Blog Archive » Women

Occasionally on life's journey, we are fortunate to cross paths with someone so extraordinary that we find ourselves walking along the way with her, heedless of direction but feeling that, somehow, we must be heading to the right place.  Before I met Sue Ann Shay in 1988 — before I became Trinity's president, but when I was first a member of our Board of Trustees and she joined our board — I had never met a Sister of Notre Dame who was also a lawyer.  Or a sailor.  Or such a talented professional woman who had heard the call to her vocation at mid-life.   I knew many Sisters of Notre Dame who were passionate about the congregation's mission in action for social justice, but few left me as routinely astonished with her firey commitment to the world's underdogs as Sue Ann Shay.   We became fast friends, and soon co-conspirators in our belief that our beloved alma mater, Trinity, should embrace new directions for the education of the world's women as a matter of social justice.

When I learned that Sue Ann died last week after a long illness, I smiled at the thought that she was now, at once, at peace after a long struggle, but also probably raising hell in heaven about some injustice on the other side of those pearly gates.  She surely would not sit around for long letting some souls have great mansions while others have only small flats.   She might have a word with St. Peter, or even The Boss, about equalizing housing opportunity up there. Full Article

"…history is largely about how people with power stomp all over those who don't have it…"

Mary Meehan, Class of 1963, blows past the screechy stereotypes too often associated with Pro-Life advocates in the contemporary political climate.   An ardent anti-war activist — a real "lefty" back in the day! — who campaigned for Senator Eugene McCarthy when he ran for president, Mary professes the fully integrated view of what it means to be truly Pro-Life, which means that she not only opposes abortion but also the death penalty, war and all forms of violence against human life.   She eschews partisan labels in favor of working across the chasms that too-often separate people who, fundamentally, share the same values and views on moral issues.   As I listened to Mary speak when she visited Trinity on October 1, I found myself wishing that more women like her could win the headlines and talk-show appearances that are too often dominated by demagogues who harm the cause of life. Full Article

(Photo from Indiana University)

Lost in the hubub over President Obama's achievement of the Nobel Peace Prize was another extraordinary — and, for some, controversial — Nobel Prize winner.   Dr. Elinor Ostrom of Arizona State University and Indiana University became the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in Economics.   She was one of five women to win Nobel Prizes this year, the most ever.   The other four included Herta Mueller for literature, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Grider for medicine, and Ada Yonath for chemistry.  Reflecting on Dr. Ostrom's Nobel,   Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus writes about her frustration that we still keep having "first woman" moments when society should be well beyond gender barriers by now.   But in fact, the glass ceiling remains intact in many arenas of human endeavor, and so each woman's achievement hammers another shard loose from that vast barrier to full equality. Full Article

Playing at night under the klieg lights of Gallaudet's splendid new astroturf field, Trinity's Soccer team mounted a valiant effort last night, losing to Gallaudet by the slimmest of margins 1-0.   But as I watched our students deftly maneuver the ball around the field, I found myself contemplating those bright lights and that astroturf, and meditating on the fact that men's football still rules when it comes to college sports and women's opportunities.   But for the Gallaudet football team, I somehow doubt that the women's soccer team would have been able to play a night game. Full Article

Growing up Catholic in the 1960's was a time of stunning revolution in the rituals and (no pun intended) habits of our very special parochial culture.   In the heady days of Vatican II (aggiornamento!), Catholic schoolchildren went from watching the backs of priests muttering unintelligble Latin to holding hands around the altar while speaking in English ("the vernacular" was a phrase we tossed off with meaning as we joined in the liturgical responses).  Our teachers, the nuns, went from full habits to modified habits to regular clothes over a short period of time.   Sister Nadine is a redhead!  We were excited by all the changes, but there were some obvious drawbacks — we could no longer tell when Sister Superior was coming around the corner — no more clicking of Rosary beads hung from those great belts! Full Article