Monday, September 8, 2014

Encyclopedia of religious habits

Who were these nuns? Summer school students in the 1950s
at MSMC. (Mount Archives photo.)
MANY OF OUR OLD PICTURES carry no information on the back. The photo above shows up in a folder titled "Sisters in Traditional Habits" but doesn't identify the women. All we know is that they're not Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

Luckily, the University of Dayton has an important, wonderful (and not to mention cute) resource online that identifies the traditional habits of more than 100 religious orders of women. Instead of photographs like the one above, they're pictures of miniature, hand-sewn costumes on porcelain dolls measuring about seven inches tall.  The landing page at UD has information about how the collection was developed.

We're able to identify the habit above as that of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph in their distinctive embroidered teal-blue scapulars.

Starting back in the 1920s, many teaching orders sent their nuns to the Mount for summer school classes toward a degree or credential. Thanks, U. Dayton! Now we can at least figure out where they came from.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Getting involved in the Eighties

WORKERS ARE SETTING UP in the Circle for the Involvement Fair today, where students can find out more about the Mount's 30 clubs and organizations, from the Accounting Association to WISH (Women In Science and Health).
Associated Student Body logo
in the early 1980s.

The names may change but many activities are unchanging from one decade to the next. Others fall out of fashion, like the campus newspaper.

Here's a look at the involvement opportunities 30 years ago, in the 1984-1985 academic year, as listed in the Student Handbook:
  • COPUS - Coalition of Private University Students 
  • Amistad Hispanica (Spanish interest club)
  • Black Student Union
  • Business Student Advisory Council
  • Deltas (Doheny Service Organization)
  • Fleur de Lis Ball committee
  • Grad Ball committee
  • Health Advocates
  • International Students Organization
  • Kappa Delta Chi sorority
  • Los Angeles Collegiate Council
  • Model United Nations
  • Mount Chorus/Mount Singers
  • Mount Christian Fellowship
  • Phi Gamma Nu (business sorority)
  • Physical Therapy Club
  • Resident Assistants
  • Sigma Delta Pi (National Hispanic Society)
  • Ski Club
  • Student Nurses Association of California (SNAC)
  • Spring Sing committee
  • Student Orientation Service
  • UCLA Student Committee on the Arts
  • The View (newspaper)
  • Women's Leadership
  • Yearbook
Another way to get involved was the fitness parcourse in the west cloister.