OA-Spring 2023

ESTABLISHING THE EDUCATION PROGR

By B.J. Riley ’16, Director of Marketing

“Mrs. Rumely declared that the Executive Committee will be called to meet in January to discuss the budget, the feasibility of establishing a center for social gerontology and an adult degree program, and to take whatever actions are necessary concerning them.” That was the note in the November 12, 1972, meeting minutes concerning what would become known as the Women’s External Degree Program or WED. Dr. Jeanne

adults as she evaluated the potential of an adult learning program. WED was modeled after the program at Goddard.

through 1979, 276 degrees and 28 certificates were awarded. In the decade of the 1980s, there were 552 degrees and 77 certificates that were conferred on WED graduates. In the decade of the 1990s, those numbers grew to 643 degrees and 167 certificates awarded. Alice Quinlan ’65 was the WED director from 1989

In her convocation remarks, Knoerle added, “It is my personal belief that in the 1980s and 90s, the women who have chosen vocational training during this decade will experience the same desire to complete a degree so that this program is likely to increase in value….The WED program is, I believe, an important expansion of the academic programs of the College and will, I hope, extend the influence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College to a range of students otherwise cut off from the intellectual, cultural and spiritual values it offers students.” Knoerle was correct. The first WED students graduated in 1974, with eight women receiving baccalaureate degrees; “We were very innovative, and the program continued to develop. The College offered hybrid courses before the word ‘hybrid’ was ever conceived.” — Alice Quinlan ’65

through 2008. “We were very innovative, and

Knoerle, SP, ’49 , emerita president of Saint Mary of-the-Woods College (SMWC), had the foresight

the program continued to develop. The

College offered hybrid courses before the word ‘hybrid’

Quinlan

was ever conceived,” she said. Students had campus residencies in the early days of WED, and in 1987, the College also began offering intensive weekend courses in an alternative format. “This is how it evolved into a weekend college and was also offered to campus students. There were hundreds of students here on Saturdays and Sundays.” Tia Partain Wilkinson ’08, ’13G, MPhil, Ph.D. , started college immediately after high

to see that a distance education program for women to complete their degree in a flexible learning environment would further the College’s mission of educating women. Knoerle said during a January 1973 convocation introducing the WED program that it was geared towards women who had started, but not finished degrees because life got in the way. This message to the campus community was the culmination of several years of study by the College, led by Knoerle. Goddard College offered the country’s only other distance learning program at the time. Knoerle appointed a committee of faculty members to explore how to develop a program for off-campus degrees for Knoerle

school. While in college, she married and started a family. “I kept trying to find a way to

Wilkinson

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