Siena College - Saga Yearbook (Loudonville, NY)

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These students, few in number in comparison with today's enrollment, were greeted by a solitary brick farmhouse surrounded by forty acres of rich Newtonville farmland. Every collegiate foundation is important but these ninety men were greeted by seven Franciscan Friars of the Most Holy Name Province, who had one idea in mind, - namely, to give these students and the thousands more to come after them a Catholic collegiate education. Until June 20, 1938, when the cornerstone of Siena Hall was laid, the College operated under the Charter of St. Bonaventure's College of Alleghany, New York. Upon their return to the college in October of 1938, the original ninety members of the college discovered that the enrollment had in- creased to 250 students and that classes were now being taught in a new partially completed building of Georgian-Colonial architecture. The scholastic year of 1940-1941 is noteworthy in the annals of the school. The enrollment of the institution at this time soared to new heights. There were 989 students in the day and evening divi- sions of the college. Completed in September of 1941, Siena Hall was built on a firm foundation of trust in the Divine Will of Almighty God. The permanence of the young college was recognized when on March 20, 1942, the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York granted Siena a permanent Charter. The college has as its primary purpose, the development of the individual. This development is three fold; it is the mental, moral, and physical molding of the character of the whole christian man and not just one segment of him. In order to develop the man physically, on December 20, 1940, the cornerstone of the gymnasium was laid. The brick edifice was named for the Most Reverend Edmund Francis Rev. Colman Dunne, O.F.M. Guardian of The Friary