St.Teresa’s College, a pioneering institution in the field of Higher Education in India, was established on 15th June in the year 1925, as the first Women’s College of the erstwhile Cochin State and the second in the whole of Kerala by the Congregation of the Carmelite Sisters of St.Teresa. It started functioning in one of the large halls of St.Teresa’s High School with Sr.Beatrice as its first Principal and Mother Veronica as the first Manager and a student strength of just 41. While high academic standards were maintained in the college from the very start, students were also taught the value and dignity of labour, good social relationship and above all, lasting spiritual values through regular moral and religious instruction classes. In the beginning, the College was a second grade Arts College affiliated to the Madras University and offered the Intermediate Course with Ancient History, Modern History and Logic under Part Ill. The construction of a separate building for the College was completed in 1926 and the classes were shifted from the High School to this new building the same year. The first batch of students appeared for the University examination in 1927 and came out with excellent results. Fully satisfied by the high standards maintained by St.Teresa’s College, the Madras University was pleased to upgrade the College to the status of a First Grade College in 1927.

B.A. Degree classes in History main with Economics as subsidiary subject was commenced in June 1927 with 10 students on the rolls. Affiliation for Degree classes was extended for Malayalam main, French main and Sanskrit main in 1928. The Economics Main was started in 1937.

When Sr. Beatrice, the first Principal retired in 1937, she was succeeded by the then Vice-Principal Sr. Antoinette. The new Principal maintained the Teresian standard of all-round excellence and expanded the college by the addition of a degree course in Indian Music, vocal and instrumental, in 1939. It was during Sr. Antoinette’s principalship that the College Magazine ‘The Teresian’ was started.

Our Foundress – Sr.Teresa of St. Rose of Lima

St. Teresa’s College is the result of a vision, the seeds of which was planted by Sr.Teresa of St. Rose of Lima, when she started St.Teresa’s School in 1887.   She had come in response to the call of Rt. Rev. Dr. Leonard Mellaono the Carmelite Archbishop of Verapoly, to start the first school for girls in the state and to found a Congregation of Religious Sisters.   She was a great educationalist and a humane social worker.   Unfortunately she died in 1902 in a train accident when she was 43 years of old.   However her dream saw fulfillment when the College started with a small batch of 41 students in 1925.