With Courage and Compassion: a Reflection on the History of Salve Regina University in the Light of the Spirit Which Engendered and Sustains It
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Salve Regina University Digital Commons @ Salve Regina Faculty and Staff - Ebooks Faculty and Staff 1993 With Courage and Compassion: A Reflection on the History of Salve Regina University in the Light of the Spirit Which Engendered and Sustains It Sister Mary Eloise Tobin RSM Salve Regina University Sister Mary Jean Tobin RSM Salve Regina University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/fac_staff_ebooks Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Tobin, Sister Mary Eloise RSM and Tobin, Sister Mary Jean RSM, "With Courage and Compassion: A Reflection on the History of Salve Regina University in the Light of the Spirit Which Engendered and Sustains It" (1993). Faculty and Staff - Ebooks. 1. https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/fac_staff_ebooks/1 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty and Staff at Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty and Staff - Ebooks by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ection on the alve Regina University t of the Spiri ered and Sustains it by Sister Mary Eloise Tobin, RSM Sister Mary Jean Tobin, RSM With Courage and Conipassion A Reflection on the History of Salve Regina University in the Light of the Spirit which Engendered and Sustains it by Sister Mary Eloise Tobin, RSM Sister Mary Jean Tobi, RSM 01993 Salve Regina University To the many generations, past and present, who together have shaped and shared this history, this book is lovingly dedicated Contents Foreword ......................................................... I Chapter 1 Prelude ...................................................3 Chapter 2 Interlude 1934-1947 .......................................... 8 Chapter 3 Beginnings 1947 ............................................ 14 Chapter 4 Foundations 1947-1951 ....................................... 20 Chapter 5 Growth 1951-1964 .......................................... 32 Chapter 6 Expansion 1964-1968 ........................................ 42 Chapter 7 The Lean Years 1968-1973 .................................... 52 Chapter 8 A Second Sowing 1973-1981 ................................... 66 Chapter 9 A Second Growth 1982-1991 .................................. 81 Epilogue Constancy Amid Change .......................................99 B~bl~ography. ..................................................... 101 Chronology ............................. Trustees and Administration 1990-1991 ......... Honorary Degrees ........................ iii Foreword In asking us to write a history of Salve Regina College, Sister Lucille's only request was that we write "a readable narrative." With this in mind we do not presume to produce a completely detailed documented study. Rather, we are motivated to discover within the factual data their underlying signif~cancein terms of the mission of the College as a Mercy Institution of Higher Learning dedicated to an idea rooted in the charism of Venerable Catherine McAuley, foundress of the Sisters of Mercy. We also bring to the interpretation of our sources the conviction that the mysterious presence of God underlies and gives meaning to all history. It is within this twofold context that we attempt a commentary of what follows in these pages. At the same time we hope to bring to the reader an appreciation of the sense of purpose, of the tireless efforts and creative endeavors of all those privileged to bring to each new moment the enduring endowment of the past renewed and transfigured. In the light of these considerations, we have chosen to unify the theme of this book under the title With Courage and Cornparsion as a fitting expression of the common consistent response to whatever the circumstances, whatever the needs, whatever the cost. We wish to thank all who in any way have contributed to the production of this history whether by words of encouragement, helpful researching of sources, or critical reading of the manuscript. We are particularly grateful to Sister Lucille McKillop for her encouragement and support. In spite of her duties as President, she took the time to read and comment on each chapter, never failing to make herself available to us whatever the request. We owe a debt of gratitude also to the following: To Sister Mercy McAulie, Sister Therese Antone, and Dr. \irilliam Burrell for their careful critique of our first drafts and the validity of our sources. To Sister Sheila Megley for providing a quiet, pleasant place in which to work close to the Archives. To Sister Eleanor Little, Archivist, and the Library Staff for their patience in helping us with our research To Sister Philemon Danigan for the resource for her prodigious memory as a living witness. To Sister Mary Rosalia Flaherty as former Dean of Studies and member of the Board of Trustees and Sister Mary Emily Shanley and Sister Mary Christopher O'Rourke, as past Presidents, for their helpful comments and corrections. To Miss Nancy Flanagan, '92, our student typist, for her skillful use of the computer, her graciousness and willingness to revise and finalize each chapter and each section of the chronology. To the personnel of the various offices and departments for their prompt and courteous response to our many requests. To all of you we say that gratitude is the memory of the heart. Sister Mary Jean Tobi, RSM Sister Mary Eloise Tobin, RSM Chapter 1 Prelude In trying to capture the true meaning of Salve Regina College from its earliest beginnings to the present, we must look beyond its chronology to the spirit which engendered and which to this day sustains it. It is the history of those who sought to make visible in our time the reality of an ideal rooted in the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy. We must, then, go back in time to another century, to another place, and to another group of courageous women who found in the Venerable Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, the leadership and strength to confront the many problems of nineteenth-century Ireland. We look at Mother McAuley essentially as a liberator. Her study of the Gospels gave her an intuitive sense of what it means to be human, to be a wayfarer in the midst of light and darkness, of the known and unknown, of the possible and seemingly impossible. .She understood the restrictions to human liberty caused by hatred, bigotry, ignorance, poverty, and the uncertain conditions peculiar to her time and place. Her study of the Gospels gave her the courage to oppose and to remove those restrictions. Catherine McAuley stood on the threshold of a period of lrish history which was critical for the liberation of her pcople politically, socially, and religiously. She witnessed the gradual repeal of the Penal laws,l the passage of the Act of Union which paradoxically protected the privileged and subjugated the powerless.' The Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the Education Act of 1831, while theoretically removing civil disabilities against Catholics and giving them legal equality before the law, failed to eradicate both ethnic and religious prejudice.' It is signilicant, however, that in this moment of crisis Catherine McAuley stood with the poor at a time when the Church needed to reach out to its people in a determined effort to right their wrongs and guarantee for them the fullness of a freedom that was theoretically theirs. For Catherine McAuley the response was above all practical. She felt herself moved by God to act, for she saw within this historic moment "some of the fire of Christ kindling 1 M. Bertrand Dcgnan, RSM, Mercy unto Thousands OVestminster, Md.: Newman Press, i954), pp. 2, 4 note hat the Penal Codes had subjugated lrish Catholics not only on religious grounds but also by the limitations on land tenure and prohibition of education. M. Joanna Regan, RSM, and Isabelle Keiss, RSM. Tender Courage (Chicago. 111.: Franciscan Herald Press, 1988), pp. 10, 11, 17 note that the act of Union and consequent dissolution ofllre lrish Parliament had heightened hostilities between Catholics and Protestants. 'The abject misery of the Papists was the result of decades of degradation forced upon lhem by laws that protected privilege and penalized the defenseless. 3 P. S. O'Hegarty, A History of Ireland under (he Union 1801-1922 (London: Melhuen, 1952), pp. 4-5, 41-42, 54-56 fast."4 Iler principal solution to Ireland's problems lay in education defmed in its most comprehensive and essential signifkation; namely, in its power to liberate wherever and however people were subjugated by ignorance of any kind. True liberty, she felt, was grounded in education. Hence, in her plans for Baggott Street, the fist House of Mercy, she provided fist for classrooms. She saw to it that the illiterate and unskilled young girls who found refuge there would not only receive instruction in the Faith and in good manners, but would be trained according to their capacity to find proper employment in order to be able to take their places in society with dignity and self-respect.' Moreover, she taught her Sisters that even in their visits to the poor their purpose was not only to console and to care for their needs, but to instruct them so that they themselves might becomc more self-sufiicient and more aware of their dignity as persons. Thus, she was guided by a realism that saw in ignorance the most devastating source of human depravity. For Catherine McAuley, intellectual poverty was as debilitating as fiancial poverty. She sought to dispel it by the humanizing, liberating power of the ministries of Mercy. She herself became an educator in a more formal and specific sense. As a teacher in St. Mary's Poor School, she had become acquainted with the teaching methods developed in the most reputable schools, even visiting France to observe methods used for the instruction of larger cla~ses.~Thus, she did not come unprepared to direct the Sisters in their formation as teachers; nor did she hesitate to identify herself with the public concerns that grew out of the National Education Act of 1831 and, with it, the establishment of the National Board of Education.