Saint Peter's University

Its mascot is the peacock and its sports teams play in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, of which it is a founding member.The college granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree to Martin Luther King Jr., in 1965, and was the first Jesuit school to do so.Cornacchia retired in June 2024, and Hubert Benitez was named the 23rd President of Saint Peter's University as of July 1, 2024.In 2008, Saint Peter's was awarded a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to create the Center for Microplasma Science and Technology.[15] In March 2012, the college was granted the university designation by the New Jersey State Secretary for Higher Education and would thus change its name.[18] In 2014, the university opened a center for undocumented students, providing them a safe space and mentoring, a resource library, legal support, and advice for them and their families about deportation defense and immigration issues.The renovation was secured through a $5 million lead gift from alumni and former basketball player Thomas P. Mac Mahon.Mac Mahon, a 1968 graduate of Saint Peter's, and a member of the Saint Peter's University Board of Trustees, decided to honor his former 1967–68 teammates by naming the renovated space the "Run Baby Run Arena" after that team's nickname for its high-scoring offense.[23] The university includes the following schools and college: The university also has an honors program[24] and a School of Professional Studies for adult-learners providing education in certain concentrations such as in business, education, criminal justice, computer science, and others, allowing enrollment in periodic full-time, part-time, and on-line classes.[25] The university offers more than 50 areas of study including STEM, business, education, nursing, and humanities and social science liberal arts, with an undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio of 13:1, and over 90% of the faculty holding a doctoral or terminal degree.Until recently, the women's teams were known as the Peahens; Saint Peter's is the only NCAA Division I institution with this mascot.Saint Peter's has won the MAAC men's basketball championship and the accompanying automatic bid to the NCAA tournament five times (1991, 1995, 2011, 2022, and 2024).On March 4, 2006, Clark became only the seventh NCAA player to score more than 3,000 points in his career; on the next day, he passed Hersey Hawkins to become the sixth-leading scorer of all time.A second fourth-year student and a forward on the basketball team, George Jefferson, died on June 21, 2005, due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition.