St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf II of Norway and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

As of 2025, the college had 3,124 undergraduate students and 326 full and part-time faculty members. The campus, including its adjacent natural lands, is west of downtown Northfield, Minnesota. Northfield is also the home of its neighbor and friendly rival, Carleton College. Between 1995 and 2020, 154 St. Olaf graduates were named Fulbright Scholars and 35 received Goldwater Scholarships.

History

Seal and motto

The seal of the St. Olaf College displays the coat of arms of Norway, which includes the axe of St. Olaf.

The motto Fram! Fram! Kristmenn, Krossmenn, written in New Norwegian, is adapted from the Old Norse battle cry of King Olaf. It means "Forward! Forward! Men of Christ, Men of the Cross".

Founding

thumb|150px|left|[[Herman Amberg Preus, (1825–1894), a key figure in organizing the Norwegian Synod]]

Many Norwegian immigrants arrived in Rice County, Minnesota, and the surrounding area in the late 19th century. Nearly all were Lutheran Christians, and desired a non-secular post-secondary institution in the Lutheran tradition that offered classes in all subjects in both Norwegian and English. The catalyst for St. Olaf's founding was the Reverend Bernt Julius Muus; he sought out the help of N. A. Quammen and H. Thorson. Together they petitioned their parishes and others to raise money to buy a plot of land on which to build the new institution. The three received around $10,000 in pledges, formed a corporation and bought land and four buildings (old Northfield schoolhouses) for the school. Muus came under scrutiny after a divorce case revealed extensive acts of domestic abuse. He fell out of favor with many of his predecessors, but the school did not officially denounce his abuses.

St. Olaf's School opened on January 8, 1875, at its first site under the leadership of its first president, Thorbjorn N. Mohn, a graduate of Luther College. Herman Amberg Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, laid the foundation stone of the St. Olaf School on July 4, 1877. In 1887 the Manitou Messenger was founded as a campus magazine and has since evolved into the college's student newspaper, now called the Olaf Messenger. 1887 was also the year that the first female St. Olaf graduate, Agnes Mellby, joined the college. Mellby graduated in 1893. She was the first woman to graduate from a Norwegian Lutheran college in the United States. On June 20, 1889, the school's board of trustees renamed the school St. Olaf College.

In 1932, Red Wing Lutheran Seminary was merged into St. Olaf and its Red Wing campus was closed. The Seminary was an independent academic institution from 1879 to 1932.

Financial crisis

In 1893, St. Olaf faced severe economic difficulties. A national economic depression caused enrollment to drop from a high of 147 in 1892 to 129 in 1893. Also in 1893 the Norwegian Synod voted to cut ties with the college, greatly reducing its income. By the August 1893 board meeting, the college was $10,000 in debt. Ytterboe spent six years traveling the Midwest and was highly effective at fundraising, averaging $6,500 per year, mostly in small donations of a dollar or more from farmers and private individuals. By 1897, the debt was reduced to less than $4,000, and in 1899 the synod reinstated the college. Historians of the college widely regard Ytterboe's and Mohn's efforts as having saved the college from extinction.

Scarlet fever epidemic

Following students' return from Christmas vacation in 1903, an epidemic of scarlet fever broke out on the campus and quickly spread. Twenty-eight out of St. Olaf's approximately three hundred students came down with the highly infectious disease. With no local hospital, the north wing on the third floor of the Men's Dormitory was used as a makeshift hospital and staffed with two nurses who worked tirelessly to contain the spread of the disease.

1918 Spanish flu pandemic

At the beginning of the spread of the Spanish flu to the United States, St. Olaf went into voluntary quarantine in hopes of avoiding the epidemic, allowing students to leave campus only for emergencies once they had obtained a pass. The first cases on St. Olaf's campus occurred on November 11, 1918, and shortly thereafter the college hospital was filled to capacity. Ytterboe Hall was converted into a hospital for the sick once the temporary beds in Hoyme Chapel had filled. St. Olaf officially closed for the year on December 7, due to a rapid rise of influenza cases. Four students died from flu complications.

St. Olaf during the Second World War

At the beginning of World War II, St. Olaf was not directly involved with the conflict, with the extent of wartime activities including Red Cross drives and a “Bundles for Britain” project. But by the fall of 1942, over 400 undergraduates and alumni were serving overseas. The campus was also ordered to house 600 U.S. Naval recruits for flight training, leading to the conversion of Mohn and Ytterboe Halls from women's dormitories to housing for naval servicemen. Students living in Ytterboe and Mohn Halls were required to move to Agnes Mellby Hall to accommodate the naval personnel.

Connections with Norway

King Olav visited the college in 1987 and King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway visited in 2011. Queen Sonja visited the college's campus again in 2022 as part of a tour to celebrate the connections between Norway and Minnesota's Norwegian-American community. She participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Special Collections vault at Rølvaag Memorial Library.

Presidents

St. Olaf has had 12 presidents since its founding:

  • Thorbjorn N. Mohn, 1874–99
  • John N. Kildahl, 1899–1914
  • Lauritz A. Vigness, 1914–18
  • Lars W. Boe, 1918–42
  • Clemens M. Granskou, 1943–63
  • Sidney A. Rand, 1963–80
  • Harlan F. Foss, Ph.D., 1980–85
  • Melvin D. George, Ph.D., 1985–94
  • Mark U. Edwards Jr., Ph.D., 1994–2000
  • Christopher M. Thomforde, D.Min., 2001–06
  • David R. Anderson, Ph.D., 2006–23
  • Susan Rundell Singer, Ph.D., since 2023

Church affiliations

right|thumb|150px|1912 stained glass window honoring St. Olaf in the college chapel

  • 1874–87 Norwegian Synod
  • 1887–90 Anti-Missourian Brotherhood
  • 1890–1917 United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America
  • 1917–60 Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • 1960–87 The American Lutheran Church
  • 1988–present Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Campus

Known as "The Hill", St. Olaf College's campus is home to 17 academic and administrative buildings, 29 student residences and 10 athletic facilities. St. Olaf is a residential college; 96% of St. Olaf students reside in one of the 11 residence halls and 18 academic and special interest group houses. Adjacent to campus are of restored wetlands, woodlands, and native tall grass prairie owned and maintained by St. Olaf, and a utility-grade wind turbine that supplies up to one-third of the college's electrical needs.

Two buildings on the campus are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Old Main, designed by Long and Haglin; and Steensland Library, designed by Omeyer and Thori. In 2011, Travel+Leisure named St. Olaf one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.

Edward Sövik, a liturgical architect and St. Olaf professor of art until his death in 2014, designed or assisted in the design of 20 campus buildings.

Notable buildings

Center for Art and Dance

The Center for Art and Dance is a collaborative project with offerings from the art, art history, and dance departments. It houses the Flaten Art Museum and studio spaces dedicated to painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, wood sculpture, digital media, photography, and a metal foundry, all named after alumni and educators who contributed to the development of each discipline. The Flaten Art Museum was founded as the Steensland Art Gallery in 1976. In 2002, it was moved to the Center for Art and Dance and renamed to honor Arnold Flaten, a past professor of art, and his family. The museum has a collection of regional, national, and international works and exhibits these as well as faculty and student work.

The building underwent significant remodeling in the early 2000s and was initially dedicated as the Dittmann Complex, honoring Reidar Dittmann. Dittmann was born in Norway in 1922, and spent the better part of his youth working with the Norwegian resistance against the rising Nazi regime until his imprisonment in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After his immigration to the United States, Dittmann joined St. Olaf's faculty as a professor of art and Norwegian in 1947. In 1952 He and Ansgar Sovik co-founded the International Studies program, now known as the Office of International and Off-Campus Studies. The building is dedicated to 1893 alumna Agnes Theodora Mellby, the first woman to graduate from St. Olaf. Born in Christiania, Norway in 1870, Mellby immigrated with her family to the U.S. in 1871 and settled in New Richland, Minnesota. After finishing her Academy (1891) and College (1893) studies at St. Olaf, she returned as the Dean of Women and an educator that fall, affectionately known as the Preceptress by those she worked with. Mellby taught English, German, geography, U. S. History, civics, and math, firm in her resolve to see to the well-being of St. Olaf's female population regarding education and housing. She held her position from 1893 until 1909, and continued to work with the college after retiring until her death in 1918.

Agnes Kittelsby Hall

In 1956, Agnes Kittelsby Hall was constructed with rooms for 164 women as an adjacent wing to the Gertrude Hilleboe Hall. It was an all-women's dormitory until St. Olaf residence halls became co-ed. The building is named after Agnes Kittelsby, St. Olaf class of 1900. Like many St. Olaf alumnae, Kittelsby taught various subjects at the college after her graduation. In 1914, she moved to China and established American School Kikungshan, a school for the children of American missionaries.

Thorson Hall

Thorson Hall was constructed as a men's dormitory in 1948. It was one of four dormitories constructed in the 1940s and 1950s to address an increase in enrollment after World War II. The building is named after Harald Thorson (1841–1920), an early benefactor of the college. A businessman, Thorson owned farms, sold horses and mules, and established banks. He was instrumental in establishing St. Olaf's School (as it was first named), choosing the initial plot of land and authorizing the first payment for it. He later served as a member of the original Board of Trustees. Thorson's will bequeathed most of his estate to St. Olaf under the stipulation that the money be used for the construction of a new building, Thorson Hall.

Academics

Curriculum

Before graduating, St. Olaf students complete 15–18 required courses in general education credits, including courses in writing, a foreign language, society, religion, ethics, mathematical reasoning, race, social science, and natural science. Many of the courses are interdisciplinary. St. Olaf offers 47 different majors for the bachelor of arts degree, five for the bachelor of music degree, and 20 areas of concentration, which are pursued independently of majors. Its most popular majors by department are:

  1. Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science
  2. Biology
  3. Economics
  4. Psychology
  5. Chemistry
  6. Political Science
  7. Music
  8. Environmental Studies
  9. Kinesiology
  10. Art and Art History

The student-to-faculty ratio as of the 2024–25 academic year was 11.8 to 1.

The Paracollege lasted for 31 years, from 1969 to 2000, and was an individualized, interdisciplinary option for obtaining the Bachelor of Arts degree. The Paracollege program emphasized student-centered education through workshops, colloquia, tutorials, seminars, and senior concentrations. It was replaced by the Center for Integrative Studies, which allows students to design individual majors.

Admissions

According to the St. Olaf College Common Dataset for the class of 2024, St. Olaf received 5,229 applications, accepted 2,656 (50.8%), and enrolled 727. The middle 50% range of SAT Composite scores for the class of 2024 was 1160–1370, while the ACT Composite range was 25–32. Of the 37% of enrolled first-year students who submitted high school class rank, 39% were in the top tenth of their high school classes and 69% ranked in the top quarter. The average high school GPA was 3.68.

Rankings

The 2025 annual ranking by U.S. News & World Report rates St. Olaf tied for 50th among 211 "National Liberal Arts Colleges", 11th "Best Value Schools", and tied at 23rd for "Best Undergraduate Teaching".

Forbes in 2019 rated St. Olaf 116th overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking of 650 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges, and 50th among liberal arts colleges.

Washington Monthly ranked St. Olaf 28th in 2022 among 203 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

St. Olaf was ranked 47th for liberal arts colleges on Payscale.com's 2016-17 list of highest-paid graduates.