Alverno College is a Roman Catholic, four-year, independent, liberal arts women's college located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Chartered in 1887 as St. Joseph's Normal School, Alverno became Alverno Teachers College in 1936. It adopted its current name in 1946. Alverno offers weekday and weekend undergraduate programs, as well as a coeducational Master of Arts program for teachers and business professionals, the Alverno MBA, and a Master of Science in nursing. The Weekend College was opened in 1977 as the first alternative time-frame program in Milwaukee to serve working women in the Milwaukee area. Alverno has a student-centered approach to education, relying on lengthy and highly personalized performance assessment systems that provide feedback for students to use as they learn and develop. The school offers ability-based education focusing on eight areas of development: communication, analysis, problem solving, valuing, social interaction, developing a global perspective, effective citizenship, and aesthetic response.