Challenged by Coeducation: Women's Colleges Since the 1960s

4. A Catholic Women's College Absorbed by a University: The Case of Mundelein College

76 4 A Catholic Women’s College Absorbed by a University The Case of Mundelein College Prudence Moylan Mundelein College in Chicago provides an example of how, despite a record of educational innovation and cultural engagement, a Catholic women’s college was unable to survive the rapid social, demographic, and economic changes that fundamentally altered its environment. Mundelein’s history illustrates key themes raised about the effect of the social changes in the 1960s on Catholic women’s colleges. Between 1960 and 1975 Mundelein College redesigned its curriculum and its academic calendar, built a new residence hall, adapted an apartment building for student residents, and built a new Learning Resource Center. In 1974 a Weekend College in Residence, the first in the country, welcomed a hundred new students and grew to more than six hundred students in three years. Yet by 1990 Mundelein was unable to survive the combined forces of declining enrollment and rising costs.1 This story has three parts. The first two chart the history of Mundelein College. The third considers how the legacy of Mundelein has had an impact on Loyola University. The period from 1960 to 1975 was characterized by innovation and optimism in the face of change. The struggle to survive as a women’s college began in 1975 and intensified until in 1991 Mundelein temporarily affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. The affiliation provided a five-year legal transition period for the dissolution of Mundelein as a distinct corporation . It was during the transition that the idea for a women’s center at Loyola took shape. In 1993 the Ann Ida Gannon Center for Women and Leadership became a reality, honoring the Mundelein heritage by continuing a commitment to educating women for leadership. A Catholic Women’s College Absorbed by a University 77 The BVMs and Mundelein College The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) have a long history of providing Catholic education. Founded in 1833 when five Irish women from Dublin arrived in Philadelphia, the BVM were determined to take up the work of education in the United States. Mary Frances Clarke, the leader of the women, was assisted in forming a religious community by Reverend Terence James Donaghoe, a priest in the Diocese of Philadelphia. In 1843 the newly formed BVMs and Donaghoe answered the call of Bishop Loras to work on the frontier in Dubuque, Iowa.2 The BVMs devoted themselves to education and took up work in parish elementary schools as well as establishing their own girls’ acade­ mies. In 1867 they opened their first parish elementary school in Chicago.3 When they started St. Mary’s High School on the South Side in 1898, it was the first Catholic central high school for girls in the United States. In 1922 the BVMs established a second girls’ high school, Immaculata, on the north side of Chicago.4 The BVMs had a long-established reputation for educational excellence by the time the newly appointed archbishop George Cardinal Mundelein invited them in 1916 to found a college for women in Chicago. It was not until 1928 that the sisters could take up the invitation. Since Catholic colleges founded by religious communities did not receive direct financial support from the Catholic Church, the BVMs undertook a tremendous financial risk in their response to Cardinal Mundelein’s request.5 Mundelein College , named in honor of the cardinal, opened in September 1930 in a purpose-­ built art-deco skyscraper on the shores of Lake Michigan, eight miles north of downtown Chicago. The Rogers Park neighborhood on the northern edge of the city had expanded rapidly in the 1920s and was home to a growing middleclass Irish and German population. Mundelein’s first president, Sister Justitia Coffey, saw the skyscraper as an apt metaphor for the college’s mission: “It is the aim of those in charge of this institution that the quality of instruction shall be in keeping with the exterior of the college—modern, complete, efficient.”6 Coffey also identified the young sisters she needed for the faculty of the new college. Mary DeCock, BVM, noted in an essay on the founding of the college: “The 1930–31 faculty roster lists at least fifteen sisters who earned masters of arts degrees between 1928 and 1930, and four who were enrolled in Ph.D. programs.”7 When it opened, Mundelein served Chicago women who could not afford to “go away” to school. Many of the students came from the BVMs’ two high...