St. Thomas University: Fredericton's Small Liberal Arts University on the Hill

What St. Thomas University actually is

St. Thomas University, known to pretty much everyone as STU, is the smaller of Fredericton's two universities. It describes itself as Canada's only exclusively liberal arts, primarily undergraduate university, and that mouthful is actually the clearest way to understand it. There is no engineering faculty, no business school, no nursing program. What you get instead is a Bachelor of Arts across more than 30 disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, plus a handful of professional programs in social work and education.

The scale is the whole point. STU enrolls somewhere in the range of 1,600 to 1,800 students, with a student-to-faculty ratio around 18 to 1 and an average first-year class size of roughly 29. For comparison, that is smaller than a lot of Fredericton high schools. You are not a seat number in a 300-person lecture hall here. Professors know your name, seminars run on discussion and argument, and it is genuinely hard to hide in the back row.

If you are weighing STU against its much larger neighbour, it helps to read our Fredericton student guide alongside this one, because a lot of the practical stuff (housing, transit, where to eat) is shared across both schools.

The hill it shares with UNB

STU sits at the top of College Hill on Dineen Drive, physically woven into the University of New Brunswick campus. You can walk from one school to the other in a couple of minutes, and unless you know the buildings, you would not always be sure which university you are standing on. That closeness is not an accident: STU relocated to Fredericton in 1964 specifically to federate with UNB and share the hilltop.

The two schools are financially and academically separate (different admissions, different degrees, different presidents), but they cooperate on a surprising amount of infrastructure. They share library access, athletics and recreation facilities, and behind-the-scenes services like a common heating plant and building maintenance. Students can also cross-register in certain courses, so a STU student can take a class offered at UNB and vice versa, which quietly widens the timetable for both.

The neighbourhood that grew up around the two schools has its own character, from student rentals to older family homes. If you want a sense of what living up there is like, our College Hill neighbourhood guide covers the streets, the walk down to downtown, and the rhythms of a university district. And if you like poking at campus history, the nearby UNB Old Arts Building is one of the oldest university buildings in Canada, a short stroll from STU's front door.

Catholic roots, secular in practice

STU's history runs back to St. Michael's Academy, founded in 1860 in Chatham (now part of Miramichi). It became St. Thomas College in 1910 under the Basilian Fathers, gained degree-granting powers in 1934, was renamed St. Thomas University in 1960, and then made the move to Fredericton in 1964. So the Catholic thread is real and old.

On paper, that heritage persists. STU is formally a Catholic, English-language liberal arts university, and a bishop still holds the ceremonial role of Visitor. In practice, though, students and staff will tell you it functions as a secular school. There is no faith requirement to attend, the student body is religiously mixed, and the day-to-day culture is about open inquiry rather than doctrine. Think of the Catholic identity as part of STU's origin story and its values language (community, dignity, service) more than a set of rules you have to follow.

That framing matters for prospective students who might otherwise be scared off by the word Catholic in the name. You do not have to be Catholic, religious, or anything in particular to feel at home here. You mostly need to want a small, discussion-heavy arts education.

The programs STU is known for

A liberal arts university lives or dies on its strongest departments, and STU has a few that punch above its size.

Human Rights. STU offers an undergraduate major in the academic study of human rights, one of the very few such programs in Canada and, by the university's own account, the only one in Atlantic Canada. It pulls together philosophy, law, and political institutions, and it pairs naturally with criminology, history, sociology, or political science. Graduates head into law, social work, journalism, humanitarian work, and public service.

Journalism. STU's journalism program has a long, respected reputation in Canadian media circles, turning out reporters and editors who show up in newsrooms across the country. It leans practical and writing-heavy, which suits students who want to actually produce work rather than only theorize about media.

Social Work. This is one of STU's real anchors. The school runs a Bachelor of Social Work, a distinct Mi'kmaq/Wolastoqey Bachelor of Social Work grounded in Indigenous approaches, and a Master of Social Work launched in 2021 that focuses on advanced clinical practice and intensive workplace practicums. The teaching frame is explicitly critical: students study power, oppression, privilege, and structural injustice, not just casework technique.

Beyond those three, the Bachelor of Arts spans the usual humanities and social sciences (English, history, psychology, political science, philosophy, sociology, criminology, and more), and there are distinctive offerings like an aviation stream that blends arts coursework with flight training. The common thread is small seminars and a lot of reading and writing. STU also runs interdisciplinary options such as Great Books and Catholic studies, and it holds research chairs in areas like global studies and physical culture, which keeps upper-year students close to faculty who are actively working in their fields.

One practical thing to understand: because STU is arts-only, students who want a science or professional course sometimes take it across the road at UNB through cross-registration. That flexibility is one of the underrated perks of the shared hill, and it means a STU degree does not have to feel narrow just because the school is small.

Becoming a teacher: the Education after-degree

One of STU's best-known professional programs is its Bachelor of Education, and it is worth being clear about how it works because it trips people up. STU's B.Ed. is a post-degree (after-degree) program. You do not enrol in it straight out of high school. To apply, you need to already hold, or be about to complete, a four-year bachelor's degree of at least 120 credit hours from a recognized university.

Admission is competitive and enrolment is capped, so a strong GPA on its own does not get you in. STU explicitly looks for candidates with real leadership experience working with young people, and applicants need the right teachable subjects to be eligible for New Brunswick teacher certification. In other words, it is aimed at people who have decided, degree in hand, that they want to teach, and who can show they have already spent time in front of kids.

If you are exploring teaching alongside other adult-education and career paths in the city, our guide to NBCC and adult learning in Fredericton is a useful companion for thinking about the fuller landscape of training options.

What the campus and student life feel like

STU's campus is compact and walkable, a cluster of buildings and residences at the crown of the hill with big views over the Wolastoq (Saint John River) valley. Because the school is small, it feels less like an institution and more like a community, which is exactly how STU markets itself and, honestly, roughly how it plays out. People recognize each other. Clubs and societies are easy to join precisely because they need bodies. Professors are accessible in a way that is harder to find at a big research university.

The flip side of small is small. There are fewer program choices, fewer facilities that are exclusively STU's, and a social scene that can feel tight-knit or claustrophobic depending on your temperament. The saving grace is the shared hill: STU students get a full-sized city university's worth of libraries, gyms, food, and events right next door, so you rarely feel boxed in. Nightlife, coffee, and the downtown grind are a walk or a quick bus ride down the hill.

STU has produced some notable graduates too, from novelist David Adams Richards to children's author Sheree Fitch, plus a long list of journalists and public figures. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney studied here in its Chatham days. For a small school, the alumni footprint is real, and it skews heavily toward writing, media, law, and public service, which tells you something about what STU is good at cultivating.

Residences sit right on campus, so first-years often live steps from class, and the walk to downtown Fredericton is a genuinely pleasant downhill stroll (the trudge back up is the tax you pay). Between the two schools, the hill hosts a steady churn of guest lectures, shows, intramurals, and club events through the fall and winter terms, so there is usually something on even if STU itself is not the one hosting it.

The Tommies

STU's teams are the Tommies (green and gold), and for a school this size the athletics program is scrappy and successful. STU fields around ten varsity teams. Nine of them compete in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) through the Atlantic Colleges Athletic Association (ACAA): basketball, soccer, volleyball, and cross country among them. The women's ice hockey team plays at a higher tier, in Atlantic University Sport (AUS) of U Sports, which is a notable feather for a school that does not otherwise chase big-league varsity status.

The trophy case backs it up: the Tommies have racked up dozens of ACAA titles over the years, including recent basketball championship sweeps, plus a few AUS banners in hockey. Because ACAA competition is regional and the crowds are intimate, it is genuinely fun to catch a Tommies game. You are close to the floor, admission is cheap or free, and the atmosphere is more community rec-league-plus than corporate spectacle. If you want a low-cost, high-energy night out during the school year, a Tommies home game is an easy call.

Because STU and UNB share athletics facilities, Tommies teams practise and play in venues that serve both schools, so the line between the two universities blurs again on the court and the ice. It also means recreation options for STU students punch well above what a 1,700-person school could support on its own: gyms, pools, rinks, and fitness classes are all part of the deal on the hill.

Who STU suits (and who it doesn't)

STU is a great fit if you want a genuine liberal arts education: small seminars, close contact with professors, and strong programs in human rights, journalism, and social work. It suits students who like to read, write, argue, and be known, and who value being part of a tight community rather than one face in a crowd. It is also a smart landing spot for someone with a degree already who wants the competitive Education after-degree, or a mature student returning to the humanities.

It is not the right pick if you are set on engineering, business, computer science, nursing, or the hard sciences: STU simply does not offer them, and you would want UNB or another school for those. It also will not suit someone who wants the anonymity and sprawl of a large campus, or a huge menu of majors. And if a Catholic-heritage identity genuinely bothers you, know that it is nominal in practice but still there in the name and traditions.

The honest summary: STU is small on purpose, and that is its whole value proposition. If small, personal, and arts-focused sounds like your kind of education, few schools in Atlantic Canada do it better. Always confirm current programs, admission requirements, and tuition directly at stu.ca before you apply, since those details shift year to year.