“It’s not you, it’s me. Let’s just be friends,” was probably what Saint Mary’s College said in 1971.
Campus animosity between Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame most likely started before 1971, but that's the year Saint Mary’s rejected former University President Fr. Theodore Hesburgh's invitation to merge with Notre Dame. “Big brother” is still mad. But get over it and stop bullying the daughters at your sister's campus.
Our Holy Cross history began in 1841 in Le Mans, France, when Blessed Basil Anthony Moreau sent University founder Fr. Edward Sorin and six other brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross to the United States: specifically northern Indiana. One year later, Sorin asked Moreau to send sisters and, in a letter to Moreau, said “Once the sisters arrive, and their presence is ardently desired, they must be prepared not merely to look after the laundry and the infirmary, but also to conduct a school, perhaps even a boarding school.”
That's exactly what happened. The Sisters of the Congregation of the Holy Cross started a school in Michigan just six miles away from Notre Dame in 1844, named Saint Mary’s College. 11 years later, the College moved to South Bend, Indiana.
Fast forward to December 1971: after many months of negotiations between Hesburgh, the acting-president of Saint Mary’s, Sister M. Alma Peter, and the superior-general of the Sisters, Sister M. Olivette Whelan, rejected Hesburgh’s offer to merge schools. According to Hesburgh, “the main difficulty was tied up with the problem of identity. They did not want to lose their identity. It was very much their own. You could not blame them. For more than a century, talented and heroic Holy Cross women had devoted their lives to achieving identity.”
The following fall of 1972, Notre Dame began admitting women to the University.
This leads to an important question: if ND is supportive of women’s equal education, why is there still hostility towards women who attend Saint Mary’s?
A considerable number of Notre Dame students believe that we have no right to be here or to be involved in events and organizations at the University. Some may argue that we want to participate in Notre Dame’s culture without the complexity of being a Notre Dame student. Others believe Saint Mary’s women only attend the institution to find a husband across the street. And still others may even argue the academic route — that Saint Mary’s students later transfer to Notre Dame after their freshman year as an easier gateway to Notre Dame. Mounds of other condescending arguments have been made towards us, but from my experience and in talking with others, we are shown hatred simply because we are different from Notre Dame.
But do we actually deserve it?
No.
Since Notre Dame was rejected, Saint Mary’s has become stronger as a community. The presumed sisterhood is very real, which makes us unique from any other school. We are a powerful community, united and supporting each other beyond our time at college. However, just because we are an all-women’s college does not mean that we should be treated differently.
I remember when I was applying for college, I already knew a bit of the resentment between the two schools, since I had family members that attended Notre Dame, but little did I know what I was getting myself into.
Once I got onto Saint Mary’s campus, I hoped everything would change. In the first few months on campus, I threw myself into my academics and different organizations on campus, including The Observer. By becoming involved in so many circles, I found my community within the promised sisterhood on Saint Mary’s campus and at Notre Dame.
After a year under my belt, I still see and now fully understand that, no matter what, some people at Notre Dame will always have a prejudice against me and the sisterhood because of stereotypes and our choice in school. My motives in choosing SMC will always be questioned. My presence on the Notre Dame campus will always be unwanted. This is the type of animosity and hatred that Saint Mary’s students still experience from Notre Dame students.
It needs to end.
The definition of a tri-campus community is a collaborative network formed by three colleges to “invite students to take full advantage of all academic and social resources at neighboring institutions,” as stated by Holy Cross College.
In order to enrich the education of every student, I want to emphasize that Notre Dame and Holy Cross students are welcomed to Saint Mary’s campus as much as we are welcomed to theirs. As a tri-campus community, we are meant to share resources, opportunities, passions, research, classes and traditions with one another. We cannot achieve a community with bitterness and discrimination towards each other. We were not meant to be isolated from one another.
In hindsight, it seemed that Hesburgh knew of the tension between the two schools, but I don’t think that he thought it would go this far.
As Hesburgh said, "I resolved to do whatever I could to improve the relationship between the two schools. I supported anything that would give the Saint Mary's women a reason to visit our campus-dances, plays, concerts, and so forth."
Hesburgh wanted us to be united but still have our own identity, advocating to be in communion with one another as equals. Just as Catholic social teaching and Holy Cross values encourage us to go out into the world and support one another as children of God, we must first do so in our own community, our own home. Take your very own Hesburgh’s advice and “improve the relationship” with your fellow Saint Mary’s sisters.
