Dr. Margaret Mahoney, a retired Bellarmine University history professor, passed away on March 11, 2018. She came to Bellarmine College in 1958 as the first woman to join the faculty of what was then an all-male institution.
Read
her obituary online.
Bellarmine's Our Lady of the Woods Chapel will host a memorial for Mahoney on Thursday, March 22, at 11 a.m.
Mahoney's funeral will take place on Wednesday, March 21, 11 a.m. Mountain time at Schnider Funeral Home in Great Falls, Montana. In lieu of flowers, her family suggests that donations be made to Bellarmine's Margaret Mahoney Endowed Scholarship Fund. You can designate your gift for that purpose when you
give online.
“As the first woman to lead Bellarmine, I am aware of - and profoundly grateful for - Margaret Mahoney's pioneering role in building a culture where the contributions of women were welcomed and celebrated, both on campus and well beyond,” said Dr. Susan M. Donovan, Bellarmine’s president. “Beyond her significance as the first woman on our faculty, she loved Bellarmine and was loved by so many of our students across multiple generations. Her name comes up often when I meet with alumni, who cherish the time they spent in her classroom. We’re grateful for her many contributions and we will ensure her legacy and spirit live on at Bellarmine."
In 2010, former Bellarmine president Joseph J. McGowan presented her with an honorary degree, recognizing her role as a pioneer and her enduring impact on generations of Bellarmine students.
Citation for Honorary Degree Dr. Margaret H. Mahoney
December 15, 2010
Bellarmine University is pleased to recognize and honor Dr. Margaret H. Mahoney, Professor of History, who has been a member of the Bellarmine family for 52 of the 60 years of Bellarmine’s existence.
After graduating summa cum laude in 1953 from the University of Great Falls in her native state of Montana, Dr. Mahoney traveled east to the University of Minnesota, where she received both her Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Ancient History. Her dissertation was titled, A Study in Sumerian Administrative History of the Third Ur Dynasty.
In September 1958, Dr. Mahoney came south to Louisville, where she became the first female faculty member at Bellarmine, which at that time was an Archdiocesan college for men. As she knew little about the community, the administration arranged for the Bellarmine Franciscan Friars to allow Dr. Mahoney to live in the basement of their house on Douglass Avenue until she could find an apartment near campus, which she did within a few weeks. That apartment would be her home for the next 50 years!
Being the only woman faculty member until 1963, she immediately became a favorite of her history students, who marveled at the fact that no matter what class she taught, she came to class with only her purse. Immediately she began lecturing without any notes, starting exactly where she had stopped in the previous class. Fifty-two years later, Dr. Mahoney still approaches each class in similar fashion, and to her students her lectures seem so real that they feel as though they are hearing the story from a “primary source.” In addition, Dr. Mahoney has never missed a class during her years as a professor.
From 1965 until 1992, Dr. Mahoney was the Director of the Cardinal Section, Bellarmine’s first honors program. Each year she eagerly enlisted the aid of three faculty members on a volunteer basis without any compensation or release time to assist her with the program. Graduates of this honors program, along with her many history majors, were so appreciative of her dedication and contribution to their academic lives that they raised more than $25,000 in 2000 to start the Dr. Margaret H. Mahoney Scholarship Fund, which today enables talented, needy students to attend Bellarmine.
Dr. Mahoney was the chair of the Social Science Division from 1970-1985 before Bellarmine switched from academic divisions into today’s governance system of various academic schools. When Fr. Jeremiah Smith, OFM, retired in 1988, she became the second chairperson of Bellarmine’s history/political science department, a position she still holds today.
In addition to the above positions Dr. Mahoney was the chair of the Rank and Tenure Committee on campus for more than 22 years and has been a member of the Undergraduate Educational Affairs Committee since its inception in 1965. She has also chaired the Waiver and Exceptions Committee (20 years) and the Awards Committee (25 years) and was a charter member of the Faculty Council, Bellarmine’s current faculty governance.
During her career Dr. Mahoney has twice been voted by the students Teacher of the Year, has received the William T. Miles Award, the Distinguished Service award from the Bellarmine Alumni Association and the Monsignor Horrigan Award, and was nominated by the students for honorary membership into Omicron Delta Kappa, a National Leadership Honor Society. From 1986-1988 she was president of the Kentucky Honors Roundtable, a statewide organization she co-founded in 1983. Each summer for 38 years Dr. Mahoney traveled to Europe for additional study in many countries, always managing to attend annually the prestigious Anglo-American Historical Conference at the University of London.
In addition to Dr. Mahoney’s never missing a class, students and faculty members have marveled at the following:
1. She has always been one of the first people on campus each morning.
2. When the dean demands a report from all chairs, hers is the first one to reach his desk.
3. When on two occasions she had total knee replacements between the fall and spring semesters, a period of one month or less, she still managed to meet her first class those two springs without the aid of crutches!
For her dedication to her students, her absolute commitment to teaching and her own love of learning, Bellarmine University is honored to award on this, the fifteenth day of December in the year 2010, the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, to Dr. Margaret H. Mahoney.