The College grew out of a postgraduate tutorial offered to one young woman graduate of St. Mary's Academy in Monroe, Michigan, in 1899. By 1905 it had grown to a two-year college for women, and in 1910 it was a four-year college chartered to grant degrees. It was then known as St. Mary's College. The College moved to its current location in Detroit in 1927, and at that time became known as Marygrove College. When it moved to Detroit its president was George Hermann Derry, who was the first lay person to serve as a president of a Catholic women's college in the United States