Sisters & Students
Build Lasting
Friendships
by Ellen Reiss
Since the early days of the Sisters of
Charity, BVM there have been countless
stories of the BVMs’ lives, mission and
spirituality. They have been trailblazers in
society and have paved the way for the
future. In order to preserve these stories,
the BVM congregation partnered with
Clarke University, Dubuque, Iowa, and St.
Catherine University (St. Kate), St. Paul,
Minn., to participate in a semester-long
oral history project in which four BVMs
sat down with four Clarke University
students to reflect on their lives.
Grant Provides Means
to Accomplish Goals
In late 2013, the Conrad N. Hilton
Foundation awarded a $3.3 million grant
to St. Kate. The purpose of the grant was
two-fold: one portion would help establish
an annual National Catholic Sisters Week
each March; another portion would fund
oral history projects of sisters across the
nation, to be preserved in digital archives.
10
|
S A L T MAGAZINE
An online article published on St.
Kate’s Newswire July 14, 2014, notes that
the goal was to “engage . . . students and
their counterparts at Catholic universities
across the country in creating high quality films and narratives to document and
celebrate the profound impact of women
religious” and to “foster meaningful relationships between college-age women and
accomplished American women religious.”
To facilitate this, St. Kate reached out to
religious congregations and colleges acr