The history of women’s missionary colleges in China founded at the start of the 20th century suggests growing Chinese nationalism and political shifts welcomed western science. The case of Ginling College, Nanking, offers an opportunity to understand how colleges founded by American missionaries to provide education in English for Chinese women saw this situation as an opportunity to establish new science-based professions for women to “raise-up” Chinese society. First president Mathilda Thurston (MHC B.S. 1896) pushed to develop a strong pre-professional science program including nursing, pre-medical courses and laboratory-based science, as well as teacher preparation. Also important were the support networks of scientific exchanges with the U.S. Ginling became a sister of Smith College in 1921. Wu Yi-fang, one of its first graduates earned a doctorate in biology at the University of Michigan. In the face of Chinese government demands, she became the first Chinese president of the college and an advocate for women’s higher education in China.