CHAPTER EIGHT: 
     
     Wad? 
     
    
   
   
    
     aint Dunstans University traced its roots to 1831, when the 
     
    

    
     Roman Catholic Bishop of Charlottetown, Bernard Angus 
     
    

    
     MacEachern, established St. Andrew’s College just east of Mount 
     
     Stewart. By 1855, it re—opened as Saint Dunstans on the outskirts of 
     
     Charlottetown. It became affiliated with Laval University in Quebec 
     
     City which allowed students to take classes on the Island while earning 
     
     a Laval degree. Although Saint Dunstans was granted its own charter by 
     
     provincial legislation in 1917, it would not be until 1941 when it finally 
     
     began to grant degrees in its own name. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Saint Dunstans, like other Roman Catholic universities, was a male 
     
     bastion. Along with the usual concerns about co—education, where 
     
     women were seen as a moral danger to men, Catholic educators were 
     
     worried that it would ultimately decrease the number of men pursuing 
     
     religious vocations, one of the primary goals of Catholic universities. 
     
    

    
     The policy of not admitting women was stated explicitly by the rector of 
     
     Saint Dunstans, Father GJ. MacLellan in the early 1930s. In response to 
     
     questions about why women could not attend Saint Dunstans, he said the 
     
     Board of Governors, “would not agree (to)...the co—education of the sexes 
     
     in the same institution, owing to the reports of the immorality that comes 
     
     from institutions so situated.” 
     
    
   
   
    
     Catholic women who wanted to pursue post—secondary education headed 
     
     off—Island for womens’ colleges that were administered by nuns. In short, 
     
     females were not welcomed on campus and any attempts to promote 
     
     fraternization between male and female students were strongly and 
     
     consistently discouraged. In 1912, an Island sister in the Congregation 
     
    
   
   
    
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