who had been enslaved by the university and its founders and who contributed to the cultivation and building of the institution. Direct descendants include Louis Chauvin and St. Louis Black Stockings player Sylvester Chauvin, whose burial site was marked by a headstone in 2022 through the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project. Contemporary descendants formed the organization Descendants of the Saint Louis University Enslaved and are petitioning for a physical monument on campus to acknowledge the history of their ancestors. The group has estimated the contemporary value of labor performed by enslaved workers to be between 361 million to 74 billion dollars.
=== Timeline of notable events ===
1818 – First institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi River
1832 – First graduate programs west of the Mississippi River
1836 – First medical school west of the Mississippi River
1843 – First in the West to open a school of law
1906 – First forward pass in football history
1908 – First female students …
