Lucille McKillop

In her first months as president of Salve Regina College in 1973, Sister Lucille McKillop ended decades of women-only education at the oceanside school in Newport and admitted men. With a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, she served as president for twenty-one years, guiding Salve’s accreditation as a university. Sister McKillop was an incredibly effective leader. During her tenure, the student population rose from 1,000 to 2,100 and academic offerings increased significantly. Salve went from a women only nine undergraduate major college to a coed university with fifty-five undergraduate majors, a graduate studies program, and a PhD in Humanities. Although president of the university, Sister McKillop taught math classes and tutored students having difficulty with their coursework. In 1977, she and Governor J. Joseph Garrahy founded the Governor’s Ball as a scholarship fundraiser. She served on the boards of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Newport Music Festival, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court Mandatory Legal Education Commission. Sister McKillop was the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her extraordinary leadership of Catholic higher education and lifelong dedication to the Mercy tradition of faith and justice.