Lewis & Clark College

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Lewis & Clark is a private institution with a public conscience, a residential campus with global reach. Students and faculty throughout all three of Lewis & Clark’s schools—the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, and the Law School—pursue new ways of knowing by combining classic liberal learning with pioneering collaboration.
Our students represent the next generation of global thinkers and leaders, unafraid to discard conventional thinking, civic complacency, and outmoded preconceptions. Yet they value what Lewis & Clark offers: an education built from the time-tested elements of careful study, original research, and spirited debate.
So what makes the experience of our students unique? How about the inspiring beauty of our natural setting, on 137 wooded acres in Portland’s southwest hills. Or our rich history and our diverse, multicultural present. Or our commitment to interdisciplinary academic learning, as well as community engagement here in Portland and around the world.
Add to this our well-stocked libraries, award-winning green buildings, outstanding athletic facilities, our implementation of technology and the innovative research it allows, and above all, our committed and engaged students, teachers, mentors, staff, alumni, donors, and friends. It all adds up to Lewis & Clark, a place where agile minds come to learn, to explore, and to work together.
At Lewis & Clark, we believe that people learn best and flourish the most when encountering perspectives, people, backgrounds, and experiences other than their own. The mission of Lewis & Clark is to know the traditions of the liberal arts, to test their boundaries through ongoing exploration, and to hand on to successive generations the tools and discoveries of this quest. By these means, the institution pursues all liberal learning aims: to seek knowledge for its own sake and to prepare for civic leadership.
Lewis & Clark carries out this mission through undergraduate programs in the arts and sciences and postgraduate programs in the closely related professions of education, counseling, and law. Lewis & Clark mounts these programs as both separately valid and mutually supportive enterprises. In all its endeavors, it seeks to be a community of scholars who are alive to the inquiry, open to diversity, and disciplined to work in an interdependent world.
Lewis & Clark is a private college with a public conscience and global reach. Here you will work with some of the world’s most fascinating people and learn more about yourself in the process. But do not just take our word for it: See what student bloggers have to say. Check out our challenging academic programs. Schedule a visit. Explore for yourself what we have to offer.
Here is nothing like the feel of a college campus and few environments compare to ours! See what makes the L&C community special. Oregon Private College Week is a great time to visit this summer.
Our students prize their relationships with nationally recognized professors, graduate-level research opportunities, and life-changing overseas programs. With abundant options and personal support, our students pursue their academic interests in Portland and worldwide.
Lewis & Clark offers 29 majors and 27 minors and ideal preparation for careers in engineering, law, medicine, business, entrepreneurship, and teaching, among other professions. We also offer 30 overseas and off-campus programs, which have been recognized in U.S. News and World Report as among the best in the nation. The foundation for a Lewis & Clark education is Exploration and Discovery, our unique first-year core course. Through this two-semester experience, our students establish a common foundation in the world’s enduring questions and modern methods of analysis and discovery.
Lewis & Clark’s journey from pioneer vision to higher education's premier institution began in 1867, 60 miles south of present-day Portland. In that year, the Presbytery of Oregon secured a charter from the state legislature. The church partnered with Albany's town to fund and build a two-story building on the town’s College Square site, and a school was born.
In 1966, almost 100 years after Albany Collegiate Institute was chartered, Lewis & Clark and the Synod of Oregon agreed to sever their formal bonds. While affirming its historical ties to the Presbyterian Church, Lewis & Clark became an independent institution with a self-perpetuating board of trustees. Today, as global thinkers and leaders, Lewis & Clark students, faculty, alumni, and staff thrive as they explore new ways of knowing, develop innovative collaborations, and strengthen civic leadership. In doing this, they embrace and promote the shared objectives that draw the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, and the School of Law to a joint endeavor, and that form Lewis & Clark’s official motto: Explorer, Discere, Sociare (to explore, to learn, to work together).
Lewis & Clark College honors the liberal arts tradition as a learning community committed to diversity and inclusion. The Office of the Dean of Diversity and Inclusion educates, advocates, promotes, and engages the Lewis & Clark community in diversity, equity, and inclusion to foster and support a multicultural, multi-religious, multi-identity college community where all feel challenged to venture from their comfort zone, feeling supported and a part of the college community, as they grow and learn.

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