At Molloy, Education Is Not the Only Goal
Marcelle S. Fischler.  New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)). New York, N.Y.:Oct 2, 2005.  p. 4

HALF a century ago, many women's colleges were little more than finishing schools. But the Dominican Sisters of Amityville, who founded Molloy Catholic College for Women in 1955, had greater expectations for the 44 women who enrolled.

''The idea from the beginning was to educate women to go out and be leaders in the community,'' said Drew Bogner, the president of what is now known simply as Molloy College, in Rockville Centre.

When a home economics department was set up, Mother Anselma Ruth, the prioress of the Dominican Sisters and Molloy's first president, had the stoves and sinks removed.

''She said, 'We are not here to educate women to be wives of men,''' Dr. Bogner said. While the college became an independent Catholic institution, coeducational since 1982, it continues to follow the Dominican tradition.

''Molloy from the beginning had a bit of an edge to it,'' Dr. Bogner said. ''It is not enough just to have success in your occupation. You must make some type of contribution.''

The formula succeeded. In the last five decades, 14,000 students have graduated from Molloy, which has 50 undergraduate areas of study and 850 graduate students in nursing, education and M.B.A. programs.

Anne Crowley, 68, of Long Beach, who retired in 1995 as assistant superintendent of schools for the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District to join the Peace Corps, was a member of Molloy's first graduating class in 1959. She majored in history, minored in education and was the president of her class and of the Molloy Student Association.

''We had a lot of opportunities,'' Ms. Crowley said, noting that the start-up college was so small that the women practically lived in one another's pockets. ''The education we received held me in good stead.''

The college began in a Victorian house on North Village Avenue, then moved into Monsignor Quealy Hall, which was partitioned into a gymnasium, classrooms, a stage area and sleeping quarters for the nuns.

Carole Gerrity, a member of the class of 1960 and for 35 years a teacher in the college's education department, said that Molloy ''just got better and bigger, bigger and better.'' So big, in fact, that when she returned for the 50th anniversary on Sept. 12, complete with Hula Hoop competitions and a bubble-gum-blowing contest, she couldn't find a parking spot.

''We went to a one-room school,'' Ms. Gerrity said. ''All the classrooms were off the gym, and they had no ceilings, like compartments in an office. If you got bored in biology, you listened to the French class next door.''

Since Dr. Bogner took the helm in 2000, enrollment has swelled from 2,200 to 3,500. ''We are at capacity,'' he said.

In January, Molloy opened a branch for graduate students on Route 110 in Farmingdale and began a capital campaign to finance a 15- to 20-year plan to expand the Rockville Centre campus.

The initial $30 million phase includes the college's first dormitory and a student center with a 650-seat theater. Dr. Bogner said he hoped to break ground for both next year.

At the same time, standards are being raised. ''We will be moving to accredit our M.B.A. program,'' he said.

Social work, music therapy, theology, criminal justice and audiology are among the undergraduate majors, and associate degree programs include cardiovascular technology and respiratory care.

Growth has come at the graduate and undergraduate levels, Dr. Bogner said. Molloy's nursing program, with 1,400 students, is one of the largest on the East Coast.

Sister Janice Buettner began teaching biology and physics at Molloy in 1958.

''A few of us had experience in college, but most of us were drafted from high schools,'' said Sister Janice, 87, who has a Ph.D. in biology.

She recalled that Mother Rose Gertrude told the staff they had to cater to the Island's middle class. ''They had to get here by bus, and therefore if we are going to do anything in the college line, it has to be superb,'' Sister Janice said.

Historically, Dr. Bogner said, students from public schools in Baldwin, Oceanside, Carle Place, Plainedge and Valley Stream who wanted a college education close to home have constituted a majority of Molloy's enrollment. Eighty-five percent of the students are from the Island, and the remaining 15 percent from Queens.

Dr. Bogner hopes to broaden students' horizons. ''We take students on leadership retreats,'' he said. ''We take students into the city.''

Michelle Ciardulli, 20, a junior communications major from Oceanside, said she chose Molloy because it was local and offered small classes. The student-faculty ratio is 11 to 1.

At just over $15,000 a year, tuition is less than what is charged at nearby universities like Adelphi, in Garden City, and Hofstra, in Hempstead. The average SAT score of incoming students is 1070. An undergraduate honors program was started five years ago.

''We rejected about a third more this year than we did last year because we have no space,'' Dr. Bogner said. For this generation of students, he said, ''many of them are looking for community and looking for places they belong.''

''To some,'' he said, ''Molloy seems like a good option with our ethics and our values.''

Run-Down No Longer

Hidden behind brush and brambles on the 21-acre Jericho Preserve in Muttontown, Malcolm House, a little-known historic property acquired by Nassau County in 2001, was in desperate need of a face-lift.

Doreen Banks, the Nassau County parks commissioner, had been eager to rejuvenate the county's historic buildings and gardens since the Nassau Conservancy, a nonprofit group, was formed last year. She thought that the modest house, more fixer-upper than mansion of the Gold Coast ilk, was a good place to start.

To further that goal, she planned to turn 10 county-owned historic houses into designer showplaces. At Malcolm House, 16 designers have paid a total of more than $1 million to overhaul the clapboard farmhouse.

Malcolm House was part of a Quaker settlement at Jericho Preserve. The oldest part of the house was built in 1757, the main part in 1804. It now has 12 rooms, totaling about 5,000 square feet.

''A lot of people just think of designer show houses as mostly glitz,'' Ms. Banks said recently, standing in the wide center hall. ''We really didn't want to change the historic character of the house.''

Ms. Banks feared that interior decorators wouldn't want to touch Malcolm House, which ''was a little ratty,'' she said.

Malcolm House's banana yellow kitchen needed to be gutted. The plaster ceilings were falling down. Holes rutted the floorboards.

''There were so many changes that were done in the 70's, like an icky old bathroom with one of those stalls with the aluminum doors,'' Ms. Banks said. ''It just seemed unworkable.''

Harrison Hunt, the county's supervisor of historic sites, set the parameters for what the designers couldn't change. Cornices could not be removed, and the box locks could not be painted. Except in the center hall, the wide floorboards had to be waxed, not sanded.

Mr. Hunt said the painted gray and black marbling below some of the wainscoting was the house's most significant feature. ''It is a wonderful example of Quaker aesthetic,'' he said.

The show house is not as plain as a Quaker house would have been in the early 1800's. ''We thought that the 18th and 19th century with French and English design would be appropriate for the house,'' said Michael Butkewicz, the parks department employee who is the show house coordinator.

The square dining room has an opulent crystal chandelier above an 84-inch round table and a mother-of-pearl inlay surrounding the fireplace. Most of the furnishings will, alas, be removed when the show house closes.

Although volunteers cleared the overgrown property and landscape designers added an English garden, the Malcolm House makeover is, by design, not quite complete. The house needs a new roof. The siding needs to be restored. The gutters are severely damaged.

''We didn't want the house to look too pristine,'' Mr. Butkewicz said. ''It's not a perfect plastic house now. It needs work. It is an historic house.''

Admission: $18 for adults; money raised will go to the Nassau Conservancy. Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Last day: Nov. 12. Information: (516)571-7064.