Campus Life for the Women of Maryhill College

Holy Cross men dress up as women, also known as the "Capers," for Spring Week

     In the fall of 1966, Maryhill College for Women welcomed their first class of classes. At the time, St. Edward's Univeristy was split into two colleges that were known as Holy Cross College for Men and the Maryhill College for Women. Before the two colleges went coeducational in 1970, both colleges worked as coordinate colleges, meaning that both colleges were on campus, but each school had their own structures academically. Maryhill College for Women was always referred to as Maryhill, yet the Holy Cross College for men was sometimes referred to as "St. Edward's University". 

     In the first two years of Maryhill College, communication between the opposite sexes was very limited. Even though the colleges were proposed on a co-ordinate system, the men of Holy Cross College were usually in charge of student activities such as the SEU yearbook. For example, when the women of Maryhill wanted to be apart of the The Hilltopper newspaper, they got a response from the boys of Holy Cross that stated, “The fact being, that it is a newspaper and not a gossip column! Just being here does not constitute the fact that you should be in “our” paper” [10]. The Maryhill women also dealt with sexist mindsets on campus. Pictured to the right are Holy Cross men that are dressed as Maryhill Women. Some women did not find this offensive but it definitely shows the male interpretation of a woman at the time.

     Even though it was sometimes a struggle for the Maryhill Women to coordinate with the men of Holy Cross, Maryhill still had the right to organize extracurricular activities such as sports, dances etc. Social activities brought the two colleges together which began to spark the idea of a coeducational institution, which would result into Maryhill College and Holy Cross College becoming known as just St. Edward's University. The men and women were not fully segregated. Maryhill Women and Holy Cross College came together for events such as Spring carnivals and choir groups. The campus life with Maryhill College definitely established the idea of St. Edward's University becoming a coeducational institution.