Wagner College

Wagner College’s curriculum unites deep learning and practical application. The Wagner Plan incorporates our longstanding commitment to the liberal arts, experiential learning and interdisciplinary education with our geographical location and enduring bond with New York City.

Beginning your very first semester at Wagner, you not only study issues and learn critical-thinking, writing and problem-solving skills, but you also see and practice what you’re learning. Through Learning Communities and Reflective Tutorials led by our dedicated faculty, you get hands-on experience to the world outside the classroom.

Under the Wagner Plan, you complete a liberal arts core program and a major, totaling 36 units/courses. Students complete three Learning Communities (LC’s) — the First-Year Program, the Intermediate Learning Community, and the Senior Learning Community.

If you’re admitted to the Honors Program, courses are designed to stimulate and challenge you intellectually and to offer exceptional academic and co-curricular opportunities. Honors courses are more challenging, involve more discussion/debate, and require longer and in-depth research papers and oral presentations. The Program is affiliated with the National Collegiate Honors Council.

Wagner’s select, yet comprehensive graduate programs are offered at convenient times and provide small class settings for educational excellence. Classes are small and scheduled year-round in late afternoons, evenings, and weekends. Our faculty are superb, combining theoretical expertise with practical experience in the field. A number of graduate assistant positions and financial aid options are available to support students. All graduate applications are processed by the Office of Admissions.

Wagner’s graduate programs are committed to the “learn by doing” philosophy embodied in the Wagner Plan, based on experiential learning and interdisciplinary study. These exclusive programs strive to foster core competencies, cutting-edge technologies, and critical thinking. They remain responsive to the needs of the external community, and in turn provide the most innovative and highest caliber graduate education in the region.

The Honors Program is designed to stimulate and challenge students intellectually and to give them exceptional academic and co-curricular opportunities to work at a very high level of accomplishment throughout their undergraduate years. The Program is affiliated with the National Collegiate Honors Council.

The Wagner College Department for Lifelong Learning’s mission is to provide a welcoming, collaborative, culturally-sensitive and customer-focused environment for all college guests. It is committed to the enrichment, diversity and self-empowerment of students from ages 4 and up in vocational and avocational programs of study that promote personal, academic and social growth.

The Division of Campus Life enriches and supports lifelong learning for all students throughout their experience at Wagner College. The Campus Life mission is to encourage active participation in Wagner, New York City, and global communities while encouraging responsible, accountable leadership and creating an inclusive and respectful campus culture.

The offices in Campus Life coordinate a full array of activities and events in residence halls and through the over 60 different clubs and organizations on campus, including honors societies, sororities and fraternities, student government, and intramurals. Every student has an opportunity to get involved! During Orientation, students meet their Community Leaders who help them connect with academic and social life on campus and serve as mentors during the first semesters on campus. Becoming involved during the first semester helps students meet one another and faculty members, and provides them opportunities to contribute to their campus community.

The Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts is all about exploring, expanding your knowledge base, and applying what you are learning.

Our First-Year Program (FYP) lets you explore a common theme from different perspectives, while also going outside of class for experiential learning. You'll take three related classes with one group of students, giving you an easy way to make your first friends at Wagner. You'll engage in real-world problems and fieldwork directly linked to your coursework.

The history of Wagner begins over one hundred years ago, in 1883, with the founding of the Lutheran Proseminary of Rochester, N.Y. With just six students, housed in the second story of a private home, the school began its mission of preparing future Lutheran ministers for admission to seminary. Wagner received the name it bears today shortly after its founding. When John G. Wagner gave $12,000 to the school so that it could purchase a new campus, the grateful board of trustees renamed the school in memory of their benefactor’s son, George Wagner, who had died before realizing his own ambition to become a minister.

As the school grew in reputation and size, the New York Ministerium, a Lutheran church organization in control of Wagner since 1888, recognized the need to find a new home for the institution and placed the Reverend Frederic Sutter, one of Wagner’s first graduates, in charge of the relocation. Pastor Sutter, a lifelong supporter of Wagner College, had established his own ministry on Staten Island in 1907. Through Sutter’s efforts, Wagner College relocated to Grymes Hill on Staten Island in 1918. Pastor Sutter could not have chosen a more beautiful site for this new beginning. The new campus found a home on the 38-acre former country estate of 19th century shipping magnate Sir Edward Cunard. This breathtaking site overlooks the New York harbor, Manhattan and the Atlantic Ocean, an ideal location for the start of Wagner’s modern history.