Mundelein College

Mundelein College was chartered as a Catholic college for women in 1929 by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Dubuque, Iowa, and opened its doors in 1930. Its mission was to educate Chicago-area young women of diverse ethnic, socio-economic, and racial backgrounds. The first president of the college was Sister Mary Justitia Coffey, BVM. , , The Mundelein College curriculum offered a basic liberal arts education supplemented with appropriate programs in career education. By 1950 Mundelein was the largest Catholic college for women in the United States. In response to the developing needs of women, several innovative degree-granting programs were created: Degree Completion for Adult Women (1965), Graduate Program in Religious Studies (1969), Weekend College in residence (1974), Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (1983). , , Originally the entire college was housed in this skyscraper building, a structure designed in the then popular art deco style by Nairne Fisher and Joseph McCarthy, architects, under the direction of a BVM artist, Mother Mary Isabella Kane, BVM, superior-general of the congregation at that time. In 1980 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From its beginning, the building, land, construction, equipment and all expenses of the college were funded by the BVM congregation and its benefactors. , , In 1991 Mundelein College, its buildings as well as many of its faculty, students and staff affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. , , The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an American religious community committed to education, was founded in 1833 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Mary Frances Clarke and four companions, all immigrants from Ireland. The Sisters began their Chicago ministry in 1867 at Holy Family Parish, then directed by Arnold Damen, SJ. Over the years they have staffed 32 elementary schools, three parish high schools, and three central private high schools in the Chicago archdiocese and have sponsored educational and pastoral ministries in 27 of the United States, in Latin America and Africa.