Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, who as president of Webster College in the 1960s wrested control of the school from the Catholic Church, died last week (Jan. 19, 2012) at her home in Orlando, Fla. She was 85.

While as a nun with the Sisters of Loretto, Mrs. Wexler was known to many as "Sister J" or just "J." She served as president of Webster College, now Webster University, from 1965 to 1969 during a time of great social upheaval.

She told the Post-Dispatch in 2007 that when church leaders gave her orders to fire some faculty members whose theology they did not agree with, she realized the school could no longer be "controlled by the hierarchical church."

Catholic leaders resisted at first, but in 1967, the Vatican approved the transfer of the school's governance to a lay board of trustees in what is sometimes referred to as the "great turning of Webster College."

"Webster College was the first Catholic institution to recognize the potential for growth and the quality of education as a secular institution," Elizabeth Stroble, Webster's president, wrote in a message to the university. "At Webster (Mrs. Wexler) emancipated the curriculum, raised development funds and built the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts and developed academic programs."

Karen Luebbert, who was hired by Mrs. Wexler to be the school's librarian in 1967 and recently retired as a university vice president, said Mrs. Wexler's decision to cut ties with the church boiled down to an issue of control.

"She believed in independent women and she believed in an independent institution," Luebbert said. "As a religious woman, to take the moves that she took, to stand in the face of such opposition from so many, and to persist in what she believed was right for the college was extraordinary."

Born into a farm family in Sterling, Ill., Mrs. Wexler graduated from Webster College, then entered the Sisters of Loretto.

The same year that Webster cut its ties with the church, Mrs. Wexler became laicized. She married Paul Wexler, who was Jewish, two years later.

After leaving Webster, she became president of Hunter College in New York City, from 1970 to 1979, and in 1982 was appointed president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

The funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Mary Catholic Church in Sterling. Webster will hold a public memorial service at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 8 in the Winifred Moore Auditorium in Webster Hall.

Surviving in addition to her husband, of Orlando, are a daughter, Wendy Branton of Wayne, Pa.; a son, Wayne Wexler of New York City; two sisters; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.