12/25/2020
Marymount College - 1921
A year before women were given the right to vote, a group of nuns had a wild ambition: to build the first million-dollar college exclusively for women in the middle of the Kansas plains.
Irish-born nun Antoinette Cuff, leader of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, had a vision of opening the first college for women in the state of Kansas. She and the other sisters were motivated by a growing need for formal education opportunities for the Sisters of St. Joseph, whose mission was to teach growing numbers of children in rural Catholic schools.
When highways and railroad lines, which were thought vital for transporting potential students to and from the college, bypassed Concordia, the sisters began looking for a different city in which to build their Catholic-based institution.
With the help of a group of enthusiastic Salina businessmen, who realized that a new college would be important for community development, Mother Antoinette and the sisters picked Salina to be the home of what eventually would be called Marymount College.
Groundbreaking was Oct. 6, 1919, and construction was completed on May 1, 1922. Between those years, specifically on Aug. 18, 1920, women were given the right to vote.
“For those women to come to a frontier area with a vision for a college to educate women, and then build a million-dollar college, is amazing,” said Patricia Ackerman, author of the recently published book “Marymount College of Kansas: A History.”
College special to region
Ackerman, a 1978 graduate of Marymount College and professor of language arts at Kansas State University Salina, said she wanted to write a history of her alma mater to remind those who attended the college, which closed in 1989, just how special it was to the region.
“In 67 years, this college granted 6,867 degrees, most of them to women,” she said. “I want people to read this book and realize they were part of something amazing.”
“Marymount College of Kansas: A History” was released Tuesday by The History Press, a South Carolina-based publisher. The soft-cover book sells for $19.99 and will be available at area bookstores, online at Amazon.com and historypress.net and at the Smoky Hill Museum, 211 W. Iron. It also is available as an e-book.
Inspired by interview
Ackerman was inspired to write the book after interviewing Salina architect Donnie Marrs and his wife, Mona, in 2009 for the magazine Sunflower Living. The college was nearly torn down to make room for a parking lot, but the Marrs family bought it in 1993 with the intention of preserving its historic structures.
After using the 130,000-square-foot Tudor Gothic Administration Building as a family home for nearly 20 years, the Marrs family launched a major renovation project in 2012 to convert the south wing into residential condominiums.
The Marrses mentioned to Ackerman that Marymount College was filled with one-of-a-kind stories that belonged in a book. Their remark inspired Ackerman to begin researching the history of the college and to fulfill an ambition to write a book -- an ambition that went back to her Marymount days.
“I told Sister Mary Mark Whitehair that I wanted to get an English degree, and she told me to get a teaching certificate,” Ackerman said. “I told her I wanted to be a writer. She smiled and said, ‘Get a teaching degree.’ ”
Six-month sabbatical
Ackerman took a six-month sabbatical from K-State Salina, beginning in May 2013, and started archival research at the Nazareth Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Concordia.
“The St. Joseph sisters are great respecters of history and have kept really good records,” she said.
The wealth of stories and material about Marymount College was so vast that Ackerman initially envisioned a much bigger book. But after signing a publishing contract with The History Press in September 2013, she had to be more specific in her choice of what to include.
“I had to decide what story I wanted to tell,” she said. “So I decided to follow the paper trail and write an overview history of the college -- how it was conceptualized, its curriculum and how it developed over the years until it closed.”
Built despite the odds
Ackerman said she was impressed at the tenacity of Mother Antoinette and the Sisters of St. Joseph to build their dream college despite great odds.
“After World War I, construction costs had gone up, and as the project got bigger, the costs got higher,” she said. “The sisters had always paid cash, and now they had to borrow money.”
They had to borrow about $400,000 to be exact, an enormous sum in those days, to complete the building. After the loan request was turned down by Archbishop John Bonzano of the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., Mother Antoinette wrote a letter directly to Pope Benedict XV in 1921. After she outlined the school’s purpose and their financial situation, the loan was granted.
First class enrolls
The first class of Marymount College convened on Sept. 8, 1922, with 29 students enrolled. The first graduating class, which consisted of just seven women, received their Bachelor of Arts degrees on May 26, 1926. Marymount was the first college in Kansas to award bachelor’s degrees to women.
Through the next several decades, Marymount became a respected fine arts institution, stressing a liberal arts education that included music, theater and art. During the 1950s, a new Fine Arts building was constructed, which was opened in 1957. A large theater auditorium was built to seat 1,036 people and a Little Theater offered 156 seats.
A special visitor
On Nov. 20, 1959, John F. Kennedy visited Marymount during a pre-presidential tour of the U.S. Kennedy reminded students that they had a responsibility to be an inspiration, through the education they received, to their community, state and country.
Marymount remained an all-women’s college until 1968, when, for financial reasons, male students were admitted, Ackerman said.
“They wanted students to be eligible for federal financial aid, so it had to become co-ed,” she said.
First male graduates
Several men had earned degrees from Marymount prior to 1968, Ackerman said, but they were not allowed to be pictured in class composites or participate in graduation ceremonies. The first male to receive a diploma from Marymount was Eric Stein, a musician and orchestra conductor who would found the Salina Symphony and Salina Municipal Band. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1953.
The first man to actually walk across the stage and receive a diploma at the college was Francis Roesner, who received his degree in 1968. In 1955, Roesner began acting in Marymount theater productions that required male actors. He started taking classes there and met his future wife, Charlene, at the school.
Both Stein and Roesner eventually became longtime faculty members in the fine arts department at the college, and Roesner later would serve as director of development.
Despite efforts, school closes
By the 1980s, the need for continuous maintenance on the building, combined with growing debt and a decline in enrollment, revenue and major gift contributions led to talk of closing the school. In 1983, the Sisters of St. Joseph transferred ownership of the college to the Salina Diocese in an effort to save it.
Despite valiant fundraising efforts, the Most Reverend Bishop George Fitzsimmons, bishop of the Salina Diocese, announced the school would be closing at the end of the 1989 spring semester. The announcement stunned the Salina community, Ackerman said.
The last Marymount College commencement took place at the end of the spring semester of 1989, graduating 62 women and 30 men.
Ackerman said attending Marymount College was one of the most formative experiences of her life, and she was honored to write about its history and influence on the community and on Kansas.
“Marymount influenced my life and opened my mind,” she said.
