University of St. Thomas (Texas)
university in Houston, Texas
The University of St. Thomas (UST or St. Thomas) is a private Catholic university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was founded by the Basilian Fathers in 1947 and is the only Catholic university in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
History
On June 24, 1944, the bishop of the Diocese of Galveston, Christopher E. Byrne, entered into an agreement with the Houston-based members of the Congregation of St. Basil to found a co-educational Roman Catholic university in Houston "as soon as practicable after World War II, if possible by 1947." The Basilian Fathers had previously started several other secondary schools, as well as institutions of higher learning, throughout Texas in the early 20th century, including St. Thomas High School, also located in Houston. The first classes at UST began on September 22, 1947, with 57 freshmen and 8 faculty members. UST graduated its first class on May 31, 1951. In addition to the Basilian Fathers on staff, there were for some time also several Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist who reside in the convent on campus.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “University of St. Thomas (Texas)” as university in Houston, Texas. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as university in Houston, Texas. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2495922. VIAF identifies the subject as 133303580. The Library of Congress control number is n50029286. Authority coordinates are 29.738, -95.392. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1944 and 1951.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of St. Thomas (Texas)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.