Leavenworth ? When the next school year begins in the fall, Kansas will have another university.

St. Mary College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Leavenworth, will officially become the University of St. Mary in the fall.

“It’s a right we’ve earned,” said Sister Diane Steele, school president and a member of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, the group that founded the school.

Schools that grant 40 or more master’s degrees in three or more disciplines during an academic year receive a “1” rating by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, Menlo Park, Calif.

St. Mary has rated a “1” since 1998. The college awards master’s degrees in education, management, psychology, business administration and teaching. Of the 324 students who graduated Saturday, 206 were awarded master’s degrees, and 118 received bachelor’s degrees.

Steele, who became president of the college in 2002, said the university designation would convey the breadth and depth of the programs offered; would help recruit international students; and would position St. Mary as a regional university.

It will not raise tuition, she said.

Faculty, staff, students, alumni and trustees have been involved in discussions about the St. Mary name change since the fall of 2002.

“What was important to us was to keep ‘St. Mary’ in the name,” said Cathy Newton, a Platte City alumna who is active in alumni and fund-raising activities for the college.

Changing the name required approval by the college’s board of trustees and revising the bylaws that govern the school. Because the college is incorporated as a nonprofit in Kansas, the letters of incorporation also must be amended to reflect the new name.

Farrell Dessert, a 25-year-old Leavenworth woman who is working toward a master’s in business administration, likes the name change.

“There are connotations to words,” Dessert said. “I think there will be more prestige to having an M.B.A. from a university than from a college.”

St. Mary was founded in 1859 as St. Mary’s Academy, a boarding school for girls. In 1923, it became a community college and awarded its first associate of arts degree in 1924. The college began awarding bachelor’s degrees in the early 1930s.

In 1955, the college awarded its first master of science degrees in education to nuns who needed graduate-level credentials to serve as elementary and secondary school administrators. The master’s program was discontinued in 1970.

The graduate division was reinstated in 1992. Currently, 348 students are enrolled in graduate programs and 543 in undergraduate programs.

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth continue to sponsor the college, and eight are members of the faculty or staff.