Office of the President

Welcome to the Saint Leo University website. The pages throughout this site will give readers a sense of what it is like to study, teach, or work at Saint Leo, and why we feel so blessed to be here.

We are a marvelously complex institution, defined by a series of paradoxes.

We are young, as a university, for instance. It is only since 1999 that we have used the word university instead of college in our name. But we are old—founded in 1889, the oldest Catholic college or university in Florida. And older still are the traditions of the Catholic Benedictine order that founded academic institutions such as Saint Leo to establish communities bound together by faith, study, and work. This Benedictine wisdom dates back 1,500 years, and still guides us today.

We are small in our preference for class sizes, with an average student to teacher ratio in University College of 14 to 1. But we are large in influence and enrollment, serving more than 15,000 students in 2011, most of them working adults enrolled through Continuing Education Centers.

We are traditional, in that we are a liberal arts-based institution committed to the classic educational pursuit of teaching students to think critically, read deeply, and write clearly. Yet we also are entrepreneurial in our desire to master and use new teaching technologies. Saint Leo has long been regarded as a leader in online education. And we also are attuned to society's increasing need for well-prepared professionals, so we strive to offer new, academically rigorous programs such as a business degree with a specialization in logistics or our new graduate level educational specialist degree.

While we are clearly Catholic, we are also universal. Saint Leo is open to students of all faith traditions and individuals of good character who share our core values.

We are local, and yet global. Our University Campus is a landmark in our rural central Florida community, just north of Tampa. It is an idyllic setting for our traditional age-college students. But we are also to be physically found in teaching locations on community college campuses in Florida and on military bases and in corporate parks in seven states. As important, we are technologically available to students across America and all around the globe through our online learning resources, including students on active duty in the military.

In short, Saint Leo University is a wonderful learning community. I hope you will enjoy spending time on this website to get to know the university better.

Sincerely,

PresidentKirkSignature

Arthur F. Kirk, Jr.
President

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