Celebrating 60 years of Molloy College

When Molloy Catholic College for Women was founded 60 years ago, it was created as a place to teach girls to become teachers and nurses. Today, Molloy College boasts more than 40 undergraduate majors and more than a dozen graduate majors for its coeducational student body.

Though the college is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, it story actually begins a decade before 1955, when the Sisters of St. Dominic purchased the 25 acres that Molloy is built on. It took the sisters years to raise the money to start construction. But in 1955, the college opened, with Mother Anselma Ruth as its first president.

“The really amazing thing that I think the sisters should be commended for, when they opened this college in 1955 as a liberal arts college, they chose to have two what we would call ‘vocational majors,’ said Dr. Valerie Collins, Molloy’s vice president of academic affairs and an alumna of the school. “They chose education and nursing. They didn’t choose home economics or a secretarial track. And those two majors, over the next 60 years, were amazing to how we grew. Our reputation grew on those majors.”

Collins, who has been working at Molloy for 40 years, has seen many changes take shape at the college. There are obvious changes, like more programs and buildings on campus, but more subtle changes as well.

“I think there are many things that are the same, and of course many things have changed,” she said. “We always had a strong co-curricular focus for our students. When I was a student, we had student government. We had a drama club, athletics. So there was always that strong co-curricular. Now we have an extensive co-curricular program for our students. The obvious increase in sports, but we also have global study opportunities, and we do trips abroad during spring break.”

One of the biggest changes, if not the biggest, was the change from an all-girls school to coeducational. It started gradually: in 1974, men were allowed to enroll in evening nursing classes. Just a few years later, in 1982, the school became fully coeducational. That also precipitated the change of name: Molloy Catholic College for Women became Molloy College.