for women in the Midwest and was known as the College of St. Catherine until 2009. St. Kate's offers baccalaureate programs for women as well as graduate and associate programs for women and men.
The university averages an enrollment of about 5,000 students annually. It focuses on recruiting and enrolling minority students and non-traditional aged students. St. Catherine's Weekend College—now College for Adults—was the second such program in the nation and the first in the Upper Midwest. St. Kate's was also the first private college in the nation to launch an effort to attract, welcome, and retain Hmong students, making it home to one of the largest populations of Hmong scholars in the nation.
== History ==
=== Founders ===
St. Catherine University was founded as the College of St. Catherine in 1905 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet under the leadership of Mother Seraphine Ireland. The university is named after St. Catherine of Alexandria, the fourth-century Egyptian lay philosopher who suffered …
