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.

[5] The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Roman Catholic religious teaching congregation, arrived in Oregon in 1859.

[2] 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.

[8] In 1959, Marylhurst College became an independent institution and formed a Board of Trustees, separate from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.

The American Art Therapy Association reviewed the program positively numerous times including 1991, 1996 and 2002.

The university remained as "unranked" for the Western Region in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings since the mid-1990s.

The university turned the campus over to the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, the religious order with which it is affiliated.

With contemporaries Terri Hopkins and Paul Sutinen, she rallied the student body and community support to turn the unused gym into the cultural center that it is now.

The opening night of the festival was at the Mission Theater with an on stage conversation between James Ivory and Gus Van Sant.

[23] The films shown at Marylhurst included Smoke Signals with director Chris Eyre in person; Marked Woman featuring Mayo Methot; Talk Radio with writer Tad Savinar in person; The Lusty Men (set in and partially shot at the Pendleton Round-up); City Girl by F.W.

Murnau, shot on location in Athena, Oregon (with a score composed by John Paul[24] and performed by a string quartet; A Soldier's Tale by Penny Allen, and James Ivory's first international hit film Shakespeare Wallah, with James Ivory attending.