Ursuline College, the first women’s college chartered in Ohio, opened in 1871 in downtown Cleveland as part of the educational mission of the Order of St. Ursula (O.S.U.). Founded in Italy in 1535 with an early presence in North America, the order established its first religious teaching community in Cleveland in 1850, led by foundress Mother Mary of the Annunciation Beaumont, O.S.U. The college’s growth prompted four moves in Cleveland and subsequently to the Pepper Lake campus in 1966. Ursuline also ranks among the first Catholic women’s colleges in the United States organized and chartered explicitly for college education.