History was in the making at Nazareth College on Wednesday, as the school celebrated its final day as a college and embraced its new status as a recognized university.
School faculty, students, alumni, and local dignitaries gathered outside Smyth Hall in the center of the Pittsford campus to announce the name change and rebranding.
“Tonight at midnight, we formally become Nazareth University,” President Beth Paul told the crowd. “So on our final day as Nazareth College, we’re here to turn the page.”

Nazareth is the latest in a string of former colleges in New York to transition to university status since the state Board of Regents changed its definition of the types of higher education institutions that can claim the designation.
Last year, the board relaxed its standards of the definition, which had required that institutions offer undergraduate and graduate degrees and “doctoral programs in at least three academic fields.”
Universities in New York are now institutions that “offer graduate programs in at least three of the following discipline areas: agriculture, biological sciences, business, education, engineering, fine arts, health professions, humanities, physical sciences and social sciences.”
Nazareth, which was founded in 1924 by five Sisters of St. Joseph, a Roman Catholic congregation, began offering graduate studies in the 1950s. Its board of trustees voted last year to receive “university” status.
Paul said the new designation more accurately reflects what the school has been for decades.
“They (the board of trustees) knew that Nazareth has already been operating as a university — and providing university-like programming, training, and degrees — for much of its history,” she said. “We’ve essentially been a university operating under a college name.”
St. John Fisher University and Roberts Wesleyan University are other local schools that recently rebranded themselves.
Fisher President Gerard Rooney has said that the university title conveys “greater prestige,” and levels the playing field for schools like Fisher to attract new students.
At Nazareth, the class of 2024 — the school’s centennial year — will be the first to graduate from Nazareth University. Officials said that alumni who request a diploma with the new name will receive one.