Clarke University

Clarke University is a four-year liberal arts college located in Dubuque, Iowa, United States, affiliated with the Roman Catholic Churchin the Archdiocese of Dubuque. The campus is situated on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and picturesque downtown Dubuque.

Clarke is known regionally as the "College for the Arts", and offers a broad undergraduate curriculum in 19 academic departments with over 40 majors and programs. The university also provides graduate master's and doctoral degrees in select areas of study and has a general enrollment of approximately 1,200 students.

Clarke sits on an intimate 55-acre (220,000 m2) campus located atop a prominent hill in Dubuque. The college consists of 16 buildings, an athletic field, and features large, grassy knolls along the south and east sides of campus for areas of study and recreation.

The grounds are bounded by West Locust Street on the south, Clarke Crest Court on the north, Clarke Crest Drive on the east, and North Grandview Avenue on the west. Clarke Drive is the "main street" through the campus, bisecting it into "north" and "south" sides. Of Clarke's 16 buildings, 15 are located along Clarke Drive, making it a very walkable campus.

Clarke University teams participate as a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). A name change in 2017 due to negative connotations of "Crusaders" resulted in the new nickname Clarke Pride; the name refers to the term for a pack of lions.

The Pride are a member of the Heart of America Athletic Conference, which they joined in 2016 after the collapse of the Midwest Collegiate Conference. Clarke was also a member of the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) Division III from 1996 to 2006. Men's sports include football, baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, soccer, track & field and volleyball; while women's sports include basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track & field and volleyball.