[citation needed] SLU's athletic teams compete in the NCAA Division I as a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Its first location was in a private residence near the Mississippi River in an area now occupied by Gateway Arch National Park within the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

[citation needed] In 1827 Bishop Dubourg placed Saint Louis College in the care of the Society of Jesus.

[8] According to William Faherty, the first Jesuit president of St. Louis College, Peter Verhaegen, was a key leader in building Catholicism in the West from his arrival 1823 to his death in 1853.

At this time, the founders forced enslaved Black Americans from their St. Stanislaus Seminary in Hazelwood to labor at the university.

[16][17] In 1852 the university and its teaching priests were the subject of an anti-Catholic novel, The Mysteries of St. Louis, which was written by newspaper editor Henry Boernstein.

[19] Lindell's Grove was the site of the Camp Jackson Affair, which had occurred only a few years prior to the university's purchase.

[20] During the early 1940s, many local priests, especially the Jesuits, began to challenge the segregationist policies at the city's Catholic colleges and parochial schools.

[21] After the Pittsburgh Courier, an African-American newspaper, ran a 1944 exposé on St. Louis Archbishop John J. Glennon's interference with the admittance of a black student at the local Webster College,[22] Fr.

Claude Heithaus, professor of Classical Archaeology at Saint Louis University, delivered an angry homily accusing his own institution of immoral behavior in its segregation policies.

[23] By summer of 1944, Saint Louis University had opened its doors to African-Americans, after its president, Father Patrick Holloran, secured Glennon's reluctant approval .

The decision by the university to sell its hospital to Tenet Healthcare in 1997 met much resistance by both local and national Church leaders but went ahead as planned.

[28] In 2015, the Catholic SSM Health system assumed operation of Saint Louis University Hospital.

[29] In 2022, Saint Louis University sold its medical practice, SLUCare, to the SSM Health System as well.

[42] In the fall of 2020, the university opened a new, 90,000-square-foot, three-story building featuring "innovative teaching environments and flexible lab spaces.

Scott Hall was bought and renovated by the university between 2012 and 2013, as the law school had outgrown its former site on SLU's midtown campus.

[46] The building contains 80 labs that are used in the development of vaccines and in research initiatives studying cancer, liver disease, and other health conditions.

The arena replaced Enterprise Center as the university's primary location for large events, notably commencement celebrations and varsity sports.

[50] As part of the university's First Year Experience (FYE) program, students are required to live on campus for their first four semesters at SLU, unless they are a commuter from the St. Louis metropolitan area.

[52] Built between 1888 and 1894 by architect Thomas Walsh, who also designed DuBourg Hall, the church was the first English-speaking parish in the city of St.

Notable recipients of the award include Salman Rushdie, E.L. Doctorow, Joan Didion, and R. Buckminster Fuller.

One of only nine Catholic universities with a "higher" or highest" research activity designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, SLU's current research spans science, technology, law, and the humanities and is funded by the federal government, private foundations, and partnerships.

[72] In 2018 became home to the Saint Louis University Research Institute, established through a $50 million gift from Rex Sinquefield and his wife, Jeanne.

[78][79] The free speech watchdog group FIRE ranks SLU as a "warning" school due to its history of censoring both left and right wing speakers that disagree with the administration.