History, the Classics, Communication, Criminal Justice, Economics, Education, English, French, German, History, Italian, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Russian, Sociology, and Spanish. Concentration in the science area may lead to a B.A. degree in Bio-chemistry, Chemistry, Computer Science, Digital Arts and Multimedia Design (DArt), Environmental Science, Mathematics, or Psychology; or a B.S. degree in Biology, Computer Science, Geology, Information Technology, Mathematics, or Integrated Science, Business, and Technology.
The School of Arts & Sciences also offers programs designed as preparation for health professions, law, public administration, teaching, social work, and work in criminal justice. The Bachelor of Social Work degree is conferred upon Social Work graduates.
Academic Mission (School of Nursing)
Nursing is an art, science, and practice profession which provides nursing services to diverse individuals and groups. Nurses value the relationships between nurses and those for whom they care. Nursing services aim at facilitating the health of people in many settings, thus fulfilling a contract between society and the profession. Nurses’ primary interests are human responses to health, illness, and healing. Nurses carry out many roles when providing nursing care and increasingly support nursing interventions based on evidence.
The nursing community at La Salle respects the shared humanity of the people they serve and recognizes the potential for healing within the person, integrating mind, body, and spirit. Students bring experiences to the learning environment while actively engaging in a transformative process of continuing development as ethical, caring practitioners. The teaching- learning environment fosters scholarship, collegiality, respect, and collaboration among learners and teachers, resulting in informed service to others and the profession.
La Salle’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing program prepares its graduates to qualify for the National Council Licensure Examination (state board nursing examination) to become registered professional nurses and to practice as members of the nursing profession. The four-year, full-time, 126-credit program leading to the BSN provides the student with a strong foundation in the liberal arts and biological sciences in preparation for 14 nursing major courses, nine of which include clinical practice components in a variety of health-care settings.
Building the Future of Lasallian Business
In 2016, La Salle University will open the new school of business. This $35 million dollar project will offer gathering places and technology-equipped breakout rooms where students can converse with faculty, other students, and business executives. Spaces are designed to facilitate the collaborative learning and teamwork environment that is necessary in today’s business world. This building will symbolize La Salle’s commitment to innovation & entrepreneurship.
La Salle University Landscape Canvas
Related Links
La Salle University Student Priorities
University Innovation Fellows
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