Lewis & Clark College is a
privateliberal arts college in
Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in
Albany, Oregon,[4] the college was relocated to
Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Clark College after the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. It has three campuses: an undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a School of Law, and a Graduate School of Education and Counseling.
Today, the three campuses and their supporting offices occupy the 137-acre (0.55 km2) campus, centered on the
M. Lloyd Frank Estate on Palatine Hill in the
Collins View neighborhood of South Portland.
History
Like many modern American universities, the institution that would eventually become Lewis & Clark was initially intended to provide secondary as well as higher education for a specific religious community, in this case
Presbyterian pioneers in Oregon's
Willamette Valley. The Presbyterian church incorporated Albany Academy in 1858.[7]
Within a decade of its founding, Albany Academy began to focus more exclusively on higher education, changing its official name to the Albany Collegiate Institution in 1866. Lewis & Clark's official founding date comes from the current charter, which has been legally valid since the
Presbyterian church reincorporated the Albany Collegiate Institution as Albany College in 1867.[7] Unlike most Oregon colleges of the pioneer era, the college has been co-educational since the first class, which graduated in 1873. The early campus of seven acres (2.8 ha) in Albany was situated on land donated by the Monteith family. In 1892, the original school building was enlarged, and in 1925 the school relocated south of Albany, where it remained until 1937.[7]
Albany College established a junior college to the north in Portland in 1934, with the entire school moving to Portland in 1939.[7] The former campus grounds later became home to the federal government's
Albany Research Center.[8] In 1942 the college trustees acquired the Lloyd Frank (of the historic Portland department store
Meier & Frank) "Fir Acres" estate in South Portland, and the school name was changed to Lewis & Clark College.[7]
Academics
The three schools of the college include the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS),[9] the
Law School,[10] and the Graduate School of Education and Counseling.[11]
CAS major and minor programs include Studio Art, Art History, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biology, Chemistry, Chinese, Classics, Computer Science, Dance, Asian Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Ethnic Studies, World Languages, French Studies, Gender Studies, Hispanic Studies, History, International Affairs, Japanese, Latin American Studies, Mathematics, Music, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Physics, Political Economy, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Rhetoric and Media Studies, Russian, Sociology and Anthropology, and Theatre.[12]
Lewis & Clark offers approximately 34
study abroad programs in various countries. Since the 1960s, more than 60% of all Lewis & Clark undergraduates have studied abroad.[13]
Admissions profile
For the Class of 2022 (enrolling Fall 2018), Lewis & Clark received 6,139 applications, admitted 4,528 (73.8%), and enrolled 562 students.[14] For the freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% range of
SAT scores was 1230–1390, the
ACT Composite range was 27–31, and the average high school grade point average was 3.90.[14]
The 2020 annual ranking of U.S. News & World Report categorizes Lewis & Clark as "more selective" and ranks it tied for the 72nd best liberal arts college in the U.S.; U.S. News & World Report also ranked it tied for 51st in undergraduate teaching and 89th for "Best Value" among liberal arts colleges.[19]Forbes in 2019 rated it 184th in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges and 69th among liberal arts colleges.[20]Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Lewis & Clark at 66th in its 2019 ranking of 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States.[21]Money magazine ranked Lewis & Clark 585th out of 744 in its "Best Colleges For Your Money 2019" report.[22]
Campus
Campus overview
Lewis & Clark's 137-acre (0.55 km2) forested campus sits atop Palatine Hill in the
Collins View neighborhood of Portland and is contiguous with the 645-acre (2.61 km2)
Tryon Creek State Natural Area. Campus buildings include an award-winning environmentally sustainable academic building (
John R. Howard Hall),[23] as well as notable historic architecture such as the Frank Manor House (designed by
Herman Brookman) and Rogers Hall (formerly Our Lady of Angels convent of The Sisters of St. Francis).[24]
Lewis & Clark was named one of America's top ten "Most Beautiful Campuses" by the Princeton Review,[25]Travel+Leisure[26]
as well as an independent architecture blog.[27]
Residence halls
All students are required to live on campus for the first two years, excepting those already residents of Portland, those over the age of 21 before the start of the Fall term, the married, and transfer students with at least 61 credit hours.[28]
Most Lewis & Clark College residence halls are co-ed.[29] While individual rooms generally house one gender, students may opt otherwise under the college's
gender-neutral housing policy.[30]
Student life
Sustainability
Wind power provides 100% of the college's total electricity,[31] and LEED-"certified" level must be met for all of the college's projects.[32]
Lewis & Clark maintains 10 male and 11 female varsity sports teams and athletic facilities including
Pamplin Sports Center and
Griswold Stadium.[33] Lewis & Clark athletic teams are called the Pioneers, and team colors are orange and black. The Pioneers compete mainly in the
Northwest Conference against eight other
NCAA Division III institutions in the
Pacific Northwest. 17% of undergraduates are officially designated student athletes as of Fall 2021.[5] In the 2011 season, the women's cross-country team placed seventh at West regionals, with the men's team placing 13th.[34] The 2011-2012 men's basketball team lost in the NWC semifinals putting them in 4th place in the conference.[35] Additionally, the women's team of that same year placed second in the NWC[36] and made an appearance in the NCAA DIII National tournament.[37]
A large number of smaller club and intramural sports such as
Rugby[38][39] and
Ultimate Frisbee[40][41] enjoy broad participation. Lewis & Clark students have invented several intramural competitive sports, including Ninja[42] and Wolvetch,[43] which are popular at Lewis & Clark but seldom played elsewhere.
Transportation
Throughout the year the college operates a shuttle bus between campus and
downtown Portland, the Pioneer Express (also referred to as the "Pio Express" or just, "the Pio").[44]
Gordon Gilkey (1933 from Albany College), artist; dean of liberal arts at Oregon State University; curator of prints and drawings at the Portland Art Museum[63]
^Beckham, Stephen (2009). Fortune and Friendship: Lewis and Clark's Heritage Properties. Portland, Oregon: Lewis & Clark College. p. 40.
ISBN9780963086631.
^"Shuttle Services". Lewis & Clark College.
Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
^Williams, Jesse Lynch; Norris Edwin Mark (editors). "Obituary: Elbert Nevius Condit '73" in Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 1 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1900), 239.
^Bruce C. McFarland, ed. (1950).
'50 Voyageur(PDF). Portland, Oregon: The Associated Students of Lewis and Clark College. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 9 September 2015. Retrieved 21 December 2016.