Holy Names University

Holy Names University is a private, Roman Catholic university in Oakland, California. It was founded by and remains affiliated with the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

The university was originally established as the Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in 1868 by six members of the Sisters of the Holy Names, a teaching order from Quebec, Canada. They were invited to Oakland by Father Michael King, pastor of Saint Mary's Church to establish a school for girls and to provide means to train future teachers.

The original site of the convent was on the shores of Lake Merritt. By 1908 the convent began to offer classes at a post-secondary level and was renamed the College of the Holy Names. In 1949 the college became one of the charter members of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).the coeducation graduate division was formally established in 1955. Soon afterward in 1957, the original site was purchased by Henry J. Kaiser where he constructed the Kaiser Building, and the school moved to its present location in the Oakland Hills.In 1971, Holy Names became coeducational at the undergraduate level and was renamed Holy Names College. The Julia Morgan School for Girls held classes for its first two years, from 1999 through 2001, at Holy Names.[4] The school took its present name on May 10, 2004 and became known as the "newest Catholic university in California.

Holy Names University is located on a wooded, sixty-acre site in the Oakland Hills about 2.5 miles southeast of the Montclair district. To the north of campus lies the neighborhood of Woodminster, and the City of Oakland's 500 acre Joaquin Miller Park. To the southeast, Holy Names' campus is flanked with the Crestmont neighborhood to the east, and the Redwood Heights neighborhood is to the west across the Warren Freeway. Redwood Regional Park, part of the East Bay Regional Park District, lies about 2.2 miles east on Redwood Road.