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PHOTO/UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Katie Diary From 1934 to 1937, the tenacious Mother Antonia campaigned for Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) endorsement of the College of St. Catherine. St. Kate’s finally overcame committee objections to its Catholicism and its female student base — defying dismissal as a “little girl’s college,” as one delegate put it — and successfully obtained the right to a PBK chapter in 1937. On May 17, 1938, St. Kate’s became the nation’s first Catholic institution of higher education to have a PBK
chapter, and only the third chapter in Minnesota. Since then, more than 1,200 Katies have been inducted. In this photo from 1950, PBK members witness a new member signing the membership book, honoring a legacy of academic recognition hard-earned 13 years prior. The students pictured above are six of the 14 inductees, all 1950 graduates (left to right): Verna Budde White, Martha Borgersrode Liesch, Nona Mary Allard, Mary Beth Dempsey, Jacqueline Gibis Breher, and Mary Wendelschafer Koehneke.