High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Salve Regina University is a university in Newport, Rhode Island. Founded by the Sisters of Mercy, the university is a Catholic, co-educational, private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of Rhode Island in 1934. In 1947 the university acquired Ochre Court and welcomed its first class of 58 students. By a 1991 amendment to the Charter, College was deleted as the institution officially became Salve Regina University.