MOLLOY, ALOYSIUS, SISTER

Educator and author; b. Sandusky, Ohio, June 14, 1880; d. Rochester, Minnestota, Sept. 27, 1954. Sister Aloysius was the daughter of Patrick John and Mary (Lambe) Molloy of Sandusky. After attending Ohio State University, Columbus, she went to Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, where in 1907 she became the first woman to receive a Cornell Ph.D. That same year, with Sister M. Leo Tracy, OSF, she founded the College of St. Teresa, Winona, Minnesota. In 1911 she became the first dean of the college, and after 1928 served as both dean and president until her retirement in 1946. Upon the death of her father in 1922, she sought admission to the Sisters of St. Francis of the Third Order Regular of the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes. When she completed her novitiate, she continued her activities on behalf of Catholic higher education.

For 25 years Sister Aloysius was a member of the Commission on Higher Education of the North Central Association and served on its committee to draft new standards for colleges and universities. She joined the National Catholic Educational Association in 1913, and became the first woman member (1923), and later the president, of the executive committee of its college and university department. She was the cofounder of the Confraternity of Catholic Colleges for Women (1918). Her memberships included Phi Beta Kappa, American Association of University Women, and the Medieval Academy of America. She was the author of The Celtic Rite in Britain (1910), The Lay Apostolate (1915), Catholic Colleges for Women (1918), The Parochial Schools, School Organization, and Teacher Training (1919), A Catholic Educational Directory (1919), A Teresan Ideal in Service and System (1928), and Training the Nursing School Faculty (1930). She collaborated on concordances to Wordsworth (1911), Horace (1914), and Bede's Ecclesiastical History (1907). Among the honors she received were the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (1918) and the Cross of Merit of the Constantinian Order of St. George (1923).

[m. e. collins]