Marylhurst University was a private applied liberal arts and business university in Marylhurst, Oregon. It was among the oldest collegiate degree-granting institutions in Oregon, having awarded its first degree in 1897. Marylhurst was founded as St. Mary's College and run for many years by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. The former campus is located about nine miles south of Portland, Oregon on the Willamette River. Although Marylhurst University was a Roman Catholic school, it served students of all faiths and backgrounds. The university offered bachelor's degree completion programs in diverse liberal arts and business fields, and graduate degrees in such fields as business and nonprofit administration, food systems and society, teaching, art therapy counseling, divinity and applied theology, and interdisciplinary studies. After its establishment in 1893, Marylhurst became the first women's liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest. The university closed at the end of the summer of 2018. Declining enrollment was given as the main reason, with enrollment having dropped from 1,409 to 743 in just four years, from fall 2013 to fall 2017. In recent years, the university's student population had peaked around 2,000 during the Great Recession of 2007–2009. Prior to the closure, however, Marylhurst's faculty challenged this narrative. History The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Roman Catholic religious teaching congregation, arrived in Oregon in 1859. The Sisters came to Oregon from Montreal at the request of the people and clergy of the state to serve their educational needs, and established St. Mary's Academy in Portland that year. St. Mary's College In 1893, the group started St. Mary's Academy and College as the first liberal arts college to serve the educational needs of Pacific Northwest women. The school began in downtown Portland, where St. Mary's Academy is still located. The Sisters purchased between Lake Oswego and West Linn in 1908. The Sisters named the pastoral land Marylhurst, which means "Mary's Woods". In 1929 it became the only accredited standard four year college for women in the Pacific Northwest. The college was moved to the new property in 1930, and St. Mary's was renamed Marylhurst College. Starting in 1977 the school was accredited by the Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools. Marylhurst College In 1959, Marylhurst College became an independent institution and formed a Board of Trustees, separate from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus