Iona College (New York) - History

History

Founded in 1940 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, Iona College is a private, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of American Catholic higher education. In 1989, Elizabeth Seton College of Yonkers, New York merged with Iona. Iona College completed renovations of their Ryan Library, and the library was fully operational by the beginning of 2009's fall semester.

Iona College opened its doors in 1940, with nine Christian Brothers and six lay faculty greeting the first class. The Christian Brothers named the College after Iona, the island monastery of St. Columba located off the west coast of Scotland. Columba founded the monastery in 563 AD. The Congregation of Christian Brothers was itself founded in 1802 by Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice in Waterford, Ireland.

In 1940, the idea of the College's founding community of Brothers was to start a small, affordable college for the sons of New York's working class. At the time, the Christian Brothers taught in seven high schools in the Archdiocese of New York, including Iona Prep, All Hallows, Rice High School, and Power Memorial. They recognized that many of their graduates could not afford the cost of local universities, and so they started Iona.

Iona started small, and shrank further after the U.S. entered World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. For example, the fall of 1943 began with 94 students, but the spring term ended with fewer than 40. Only three members of the entering class went on to receive Bachelor of Arts degrees in August, 1944. Returning veterans, attracted by Iona's practical majors like Accounting (and their tuition underwritten by the G.I. Bill), soon stretched the College to its limits. Seventy-one men graduated in 1948 and 300 in 1950.

Guiding the College through its tenuous start and sudden growth were two gifted Presidents: Br. William Barnabas Cornelia (1885–1955) and Br. Arthur Austin Loftus (1904–1979). One a native of Dublin, the other a native New Yorker, they helped Iona expand and prosper throughout the middle of the 20th century.

In 2011, Iona College admitted that it had reported inflated figures from 2002–2011 about "acceptance rates, SAT scores, graduation rates, and alumni who give annually" in a bid to influence college rankings.