In summer 1970, La Salle prepared for a moment that would change its history. The institution was about to deviate from a design that had been in place for more than a century—not unlike today, as Colleen M. Hanycz, Ph.D., settles into her new office in the Peale House as the University’s 29th President, the very first woman to lead La Salle.

This time 45 years ago, a few dozen young women readied themselves to settle into a new environment as well. Soon, they would take their places in the classroom as the first full-time female undergraduate day students at La Salle. It was a time filled with excitement and uncertainty. Some were concerned that this change would alter the very fabric of La Salle—an institution that had educated only men for 107 years. It did. It’s bound the community at La Salle even closer together and added some new flourishes to its rich heritage.

In the pages that follow, a few of those first young women and the faculty and staff members who witnessed their arrival recall the beginning of a new thread in La Salle’s storied history.

Diane Bones, ’75: Just look at photos from that 1971 to 1975 era and you’ll see how the world was transforming from button-down to tie-dye, and La Salle was right there in all its colorful, rebellious glory. For me, La Salle was pulsating with interesting, vibrant individuals who were involved in art, technology, sports, philosophy, women’s rights, racial equality, and peace movements.

Tina Halpin, Esq., ’76: It was an exciting time; not only were we in college, but it was the time of the Equal Rights Amendment, the Vietnam War, and consciousness-raising. We were going through our own experience of figuring out who we were, and so was the country.

And so was La Salle. After a meeting of the international chapter of the Christian Brothers in 1966, the rules that prohibited Brothers from teaching women were revised on a local basis. This change opened the door for women’s admittance to La Salle’s Evening Division in spring 1967.

In 1969, President Brother Daniel Burke, F.S.C., Ph.D., kept the process moving by creating a “Committee on Co-Education,” which was chaired by Brother Emery Mollenhauer, F.S.C., Ph.D., and included faculty, students, and two administrators.

Summarizing the committee’s historic recommendation at the time, Br. Emery said, “To seek to continue our identity as an all-male college would be to perpetuate an anachronism. On educational grounds alone—and what other reason can be offered for our existence—the case for coeducation is incontestable.”

Br. Emery Mollenhauer, F.S.C., Ph.D., Provost emeritus and former Dean of the Evening Division and associate professor of English: The first women came in when I was Evening Dean. I tried to get them (admitted) in ’62, actually, but that didn’t work. We had to go to our Provincial then. This gets slightly complicated. The Christian Brothers had an old rule—you could not teach women. At least you weren’t supposed to. … It’s a way-back French thing. It’s been changed, obviously… It was one of those things; it was kind of inevitable for survival.

Br. Charles Gresh, F.S.C., ’55, former Director of Housing and Dean of Students: Some Brothers were opposed to it. They felt that, you know, we had gotten along 100-plus years without coeducation and there was no reason why we couldn’t get on without it. However, on the other side of the coin, it was a must point of view from admissions, growth, and programs. All over the nation, of course, things were changing.

John Rossi, Ph.D., ’58, professor emeritus of history and author of Living the Promise: A History of La Salle University: Well, it turned out to be the salvation of the school in a way. I mean, I don’t know whether we would have survived as a single-sex school.

However, it wasn’t just about fiscal stability and boosting enrollment; the majority of students wanted to expand their horizons. In 1968, 82 percent of La Salle students surveyed said they favored coeducation.

The campus was ready for a change, and then-President Br. Daniel was ready to lead the way as La Salle embarked on a new era. The institution fully opened its doors to women for the first time in September 1970—a decision that was years in the making.

“While the full impact of the decision on all of the programs is not completely clear, the general prospect seems to be a happy one for most of the campus,” Br. Daniel said at the time. “The coeds, we believe, are going to make significant contributions to the quality of academic and social life at La Salle.”

That fall, La Salle welcomed 837 freshmen to campus—138 of them were La Salle’s first full-time female undergraduate day students. Most of these young women didn’t see themselves as groundbreakers or game-changers; they wanted to further themselves and find their place, on campus and in the world.

Marianne Salmon Gauss, ’74, MBA ’87: I had had enough all-girl education in high school, and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do, and that I was probably going to have to figure out how to do this anyhow. I didn’t see it as a huge, scary thing. I just saw it as something I’d have to overcome. …

I remember thinking, “I’m never going to make it because I’m too busy being nice and making sure nobody’s mad at me,” and that was not the dynamic in the classroom for the most part. There were classroom arguments, and the men loved fighting with one another, which was not comfortable for me, but I loved it. …

I don’t think most of us would consider ourselves women’s libbers. We were just pretty independent, but I don’t think we came to La Salle to change the world and to get our rights back. I think we wanted an education, and that may have looked like women’s lib to the men, but my perception of most of the women I knew was that it was their way of just getting their own.

Bones: Even though I came from an all-female high school atmosphere, I wasn’t all that intimidated by the guys. In fact, to be truthful, it was fun to suddenly be in the minority. And I remain friends with many guys whom met at La Salle—not bad after 40 years! Male students always treated me well and especially appreciated the fact that I had a whole crew of girlfriends from home that came with me to La Salle parties on the weekends—the more, the merrier! …

Even though women were in the minority, we were welcomed. And we found each other—the ladies’ room on the third floor of the Union served as a refuge for women students when we needed a break from the “all-boy band!”

Joan Mancini Fitzpatrick, ’74: From the very first day at La Salle, I felt right at home. I was one of the few girls from a public high school and was used to coed classes, so it was not too intimidating to me. But most of the girls were from Catholic high schools where classes had been segregated. Many of the girls were extremely nervous at first and hesitated to walk into the male-dominated cafeteria. I remember many girls eating their lunches in the third-floor bathroom of the Union those first few months.

These female students weren’t the only ones who took some time to adjust to their new surroundings. Many of the male faculty members were in the same boat. Having only had experience in single-sex education, some struggled to find their footing in this new academic environment.

Fitzpatrick: As 18- to 22-year-olds, the students were loving it. But most of the teachers at La Salle had only taught male students for years and this was a huge change for them. I think the professors and the Christian Brothers were actually the ones that had the hardest time adjusting.

Rossi: It took a while because the Brothers didn’t understand women at all. There were the Brothers whose influence was very high at that time, and there were a lot of Brothers at that time—they would kind of throw their hands up and didn’t know what to do. So I think it took a while for them to get on their feet about that.

Br. Emery: I think some faculty may have had some difficulties adjusting in the classroom. If you have an all-male audience, which my experience has been, too, you can be more off-handed and kid a bit. But I find I have to be a little more careful at some times with some of the young women than I would tend to be with the men. And that may be partly because I taught in high school with all males, and the relationship was friendly, but it was sort of man-to-man.

Fitzpatrick: Most professors were kind and accepting, but they were unsure of the protocol, and, if anything, they treated us a little with kid gloves at first. I remember one of my first classes was economics, and there were only two women in the class. I specifically recall that when discussing third-world countries, the professor had to mention birth control and it was painfully obvious how awkward he felt mentioning what he thought was a sensitive subject in front of the women.

Gauss: I think some of the laypeople had a harder time. I had a professor who used to say there was no place in his lab for a woman, except at the sink washing glassware, and although that sounds like a pretty funny line, I don’t think he was kidding, and none of the women in his class felt he was kidding. And I’ve talked with him about it since then, and I think he was just unnerved by it more than anything else. He had never taught women. He didn’t understand us. When you’re 18, you think everybody’s equal, and I now know that’s not true.

Fitzpatrick: The professors definitely had a harder time adjusting, but I feel they learned to appreciate the new women’s point of view and, in the long run, realized how beneficial the coed environment was and how competitive the women made their classes.

Br. Emery: Women tend to be good students—they’re conscientious, in general. There are bright women and there are bright men, and as a whole, they tend to be kind of more conscientious about doing their work. I think it’s pretty generally agreed.

Gauss: The women they admitted that first year were academically significantly stronger than the men. So now, they were going to have to compete for grades with people they hadn’t had to compete with before, which is interesting, too.

Halpin: At one point, one of my professors admonished the male students in the class and told them they had to step their game up because the women were here. We were so excited to be there and wanted to do well. We didn’t want to prove the critics against women’s education right. …

The English Department was at least 50/50 men and women. Some of my basic core courses here and there would be more guys than women, but I didn’t feel intimidated or unsure. The professors were very welcoming. I came in the third year after going coed, so maybe some of those growing pains had passed.

Fitzpatrick: I remember being the only girl in my speech class where we had to give speeches, and they were taped and shown afterward, a new technology at the time. It was such a fun class with Professor Sid MacLeod, and all the guys were super supportive and always had my back.

Bones: I went to a high school where boys and girls attended separate classes, so going to a predominantly male college was not intimidating but intriguing. Some classes had about 30 guys and a handful of girls, so it certainly was different from what I was accustomed to in high school. But I have to say that I was never rattled in class because of my gender—only when I was not as studious as I should have been!

Rossi: When the women came on board, you noticed right away a slightly different tone. The women raised the tone a little bit. The manners softened a little bit. Behavior was a little bit better in class and outside of class.

While, by and large, most of the male students were more than happy to rise to the occasion, there were some who took a little bit longer to warm up to their female classmates. Eventually, both the men and women adjusted to a new equilibrium, but not without the growing pains that typically accompany any change of this magnitude.

Gauss: I think the upperclassmen perceived it as a betrayal of the contract they made with the College in many cases. I think they felt like, you know, now they’re going to have to dress better, and they were going to have to behave better, and it was just a hassle.

Bones: The only group that was standoffish to me was some of the male members of the Collegian. I wrote a humor column for the newspaper, and when I’d drop off my work, I had the feeling that I was invading “all-boy territory.” Of course, that was probably solid preparation for life in the real world, but I was too intimidated to “fight back.” So I never hung out in the Collegian office because I felt like an outsider, but I continued to write for the paper nevertheless, which at the time felt like my mini-victory against the curmudgeonly male establishment. …

The only (really negative) incident I recall was one day when some moronic male students stood in front of the cafeteria and held up ratings numbers on poster boards as women walked by, à la the Olympics. It was a crude and hurtful prank, and I believe it was shut down fairly quickly because women students were quite upset by it.

Br. Arthur Bangs, F.S.C., Ph.D., ’53, a former counselor in La Salle’s Counseling Center and assistant professor emeritus of education: There was not exactly hazing but maybe just a little bit of animosity. One incident that occurred, they said, they made a big deal of it, was that as some of the girls passed by, you had a group of guys who were like the—not the cheering section—but they had these cards. That’s a 7. That’s an 8. You know. And it might have happened once, but some of the women faculty, they didn’t care for that.

Gauss: The fraternities one day sat out front and held up cards with numbers on them to rate the girls walking by, which was not particularly politically correct, but pretty funny.

As a female, it was like, “Oh God, these guys are such pigs. I can’t believe they’re discriminating against us.” You could have those kinds of conversations, but there was a part of me that thought it was pretty funny anyhow because they weren’t the kinds of guys you needed to be worried about. …

I mean they were 20-year-old guys, so there were a number of guys that saw this as an opportunity. At least they wouldn’t have to drive all the way up to Chestnut Hill to get a date, you know, so it ran the gamut.

Fitzpatrick: My brother went to La Salle and when they made the decision to accept women, I decided to look into it. Visiting campus, I still recall male students leaning out of the tower in Wister Hall, yelling to us to come to school there. I think they were ready and anxious to have some coeds on campus. …

I don’t remember anything sexist or rude from the men on campus. All in all, it was a fun atmosphere because I found that most students at La Salle come from good, hardworking families and are taught respect for others. I actually feel that the men at La Salle during those transitional years were so excited and happy to add women into the mix on campus that they were almost protective of us. They honestly appreciated having us there. I always felt special and like I belonged at La Salle.

Gauss: I think it just got to be more comfortable. … The first semester was scary. The second one wasn’t so bad. By the third or fourth semester, you figured out that in every class, there would be one guy who was going to give you a hard time just because you’re a woman, and there would be one guy who was going to be nice to you just because you’re a woman.

Br. Emery: You get all men together, and you have a few wise guys. The overall effect (of women coming to campus)—they had a civilizing effect. (The men) were less raucous, I think, after three or four years. And the women obviously survived, and I think they were very happy.

The first women at La Salle not only survived, but thrived—and, in turn, the culture on campus and in the classroom did, too. Whether they saw themselves as groundbreakers or not, these women helped La Salle to forge a new identity that remained true to its traditions and educational legacy, but also evolved with the rapidly changing world just beyond campus bounds. It was a defining moment in the University’s history and in their personal history as well.

Bones: I believe that my La Salle experience was a turning point in my young life. I came to 20th and Olney as a naïve schoolgirl and left as a woman who was ready to start her career and make her way in life. It’s difficult to explain, but even though La Salle was traditional and geographically close to my childhood home, the La Salle students and teachers opened up avenues and schools of thought that I had never before considered.

Fitzpatrick: It was a unique experience to be among the first women at a previously all-male college, and I still find myself amusing friends with tales from those years. Being the first women on a college campus is something that not many people get to experience. It was a small quirk that made my life a little different than the norm. I am still very close to the women I met at La Salle, and I think our bond is even tighter since there were so few of us. My college experience at La Salle was very rewarding and made me a much more confident woman in many ways.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Barbara Allen, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, and the students in her graduate course on oral histories who conducted some of the interviews that appear in this story, as well as Head of Archives and Digital Initiatives Rebecca Goldman, who curated all of these oral histories at digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/histdeptohall.