Marymount College of Kansas: A History

By Patricia E. Ackerman

One year before the United States granted women the right to vote, the Sisters of St. Joseph broke ground on the construction of the first all-women's college in Kansas. Escalating construction costs put the school's future in jeopardy until Mother Antoinette took her plea for additional funds to Pope Benedict XV himself. Dubbed the "Million-Dollar College," the hilltop campus overlooking the Smoky Hill River finally opened its doors in 1922. The thousands who matriculated throughout its sixty-seven-year existence created a lasting legacy in the Sunflower State. Join alumnus Patricia Ackerman as she preserves the inspiring history of Marymount College.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781625851109

Patricia E. Ackerman

Patricia E. Ackerman graduated from Marymount College in 1975 with a bachelor of arts degree in English, as a first-generation college student. She later earned a master of arts in liberal studies from Forth Hays State University and a PhD in curriculum and instruction from Kansas State University. She works as a professor of language arts at Kansas State University and as a published freelance writer.

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INTRODUCTION

Sister Evangeline M. Thomas’s 1948 book Footprints on the Frontier: A History of the Sisters of Saint Joseph Concordia, Kansas provides both foundation and inspiration for this book. In the foreword to Thomas’s book, Bishop Frank A. Thill predicts that other writers will take off from the solid runway put down by Sister Evangeline.¹ At the time of this writing, Sister Sally Witt is researching a sequel to Footprints, focusing on the lives and works of the Sisters of St. Joseph at Concordia since 1948.² Anne Butler’s book Across God’s Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850–1920 cites Thomas’s research about the early years of the Sisters of St. Joseph as they expanded their missions across the United States frontier territory.³ John J. Fialka’s Sisters pays tribute to the contributions of Catholic Nuns and the Making of America,⁴ as does Margaret McGuiness in Called to Serve: A History of Nuns in America.⁵

Prior to the turn of the twentieth century, women’s suffragists expanded their campaign for women’s rights into the rural western states. Concurrently, a small band of Sisters of St. Joseph established a motherhouse in north central Kansas, expanding their mission through schools and hospitals. In 1910, Mother Antoinette Cuff envisioned a plan to build and operate the first all-women’s Catholic college in the state of Kansas.⁶ The road toward making this vision a reality would prove to be as rocky as the Kansas frontier. In 1912, Kansas became one of the first seven states in the nation to pass a Women’s Suffrage Amendment.⁷ On August 18, 1920, when ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted American women the right to vote, construction of the first women’s college in Kansas was well underway. Marymount College of Kansas was dedicated on Sunday, June 4, 1922. Over the next seven decades, nearly seven thousand students (primarily young women) would earn bachelor’s degrees in nursing, education, liberal arts, science and business from Marymount.⁸ (See Appendix III.)

Countless individuals and organizations contributed to the success and growth of Marymount College of Kansas during its sixty-seven-year reign in higher education. This book focuses on the vision and valiant works of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who successfully opened and operated the first liberal arts college for women in the state of Kansas. The twentieth century was a turbulent time for women’s rights in America. Contrary to traditions in which higher education functioned primarily as a sequestered world for men, female students began receiving degrees at Marymount in 1926. Nearly three thousand women received bachelor’s degrees over the next forty years. After the college transitioned from an all-women’s college to a coeducational institution in 1968, another four thousand men and women earned bachelor’s degrees.⁹ Many of these graduates went on to live and work in Salina and the surrounding region. Aside from obvious economic benefits, the values-based education these graduates received at Marymount provided them with knowledge and leadership abilities that would generate a positive impact on rural Kansas culture. It is difficult to speak of Marymount College in contemporary government, education or medical circles without meeting someone who credits the roots of their success to the value-oriented, liberal arts education they received at Marymount College of Kansas. As one Salina Journal editor noted, A college turns out people who teach our children, run our businesses, lead our nonprofit organizations, act on our stages, nurse us back to health, lead our bands, and become community leaders and artists. Their success brings more bright, motivated, and hard-working people to our town. A college is an incubator for those people who give back far more to your town than those looking for just a paycheck.¹⁰

Part I

HIGHER EDUCATION AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The basis of government requires an educated citizenry.

—Thomas Jefferson¹¹

Chapter 1

HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA

Two thousand years of history documents the evolutionary processes that have molded contemporary institutions of higher learning. The definition of higher education has changed dramatically since Aristotle facilitated intellectual dialogues for young male students. Discourse between gatherings of male scholars in Augustine Rome impacted changing political climates. During the thirteenth century, the formal idea of college surfaced in English society, functioning as scholarly retreats for male students of divinity. These early institutions of higher learning were housed in very cloistered and exclusive settings. When graduating scholars began to earn their livings as teachers for younger, undergraduate-level students, systems designed to regulate curriculum began to evolve.¹²

Seventeenth-century English Protestants settling New England introduced the need for higher education in the New World. Of the twenty-thousand people who emigrated to New England in the 1630’s one hundred and fifty men were on record as being graduates of English Institutions of Higher Education.¹³ In 1636, Puritan emigrants established the first American college at Newtowne (later renamed Cambridge). Upon his death, English-born merchant John Harvard donated his personal library and half of his wealth toward the establishment of Harvard University.¹⁴ In 1876, Johns Hopkins University became the first college in the country to dedicate itself not only to the preservation of learning and teaching…but also to the advancement of knowledge through research in the manner of the Prussian universities of the 19th century.¹⁵ This development led to standards for research quality and commensurate training of graduate students to further the cause of academic research.

Prior to the American Civil War, five hundred colleges were operating exclusively for men in the United States. Only one hundred of these institutions actually survived the war.¹⁶ Post–Civil War emphasis on literacy education in the United States contributed to an upward college enrollment trend over the next 150 years. It was a time of stabilization and expansion on many levels. In 1862, the United States Congress passed the Morrill Act, allocating funds for federal land grants that were intended to establish a system of state universities and research institutions.¹⁷ New colleges and universities opened across the nation, including a growing number of schools for women and African American students. During the late nineteenth century, organizations that were instrumental in advancing professional standards in higher education formed, including the Modern Language Association, American History Association, American Math Society and Association of American Universities.¹⁸

Into this changing academic landscape bands of pioneering women arrived, representing an array of women’s religious communities. They worked hard, they were business savvy and they cared about people. Their impact on the progress of education in America and on rural American culture would be long-standing.

Chapter 2

CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, turbulence throughout Europe contributed to Catholic repression.¹⁹ Publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 generated further controversy. Publicity surrounding Darwin’s theory impacted orthodoxy and raised concerns about the primacy of theology.²⁰ At the First Vatican Council in 1869, Cardinal Manning presented the notion of papal infallibility. And the first Congress of Catholics met the following year in Munich.²¹ Expanding populations of immigrants to the United States resulted in a plethora of diverse human needs, including education for thousands of children, many of whom were Catholic.

In post–Civil War America, increased emphasis was placed on literacy education. In 1884, United States bishops passed an edict directing Catholic communities to establish a nation-wide system of parochial schools, providing formal education to Catholic school children.²² Orders of Catholic nuns laid the foundation for Catholic education in America, including the order of the Sisters of St. Joseph. These pioneering women established missions across the American frontier, building schools and hospitals. (See Appendices I and II.) In addition to teaching and nursing, the sisters demonstrated skills in administration, finance and organizational management. They became productive members of local communities. Even with limited resources, they learned ways to expand their social agency.²³ In spite of the fact that women religious were tasked with the responsibility of educating thousands of Catholic schoolchildren, formal educational opportunities for women in religious orders were extremely limited in America.

During a meeting of United States bishops at the Second Plenary Council in Baltimore in 1866, the subject of establishing a national Catholic university was discussed. In 1884, the Third Plenary Council selected the name of Catholic University of America for this new institution of higher learning. On April 10, 1887, Pope Leo XIII sent a letter to Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, giving his formal approval for the founding of the Catholic University of America. Potential building sites included New York and Philadelphia. In 1887, sixty-six acres of land were incorporated into the District of Columbia for establishment of a new Catholic university. The first building erected on the campus was Gibbons Hall, named in honor of then Cardinal James Gibbons.²⁴

Catholic University of America (CUA) officially opened as a papally chartered graduate research center on November 18, 1889. When the University opened for classes the original curriculum consisted of lectures in mental and moral philosophy, English Literature, the sacred scriptures, and the various branches of theology. At the end of the second term, lectures on canon law were added.²⁵

CUA adopted the model of training graduate students to carry out research, granting it hallmark status as a modern university. Catholic University became the principal channel through which the modern university movement entered the American Catholic community.²⁶ By 1900, CUA was one of fourteen leading research institutions in America offering doctoral degrees as part of the Association of American Universities. CUA began offering undergraduate degree programs in 1904.²⁷ Its early mission, however, did not involve educating women.²⁸

Chapter 3

ADVANCING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN AMERICA

During the mid-nineteenth century, women in America were not allowed to own property, could not serve on juries, could not vote and could not share equal custody of their children. Should a man die without having prepared a will, his wife received one-third of the estate, while the remaining two-thirds was bequeathed to a male relative.²⁹ Young girls might be allowed to attend primary school, learning basic math, reading and writing. But educational expectations for girls focused on domestic skills necessary to keeping a home. Young ladies of means might also receive instruction in more ornamental matters necessary to holding a place in society. Institutions of higher learning were exclusive domains of men. Throughout the nineteenth century, not a single public university in the world admitted women.³⁰ However, some progress was made on behalf of educating African American men during this time. Between the years 1826 and 1866, a total of twenty-eight African American men are on record as receiving bachelor’s degrees in United States colleges.³¹

The first campaign events for national