As basketball season kicks off, it seems women’s basketball will maintain the nationwide buzz it’s generated over the last couple of seasons and, coming off a Big East finals run and NCAA tournament bid last year, the Bluejays will likely be a team worth watching this year. But women haven’t always held such a dominant place within Creighton University. Despite Creighton being founded in 1878, women weren’t admitted as undergraduates at the university until 1913. They didn’t get a Division I basketball team until the ‘70s.
However, women were involved at the university from the very beginning, just in the background. According to the “Creighton’s History” webpage on the school’s website, the university was founded with funds donated by Mary Lucretia Creighton. She was left with her late husband Edward’s fortune after he passed and set aside $100,000 in her will to go towards building a school in Edward’s honor. Following her death, the then-bishop of the Diocese of Omaha, the Rev. James O’Connor, enlisted the Society of Jesus to establish the school she had envisioned.
Classes at the university, then Creighton College, began on Sept. 2, 1878, with 120 students (all men), five Jesuits and two lay teachers. One of these lay teachers was likely a woman. According to a timeline of Creighton women on the Creighton Alumni and Friends website, a woman named Mrs. Hall taught English for at least the first year of classes. Records of her are limited.
St. John’s Parish also exists in part because of a woman, according to the university’s history webpage. Sarah Emily Creighton, a younger sister of Mary Lucretia and wife of Edward’s brother, John, wanted the church to be built so that students could have a proper place to worship. St. John’s Collegiate Chapel was dedicated in 1888, and the parish was established in 1897, allowing the church to conduct special events like weddings and baptisms.
Still, despite the influence of Mary Lucretia and Sarah Emily, Creighton was not a feminist-forward institution during its earliest years. Most women weren’t welcome in the classrooms at first — but this wasn’t Creighton-specific. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, women jumped up to just 36% of the students enrolled in college in 1899-1900 in the U.S.
While women couldn’t enroll in undergraduate classes at Creighton until the early twentieth century, women were welcomed into graduate school programs sooner, albeit sparsely. Kate Drake became the university’s first female student in 1892, enrolling in the John A. Creighton Medical College (now the Creighton University School of Medicine) the year it was founded, according to the Alumni and Friends timeline. Drake was also the first woman admitted to any Jesuit university in the U.S. However, she didn’t graduate and only attended the school for one year, as specified in another Alumni and Friends article. Dr. C. B. Offerson became the medical school’s first woman physician in 1894, and in 1898, Dr. Anna Marie Griffith became the medical school’s first woman to graduate and complete all medical training, according to the timeline.
As time went on, based on the Alumni and Friends timeline, women became more and more integrated into the university. Mattie Arthur was hired as the university’s first medical staff member in 1901. In 1908 the first women graduated from the university’s dental school. Cassie Chancellor graduated from the university’s pharmacy school in 1913, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from Creighton. Then, in 1916, Bertha Winterton and Clara Witt Breuer were the first women to graduate from the university’s law school. It wasn’t until 1948 that a Black woman graduated from the law school for the first time. That graduate, Elizabeth D. Pittman, J.D., went on to become the first Black person and the first woman to be appointed as a judge in Nebraska.
According to the university’s 2013-2014 fact book, women were not admitted as undergraduate students until 1913, when they could be part-time students during summer sessions. Nearly two decades later, in 1931, women were incorporated more fully into the school, with the ability to enroll as degree-seeking undergraduate students at the University College. When the university’s business school opened in 1920, eight women were enrolled — alongside 66 men, of course. In 1951, the University College and College of Arts and Sciences merged, becoming a co-educational division of Creighton.
As women were finally becoming more established as Creighton students, Amelia Earhart paid a visit to Omaha and expressed interest in women’s role at the university, especially the medical school. She visited in 1933, one year after becoming the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. Mary Ellen Leary, a Creightonian reporter, was able to get an interview with Earhart, confirming the pioneering pilot’s interest in women’s rights and Creighton women specifically.
In an article published by the Creightonian on Dec. 14, 1933, Leary wrote, “‘Are there women in your medical college?’ She [Earhart] asked. She believes very thoroughly in women following professions or at least being in touch with the modern world.”
The article continued, “‘I like to see women doing general newspaper work, rather than just on a woman’s page,’ said Miss Earhart. ‘Women should be interested in world problems as well as men. The world is their world. There is no need to confine their interests to frilly curtains and lemon pie.’”
During the mid-to-late twentieth century, while women were advancing as students at the university, they were also advancing in their roles as faculty, according to the timeline from the Alumni and Friends website. Maurine Hamilton was hired in 1950 as the dean of women, making her the university’s first female administrator. In 1972, Ann L. Czerwinski of the School of Pharmacy and Health Professionals became the first female president of the university faculty. The university’s law school hired its first female professor in 1973, Frances Ryan, J.D., and a scholarship is still named after her today. Eileen Lieben became the university’s acting vice president of student personnel in 1982, making her Creighton’s first female vice president. The university’s Eileen B. Lieben Center for Women, founded in 1998, was named after her.
Today, Creighton has more women than men enrolled. According to the 2024-2025 common datasets available on the Creighton website, 2,588 of the university’s 4,647 undergraduate students were women last academic year; 28 were listed as another gender and the rest were men. This means just under 56% of Creighton’s undergraduate student body is women. The university also has more women than men enrolled in graduate school programs. This follows national trends. According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2024, 47% of women in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 34 hold a bachelor’s degree, whereas only 37% of U.S. men in the same age range hold a bachelor’s degree.
Just like women have become important in Creighton classrooms, they’ve become important in the university’s athletic world as well. Creighton currently has eight NCAA Division 1 women’s sports teams, including basketball and volleyball. Both of these teams were established in 1973, following the passing of Title IX, a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program that receives federal assistance.
Today Creighton women are continuing to excel on the court.
The volleyball team has won the Big East Tournament title 10 times, and most recently in 2024, according to an article on gocreighton.com. This season, they are currently 14-0 in conference play and 21-5 overall. Their next game will be against St. John’s today at 6 p.m.
The women’s basketball team finished with an overall record of 26-7 last season and came in second in the Big East regular season standings. As this season begins, the Jays look to defend their conference standing despite a lot of personnel turnovers. They were ranked fifth in the Big East preseason poll, and their next game will be Thursday at 6 p.m.
So, nearly 150 years after women’s humble, largely behind-the-scenes start at the university’s founding, women are prominent across campus. As volleyball season winds down next month and basketball takes off, the female Bluejays are carrying forth the legacy of the Creighton women who came before them — on and off the court. Mary Lucretia Creighton’s vision of a school lives on, now with women making their presence undeniable.