A Jewel of Moraga, Saint Mary’s College

By Susan Sperry Excerpt from Newsletter 2025 Q3

Nestled among the grass-covered hills of Moraga now lies the picturesque Spanish Renaissance-California Mission-style campus of Saint Mary’s College, a college originally dedicated July 9, 1863, on Mission Road in San Francisco, one of the oldest colleges in the West. The De La Salle Christian Brothers arrived on August 11, 1868, adding a commercial curriculum. The College was chartered by the State of California on May 20 of that year and conferred its first Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, and in 1873 the first Master of Arts degree.

Outgrowing the San Francisco campus, the College moved to 30th and Broadway in Oakland to a facility affectionately known as the “Brickpile” on August 15,1889. As years went by, the College added Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Art, Pre-med, Schools of Commerce, Foreign Trade, Education, Law, Economics, Business Administration, Letters and Science, and the World Classics Core Curriculum. During the 19th century tuition was $60 per academic year for day students and $250 for boarding students.

In 1927 James Irvine, Southern California entrepreneur, offered Saint Mary’s College 100 acres of free land, hoping to advance his schemes to subdivide. The Brothers were not impressed with the marshy basin they saw upon arrival at the site but accepted the offer and purchased three hundred additional acres. Ground was broken on May 15, 1927, the feast of St. John the Baptist de la Salle. In 1940, the hillside was graced with the addition of “La Cruz de la Victoria”, the Cross of Victory, a familiar landmark on the hills above the chapel.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s Slip Madigan, a visionary raconteur coach, built Saint Mary’s into a national college football power. His teams traveled more miles, dressed more flamboyantly, and scored more upsets than any other team, being the first West Coast team to go to Hawaii and the East Coast. The Galloping Gaels outhit, outthought and outplayed major opponents with much larger student bodies, even without its own stadium.

After the Pearl Harbor attack in December of 1941, the war effort siphoned off Saint Mary’s student body, and the College offered its facilities to the Navy for a pre-flight training school. To accommodate its recruits, the Navy constructed barracks, a field house, swimming pool, mess hall, rifle range, infirmary, and boxing pavilion, and expanded gas, electrical and sewage capacity and ran a two-mile water main from the East Bay Utilities District Lafayette plant. The Navy departed after the war.

For nearly 30 years (1969-1997) Brother Mel Anderson led Saint Mary’s slowly and steadily over the troubled years of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s! In the 1960’s the College had moved away from the Catholic tradition. It was the time of the civil rights movement, activism against the Vietnam War, and Saint Mary’s was being sucked into these dramatic changes. Brother Mel was asked to take the presidency of the College starting in 1969, at a time of great societal change when he thought the teachings of the College were becoming too secularized, and it was a time of chaos in higher education.

His tenure brought co-education to the campus. He created improved Schools of Business and Education, and resisted the attraction of extreme change where he thought the College would lose its Catholic identity. Brother Mel turned Saint Mary’s into a profitable institution. Accepting women allowed the failing School of Education to be revitalized. Under his leadership the College started the MBA program, initiated the School of Nursing, and created a vocational program (later transferred to the University of Phoenix). He added students, structures, and dormitories, while striving to maintain the spiritual focus of the College (check out Voices of the Past: 2011 History of SMC Talk by Brother Mel which has a transcript and photos).

Today Saint Mary’s College boasts an enrollment of approximately 4,000 students and ranks in the top 27% of four-year colleges in the nation.