Women's College Coalition

Since its founding in 1867, Cedar Crest College has taken a bold approach to education - creating a college and a curriculum designed for women who want to achieve at the highest levels!

Chemist and educator Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in 1837, nearly a century before women gained the right to vote. As the first of the Seven Sisters—the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy League—Mount Holyoke has led the way in women's education.

Bay Path University was founded in 1897 in Springfield, Massachusetts, as a coeducational business school offering programs in accounting, business administration, secretarial science, and business teacher training.  In 1945, Bay Path moved to Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and it restricted its enrollment to young women.  Four years later, it received approval to be chartered as Bay Path Junior College.  In 1988, the Massachusetts Board of Regents of Higher Education authorized Bay Path Junior College to become a four-year degree-granting institution, and its name was officially changed to Bay Path College. Maintaining its commitment to women-only undergraduate programs, in 2014 Bay Path launched The American Women's College, the first all-women, all-online accredited bachelor’s degree program in the country. After introducing coeducational graduate programs in 2000, in 2014 the College became Bay Path University. Today, the university offers over 70 undergraduate programs for women and over 30 graduate programs for women and men, including doctorate degrees.

Founded as a private institution for the education of women, Brenau University began in 1878 as the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary. Two years later, H.J. Pearce purchased the institution and renamed it Brenau, a linguistic blend of the German word "brennen," which means to burn, and the Latin word "aurum" for gold, corresponding to the institution's motto "as gold refined by fire." Today, Brenau is an innovative, comprehensive university with coeducation programs through the doctoral level that retains its historic Women's College.

Although the doors of Converse opened October 1, 1890, the first step towards the founding of the college was taken in 1889 when a prominent attorney assembled a group of Spartanburg citizens to discuss the project. Among the 13 men was Dexter Edgar Converse, a native of Vermont who had settled in Spartanburg before the Civil War. His contributions to the college were so valuable it was given his name.

Wellesley College was founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant, who were passionate about the higher education of women. Wellesley’s first president, Ada Howard, and nearly all of the College’s early educators and administrators were women.

St. Catherine University, or St. Kate’s as it’s commonly known, was founded in 1905. Grounded in the liberal arts and the Catholic traditions of intellectual inquiry and social teaching, St. Kate’s educates women to lead and influence. St. Kate’s offers associate, bachelor and advanced degree programs in four schools: the School of Business and Professional Studies; the School of Humanities, Arts and Sciences; the Henrietta Schmoll School of Health; and the School of Social Work. With more than 60 programs of study, the College for Women is among the largest private women’s colleges in the nation. The University also offers a range of programs for women and men in the Graduate College and College for Adults. At every degree level, St. Kate’s serves a diverse student population; developing ethical, reflective and socially responsible leaders. St. Kate’s president is ReBecca Koenig Roloff, a 1976 graduate of the University. 

Over a century ago, Trinity College was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur as the nation’s first Catholic liberal arts college for women. Beginning with the first graduating class of 1904, the mission of Trinity has been realized in the lives of her graduates.

For more than 125 years Agnes Scott College has educated and empowered intelligent women. Through the new SUMMIT curriculum, Agnes Scott has reinvented the liberal arts and sciences for the 21st century so that ever women graduates ready to become a leader in a global society.

Russell Sage College was founded in Troy in 1916 by suffragist Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, with the guidance of Eliza Kellas, head of the college preparatory Emma Willard School (also located in Troy). Together they founded Russell Sage College as a school of practical arts, one of the very first institutions to offer women the means of economic and social independence through preparation for professional careers.