USD Magazine, Summer 2004

K athleen (McGonigle) Murtha '54 wondered what she had gotten

mounds of earth everywhere, no

later are virtually unchanged. But today's students would find the duo's campus experiences, and their lives among the nuns who ran the col- "It was so strict it was comical," Murtha says."There were rules about everything - what we wore, how we spoke - kids today would laugh.Whenever we left campus we had to sign out, saying where we were going and with whom, and then sign in when we got back.We had to be on campus by 6 p.m. and lege, strangely alien.

in bed by IO p.m. on weeknights. On Friday and Saturday nights I think they gave us until midnight." One thing Murtha and Beaver had in common with today's kids, however, was their view that some rules were made to be broken.The no-food-in- the-dorm regulation, for example, was routinely violated,and the girls often took the opportunity to roam the hallways after the sisters went

herself into. Eager for a new

landscaping. I remember thinking I couldn't be any further from New York City, figuratively or literally." Fifty years after they received their diplomas in the College for Women's first commencement, Murtha and her former Founders Hall roommate, Mary (Binggeli) Beaver '54,would still recognize the French Parlor, the courtyard and the gates between Camino Hall and Founders Hall, which a half-century

opportunity, and with the encour- agement of the Society of the Sacred Heart nuns at Manhattanville College near New York City, she transferred to the society's new college, the San Diego College for Women.The magnificent campus of today was hardly evident when she

arrived in 1952.

"It was a mess," Murtha laughs.

to sleep.

"There was the one building,

"I always seemed to be the one

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