As La Salle prepares to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the first class of full-time undergraduate women entering the University and the installation of Colleen M. Hanycz, Ph.D., this fall as La Salle’s first female President, Marianne Salmon Gauss, ’74, MBA ’87, a member of that first class in 1970, sat down with her daughter, Regina Gauss Kosiek, ’01, to talk about the legacy of La Salle’s decision to become coed.

Gauss: For me, La Salle’s decision to go coed was life-changing. I wanted to go to a Catholic college, and now I could. That first year, fewer than 150 women were admitted. Along with transfer students and Graduate Religion students, these newly enrolled undergraduates boosted the female student population at La Salle up to 8.8 percent of the whole student body.

For La Salle, bringing women to campus brought more richness and diversity of opinion. It made the campus current and prepared their students for the world they were entering—a world of more gender equality and cultural diversity.

Kosiek: I can’t imagine there not being women on La Salle’s campus. I was raised here. I remember coming to campus with you to drop off papers, eating ice cream in the Brothers’ Residence, watching soccer games with Dad.

Gauss: The reality is that the relationships are what make this place special, and, if you’re lucky, they’re almost familial. And no one holds you to higher standards than your family. In its own way, La Salle’s a very comfortable place, but it’s also a place where challenges are issued because they want to get the best out of you. You’re not coddled.

“For La Salle, bringing women to campus brought more richness and diversity of opinion.”—Marianne Salmon Gauss, ’74, MBA ’87

Kosiek: When I look at it now, this was absolutely the right choice for me. La Salle gave the space to figure out what I wanted to do and what I needed to do. Society has changed. I know the reason that I felt there were very few barriers for me is because the women in the generations ahead of me fought for these things and pushed and refused to take no for an answer. I look to the first classes of women at La Salle as doing a lot of that work. I was encouraged to ask “the impertinent questions,” as (late Director of the University Honors Program) John Grady would say.

Gauss: Yes, you were, and I think that’s consistent with the mission. Colleen Hanycz’s presidency is a first, and like so many other firsts, it seems bigger than it is. It is a big deal. Having a new President installed, a new point of view, a leader who is not a Christian Brother, is all a big deal, but, as a family, La Salle will welcome Colleen and her family. And as long as we continue to be who we are, it will be almost seamless because we continue to be people who welcome people, to educate people, to have human relationships with people.

Every other change La Salle has ever made has led the school into better territory, and they always made those changes because, pragmatically, it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it, which goes right back to very beginnings of Lasallian education in the 1600s. St. John Baptist de La Salle was ahead of his time with his philosophy, and he endured criticism in his lifetime, but he knew what had to be done and stood firm in those beliefs. And the result is this tremendous legacy that is even stronger now, more than 300 years later.

Gauss is an assistant professor of management and leadership at La Salle and was the first female President of La Salle’s Alumni Association. Kosiek is Associate Director of University Ministry and Service at La Salle.