College of Saint Teresa
Encyclopedia
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...
women's college
Women's college
Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women...
in Winona
Winona, Minnesota
Winona is a city in and the county seat of Winona County, in the U.S. State of Minnesota. Located in picturesque bluff country on the Mississippi River, its most noticeable physical landmark is Sugar Loaf....
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Previously a seminary, it became a college in 1907 and was operated by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota
Sisters of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota
The Sisters of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women. The congregation was founded in 1877 by Mother Mary Alfred Moes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona...
until its closing in 1989.
History
Mary Aloysia Molloy (1880-1954) grew up as the only child of Irish CatholicIrish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
immigrant parents in Sandusky, Ohio. In an age when few women attended college, Molloy earned her way through Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
and graduated, in 1903, with more honors than anyone else up to that time. She went on to earn a master's degree and election to Phi Beta Kappa at Ohio State. In 1907 she earned her doctorate at Cornell. That same year, she began her career as a Catholic college educator in Winona, Minnesota, when she accepted a job with the Franciscan Sisters who, under the leadership of Sister Leo Tracy, were creating the liberal arts College of St. Teresa. The two women persevered and successfully established and administered the new collegiate institution for Catholic lay and religious women.
Molloy was unique as the lay dean of a Catholic college, but in 1923 she became a nun, Sister Mary Aloysius Molloy, and in 1928 became the college president. As an educator, Molloy worked hard to improve the quality of women's education, wrestled with the unique problems of Catholic colleges, and carefully oversaw the development of her own school. By 1946, when she retired, the college was a firmly established institution producing outstanding graduate women. Molloy was one of the last among the heroic generation of founders of Minnesota women's colleges.
Current status
Since its dissolution, it has been best known for its scholarship programs available to women attending other Catholic colleges and universities, as well as its connection to the Saint Teresa Leadership and Service Institute at Saint Mary's University of MinnesotaSaint Mary's University of Minnesota
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota is a private, comprehensive, coeducational university with an undergraduate campus in the city of Winona, Minnesota, United States...
, which has an undergraduate campus based at Saint Teresa's former campus in Winona.
Crisis and closure
Some cite the conversion of Saint Mary's University to a coeducationCoeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as coeducation or co-education, is the integrated education of male and female persons in the same institution. It is the opposite of single-sex education...
al institution as the ultimate downfall of Saint Teresa. That view, however, may overstate the importance of what was only one of many factors. Coeducation at SMU, then called Saint Mary's College, eventually ended the two schools' brother-sister relationship and harmed the social life of Saint Teresa, but that alone cannot explain the closing of the school. The College of Saint Catherine survived coeducation at its brother school, Saint Thomas
University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
The University of St. Thomas is a private, Catholic, liberal arts, and archdiocesan university located in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States...
, and continues to thrive. Saint Mary's College
Saint Mary's College (Indiana)
Saint Mary's College is a private Catholic liberal arts college founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. It is located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community northeast of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States — as are the University of Notre Dame and Holy...
in Indiana has easily survived the arrival of coeducation at its neighbor the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
. The issues that brought about the closing of Saint Teresa are far more complex than the end of campus mixers.
The closing of Saint Teresa came during an era that saw a general decline in women's colleges (other than the most elite) and the closing of, or switch to coeducation at, many smaller Catholic women's colleges. Recruiting was to some degree hurt by the school's insistence on maintaining a strict code of student conduct years after such things had been abandoned at other colleges. Such rules as nightly curfew
Curfew
A curfew is an order specifying a time after which certain regulations apply. Examples:# An order by a government for certain persons to return home daily before a certain time...
s and bed checks for first-semester freshmen and a total, campus-wide ban on alcohol were not eased until the early 1980s, and then only slightly.
And in a sense the college found itself in a vortex from which it could not escape. As enrollment fell cutbacks in spending were made which, in turn, made it more difficult to attract and retain students. A major layoff of faculty and cutbacks in programs in 1980 led to a large number of student transfers and a corresponding drop in revenues. This, of course, worsened the financial situation and invited further cuts in spending. Saint Teresa might have survived with a reduced enrollment but as enrollment fell it was never able to stabilize at a consistent level.
The college was also hurt to some extent by overreliance upon its signature nursing program. Junior and senior nursing majors lived and studied in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
, fifty miles distant. As enrollment declined this left the main campus in Winona largely empty of upperclasswomen, making campus life unattractive for those who stayed in Winona.
In the 1980s a plan was developed to convert one the school's three large dormitories to a residence for older women who could have access to the college's programs in hopes of reviving Saint Teresa's financial prospects. A model unit was built and prospective residents found but the school was unable to find a bank willing to lend the necessary funds.
Before St. Mary's went coed in 1969 there were discussions between the two colleges about merger. The potential of such an arrangement is illustrated by the present relationship between the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University
The College of Saint Benedict , for women, and Saint John's University , for men, are partnered liberal arts colleges respectively located in St. Joseph and Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Students attend classes and activities together, and have access to the resources of both campuses...
in Collegeville, Minnesota. Ultimately Saint Teresa broke off the discussions. While this proved in the end to be short-sighted, at the time Saint Teresa had a larger enrollment, higher admissions standards and a superior physical plant.
The two schools then went their separate ways until the mid-1980s when a new President at St. Mary's, Brother Louis DeThomasis, took an interest in helping Saint Teresa pull through its crisis. Joint programs were established to help expand Saint Teresa's offerings but it was too little too late. At the very end, when closing the college seemed inevitable, DeThomasis proposed a full merger of the two colleges but was vetoed by his Board of Trustees. It was generally assumed that the trustees concluded that the serious financial problems of Saint Teresa were too great a burden, or at least too risky, for Saint Mary's to handle.
Presidents
- Sister M. Leo Tracy, OSF, 1912-28
- Sister M. Aloysius Molloy, OSF, 1928-46
- Sister M. Rachel Dady, OSF, 1946-52
- Sister M. Camille Bowe, OSF, 1952-69
- Sister M. Joyce Rowland, OSF, 1969-80
- Doctor Thomas J. Hamilton, 1980-85
- Sister Michaea Byron, OSF, 1985-89