Two colleges for women were started in the diocese during Bishop Rohlman's episcopate. The Sisters of St. Francis in Clinton established Mt. St. Clare College (later Ashford University) in 1928. It was an extension of their academy, which had been established in the 1890s. St. Ambrose College started a woman's division in 1934 and continued to support it as it searched for a religious order of women to take it over. In 1937 property was secured for a woman's college in Davenport on the west side of the city. The Congregation of the Humility of Mary at Rohlman's urging established Marycrest College in 1939 from the woman's division of St. Ambrose.