D'Youville University (D'Youville or DYU) is a private university in Buffalo, New York. It was founded as D'Youville College in 1908 and named by the Grey Nuns after the patroness saint Marie-Marguerite d'Youville. As of fall 2020 D'Youville College serves 2,785 students (1,475 undergraduate, 1,310 graduate) and has 54 degree majors the health sciences, business, and liberal arts for undergraduate and graduate students. In February 2022, the New York State Board of Regents approved a name change to D'Youville University.

Campus

Located in Western New York on the Lower West Side of the City of Buffalo, the campus is in an urban setting a few blocks from the Peace Bridge on the Canadian border. The campus has 15 buildings with classrooms, laboratories, residential and athletics facilities. There are two student housing buildings and one outdoor athletics complex.

D'Youville University

D'Youville is on Porter Ave, one of seven parkways in the Buffalo Olmsted Park System. The Park System was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1868, ten years after designing Central Park in New York City.

D'Youville University

CannonDesign was retained to develop D'Youville's most recent campus Master Plan and the major priorities of that planning effort are focused toward revitalizing the campus in ways that improve its connection to the Buffalo Olmsted Park System, as well as beautifying the Lower West Side of Buffalo and improving the connectivity and traffic flow through the local neighborhoods. Prior campus planning has also been conducted in collaboration with Stiegliz Snyder Architecture and University at Buffalo's Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

D'Youville University

History

Immigration

Marie-Marguerite d'Youville (1701-1771) was born in Quebec, she married Francois d’Youville in 1722 and had six children. Following the passing of Francois, Marguerite was left to raise two young children, after burying her father, her husband, and four of their children. Her desire to serve those in need went against the social conventions of Marguerite’s generation, leading her and three other women to establish the Sisters of Charity in 1737 — a service-oriented organization commonly known as the Grey Nuns. The Sisters of Charity committed themselves to fighting for the rights of the most marginalized of society in Canada. After 1840, the order rapidly expanded, and over the next 100 years became a major provider of health care and other social services throughout Quebec, Western and Northern Canada, and the northern United States.

Following an invitation from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), the Grey Nuns moved from Canada to Buffalo, New York in October 1857. Initially, the Grey Nuns lived in a 6-room convent when they opened the Holy Angels School. The school's first official building was the Koessler Administration Building, which was built in 1872 but not dedicated and named as such until 2003. The Koessler Administration Building was expanded three times to meet the growing needs of the Grey Nuns. First, east and west wing expansions were constructed in the last 1800s. Then, the Prospect Ave wing was added in 1907.