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Odd News from the College (things you might have missed on the official publications):

  • The college has acquired the 32-acre Sugarloaf Estate just across Germantown Avenue and extending to Bell's Mill Road. This doubles the size of the campus.
  • A new residence hall has been constructed behind the library.
  • Phase 2 of the Capital Gifts Initiative is underway. The centerpiece of Phase 1 was the new building housing arena, telecommunications center and video production suite. The piece de resistance of Phase 2 will be a new alumnae hall Student Center to be located across from Fournier Hall. The oval drive will also become a commons.
  • In 2005 Chestnut Hill College celebrated its 80th anniversary. A gala was held April 16 at the National Constitution Center and an anniversary concert - An Evening with Colm Wilkinson - was held at the Kimmel Center on June11.
  • School colors have changed from brown and gold to red and white. As part of the effort to market CHC’s attributes more effectively, the colors were changed first to a deep red and gold but the gold didn’t show up on the website they were designing, so they finally decided on red and white. Whoever heard of a red and white griffin!!!
  • The bookstore is run by an outside company and is located in the basement of St. Joe's..
  • The Caf is no longer the Caf, and the Dining Hall is now the cafeteria.
  • College went co-ed in 2003. Most young women don’t want to attend schools without young men. It’s an economic reality that CHC had to face head-on. This has proven to be a most successful decision.
  • As you enter Fournier Hall, you are greeted by SECURITY! There is a complete set-up with a bank of screens monitoring all the campus buildings and a security force zooms around in modified golf carts. Peter Pervert wouldn't stand a chance today.

Former faculty news:

  • Sister Consuelo Maria passed away at the end of 2007 and a flood of memories by classmates resulted from the announcement.
  • Chestnut Hill College mourns the passing of beloved (ret’d) Professor of English Ann Edward Bennis, SSJ, M.A.  Sister Ann Edward died suddenly on
Monday, March 5, 2007. She began teaching at Chestnut Hill in 1945, the year many of us were born.
  • Mary Kieran McElroy, SSJ, Ph.D., retired professor of chemistry at Chestnut Hill, passed away on June 24, 2005 at the age of 87. She joined the faculty in 1962 and retired in 1990 and then worked as the part-time assistant to the Director of the Computer Center from 1990 through 2001.
  • Dr. Lester I. Conner, 85, professor emeritus of English and an internationally known scholar of the poet William Butler Yeats, died  in February 2005.  He began teaching at Chestnut Hill in 1962, and remained until 1990, winning the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1985. Dr. Conner lectured on Yeats and Shakespeare throughout Europe and published A Yeats Dictionary in 1998. See link for more information: http://www.dorothyblau.com/lester.html
  • Dr. John Lukacs has been busy writing and publishing books on Churchill. His latest, Churchill: Visionary, Statesman, Historian, was released October 1, 2002 by Yale University Press. I was pleasantly surprised to find it on the shelves at Hatchard's in London at the time. 
  • Sister Agnes Josephine Conway, Ph.D., who we all knew as Sr. George Edward, professor of classics, died on October 19, 2002.
  • Sister Dorothy Hennessy, M.S. (formerly Sr. Edward Leo), our favorite physics professor, who also ran the bookstore, died on January 3, 2003.
  • From MJ Briggs Morgan:  The nun who runs it will probably kill me for spreading the word, but I just found out that there's a phone number you can call to get info on nuns we knew at school. It's called Information Services and the number is 215-248-7278. Sr. Margaret Smith is the sister I spoke with. I had the last name of the nun I was calling about because I found it in the red book that has the history of CHC (with the help of a lot of patience and a magnifying glass). But she says she can try and find the sister using just the religious name as long as you can give her a time frame in which you knew her. 

Tidbits from 2002 tour of College by Sr. Mary Helen Kashuba (formerly Sr. Irma Mercedes):

  • The original property was the site of Dewee's Paper Mill(1708). Earlier documents point to a 1682 date when land grants were received from William Penn.
  • Mount St. Joseph Convent, the motherhouse to us, was originally part of Middleton Mansion or Monticello and dates to 1858.
  • The first Mount Saint Joseph Academy was built in 1858, with additions made in 1860 to provide dining room and dormitory facilities.
  • The second Mount Saint Joseph Academy, later Mount St. Joseph Novitiate and Normal School was built in 1875. The building currently houses Rogers' Center for College Development and the SSJ Development Offices, and is the residence for the motherhouse. In the beginning days of the College, before the construction of Fournier Hall, the first floor of the second Mount was also the dining room. Motherhouse Chapel, the scene of many College activities, was dedicated in 1891 (cornerstone is 1884). The chapel was redecorated in 1955 following the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, with symbols of Mary and Joseph.
  • The Bullitt Property (Ridgeway), where St. Joseph's Hall, Fournier, the Library, and Fontbonne now stand, was acquired in 1875 . The House of Loretto, erected in 1897 on the site where Fournier Hall now stands, was moved in 1928 to its present location.
  • The third Mount Saint Joseph Academy (Mount St. Joseph Collegiate Institute) was begun in 1900. The original building collapsed during construction but was rebuilt and dedicated in 1901. The building was opened in 1903. The observatory has been in continual use since the opening of the building. It was here that Mount Saint Joseph College opened in 1924.
  • Fournier Hall was built in 1928 in the style of Umbrian Romanesque. Change to the name Chestnut Hill College was made in 1938. 
  • Fontbonne Hall was built in 1961 as the residence for first-year students. The first male resident students will be living in this building for the beginning of CHC's co-ed life.
  • Logue Library was built in 1962. It is now computerized to permit remote access to the College catalogue and other informational sources.
  • Barbara D'Iorio Martino Hall was built in 2000. It houses athletic, convocation, and classroom facilities. It is on the site of the old Science Building.