[2] The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at first attended by one teacher and one pupil in the sitting room of its founder, Sarah Kimball.

[4] In 1956 the school moved to a new building at 11141 East Boulevard that it would name for George Gund II, who served as the college's board president and generous patron from 1942 to 1966.

In 1981, the college acquired the former Albert Kahn-designed[6] Euclid Avenue assembly plant which was built by Ford in 1914-1915 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

[7] In 2015, the college unified its operations at the Euclid Avenue site, where it completed construction of an 80,000-square-foot building adjoined to the McCullough Center on the west, and also named for George Gund II.

Uptown Phase II, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Ford Drive, includes CIA's new freshman residence hall that opened in August 2014.