Iona University

Iona University () is a private Catholic university with a main campus in New Rochelle, New York, United States. It was founded in 1940 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers and occupies a campus of 45 acres (0.18 km2) in New Rochelle and a campus of 28 acres (0.11 km2) in Bronxville, New York.

Iona University offers more than 60 undergraduate programs and 45 graduate programs in the School of Arts & Science, LaPenta School of Business and the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences. It also offers graduate courses in Manhattan and has 14 study abroad programs. As of academic year 2018–2019, the institution enrolled approximately 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds representing 35 states and 47 countries of origin.





== History ==

In 1919, the administrators and board members of the Iona School—a grade school founded three years earlier by the Irish Christian Brothers—negotiated the purchase of an 18-acre parcel of land in New Rochelle's Beechmont neighborhood for $85,000 from the land owner, retired Presbyterian minister Thomas Hall.

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 began to form Iona College.

In June 1940, members of the Iona School community, along with members of the school's Mothers' Club, gathered to dedicate a new science building on the school's campus—the building that the Mothers' Club has raised $100,000 to build.