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1943–1970
The first, for women. In 1943 Sister Madeleva founded at Saint Mary's the Graduate School of Sacred Theology — the nation's first graduate theology program for women, in the congregation's own summary of it — at a time when the discipline's graduate doors stood closed to women nearly everywhere. Papal approval followed in 1944. By 1957 the college offered bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in theology, and the school drew women religious from across the country to the motherhouse ground to take doctorates in the subject they taught. The last graduate theology degrees were awarded in 1970. The school stands in the college's record as Madeleva's founding and as the measure of what the academy on the bluff had become within ninety years of the five-room house at Bertrand: the place where American Catholic women could first take theology at its highest level.
Sources
- Sisters of the Holy Cross, "History" (cscsisters.org) — the nation's first theology graduate program for women, 1943.
- In Trust, Spring 2022 — the Graduate School of Sacred Theology and the papal approval of 1944.
- LIFE magazine profile of Saint Mary's College (1957) — bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in theology by 1957; the last graduate theology degrees in 1970.