The origins of Incarnate Word were in response to the San Antonio mayor’s urgent plea to Claude Dubuis, then Bishop of Galveston, to provide health care for citizens dying of cholera in the 1860’s. Three young French women responded to Bishop Dubuis’ request to help the city and they founded the first public hospital, Santa Rosa. As time passed, the Sisters taught others to nurse with them. Ever since then service to the community and education have been integrated in the Incarnate Word tradition. The Sisters received a charter from the state of Texas to found schools in 1881. Children were reminded that the privilege of education invited them to care for others. Education leads to community service. About a hundred years later at Incarnate Word College, faculty and administrators were eager to institutionalize the tradition of service so that it might be carried into the future. Development and Institutionalization of Service-Learning at The University of the Incarnate Word, 1989-2001

https://www.uiw.edu/eccl/_docs/servicelearninghistory.pdf