The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(December 2010) |
A sisters' college is a college that primarily serves as a place for the education of future and current sisters and nuns. They are not to be confused with Catholic women's colleges, which are designed for general education programs and do not consider the education of nuns to be their focus.
Also known as "sister formation colleges," sisters' colleges are operated by congregations of religious women, such as the Sisters of Christian Charity or the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Catholic Sisters' College was founded and operated by The Catholic University of America located in Washington, D.C. [1] [2] Historically, they have made at least some of their courses open to lay women, and also men in some cases. Most feature a convent on their premises.
Although previously prevalent across the United States, there is only one currently in operation there, that being the Assumption College for Sisters in Mendham, New Jersey. Catholic women's colleges now serve as the primary providers of education to nuns in the United States, while many of the former sisters' colleges provide campuses for convents and other religious institutions, or have been transitioned into K-12 schools.
The following is a list of current and historical sisters' colleges. Ones listed in bold are still in operation:
The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute for women in the Roman Catholic Church. It was founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute has about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They also started many education and health care facilities around the world.
Saint Elizabeth University (SEU) is a private Catholic, coeducational, four-year, liberal arts university in Morris Township, New Jersey. Portions of the campus are also in Florham Park.
Aquinas College is a private Roman Catholic liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The Ursulines, also known as the Order of Saint Ursula, is an enclosed religious order of women that in 1572 branched off from the Angelines, also known as the Company of Saint Ursula. The Ursulines trace their origins to the Angeline foundress Angela Merici and likewise place themselves under the patronage of Saint Ursula. While the Ursulines took up a monastic way of life under the Rule of Saint Augustine, the Angelines operate as a secular institute. The largest group within the Ursulines is the Ursulines of the Roman Union.
The Sisters of Charity of Montreal, formerly called The Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général of Montreal and more commonly known as the Grey Nuns of Montreal, is a Canadian religious institute of Roman Catholic religious sisters, founded in 1737 by Marguerite d'Youville, a young widow.
The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, often called the Josephites or Brown Joeys, are a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Mary MacKillop (1842–1909). Members of the congregation use the postnominal initials RSJ.
Convent Station is an unincorporated community located within Morris Township, in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The community is named after the Convent Station railroad station that was constructed along the Morris and Essex Lines during the 1870s.
The Assumption College for Sisters is a private two-year Roman Catholic women's college formerly located in Mendham Borough, New Jersey. Founded in 1953 through an affiliation with nearby Seton Hall University, Assumption is run by the Sisters of Christian Charity. It is the last remaining sisters' college, or college primarily designed to educate religious sisters, located in the United States. Since 2014, Assumption has shared a campus with Morris Catholic High School in Denville Township, New Jersey.
Sister M. Madeleva Wolff, C.S.C.,, the "lady abbess of nun poets", was the third President of Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.
Mount Sacred Heart College was a small Catholic women's college in Hamden, Connecticut. It was founded in 1946 as Mount Sacred Heart Junior College and closed in the summer of 1997 due to low enrollment.
The Community of St John Baptist (CSJB), also known as the Sisters of Mercy, or formerly Clewer Sisters, is an Anglican religious order of Augustinian nuns.
Englewood Cliffs College was a women's college for Roman Catholic nuns and laypersons in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. It was founded in 1962 by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Newark originally as a sisters' college. It closed on June 7, 1974, after its final graduation because of financial problems.
The Third Order of Saint Dominic, also referred to as the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic or Lay Dominicans since 1972, is a Catholic third order which is part of the Dominican Order.
The Sisters of Christian Charity (S.C.C.), officially called Sisters of Christian Charity, Daughters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, is a Roman Catholic women's congregation of pontifical right founded in Paderborn, Germany, on 21 August 1849 by Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt. Their original mission was caring for impoverished and abandoned children, with a special emphasis on the blind. Today, they work in a variety of ministries.
Saint Benedict's Monastery is a monastery of the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict, in St. Joseph, Minnesota, United States. The 18th and current prioress of Saint Benedict's Monastery is Sister Karen Rose, OSB who was installed on June 4, 2023.
Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States have played a major role in American religion, education, nursing and social work since the early 19th century. In Catholic Europe, convents were heavily endowed over the centuries, and were sponsored by the aristocracy. Religious orders were founded by entrepreneurial women who saw a need and an opportunity, and were staffed by devout women from poor families. The number of Catholic nuns grew exponentially from about 900 in the year 1840, to a maximum of nearly 200,000 in 1965, falling to 56,000 in 2010. According to an article posted on CatholicPhilly.com, the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in October 2018, National Religious Retirement Office statistics showed that number as 47,160 in 2016, adding that “about 77 percent of women religious are older than 70.” In March 2022, the NRRO was reporting statistics from 2018, citing the number of professed sisters as 45,100. The network of Catholic institutions provided high status lifetime careers as nuns in parochial schools, hospitals, and orphanages. They were part of an international Catholic network, with considerable movement back and forth from Britain, France, Germany and Canada.
The Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, better known as the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, is a religious congregation of sisters of the Dominican Third Order established in 1877, with their motherhouse located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They were founded to provide education to the children of the Catholic populations of Michigan and other regions of the American Midwest. As of 2017, they have 209 sisters in the congregation.
The Convent of the Assumption at Sidmouth, Devon, was a Catholic girls-only, private boarding school.
Mary Immaculate Church is a heritage-listed Roman Catholic church located on the corner of Ipswich Road and Ferndale Street, Annerley, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Mary Immaculate Church is located in the Archdiocese of Brisbane and is under the care of the Brisbane Oratory in Formation, a Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.