Adelphi University
With a mission to serve Long Island, the New York metropolitan region, and the nation, Adelphi University is currently offering degrees in arts, sciences, humanities, business, education, nursing and health maintenance, social welfare, and clinical psychology. Founded in 1896, it is the first institution offering higher education on Long island.  

Adelphi University’s history dates back to the founding of Adelphi Academy. Incorporated in 1869, the Adelphi Academy was originally a private preparatory school. The Academy’s Board of Trustees was charged with establishing a top-class institution for the broadest and most thorough training. It soon gained a reputation for its innovative curriculum and early childhood education which was made accessible to the largest number of people.

In the beginning, Adelphi’s first classes were held in a building in Brooklyn, also housing Adelphi Academy. Charles H. Levermore was appointed as the head of the Academy in 1893 - an integral moment in Adelphi’s history. Realizing the city of Brooklyn lacked luster for arts and had no liberal arts college, Dr. Levermore seized the opportunity to establish Adelphi College.

Later, through the efforts of Timothy Woodruff, former Lieutenant Governor of New York State, Adelphi College, with 57 students and 16 instructors, was granted a charter on June 24, 1896. From that point on, degrees issued bore the seals of Adelphi College and were signed by the officers of the College as well as by the University. However, the Academy remained intact yet separate from the College for the next 25 years.  Over the next 100 years, the institution underwent significant changes. For more than three decades following 1912, Adelphi served only women. In 1929, Adelphi shifted to its present location, occupying 75 beautifully landscaped acres in Garden City, New York.

Realizing the pressing need for nurses created by the United States’ entry into World War II, the College established a new school in 1944 named Adelphi’s School of Nursing. At the opening ceremony of two federally funded residence halls for women at Adelphi, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt addressed to ‘The Challenge of Nursing for Young Women Today’. The School soon became one of the largest college-units of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps, graduated 500 nursing students within just five year.

After another decade of expansion, Adelphi was granted university status by the Board of Regents in 1963. By the 1970s, the Garden City campus had expanded from its original three buildings to 21 buildings on 75 acres, including the Leon A. Swirbul Library. The Leon A. Swirbul Library is a fully computerized collection of over 1.7 million volumes and microformat and audiovisual items.

Adelphi Today
Today, Adelphi University’s schools and programs include the College of Arts and Sciences; the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies; the Honors College; the School of Business; the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education; the School of Nursing; the School of Social Work; and Adult Academic Programs in University College. While focusing its diverse resources on the needs of its students, Adelphi also seeks to serve its people through the research and practice of its faculty.  

At present, 1,261 full and part-time faculty members are serving a student body of over 8,300 undergraduate and graduate degree candidates on the main Garden City campus.  Adelphi is also focusing on strengthening of ties between the professional schools and community and the staging of distinguished cultural events at its campuses. Uniting the diverse liberal arts and professional programs is the Adelphi’s shared tradition of academic innovation as well as a common philosophy of education and lifelong learning.