In 1981, the women’s cross country team won the school’s first national championship in any sport at St. Thomas. Only four years earlier, St. Thomas had opened its doors to female students.

Coach Joseph Sweeney led the team to victory in 1981 and continues to coach the cross country team 36 years later.

“I am proud of the fact that we were the first team to win a national title. We broke through a barrier,” Sweeney said. “Going to Nationals and achieving success is such an incredible experience.”

Women were first allowed to enroll at the university in 1977. In addition to adding women on campus, they also added on women’s athletics. The first sports included cross country, volleyball, tennis, golf, basketball and track and field.

There had been years of debate leading up to the final decision to go coed.

In a 1973 Aquin article, student Arnie Fleischmann wrote, “We might, in a coed situation, be more willing to make friends with women and be less willing or able to plan strategically for that ‘big date.’ The positive aspects of coeducation seem to me reason enough to resurrect the topic for discussion.”

Another student, Mike Degnan, wrote in a 1974 Aquin article that with the diminishing number of Catholic high schools, which were primarily the source of College of St.Thomas freshman applicants, the college would have to begin recruiting more students from public high schools. Being coed would be an advantage for that kind of recruiting because those students would be accustomed to coeducation.

Although 1977 was the first official year women were enrolled at St. Thomas, women were on campus prior to that date. Nuns from the Convent of the Good Shepherd were the first women to attend St. Thomas in 1922.

This year marks 40 years since the addition of women to campus. Since the graduating class of 1981, the University of St.Thomas has graduated 47,000 women, 177 of whom attended that first fall of 1977.

Women’s sports have won seven national championships, five in cross country and two in volleyball, and have won 155 MIAC regular-season titles.

“The 1981 team started a remarkable run. In an eight-year span we won five national titles, and in the three years we didn’t win, we placed second. It ended with one last national title in 1987,” Sweeney said. “Once we won the first one, the athletes trained and raced with one thing in mind: ‘Let’s do it again!’”

This fall, the school’s demographic is 47 percent women.

“Once we went coed, the school really took off — experiencing tremendous growth, transitioning from a small men’s college to a thriving university,” Sweeney said. “Providing opportunities for everyone has made St. Thomas grow and prosper, and that would not have been possible without our women students, who have contributed so much to our success.”

Justine Bowe can be reached at bowe6524@stthomas.edu.