Hamline University

Quick facts Location, Coordinates ... University Hall-Old Main, Hamline University U.S. National Register of Historic Places University Hall-Old Main from the north Location 1536 Hewitt Avenue Saint Paul, Minnesota Coordinates 44°57′57″N 93°09′55″W Built 1883 Architect Warren H. Hayes Architectural style Ruskinian Victorian Gothic NRHP reference number "}]]}">No. 77000767 [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Added to NRHP September 22, 1977 Close Red Wing location (1854–1869) Hamline was named in honor of Leonidas Lent Hamline , a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church whose interest in the frontier led him to donate $25,000 toward the building of an institution of higher learning in what was then the territory of Minnesota. Today, a statue of Bishop Hamline sculpted by Michael Price stands on campus. Founded as a coeducational institution , Hamline was among the first coeducational universities in the United States. [ 14 ] Hamline's first home was in Red Wing, Minnesota . The school's charter stipulated Hamline be located "at some point on the Mississippi between St. Paul and Lake Pepin". The city of Red Wing pledged about $10,000 to enable construction of a building and the beginning of an endowment, and donated a tract of land on a hillside overlooking the Mississippi River . [ 15 ] Chartered in 1854, Hamline University is the second oldest university in Minnesota, and the first coeducational university in the state, graduating its first collegiate class in 1859. [ 5 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] The first classes at Hamline were held in rooms on the second floor of the village general store while the construction of the classroom building was in progress. Students moved into the Red Wing building in January 1856. The original building contained a chapel, recitation rooms, a school room, a library, laboratory, reading rooms, and dormitory quarters. Seventy-three students enrolled at Hamline in its opening year.

The catalog lists them separately as "Ladies" and "Gentlemen", but most of them were children or adolescents, and all were enrolled in either the primary or the preparatory department. There was no collegiate division in 1856—this area of the frontier had not yet produced students ready for college. Tuition per term ranged from $4.00 to $6.66. With the start of the American Civil War , enrollment in the college division dropped from 60 to 16 in one year, and there was no graduating class in 1862. Records indicate that 119 Hamline men served in the Union armies during the war. In 1869, the university shut down. The first building at the Red Wing site was torn down in 1872. [ 18 ]

In the autumn of 2012, Hamline students and faculty protested the school's refusal to condemn the proposed Minnesota constitutional amendment that would have banned equal marriage rights for all citizens. Hamline's attempt to stay neutral on the issue was seen as inconsistent with the university's anti-discrimination policy and its espoused values of diversity and inclusiveness, [ 47 ] as well as with its United Methodist heritage and identity, since the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church had voted to publicly oppose the amendment. [ 48 ] [ 49 ] In June 2014, Hamline's adjunct professors voted to form a union as part of the SEIU , making Hamline the first private university in Minnesota where adjunct faculty formed a union. [ 50 ] On July 1, 2015, Fayneese Miller became the first African American to be the President of Hamline University and the second woman to hold that office. [ 51 ] Teacher fired over Muhammad art One of the images shown, depicting an angel and Muhammad In October 2022, a few students—led by the president of the university's Muslim Students Association 's chapter—accused an adjunct professor of harboring " Islamophobia " for showing paintings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in a class on the history of Islamic art. [ 10 ] The professor had informed the students of the nature of the images in the syllabus issued at the beginning of the semester, provided trigger warnings for days before the class, and even provided a disclaimer right before displaying the slides, allowing students to skip the particular lesson. [ 10 ] [ 52 ] Despite these, the students chose to attend the lesson, mainly motivated by the unusual trigger warning.

[ 52 ] Notwithstanding an apology from the professor to the students and the entire class, the university administration declined to renew her contract and, a month later, publicly characterized her use of the paintings as "undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful, and Islamophobic", and "unacceptable". [ 10 ] In the next few days, while the Dean of Students classified the professor's teaching as "an act of intolerance", President Fayneese Miller cautioned all Hamline employees that "respect for the observant Muslim students should have superseded academic freedom." [ 53 ] Academics criticized Hamline's approach to academic freedom and their understanding of Islam as a monolith which was uniformly condemning the paintings, ignoring that Muslim rulers commissioned them; art historians characterized the paintings to be an indispensable component of any lesson on Islamic art history. [ 10 ] [ 54 ] Free speech groups have taken a similar stance— PEN America labeled the termination as "one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory", [ 10 ] while th e Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression circulated a letter in support of the instructor; it amassed over 400 signatures from faculty members of American and international institutions. [ 55 ] Scholars have also highlighted how the increasing commercialization of higher education with little security for adjunct faculties allowed for such firings. [ 56 ] [ 57 ] [ 58 ] In addition, prominent Muslim advocacy organizations, including the Council on American–Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council , issued statements rejecting charges of Islamophobia against the professor. [ 59 ] In January 2023, the professor sued the university for religious discrimination and defamation; [ 60 ] shortly after, President Miller withdrew her accusations of Islamophobia and acknowledged error in subordinating academic freedom to mainstream Islamic norms.