Ohio Dominican University was chartered in 1911 as the College of St. Mary of the Springs. It was founded as an all-women’s school, becoming coeducational in 1964. The college changed its name to Ohio Dominican College on July 1, 1968. Ohio Dominican became a university on July 1, 2002, under an ambitious strategic plan to become one of the country’s preeminent small Catholic universities. Ohio Dominican University is a private Catholic liberal arts university, guided in its educational mission by the Dominican motto, taken from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, "Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere," which means, "To contemplate and to share with others the fruits of this contemplation."