Sacred Heart University

Sacred Heart University (SHU) is a private Catholic university in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1963 by Walter W. Curtis, Bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Sacred Heart was the first Catholic university in the United States to be staffed by the laity.

Sacred Heart is the second-largest Catholic university in New England, behind Boston College. It offers more than 80 degree programs to over 8,500 students at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels.

Sacred Heart University was founded in 1963 by Walter W. Curtis, Bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport on the grounds of the former Notre Dame Catholic High School. The university is led and staffed by the laity independent and locally oriented. The founding president was William H. Conley. Former American ambassador and Diplomat Thomas Patrick Melady served as president of the university from 1976 to 1986.

Enrollment has risen from the original class of 173 to over 10,500 full and part-time undergraduate and graduate students, and the faculty has increased from 9 to 281 full-time professors and over 520 adjunct professors since 1963.

In 1990, Sacred Heart built the first dorms, and began accepting residential students. It now has 10 residential buildings with 50 percent of the full-time undergraduates residing in university housing.

The university has 32 varsity teams that compete in Division I. In 1997, The William H. Pitt Health and Recreation Center was opened.

In 1981, then-United States vice president George H. W. Bush received an honorary degree from Sacred Heart.

In 2006, Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, made a financial gift to the university and a College of Business was named after him.