Stories of St. Thomas

I take great pride in being part of the first graduating class of women from St. Thomas and am thrilled that my daughter will be graduating with the class of 2008! Being a member of the first coeducational class was both rewarding and frustrating. I obtained an outstanding liberal arts education and lifelong friendships that have served me well. My memories of that time are overwhelmingly positive, but there were a few bumps in the road to a coeducational campus.

The big joke on campus by our male counterparts was that we were attending St. Thomas to obtain our “Mrs.” degrees. While most of the staff and professors were very welcoming, a handful made it clear they were not happy with the change, occasionally holding us to a different standard than our male peers. There was passionate debate about what our presence would do to the long standing relationship between St. Thomas and St. Catherine’s. And of course the choices of physical education classes left something to be desired!

In spite of these minor indignities, I wouldn’t trade my time at St. Thomas for anything and am grateful to have had a small part in paving the way for future generations of St. Thomas women.

I remember being in the beginning of my senior year of high school and finding out that St. Thomas had gone coed that year, 1977. It was the only college I wanted to attend to get a degree in business and the only school I applied for (thankfully, they accepted me). Being in the second class of women was a wonderful experience I think for all of us women. I still remember some of the junior and senior guys jokingly begrudging the fact they “let women in”. I think they actually liked it. It was such a fun year with so many women creating groups for us to be part of and connect with other women. When I graduated in 1982, my grandfather was given an honorary degree that year as well, which was so special to our family. He had gone there in the 20’s but had to leave with one quarter left to finish, when the ownership of the college changed hands because they did not continue his scholarship and could no longer afford to go. Unfortunately he had passed away and wasn’t there to share the moment with his family, but it was quite an event for me. It was a great place to be and I have so many great memories of the College of St. Thomas.

Pauline Lambert, my late wife, was the first woman administrator hired at St. Thomas. She was the assistant dean of the College. She had commented to me that when she was interviewed and hired in June 1976, no mention was made of the fact that the College was thinking of becoming co-ed in the following year. In the spring of 1977, women were obviously applying for the coming year. And one them wished to stay overnight. Since there were no accommodations for women doing such a thing on the male campus, it was decided that Pauline would spend the night with her - in the Infirmary! That building (which I believe is the oldest on the north campus) eventually became the Catholic Digest building and is now Constituent Relations.

Now associate director of St. Thomas' News Service, I was a senior majoring in journalism at the College of St. Catherine when St. Thomas decided to admit women. For some faculty and administrators -- both at the college down the street as well as at St. Thomas -- coeducation was quite threatening. There was much hand-wringing, fiery letters in the college newspapers and fear that coeducation-driven enrollment growth at St. Thomas could mean only disaster for St. Catherine. As it happened, St. Thomas' coeducation drove at St. Catherine an urgency to find a new educational niche to stimulate its own enrollment growth; one result was St. Kate's remarkably successful Weekend College program. The rest is history, and CSC is now the largest Catholic college for women in the nation.

My story is really just a funny anecdote about how some adjustments needed to be made when St. Thomas went co-ed. As a sophomore I was living in Dowling where even though the dorm was for females the bathrooms were the original ones catering to the male of our species. It was parents weekend and when I walked into the bathroom somebody's mom was sitting on one of the urinals using it for the purpose it was intended. When I walked in she looked up at me and said "I don't know how you girls do this." I didn't have the heart to tell her that the toilets were on the other side of the door.

I remember very clearly, being amongst the first class of undergraduate women starting in the fall of 1977. The Murray Hall dorm was constructed just for our arrival. We were honored. Then we began to help the college understand what it really meant to have women on campus full time. What were we to be called? Tommies, or Tommettes? How were professors suppose to treat us? Were we invading, or did we belong? Especially at the beginning, when we wanted to have a meal in the cafeteria, we would decide when we were going, and would sit at the same table. There was some resistence to our being there, living on campus. I remember one day, having a chocolate pudding bowl fall to the floor that had been sealed to the bottom of our table. Pudding went everywhere. It was an adjustment for everyone, to be sure.
By the second year, life was starting to settle down, and it was becoming the new normal for us to be on campus.
I learned so much during my four years at St. Thomas, and will be forever grateful for the time spent, the life learned, direction given, and God's grace being present for all of us during that time of transition.
Rev. Kathryn A. Ulrich
ELCA Lutheran pastor

When St. Thomas was considering going coed I was asked by the administration to chair a committee on "the academic implications of becoming a coed institution."

To no one's surprise we found that going coed, if it had an effect, it would be to raise the academic performance at the undergranduate level. I think the administration probably already knew this and so our committee just helped to support a decision that was likely to be made anyway.

One additional note - our graduate education programs which began in 1950 were always coeducational.

"I'm already convinced that co-education has been successful." This comment was made by a custodian who worked in a male dorm in June of 1979 at the end of the first year of co-education at St. Thomas. I was somewhat surprised with the confidence of his statement and asked him why he would say this.

In response he stated: I have been working in the same men's residence hall for a number of years and this year we had more than a $5,000 drop in vandalism and repair issues in the men's hall. I think the women have helped civilize this place!"