[5] On March 6, 1934, the state of Rhode Island granted a charter to the Sisters of Mercy of Providence for a corporation to be named Salve Regina College (translated from the Latin as "Hail Queen").

In 1947 the corporation received the gift of Ochre Court, a 50-room Newport mansion from businessman Robert Goelet IV,[6] and admitted its first class of 58 students in the autumn of that year.

The college's first president was Mary Matthew Doyle (1870–1960), who was also the first Mother Provincial of the Sisters of Mercy of Providence.

[9][10][11] In 2002 the university received a Getty Grant Program award to develop a campus heritage preservation plan.

[16] In 2022 both Architectural Digest and Conde Nast Traveler ranked the university as having one of the most beautiful college campuses in America.

The university also participates in the Post-9/11 GI Bill Yellow Ribbon Program to provide educational funding for veterans and their families.

[25] Named for Therese Antone, who was president from 1994 to 2009, the Antone Academic Center for Culture and the Arts houses facilities for several academic departments and programs, including art, cultural and historic preservation, English communications and media, and music, theatre and dance.

[29] Ochre Court, built between 1890 and 1895, and once the summer residence of Ogden Goelet, is now the university's central administration building.

Designed by East Providence architect Edward P. Denning,[31] it was built in 1968, and in 2015 underwent a major renovation and expansion project in 2017.

It was built, in part, to house three large figurative stained glass windows and ten smaller ones by John La Farge.

Wood salvaged from the Fall River convent has been incorporated into the altar base and celebrant's chair.

The Mercy Center for Spiritual Life is on the lower level of the building and provides space for student activities and offices for campus ministers.

It was originally Fairlawn, a mansion built in the 1850s for the Boston lawyer Andrew Ritchie and later owned by Levi P. Morton.

It is a member of the NEWMAC and its quasi-independent football arm, Commonwealth Coast Football, and offers ten sports for women (soccer, field hockey, tennis, cross country, basketball, ice hockey, volleyball, softball, track and field, and lacrosse), eight for men (football, cross country, soccer, basketball, ice hockey, tennis, baseball, and lacrosse), and one co-ed sport (sailing).