Women's College Coalition

An act of the 27th Texas Legislature in 1901 founded the Girls Industrial College as a public institution that would become Texas Woman's University in 1957. The school had then and has now a dual mission: to provide a liberal education and to prepare young women "for the practical industries of the age" with a specialized education. TWU continues today as a public university that offers a comprehensive catalog of academic studies, including baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees. The university has grown from a small college to a major university. TWU is the largest university primarily for women in the United States, with the main campus in Denton and health science centers in Dallas and Houston.

Meredith College has been educating strong, confident women for more than a century. Chartered in 1891, the College opened with 200 students and a mission to provide a first-rate course of female education. Today Meredith is one of the largest independent women’s colleges in the U.S., graduating nearly 500 students each year who come from across the country and around the world.

Brescia was founded in 1919 by the Ursuline Sisters, strong women of faith who are committed to social justice, community service, and the development of 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.

In 1852, two years after California was admitted to statehood, the Young Ladies’ Seminary in Benicia, California was established by nine citizens in what became the state capital. Cyrus and Susan Mills bought the Seminary in 1865 for $5,000, renamed it Mills College, and moved it in 1871 to its current 135-acre oasis. We invite you to take a virtual tour of our campus. 

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.

Educator, publisher, and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps dedicated her dreams as well as her resources to pioneering an innovative setting for women's education as an integral part of The Claremont Colleges. At ninety years of age, she still saw life in terms of possibility and spoke of the women's college that opened its doors in 1926 as her "new adventure."

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.

Chartered in 1836, Wesleyan became the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women. Since then, we’ve sent scores of women out into the world to do the impossible, the amazing, and the extraordinary, like the first woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree in Georgia and the first woman to argue a case before the Georgia Supreme Court.