This Women’s History Month, we are highlighting the work of just a tiny percentage of the women leaders who serve the church and the world through their leadership in Jesuit and Ignatian ministries. These leaders shared a bit about their work and how Ignatian spirituality shapes their lives. They also offered their perspectives on ways the Jesuits can continue to improve how they welcome, empower and support women leaders.
Other Jesuit institutional connections:
What does your job entail?
The Jesuit Schools Network of North America (JSN) supports our 91 pre-secondary and secondary member schools. Our mission is to animate the educational ministry of the Society of Jesus in Canada, the United States, Belize and Micronesia.
As the director of educational inquiry for the JSN, I am charged with encouraging a spirit of inquiry across the many layers of our work in Jesuit education, with looking to the future of teaching and learning in our schools and supporting Jesuit school leaders and Ignatian educators as they work to craft the educational experience for the students in their care.
What is your favorite part of your job?
All of it! After spending the majority of my 25-year career in Jesuit education as a leader in our schools in New York City, I really enjoy the opportunity to work with so many different educators across every province in the JSN. The Educational Inquiry Program we have created for the Network is exciting to me, full of learning and growth, with a deep commitment to the Jesuit mission at the heart of our efforts. I really enjoy thinking about the future of the schools in our care, of what they might need to navigate in the constantly changing world of schooling today. Even after all these years in education, I still feel as if there is something new to learn every day — and to me, this is a great blessing.
What is one of the challenges you’re facing right now?
It is both a gift and a challenge to balance being a working mom of young children. My devotion to my long-time career in Jesuit education is one of the greatest gifts of my life and balancing it with a full and loving family life and all the wonders that entails, is handled every day with balance, juggling, care, quite a bit of grit, a solid sense of humor and so much support. I have really come to believe that moms are superheroes. Our children amaze me every day, and they help me feel even deeper the needs of the kids we care for in our schools.
I can also see clearly that knowing the experience of this balance of devotion to both family and work is a real gift in meeting the needs of educators and students today. So many leaders and teachers — moms and dads — out there experience the same: caring for our own family at home as we care so deeply for the families in our schools. It is in this challenge that I can see so many gifts.
What are some of the lights and shadows you’ve experienced as a woman working in partnership with a men’s religious order?
I have been incredibly blessed to work for so many years with colleagues and friends who have cared for me, supported me, encouraged me and pushed me to grow at every step of my career. From being a faculty member, to department chair, to assistant principal, to principal, to now as a director of the JSN and every big and small role in between, there has been so much light in my years with the Jesuits. When I found my way to Jesuit education, I was entirely new — a new teacher, new to the city I was living in, new to Jesuit education, a woman in a boys school — and I was embraced fully by my community.
As a woman working in an all-boys school it took me many years to articulate the uniqueness of that experience, yet once I did in my doctoral research on women in all-boys Jesuit schools, I was again encouraged and supported to explore what was a new topic for our community. In the years since, I have worked to grow this conversation on women leading around the JSN, and it continues to delight me with the opportunity to support other women who have shared this unique experience. Being the first female principal for Loyola School, the first female assistant principal for Regis High School, the first women to research this experience of gender in our schools, and the first woman to encourage broad conversations on being a woman in Jesuit education is a point of pride for me. And each step was met with support, light and encouragement.
How does Ignatian spirituality shape your approach to work?
It shapes every facet of my work. At this stage, Ignatian spirituality is a part of who I am as a person, as a professional, as a scholar, as a colleague, a leader, all of it. It is a part of how I see the world around me. I cannot imagine working in an environment where faith is not at the center of all we do.
It is a joy to build a project with colleagues that seeks to nurture the abundant gifts of seeing God in all things, of seeking the magis, of caring for the individual, of valuing discernment and reflection, and so much more. I feel lucky to see so clearly the connections of how Ignatian spirituality has shaped and molded the person I am today.
What’s one of your favorite quotes about leadership or the best leadership advice you’ve ever received?
Many years ago when I moved into my first key school leadership position, and was at the time the first woman to be hired into that position in the school’s over 100-year history, a dear colleague and mentor to me said, “Remember, YOU create the position you are in. YOU make it your own.”
This simple advice meant so much to me at the time, as daunting as it felt to be different than the laymen and Jesuits who had held the esteemed role before me. I didn’t look like any of my predecessors, so to speak, and there was a lot of talk about how I might approach the highly respected role in the very tradition-rich all boys school. My colleague reminded me that it was okay to “do it my own way” and to not feel pressure to fit into a predefined mold of how it had been done before. I felt supported in making my own valued mark on the role, of seizing ownership over my unique place in the school.
In all the years since, as I have continued to step into unchartered territory at work, I have held on to this advice and still value it for the freedom and personal agency it encouraged in me as a new, young female leader. Even today, so many years later, I seek to be brave enough to create my own mark on the work I care so deeply about.
