In 20 years since Maryanne Stevens took over College of St. Mary, her vision became a reality
By Michael Kelly / World-Herald columnist
After she unexpectedly became president of the College of St. Mary, Maryanne Stevens took part in a planning session.
It was 1996, and a facilitator handed out blank sheets, assigning everyone to draw their visions for the then-floundering women’s college.
Stevens simply drew a parking lot — filled with cars. Her vision was a thriving campus.
As the school prepares to celebrate her 20th anniversary as president Monday, she smiled the other day when she got word of a little problem.
“We had 30 cars that couldn’t find places on campus,” she said in an interview. “Some had to park on the grass. So we had a full parking lot!”
CSM has changed a lot in two decades under Sister Maryanne Stevens, who holds a doctorate in religious education but had no plans to become a college president. When the board offered her the job, she pleaded: “But I already have a job!”
She was 47, a tenured Creighton University professor, the first woman to chair its theology department. Her mother was “appalled” that she was thinking about leaving a secure position to head a small college with a $5 million debt and an uncertain future.
As a member of the College of St. Mary board, Stevens had led the search for a new president. The top choice accepted, then backed out.
At its next meeting, the board asked her to leave the room. When she returned, members invited her to take the presidency, and — after initially being aghast — she began work on June 1, 1996.
“She had virtually no administrative experience,” said attorney Rick Jeffries, the CSM board chairman today. “With the college in desperate straits, they hired a theology professor from Creighton who happened to be a Sister of Mercy.”
It turned out to be a brilliant move for the college at 72nd Street and Mercy Road, he said, because Stevens has carried out a vision, the college is debt-free, and the future is bright.
A decadelong $25 million fundraising drive, completed in 2010, led to many campus improvements, including a south entrance off Mercy Road.
That entrance leads to a roundabout topped by the “Walking Woman” sculpture, which Stevens said symbolizes graduates confidently striding “with courage and conviction.”
Stevens grew up in California as one of eight children, wanting only to be a teacher. Her father was transferred to Offutt Air Force Base, and Maryanne enrolled at Mercy High School.
After graduation, she entered the religious order, eventually teaching in high school and earning a doctorate from Boston College. She arrived at Creighton in 1986, and by 1988 received a top teaching award.
After she assumed the presidency at College of St. Mary, private discussions included the possibility that the school would close — with proceeds from selling its assets going to a women’s educational fund.
But that didn’t happen, and Stevens said that with the help of board members, donors, faculty, staff and others, things turned around.
Long known for educating women to become nurses, the college added an occupational therapy program that is now its most popular.
In 2006, CSM received approval to offer graduate programs, which are open to men. (Each year, two to four men receive graduate degrees.) And in 2007, the college offered its first doctoral program, in education.
In 2008, St. Mary became the first college in Nebraska to ban smoking on campus. To the east, meanwhile, something else was clearing the air.
The old Aksarben horse-racing track, which closed in 1995, was being converted to an attractive area of restaurants, residences, office buildings and a music-venue park, as well as to the expanded University of Nebraska at Omaha campus.
To take part in the vibrant Aksarben Village, St. Mary students today just walk across a bridge. They feel part of a “college town.”
How else has CSM changed, leading to a sometimes-full parking lot? A few numbers help explain:
- Preliminary total enrollment today is up 4.5 percent from a year ago, to 1,046. But full-time undergrads are up 10 percent to 663, and full-time freshmen are up 33 percent to 103.
- Because of the increased demand for living space, the college for the first time is leasing 11 residential rooms on campus from the Sisters of Mercy, a former convent called Maryview.
- The big demographic change over the years is the decrease in the number of part-time undergraduate students — from 483 in 1995 to 51 this fall. And graduate programs this year attracted a record 278.
CSM long has been friendly to single mothers, originally welcoming them in 2000 to live at Walsh Hall. In 2012, they moved into Madonna Hall, a $10 million residence with suites that has room for 48 mothers with two children each.
A 2014 World-Herald article about that program was reprinted around the country. But as a small fish in the local educational pond, CSM must work hard to swim to the surface.
Said board chairman Jeffries: “In a community with a wonderful public university, UNO, and an excellent private one, Creighton, we sometimes feel like we don’t always have our message heard.”
Stevens has raised the college’s visibility, he said, and has worked to attract, among others, women of color. Still, the breakdown is 73 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic, 8 percent black and 8 percent other.
About 90 percent are from Nebraska and Iowa. And although it’s a Catholic college, just 42 percent of students are Catholic.
Tuition is $29,999, and room and board is $8,000. Fees have been abolished. Scholarships and various forms of aid, Jeffries said, help many students attend at “well below the sticker price.”
Stevens, who lives off-campus, chats with students and attends weekly faculty-staff coffees at the Hillmer Art Gallery.
Some address her as “Dr. Stevens,” others call her “Sister” and some just say “Maryanne.” She says with a smile, “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
Stevens will be feted Monday on Founders’ Day, an annual event honoring nuns who started the college at 14th and Castelar Streets in 1923. It moved to its current campus in 1955.
For the first time, the 7,500- alumnae College of St. Mary will stage a Homecoming Week. The school has no football team and no marching band, but many events are planned.
CSM fields eight athletic teams and plans more, as well as a possible new field house.
Dr./Sister Maryanne Stevens, now 68, says she hopes to remain for several more years.
Tara Knudson Carl, vice president for student development, said Stevens combines the ability to carry out a long-range vision with a personal touch on everyday matters.
As the school year began, the president arrived on campus to see a distressed CSM student — a single mom with a school-age child and another in a stroller.
A school bus had arrived early, causing her older child to miss it. Stevens calmed the mom, helping her get the younger child to the campus day-care center and then driving the mother and child to school.
“That is so-o-o her,” Knudson Carl said of Stevens. “She has a passion and a total heart for students.”
Mission accomplished, the president returned to the 40-acre campus — and fortunately had her own designated parking stall. Lately at CSM, it can be tough to find a place to park.
michael.kelly [at] owh.com, 402-444-1132
