Saint Mary’s College of California 

Saint Mary ‘s College, California, is a private Catholic college in Moraga, California. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and administered by the Christian Brothers of De La Salle.

Saint Mary’s is grounded in the liberal arts and the life and work of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, the 17th-century founder of the Christian Brothers. The brothers and the Lasallian spirit they embody are the guiding light for everything they do. 

The college was founded in 1863, one of the oldest schools in the West, to educate the children of early San Francisco’s working class. Today, with their feet-planted family in the 21st century, they remain faithful to their beginnings, with more than a third of their students the first in their families to go to college.

Inclusive excellence is a core principle of a Lasallian education. They believe that everyone should have access to a quality education. While they are selective, choosing applicants for their academic performance, they also look for spirit and drive.

With small classes, challenging academics, a community of passionate learners and world-class faculty focused on teaching, you simply can’t hide and you really won’t want to. So much awaits students ready to explore and build their own successful lives.

Saint Mary’s education is built around Collegiate Seminar which links more than the great ideas of the world’s greatest thinkers. It unites students, professors, and the Great Books in a true intellectual discourse.

Their student’s drive to excel academically goes hand in hand with their passion for improving the lives of others. Compassion and social justice are integral to a Lasallian education. 

There are four schools in Saint Mary’s: the School of Liberal Arts, the School of Science, the School of Economics and Business Administration, and the Kalmanovitz School of Education. Saint Mary ‘s College is a liberal arts institution, with a majority of undergraduate students at the School of Liberal Arts. The most popular major, however, is the business administration. This is followed by Psychology, Communications, Kinesiology and Accounting. The average class size is 19 and the student faculty ratio is 13:1. 91 per cent of classes are taught by a full-time faculty, of which 95 per cent have the highest degree in their field. There are 40 academic majors, with the option of creating your own major.Most Saint Mary’s faculty are required to teach six courses per year (three per semester).

In the last few years , the School of Science has grown as a result of a new science building, Brousseau Hall, which has made the college more attractive to students wishing to become a major in life sciences.

St Mary’s is unique in the creation of the Liberal Education for Arts Professionals program or the LEAP programme. LEAP is designed to offer professional dancers a track to a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree through an individualized and comprehensive liberal art curriculum. Classes are offered in San Francisco , New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas to meet the needs of a broad community of arts professionals.

Their highly accomplished creative and performing arts programs and their outstanding Museum of Arts are vibrant, varied, and highly relevant to contemporary concerns. Here, the arts are grounded in the Liberal Arts, where interdisciplinarity and collaboration bring diverse students and faculty together around the big questions of human existence and the pressing issues of their day, producing performances and exhibitions that prompt wonder, curiosity, and impassioned response. Visit their welcoming and walkable campus for a concert, dance performance, exhibit, or play, and you’ll want to come back for more. Explore the programs and events highlighted below to learn more about Saint Mary’s Arts.