Loyola University Chicago Mundelein Center for Fine and Performing Arts

Mundelein History

The stock market may have crashed only three days prior, but on November 1, 1929, Mundelein College officially broke ground. Founded by the Sisters of the Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary upon Cardinal George Mundelein’s request, the school was a pioneer for women’s colleges in the United States. On September 29, 1930, 378 women walked through Mundelein’s now iconic doors to t

ake the first classes the building’s walls would ever hold. Mundelein College joined forces with the neighboring Loyola University Chicago in 1991, and at the time of its affiliation, it stood as the last private four-year women’s college in Illinois. The building was rededicated as the Mundelein Center for the Fine and Performing Arts in 2012, and today, the Newhart Family Theatre is one of Loyola's primary performance spaces along with the Underground Laboratory Theatre, Studio 409, Mundelein Auditorium, and Skowronski Music Hall. In addition to being home of Loyola's Department of Fine and Performing Arts, Mundelein contains the Niehoff School of Nursing Simulation Laboratory and more classrooms than any other building on the Lake Shore Campus -- a testament to its legacy as a skyscraping center of education.