Located in
Staunton, Virginia within
Augusta County, the university was founded as the "Augusta Female Seminary" in 1842 by
Rufus William Bailey. Among the first students was
Mary Julia Baldwin. In 1863, Baldwin was named principal and headed the school through the
Civil War, although most schools in the area had closed due to the war and economic hardship. In 1895, the school was renamed "Mary Baldwin Seminary" in honor of Baldwin. In 1923, the name changed to "Mary Baldwin College" when the school became a four-year institution. In 1963, Mary Baldwin became racially de-segregated, officially ending its policy of admitting only white women. In the mid-1970s, men began to be admitted as day students and graduate students. Four decades later, in 2017, the school began accepting residential male students, albeit not without some controversy at the time. In 1977, Mary Baldwin became the first college in Virginia to launch an adult degree program. Cynthia Haldenby Tyson was appointed as the eighth president in 1985. That same year, the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted (PEG) was established to allow academically gifted girls to earn bachelor's degrees. In May 2015, the board of trustees voted unanimously to change the name of the institution to Mary Baldwin University, effective August 31, 2016, reflecting the school's range of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs. On July 1, 2023, Jeffrey P. Stein began his tenure as Mary Baldwin University's tenth president after two decades at
Elon University. On August 26, 2025, Stein abruptly resigned and was replaced by vice president Todd Telemeco. The university later announced on Nov. 10 that it discontinued 17 academic minors, including creative writing, African-American studies and physics. == Academics ==