The Education Department's Mobile Television Production Unit, costing $37,657, is delivered and blessed, February 14. An unmanned and unobtrusive TV camera is set up in classes of master teachers, locally and in neighboring states, to tape diverse sessions for later perusal by Marywood's Education students. This innovation in teacher observation methods is the first mobile unit in the nation used for classroom observation.

Ground is broken for the Wayside Shrine of the Sacred Heart, a project of the Enthronement Guild of the Sacred Heart, October 24.

The Order Cor Mariae—Pro Fide et Cultura is inaugurated as an addition to the commencement exercises to honor faculty and administrators who have completed twenty years of service at Marywood. A citation is read for each recipient, describing personal qualities and contributions to the College, and a medal (gold for full-time service, silver for part-time service) embossed with the Marywood seal and hanging from a green and white ribbon is presented to each honoree. The first medalists are four lay teachers: Mary E. Barrett of the Art Department; Rosemary Carroll Kazimer of the Education Department; and Wanda M. Persichetti and Aurea Guinnard of the Modern Languages Department. Since the I.H.M. Sisters still hold to a minimum their participation in ceremonies of personal recognition, none of those eligible for the medal receive it at this time. Three Sisters are, however, cited for fifty years of service to the College and are presented with floral bouquets: Sister M. Lucretia Gilroy, I.H.M., of the Music Department; Sister M. Charitas Loftus of the English Department; and Sister Margaret Mary Howley, I.H.M., of the Home Economics Department.

Bishop J. Carroll McCormick dedicates the Wayside Shrine of the Sacred Heart, June 19.

Construction of the Power Plant and Maintenance Building is completed.

Bishop McCormick dedicates the new Library, to be known as the Learning Resources Center, May 4. Federal Judge William Nealon gives the principal address to leaders of the community, faculty, students, alumnae, clergy, and representatives of seventy colleges, universities, and learned societies. A full academic procession starts and concludes the ceremonies, after which an open house is held at the Learning Resources Center. The design of architects Valverde and Franco produce a library joined to a communications building. The library portion is octagonal on the outside and circular inside. The adjacent communications building contains facilities for storing and supplying multimedia materials, as well as a theater (later named the Lynett Multimedia Room) with two hundred seats and a large, modern rear-projection screen. James P. Clarke serves as first lay Director of the new library.

The former library stacks room on the terrace floor of the Liberal Arts building is remodelled for School of Social Work offices.

• Honorary President: The Most Reverend J. Carroll McCormick, D.D.
  
• President: Sister M. St. Mary Orr, I.H.M.
  
• Vice President for Academic Affairs: Sister M. Michel Keenan, I.H.M.
  
• Vice President for Student Affairs: Sister Marie Gillet Reap, I.H.M.
  
• Vice President for Business Affairs: Sister M. Eva Connors, I.H.M.
  
• Vice President for Development: Sister M. Marionette Coll, I.H.M.

The fourth part includes the Administrative Officers of Marywood:

• Academic Dean Emerita: Sister M. Cuthbert Donovan, I.H.M.
• Academic Dean: Ann Marie Greco, Acting Dean
• Assistant Dean: Sister Maria Eugene Caulfield, I.H.M.
• Dean of Students: Sister M. Gabriel Kane, I.H.M.
• Director of Admissions: Sister M. Jogues Earley, I.H.M.
• Chaplain: Reverend William Mellody
• Registrar: Sister M. Margrete Kelley, I.H.M.

1969

Winterim sessions are introduced, enabling undergraduates to use the January break between semesters to complete three to six credits or special projects that lend themselves to intensive study.

1969

Sister M. St. Mary Orr, I.H.M., submits her resignation to the Board of Trustees, effective June 1970, Fall.  The chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Clarence Walton, names a search committee composed of representatives of the trustees, alumnae, the I.H.M. Congregation, the religious and lay faculty, and the student body.  The committee evaluates nineteen applications for the position and selects Sister M. Coleman Nee, I.H.M., as their preferred candidate.  This recommendation is unanimously accepted by the Board, and its voting members under the revised bylaws—seven lay people, one priest, and seven Sisters—elect Sister Coleman as Marywood’s ninth President.

1969

The Bay Leaf literary magazine captures first place in the Columbia University Intercollegiate Competition.

1969

The Department of Religion is renamed the Department of Theology.

1969

Sister M. St. Mary Orr’s eight years of leadership are saluted at a luncheon of the Alumnae Association at which personal tributes are enhanced by a more public one: a framed copy of the commendation of Sister St. Mary read by Congressman Joseph McDade into the Congressional Record, November.

1969-
1970

Sister St. Mary leads Marywood to join seven other area colleges and universities in the Lehigh Regional Consortium for Graduate Teacher Education, designed to provide post-certification studies for area teachers.

1970

The Marywood Players perform The King and I.

1970

Regina Langan of the Business Department becomes the first lay person to serve as Dean of Students.

1970

An academic self-study leads to accreditation of three new teacher education sequences: Early Childhood, Computer science, and General Science.  Three graduate programs are also approved: Psychology, Counselor Education, and Social Work. 

1970

The Mathematics Department learns that one of its 1970 graduating seniors, Judith Tama, is awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Germany during the following academic year.

1970

Sensing the temper of the times, Sister Coleman, from the start of her presidency, visits a different dormitory each week to hold a “fireside chat” with the residents.  By keeping clear the lines of communication between her office and the students, Sister does her part to guarantee that legitimate grievances do not get lost at some intermediate level.  Nevertheless, a single organized demonstration is held in Nazareth Hall, where students vent their opinions on a wide range of topics to assembled administrators, Spring.

1970

By the fall of this year, upper division students in the Department of Theology are able to choose their two required courses from a field of ten.  So diversified and wide in appeal are these offerings that all Marywoodians, including non-Catholics, are expected to fulfill the requirements in Religion courses instead of in substituted subjects.

1970-
1985

The Marywood Cinematography Club channels the creative energies of majors of all departments in the production of fourteen movies.  Music, costumes, sets, titles, filming, sound recording, and performances are supplied by students under the direction of Thomas Dempsey of the Biology Department faculty.  A full-sound, black and white adaptation of Wuthering Heights calls into service the desolate culm dumps behind the campus tennis courts as a local substitute for the brooding British moorlands.

1971

A proposal is made for a dramatic alteration in Marywood’s future: a formal link with The University of Scranton.  However, the proposal is not accepted as Marywood intends to maintain its position as “a Catholic liberal arts College, dedicated to the education of youth and adults, chiefly women,” with the graduate programs remaining coeducational, as they always have been.  The College continues to admit, though not actively recruit, male commuters but has no plans to alter its emphasis. 

Before dawn, the first building on the Marywood campus—the Motherhouse-Seminary, in which the College spent its initial decade—is completely destroyed by a fire, February 22. The Motherhouse is home to nearly 120 Sisters, eight of whom are trapped on the fourth floor and forced to jump to the roof of the Seminary porch. Although several Sisters are hospitalized, there are no fatal injuries. Firefighters perform heroically, leading and carrying disabled Sisters to safety and vigilantly preventing sparks from igniting the main College buildings just across the driveway. Aid also comes from neighbors, Marywood students, and students from The University of Scranton, who rescue furniture, art work, and personal possessions from the encroaching flames, including the archives of the I.H.M. Congregation. Classes are cancelled until March 2 to clear the campus as the Sisters relocate in the Marian Convent and in vacant dormitory rooms. There is no thought of replacing the structure as a comparable building would be financially prohibitive. The chapel statue of the Blessed Mother is found intact after the fire, and, long after it is assumed to be destroyed, firefighters also discover the statue’s irreplaceable jeweled crown.

1971

The Education Department is reaccredited by NCATE.

1971

Nearly one hundred years after the I.H.M. Sisters were establishing their Congregation in Scranton and opening St. Cecilia’s Academy on Wyoming Avenue, in their centenary year and in spite of the fire, they prepare to open the new Psych-Educational Clinic at Marywood.

1971

Soon after the fire that destroyed the Motherhouse, the space in Regina Hall that had been the formal dining room is transformed overnight into a temporary chapel.

1971

The Council for Exceptional Children highlights its annual dinner with its first award for outstanding work in the field of special education, April.  Joan Halstead, a senior, is selected for the honor on the basis of scholarship, service to the Council, her private work with exceptional children, and her development of a teacher-aide volunteer program at Keystone Training and Rehabilitation Residence.

Dedication of Psych-Educational Clinic; Sister M. Coleman Nee, I.H.M., President of the University; Sister M. Cuthbert Donovan, I.H.M.; Bishop J. Carroll McCormick; Sister Elizabeth Pearson, I.H.M.; Mr. Robert Keating, President of the Board of Trustees

1971

The Reverend Joseph Fadden succeeds the Reverend William Mellody as Chaplain.

1971

The graduate School of Social Work graduates its first class, May.  Its faculty have increased to sixteen full-time and nine part-time members, and the School is awarded a three-year grant by the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation to study the social, psychological, and economic problems faced by the families of emotionally disabled children.

1972

The Verygoodian, a spoof on The Marywoodian, appears in a solitary issue, published by Verygood College in Scranton, Transylvania.

1972

The graduate School of Social Work establishes the Center for the Study of Crime Prevention and Treatment to evaluate current methods of rehabilitation and to stimulate future improvements.

1972

The Business Department increases its faculty and coordinates its programs to the needs of the commercial and industrial world to guarantee that Marywood’s women Business graduates will be fully prepared to assume executive positions.  Managerial skills, administrative techniques, and data processing are incorporated into the broadened curriculum.

1972

A ten-week seminar for parents of exceptional children is conducted, sponsored jointly by Marywood and the Lackawanna Chapter of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children. 

1972

The major in Philosophy is revised to include thirty credits, a thesis, and oral comprehensives.  One of the Department’s students, Gerry Gallagher, assists in developing the changes and becomes the new program's first graduate.  The minor sequence is also revised to include eighteen credits.

1972

The first Trustee Day is held on campus to familiarize the Trustees with the College in action and to acquaint them with administrators, faculty, and students.

1972

The Department of Theology is again renamed the Department of Religious Studies.

1972

The Marywood Players perform My Fair Lady.

1972

Marywood College and The University of Scranton forge a short-term cooperative program that includes an exchange of faculty and students for selected courses and joint use of library and other instructional facilities, giving both institutions the opportunity to sample coeducation at a minimal level. 

1972

A new coffee shop opens in Nazareth Hall’s game room.

1972

The Marywoodian alters its name to Genesis, retaining the same format and professional printing except for occasional experiments with a smaller page size and hand-typed copy.

1972

Marywood and the International Correspondence Schools begin a mutual “college without walls” program, whereby Marywood credits can be earned through correspondence courses toward Bachelors’ degrees in two areas of Business. 

1972

A new graduate degree in Public Administration is inaugurated to prepare future professionals in public service.

1972

Marywood rallies to the aid of victims of the summer flood spawned by Hurricane Agnes in the Wilkes-Barre area.  The Sisters and students work to feed and shelter as many as possible of those forced to abandon their homes to the rising waters, and they deliver to stricken Luzerne County generous contributions of essential supplies.

1973

A federal grant of $875,000 enables the graduate School of Social Work to administer its “Outreach” project, in which services for rural Luzerne and Wyoming counties are provided through cooperating area industries.  An off-campus Master’s program is offered by the School in the Lehigh Valley area, using the facilities of the College of St. Francis de Sales in Allentown. 

1973

Marywood is visited by a chapter of the Scranton Theatre Libre, the only resident acting group in Pennsylvania dedicated to producing original drama.  Students with playwriting abilities are encouraged to complete scripts for possible use by this showcase for area talent.

1973

The Music Department inaugurates an electronic piano laboratory, enabling six students to play simultaneously, without hearing one another, while monitored individually or as a group. 

1973

The Art Department enjoys international recognition as the paintings of one of its members, Thalia Ann Thomas, are exhibited in Nottingham, England.

1974

The Marywood Players perform Hello, Dolly.

1974

The space on the Liberal Arts terrace floor that the Education Department vacated when it moved to the Psych-Educational Clinic is converted into enclosed, individual faculty offices.  The partitions that divided the office cubicles in the Suraci Gallery are removed, and the area is renovated into two classrooms and a conference room.

1974

The Bachelor of Social Work program begins under the direction of Michael Freund of the Social Sciences Department.

1974

By this time the undergraduate Speech Correction and Reading Specialist curricula have received state sanction, as have the Master of Science Programs in Middle School Education, Public Relations, Nutrition, Elementary Guidance Counseling, and Reading.

1974

Marywood’s student-operated FM radio station, WVMW, begins broadcasting, offering commercial-free discussions, music, and drama, September. 

1974

Marywoodians begin the observance of World Food Day, November, following a Hunger Awareness Workshop in the Spring.

1974

The Reverend Joseph Fadden, Chaplain, is elevated to Monsignor and returns to parish work, and the Reverend Robert Hochreiter serves as both Chaplain and member of the Social Sciences Department.

1974

Enough courses are regularly cycled in the Department of Religious Studies to provide a thirty credit major, and the Department begins to average four graduates of the program per year.

1974

The Human Ecology Department signs an agreement with The Fashion Institute of Technology, allowing Marywood majors to attend the Institute as “visiting students.”

1974

The College’s student-operated cable TV station, TV-Marywood, Verto Channel 20, screens a weekly campus news show to acquaint viewers with Marywood and its activities.

1974

Members of The Audubon Quartet become resident musicians at Marywood and enrich area cultural life with recitals, informal lecture-demonstrations, and children’s concerts.

c.1974

The Education Department is at maximum size, graduating between one hundred and two hundred majors a year.  Rosemary Carroll Kazimer is Director of Student Teaching and coordinator of all field experience, and Ralph Bernardi offers human relations and intergroup training for teacher education candidates.

Kathleen Howley MacDonald '19, September 1974

By this time a Counseling Center, staffed by counselors, psychologists, clergymen, and academic advisors, provides valuable guidance to students of both the day and evening divisions. 

The complexities of loans and scholarships are solved for applicants in a Financial Aid Office directed by Stanley Skrutski. 

Students’ physical well-being is protected by a vigilant security team headed by John Verrone and by an efficient infirmary supervised by College Nurse Mary Alice McGraw. 

The campus buildings are kept fit and functional by Plant Superintendent Daniel Sileo and a team of helpers; and the housekeeping staff, with members like Rose Manarano, tends to the interior upkeep of the campus structures.

An office for Institutional Research and Data Analysis opens, headed by Sister Marian Flannery, I.H.M., to investigate enrollment trends, demographics, and students’ choices of majors and to transcribe the information into easily interpreted charts and graphs for administrative use.

The Office of Business Affairs, guided by Assistant Treasurer Mary Smith, with the help of Mary Clarke, expedites its services as Marywood installs its first computer to access the student accounts system.

In the last catalogs of the 1970s, the Bishop of Scranton is no longer listed as the Honorary President of Marywood College.

1970s

The Marywood faculty and administration cooperate to produce a revised Faculty Manual, one of several versions required in subsequent years to codify and clarify College policies.

1970s

A Faculty Development Fund is implemented to provide financial assistance to professors engaged in specialized educational projects.

1970s

Lesley Frost, daughter of the poet Robert Frost, speaks at Marywood.

1970s

Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton speaks at Marywood.

1970s

Elie Wiesel, writer and lecturer on the holocaust, speaks at Marywood.

1970s

Ann Marie Greco of the Social Sciences Department becomes Marywood’s first woman faculty member to give an address at the summer commencement.

1970s

The Department of Home Economics becomes known by its revised name, the Department of Human Ecology.

1970s

Communication Disorders, until now an adjunct of the Department of Communication Arts, assumes the status of a separate department, headed by Michael Flahive.

1970s

The American Dietetics Association approves the new four-year coordinated program between Marywood and the Charles S. Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City, New York.  Funded by a W. K. Kellogg Foundation grant of $170,000, the venture enables majors in Dietetics to complete degree requirements in four years rather than five. 

1970s

The demonstrations at Kent State and the war in Vietnam evoke sympathy and empathy in many Marywoodians, symbolized by the black arm bands that they decide to wear.

1970s

No decade at the school witnesses more activity in the areas of personal religious development and public humanitarianism.  Students take part in Twilight Retreats, Charismatic Prayer Groups, Bible Vigils, Friday Night Vespers, Ecumenical Peace Sabbaths, Nights of Prayer, and Clown Mime Services.  They support “Genesis II—Experiencing Religion,” a film discussion series conducted by the Reverend Vincent Dwyer, O.C.S.O., a Trappist Monk.  They attend re-entry Masses, held at odd hours for the benefit of students who spend Sundays traveling back to Marywood, and they participate in Breakaway Sessions, in which small groups share experiences on a spiritual topic proposed by a moderator.

When it comes to helping and sharing with others, Marywoodians also are selfless in energy.  They race in Bike-a-thons and Walk-a-thons and Swim-a-thons for the American Cancer Society, the Diabetes Association, and the March of Dimes.  “Bread for the World” becomes a campus cause, and the students provide more than bread to local hungry families through donations to the Scranton Christmas Bureau.  The Campus Ministry sponsors the Marionettes, who voluntarily work with the aged at the Marian Convent and Holy Family Residence.  Students participate in Operation Rice Bowl during Lent, forgoing a meal once a week and donating the equivalent cost to the cause of the hungry, locally and world-wide.  So generously do Marywood students support such activities that a Volunteer Service Center is established to coordinate the clubs’ charitable endeavors, ensuring that worthwhile causes are brought to the attention of the groups most suited to assist them.

1970s

The Department of Classical and Modern Languages represents a merger of two departments.  Although nearly all students during the 1970s choose a modern language rather than an ancient one, Marywood, with its Latin motto, its devotion to liturgical singing, its long association with the Latin Mass, and its classically educated lay and religious faculty, keeps Latin and Greek in its curriculum until demand for them entirely disappears.  The classics in translation, however, are never allowed to vanish.

1970s

Part of the former kitchens in Regina Hall become a lounge for graduate students and staff, and the third floor of the Novitiate is remodeled to house Sisters displaced by the fire for whom there were not enough vacant dormitory rooms.

1970s

The Department of Social Sciences initiates a program in Legal Studies and one in undergraduate Social Work.

1970s

An affiliation with Allied Services for the Handicapped in Scranton permits juniors in the Department of Human Ecology’s Community Nutrition course to intern at the Allied rehabilitation complex and gain practical experience in purchasing and preparing food for the six hundred people served at the facility.

1970s

The undergraduate Education Department is now located in the Center for Human Services, with Sister M. Carina McCaffrey, I.H.M., chairperson, leading the way to CBTE (Competency Based Teacher Education).  Department member Barbara Burkhouse visits Weber State College in Utah to observe this methodology in action, after which the Education faculty establish a competency profile of Marywood graduates.  Programs are tailored to develop these competencies, and criteria are defined to measure their attainment. 

1970s

The English Department generates a writing course for legal students to develop communication skills in future lawyers.

1970s

The Education curriculum implements micro-teaching, described by the Department as a “scaled-down teaching encounter, which constitutes a real teaching experience, reduced in the number of students, time, and objectives.”  Marywood Education majors are taped on campus in micro-teaching sessions, with students from nearby St. Clare’s school in Green Ridge participating as members of the miniature classes. 

1970s

The Philosophy Club is established at Marywood.

1970s

The Academy Club is established at Marywood for undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of the Social Sciences and sponsors a number of panel discussions with community leaders and forums on current affairs.