Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

Bishop Patrick R. Heffron, the second bishop of Winona, founded Saint Mary's as a college in 1912 to provide higher education for young men in southern Minnesota's Diocese of Winona and surrounding areas. In its early years, the university operated as an academy and junior college. In 1925, it became a four-year liberal arts college. The descendants of 19thcentury settlers in Minnesota and Wisconsin thus received a classical education from a highly educated faculty composed primarily of diocesan clergy. The students of the early decades became religious, professional, and business leaders in their communities.

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, an international Catholic teaching order founded in France in 1680 by Saint John Baptist de La Salle, purchased Saint Mary's College from the Diocese of Winona in 1933. Soon thereafter, the university obtained formal accreditation of its bachelor's degree programs by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Enrollment increased from 200 to 500 students over the next 15 years, aided by an influx of graduates from De La Salle Christian Brothers' high schools in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis.