BATON ROUGE - Our Lady of the Lake College is changing its name to Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University.

Sister Barbara Arceneaux says the change honors the ministry's founding sponsors and its Franciscan ideals and values. In Tuesday's announcement, Arceneaux said expansion of programs in recent years, including doctoral level degree programs, prompted the name change to university to reflect the advanced programs being offered.

Our Lady of the Lake was founded in 1923 as a nursing school in conjunction with the establishment of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium in downtown Baton Rouge. It's the only Catholic Franciscan institution of higher education in the southeastern United States. The university has an enrollment of 1,600 students and full-time faculty of 76.

Full implementation of the name change will be complete in 2017.