Johanna Butler was born on July 22, 1860, in County Kilkenny, Ireland, the daughter of prosperous farmers John and Ellen Forrestal Butler. After attending an Irish national school, she continued her education with the Sisters of Mercy in the town of New Ross. At the age of sixteen, she joined the French congregation of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary at Béziers, taking the name "Marie Joseph". After her novitiate, Butler was sent to teach at a convent school in Oporto, Portugal. In 1881 she was transferred to a convent school in Braga, Portugal, where she became superior in 1893. In 1903, Butler was appointed superior of the congregation's convent and school on Long Island. In 1907, her cousin James Butler donated land near Tarrytown, New York for the founding of the college.
Acquisition and closure by Fordham University
In July 2002, Marymount officially consolidated with Fordham University, renaming the college as the Marymount College of Fordham University and becoming the institution's fifth undergraduate school. In 2005, Fordham announced its plans to close the women's college effective June 2007, but to keep the campus, which it renamed the Marymount campus, active as a center for graduate studies. Most of the 798 Marymount students were to finish their education at the Tarrytown campus, which was to be known as the Marymount Campus of Fordham University, pending the University's decision of whether to keep or sell the property. The Westchester division of the multi-campus Fordham College of Liberal Studies, already housed at the campus, would continue and expand its liberal arts program. Fordham announced that over time, the professional school programs in business administration, social service and education would move their Westchester operations to the Marymount Campus. In the press release announcing the phase out, the Board of Trustees of Fordham emphasized that Marymount juniors and seniors who graduated by spring 2007 would complete their degrees at Marymount College, while freshmen and sophomores would complete their degrees in programs offered at one of the other four undergraduate colleges of Fordham University, if they indeed decided to remain at Fordham. The Marymount Sisters, are to remain in the residences they occupied at the closing of the school, although their teaching positions no longer existed. The final class of 203 women graduated in May 2007. In August 2007, Fordham announced it would sell the Marymount campus, to the disappointment of many alumnae, as the university had purchased the college with the promise that it would try to continue to operate it as a women's institution. The University claimed unjustifiable and disproportionate costs to maintain the large campus as reason for closure. Skeptics saw the acquisition of the college as a real estate venture. On February 17, 2008, Fordham announced the sale of the campus for $27 million to EF Education, a chain of private language-instruction schools.
