Women Who Went Back: Study and Careers in the Ladycliff Record

The guestbook on the old Ladycliff site was written, for the most part, by alumnae who had typed the college's name into a search engine and were surprised to find anything. They were looking for roommates. Along the way, almost incidentally, they recorded what they had done with their lives, and a surprising number of those records involve going back to school. Some had left Ladycliff before graduating, to marry or because the college closed under them, and finished a degree somewhere else years later. Others graduated on time and went on to a master's degree. This piece, written by the archive's editors, sets out what the pages here actually say about those paths, what the college offered women at the time, and how the same choices look for an adult thinking about college now. We have kept to what the archive supports and named people only as they named themselves.

Leaving early, finishing later

The clearest cases are in the guestbook. Marjorie Reynolds, who would have been class of 1969, left after her sophomore year to get married. She writes that she eventually did get back to school and graduated from St. Martin's in Washington State in 1980, then worked for the federal government for thirty years, the last fifteen of them in Alaska. Mary Jacobs Rhoades married a West Point graduate of the class of 1968, left Ladycliff and traveled around the country with him. In 1978, stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, she went back to school, and with Ladycliff's approval she received her diploma from Ladycliff itself. Bonnie Hawekotte entered in 1975 and would have been in the class of 1978, but finished college in Denver. Susan Conway Rovillard attended from 1966 to 1968, left to marry, and reports, decades on, that she had received her nursing degree the previous May for what she calls her third and final career, with eleven grandchildren by then.

None of these women presents the gap as a tragedy. The tone is matter-of-fact: a marriage, a move, a posting, and then, when it became possible, a return. What the entries do not say is also instructive. They do not describe the paperwork, the transfer of credits or the cost. Those details did not seem worth recording in a message meant to find old friends, which is a reminder that guestbooks preserve the outcome of a decision far more often than the mechanics of it.

The year the college closed

A second group never had the choice. Laurel K. Kessler-Quinones belonged to the last freshman class and would have been class of 1983. The students heard near the end of that first year that the school was closing, rallied to keep it open, and watched news crews come to the campus. She writes that if the school had not closed she would certainly have finished her bachelor's degree there, and she asks whether those who attended without graduating might still join the association. Laura Nardi attended from 1978 to 1980, would have graduated in 1982, and became a teacher, crediting Sister Frances and the other professors with her training. Catherine Wyman, a freshman in the closing year, now works at a Catholic girls' school in Phoenix. The college kept its charter for one more year, and 44 students from the class of 1981 chose to transfer credit back to Ladycliff in order to receive a diploma bearing its name.

That last arrangement is unusual, and it deserves a moment. A closing college normally scatters its students. Ladycliff found a way to let a portion of the next class finish on paper what they could not finish on the hill. For anyone holding old credits from a school that no longer exists, the question of what those credits are worth today is answered differently by every admissions office; a general guide to returning to college as an adult explains how transfer evaluation usually works and what documents to gather before asking. The archive itself cannot help with transcripts, holds no student records and has no connection to the association.

Married students on a small campus

The rules at Ladycliff were strict in ways the writers enjoy recounting. A five o'clock curfew in freshman year, caps and gowns worn to Mass, floor-length robes required when leaving the room, a nun on each floor. Trousers and jeans were forbidden, which is the whole premise of the tandem bike story from the class of 1969. Against that background, a few married women stand out. Sandy Hoffman had begun college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, married in 1968, and followed her husband to West Point, where he was posted as a bandsman. Not having finished, she enrolled at Ladycliff the next year and graduated in 1971. She had her first child while a student, in the semester she was due to begin student teaching, and writes that the administration rearranged her schedule so that she taught for a longer period on fewer days. At a large university, she says, that would never have been done. Jill Baedke, also class of 1971, also married to a member of the Military Academy Band, remembers that the two of them were probably the only married girls on campus and were treated rather differently from the others.

JoAnn Taylor Brace married a West Pointer in April 1969, less than two months short of her own graduation, and returned to Ladycliff with Helen Moore Bowman to finish her classes while her husband was in Vietnam. She signs herself as a member of the class of 1969 and 1970. Small as it was, the college seems to have bent its routines for these students in ways its curfews did not suggest it would.

What the degree was for

The history written for the original site says the curriculum offered students cultural background, prepared them to teach, and emphasized religion and philosophy, with art, music and physical conditioning alongside. It quotes the Sisters' stated aim as the full development of young women, so that they might be efficient members and leaders of society. The guestbook suggests the teaching part was taken seriously. Carol McPherson Kreeger taught for 35 years in West Milford, New Jersey. June Seiner D'Amato taught elementary school in Syosset for 28 years. Kathleen Dunn taught in Catholic schools, was principal of St. Peter's in Haverstraw for fifteen years, and at the time of writing taught English as a second language and adult literacy for BOCES in Rockland County. Josephine Greaux Dervan took a master's in library science at Pratt after graduating and spent her career in school libraries. An unsigned entry from the class of 1969 mentions teaching online college courses for Rutgers. Ellen Strangio Wright, class of 1977, graduated with a degree in art and education. A 1978 graduate with a bachelor's in English was teaching senior Advanced Placement literature in Alabama.

Julie Lenti Danielson, class of 1972, has been a high school counselor in California for more than 25 years and writes in her journal piece that she encourages all of her students to have a college experience. The news page records two other outcomes: Sister Regina Holtz, class of 1965, received the Franciscan Federation's Peacemaker Award for work with the poor and homeless and with HIV-infected infants, and Phyllis C. Borzi, class of 1968, was confirmed in 2009 as an Assistant Secretary of Labor. Linda Buzzeo Best, who cared for the site and wrote the college history, is described as a professor of English. Kathleen Dunn's remark may be the most representative of all: the foundation she received at Ladycliff served her well over the years, even though she did not fully appreciate it at the time.

Going back now

The interruptions recorded here, marriage, a military posting, a child, a school that shut, still interrupt degrees. What has changed is the range of ways back. Part-time study, evening and online courses, and credit for prior learning did not exist in the forms they take now when Marjorie Reynolds returned to school in Washington or Mary Jacobs Rhoades in Kansas. An adult considering the same step today usually faces a different set of worries than an eighteen-year-old: whether old credits count, how to fit classes around work and family, whether anyone else in the room will be their age. A plain guide on returning to college after 30 addresses those questions directly, from transcripts for coursework decades old to what admissions offices expect from older applicants. The Ladycliff entries do not give advice, but they do give the long view. Susan Conway Rovillard earned her nursing degree for a third career when she already had eleven grandchildren. Mary Jacobs Rhoades went back to school in 1978 and, with Ladycliff's approval, received her diploma from Ladycliff.

The archive adds one more thing. The association page shows how little the organization knew about some classes: the files were thinnest for the 1950s and for the late 1970s and 1980s. The record of women who left and finished elsewhere is thin for a simple reason: only those who wrote in are here. The women who finished in Kansas, Washington and Colorado did write in, and the archive keeps their words as they wrote them.

Questions

Also at the Alumnae Desk: Writing About a College That No Longer Exists · The Campus as a Subject: Describing a Place You Can No Longer Visit