May Russell, the “Pax Plan Co-ops,” and the Early Expansion of St. Mary’s College of Maryland
By Sarah Jablon ’16, English major
The late-1940s and 50s was a period of rapid expansion, in both size and diversity, for St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College. During this time, under the presidency of May Russell, the size of the student body increased significantly, primarily due to the addition of commuting students. In 1951, the number of commuting students admitted to St. Mary’s was 26, but in 1954, that number increased to 77. The faculty and administration expanded to meet these needs, rising from 15 persons in 1951 to 19 in 1954, and increasing steadily over the following years. Also in 1954, the first full-time male faculty members arrived, and in 1955, the number of male students attending St. Mary’s greatly increased.
St. Mary’s—then known as St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College—was primarily a female institution, with the exception of a few male commuting students known as “day-hops.” For 30 years prior to 1955, the number of day-hops enrolled per year never exceeded 10. In the 1955-1956 school year, 18 day-hops enrolled in the fall semester, and 18 more “co-ops” enrolled in the spring semester. This latter group of co-ops, unlike the day-hops, belonged to a new Navy scholarship program called the “Patuxent Plan of Career Development,” or “Pax Plan,” aimed at training local high school graduates to become engineers.
Students in the Pax Plan combined general education courses taught at St. Mary’s with on-the-job experience at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River. They attended classes at St. Mary’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and took engineering and advanced mathematics courses taught by University of Maryland professors on base during the evening. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays they worked on base. The Pax Plan required the students to attend St. Mary’s part-time for three years, and University of Maryland for two additional years as full-time students. Students also spent summers working on the base, and were required to commit five additional years to Navy service upon graduation. In turn, much of the program was paid for by the Navy.
Because of the challenge and commitment, few students managed to complete the five-year program. In all, there were three Pax Plan divisions, or cohorts, as they were called. Of the first cohort, only one student, Albert Pagliara, successfully completed the requirements. The second cohort, beginning in fall of 1956, was more successful. More than half of the students, including Jack Holcomb, Howard Norfolk, and Bill Watts, graduated. In the final cohort, many more, including Pete Himmelheber, completed the requirements. As a general rule, the students in the second and third groups were somewhat older; some, such as Watts, age 26, were already married with families.
But what was it like to be an engineering student at St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College, then a predominately female school? We asked Pax Plan participants Holcomb, Norfolk, Watts, and Himmelheber to describe their experiences in the program and at St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College.
The co-op men attended numerous classes at S. Mary’s, including physics, chemistry, English, sociology, and algebra. Both Holcomb and Himmelheber remembered the physics professor, Mr. Fahl, as a taskmaster. Holcomb recalls being surprised, after taking such hard physics classes at St. Mary’s, that he still had more physics to take once he got to University of Maryland. Himmelheber aced physics with Mr. Fahl but received a “D” in English, taught by Mrs. Fahl. There was little integration with the seminary women in the St. Mary’s courses. Co-ops and seminary students did attend classes in the same hall, Anne Arundel Hall, so the men and women crossed paths in the hallways and common spaces of the building. However, the Pax Plan men only took classes with the other co-ops. By school rules, they were also required to dine separately from the seminary women, in a back room away from the dining hall.
On-campus life was limiting as well, since men were not allowed to live on campus until 1965. Because many of the men had families, they didn’t participate in student life at all. If a young man wanted to date a seminary student, he had to ask permission from administrators Edith Chance or Louise Simms. Himmelheber was required to take six girls, rather than one, on a date after making a last-minute request. They had to return to campus before 6 pm!
Despite the limited involvement on campus, men were still able to participate in on-campus activities. Thanks to the increased number of male students at St. Mary’s, they were able to establish a men’s basketball team in 1955. They even had cheerleaders and uniforms, with the colors white, black, gold, and orange. According to Watts, when the students requested approval from President Russell for the uniforms, she called them “costumes.” Holcomb, Watts, and Himmelheber all played on the team, and they recalled basketball as one of the highlights of their St. Mary’s experience. They played other junior colleges, but won few games because of their small numbers. Holcomb remembers feeling frustrated when the other team brought out their second string players during a game, “because they were fresh and we were tired.” When they played home games, seminary girls would pack the gymnasium and “tear up the other team.”
For the most part, the seminary students supported the inclusion of male students at St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College. Others, however, saw the increase of male and commuting students as threatening to their very way of life. Many were especially intimidated by the added “evening division” to accommodate commuters to the school. By 1958, this evening division accounted for a large majority of the student body at St. Mary’s. Yet, if it weren’t for President Russell’s efforts to increase student numbers, the school may have not survived to see a new decade.
A Middle States evaluation in April 1958 prompted school officials to discontinue the high school program by July of that same year. The goal was to gain junior college accreditation, which proved difficult due to the seemingly disconnected purpose of the evening program. In 1959, May Russell took the step to eliminate the evening division, and on November 28, 1959, St. Mary’s Seminary Junior College received its accreditation from Middle States. A name change for the school by Governor Tawes in 1964 to St. Mary’s College of Maryland paved the way for a four-year college, and in September 1966 the State Board of Education authorized the move to senior college status. In less than a decade, President May Russell led the school from an all-girls’ high school to a coeducational senior college. Her presidency ended in 1969, two years before the first official class of St. Mary’s College of Maryland graduated in 1971.
Castellan yearbook : Some of the co-ops from the 1957-58 yearbook.
The cheerleaders (1959) made a big impact on the opposing teams at the men’s basketball games!
Men’s basketball game: They may not have won many games, but they had a lot of heart.
