One hundred years ago, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet founded a college designed to unite womens intellectual and spiritual development: The College of St. Catherine, now St. Catherines University. Is such an institution, a women-built and women-led Catholic college, an anachronism today? How has a century of changes in the Catholic Church and womens roles affected St. Catherines?Addressing these and other questions in a scholarly and engaging manner,Liberating Sanctuary: 100 Years of Womens Education at the College of St. Catherine challenges prevailing assumptions about the history of womens education. The essays in this book, edited by Jane Lamm Carroll, Joanne Cavallaro, and Sharon Doherty, examine key figures, decisions, and ideas over the College's 100 year history, linking the story through a central theme: the paradox of institutional goals that seek both to liberate and constrain women. Since its founding, St. Catherine's has promoted women's leadership and autonomy, sometimes by design, sometimes by accident, sometimes despite stated aims.

Jane Lamm Carroll, PhD, is an associate professor of history at St. Catherine University.Joanee Cavallaro, PhD, is chair of the English department and professor of linguistics and women's studies at St. Catherine University.Sharon L. Doherty, PhD, is professor of women's studies and anthropology, and director of the Abigail Quigley McCarthy Center for Women at St. Catherine University.

Introduction: Taking Catholic Women SeriouslyJoanne Cavallaro, Jane Lamm Carroll, and Sharon DohertySection I: Liberating Visions, Remarkable Lives1. Extravagantly Visionary Leadership: The Irelands and Mother Antonia McHughJane Lamm Carroll2. Portrait of a Daughter of St. Joseph: Sister Jeanne Marie BonnettJohn Fleming3. Opening Doors: Sister AJ and the Minneapolis CampusDeborah Churchill and Thelma Obah4. Renewing the Meaning of a Womens College: Identity and Standpoint in the 1970sSharon Doherty and Catherine Pribyl LuporiSection II: Intellectual Life: In and Out of the Classroom5. What a Woman Should Know, What a Woman Can Be: Curriculum as PrismJoanne Cavallaro, Jane Lamm Carroll, and Lynne Gildensoph6. Theology Fit for Women: Religious Wisdom, St. Catherines StyleRussell Connors, Joyce Dahlberg, Catherine Litecky, CSJ, MaryLou Logsdon, and Thomas West7. Communion with Books: The Double Life of LiteratureCecilia Konchar FarrSection III: Unique Legacy: Faculty and Student Experiences8. Learning and Earning: The Work-Study ExperienceJulie Balamut and Virginia Steinhagen9. Possumus: Sisters Education in FeminismMary Alice Muellerleile and Joan Mitchell, CSJPostscript: Questions for the Twenty-First CenturySharon Doherty, Jane Lamm Carroll, and Joanne CavallaroBibliographyContributorsIndex