Description
Book SynopsisIn Pursuing Truth, Mary J. Oates explores the roles that religious women played in teaching generations of college and university students amid slow societal change that brought the grudging acceptance of Catholics in public life. Across the twentieth century, Catholic women''s colleges modeled themselves on, and sometimes positioned themselves against, elite secular colleges. Oates describes these critical pedagogical practices by focusing on Notre Dame of Maryland University, formerly known as the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, the first Catholic college in the United States to award female students four-year degrees.
The sisters and laywomen on the faculty and in the administration at Notre Dame of Maryland persevered in their work while facing challenges from the establishment of the Catholic Church, mainline Protestant churches, and secular institutions. Pursuing Truth presents the stories of the institution''s female founders, admin
Table of Contents
Introduction: Women's Education and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland
1. American Catholics and Female Higher Education: Founding Catholic Women's Colleges
2. Women Educating Women: Catholic Ways and Means
3. Divided or Diverse? Questions of Class, Race, and Religious Life
4. Educating Catholic Women: The Liberal and Practical Arts at the College of Notre Dame
5. Sectarian or Free? Catholic Identity on Trial in the 1960s and 1970s
6. "Convent Colleges": Social Mores and Educated Women
Conclusion: A Catholic Women's Liberal Arts College
