4 minute read
OUR LEGACY
Our Legacy: The Dominican Sisters of Hope
A look back at Our Dominican heritage A s Mount Saint Mary College celebrates our 60th anniversary, we reflect on the dedication, selflessness, and service of our founders, the Dominican Sisters.
In 1883, sisters Hildegarde, Justina, DeSales, and Egbert first set foot in Newburgh. Committed to community and education, the sisters quickly founded Mount Saint Mary Academy on Gidney Avenue.
The sisters opened Greater Mount Saint Mary, a five-story high school in the building now known as the Dominican Center, in 1927. Then, guided by the four pillars of Dominican Life – study, spirituality, service, and community – the Dominican Sisters of Newburgh established Mount Saint Mary College as a four-year institution in October of 1959.
Now known as the Dominican Sisters of Hope, our founders have nurtured the Mount and its students from the start. Many of the sisters spent their days educating the next generation of young professionals, including beloved instructors Sr. Catherine Walsh ’70, OP, professor emerita of Communications, Sr. Patricia Sullivan ’64, OP, professor emerita of Mathematics; Sr. Leona DeBoer, OP, professor emerita of Nursing; and Sr. Cecilia Murray, OP, current adjunct professor of Religious Studies and author of Other Waters: A History of the Dominican Sisters of Newburgh, New York. Others lent their skills to the Mount’s growing administrative needs, including Sr. Ann Sakac, OP, fourth president of the Mount, and the late Sr. Agnes Boyle, OP, who is best known for her three decades as vice president for Academic Affairs.
The sisters’ educational legacy is also carried on through the Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Scholarship. This scholarship, funded by the sisters, is given to female students at the Mount who demonstrate need and academic excellence, especially first generation college students.
Having aided deserving Mount students for decades, the scholarship took on its current name in 2014, when the Dominican Sisters of Hope donated an additional $130,000 to the existing Dominican scholarship. Since being renamed in 2014, the Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Scholarship has helped an additional 40 young women to achieve their dreams.
One of those women is Emily (DiBiase) Ricci ’15, president of Gloriam Marketing, LLC; assistant director of Digital Communications at the Mount; and an adjunct professor of Religious Studies. After she graduated from the college, Ricci earned a master’s degree in Theology from the Augustine Institute.
“The Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Scholarship not only assisted me financially in pursuing my Mount education, but also illustrated St. John Paul II’s idea of the ‘feminine genius’ at work. Through their efforts at the college,” explained Ricci, “the sisters’ influence and leadership at the Mount empowered me to embrace my own calling within the Church as an adjunct professor of Religious Studies and the founder of a Catholic marketing organization.”
Rosemarie Budhwa, an English major at the Mount, has been receiving the Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Scholarship for the past two years. She says getting the scholarship and studying at the Mount has been “an amazing privilege.”
“The generosity of the sisters has not only helped me pay for college, but has allowed me to reflect
— Rosemarie Budhwa '20
on the experiences which I have built, specifically in the values the Dominican Sisters have embedded in this college and how they can impact others,” she explained. Budhwa sees those values in her interactions with her classmates, her professors, and while she serves the local community.
Of course, the sisters have instilled a great deal of spirituality in the Mount community through their great generosity. For more than a decade, the Dominican Sisters of Hope have helped students, faculty, and staff to follow in the footsteps of Saint Dominic de Guzman, founder of the Dominican Order, through a three-week pilgrimage in France. The annual journeys are jointly sponsored by the college and the Dominican Sisters of Hope, along with the planning efforts of the Catholic and Dominican Institute.
Between two and four individuals from the Mount community are selected each year to follow Dominic’s missionary trail throughout southern France, including Fanjeaux, birthplace of Dominic’s Order of Preachers.
Vicki Caruana, associate professor of Education, went on the pilgrimage in 2019. She says that the experience was life changing.
“I was awestruck and humbled at the same time,” Caruana explained. “I hope that those of us who have gone on this incredible pilgrimage can be like leaven in bread on our campus and be the activator of Dominican spirituality here.”
As we highlight the contributions of the Dominican Sisters during our 60th anniversary year, we also look ahead to a bright future of service, community, study, and spirituality, just as our founding sisters did as they arrived here in Newburgh 136 years ago.
Remembering Sr. Agnes Boyle
Sr. Agnes Boyle, OP, will always be remembered for her joyful dedication to the Mount and its students. Sr. Agnes spent more than 50 years serving the college, beginning in 1963 when she became an assistant professor of Education. She would go on to chair the division for nine years. However, Sr. Agnes is most remembered for her impressive tenure as Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA), which lasted 30 years. Sr. Agnes passed away on Sunday, November 10, 2019, but her legacy lives on: She initiated the first master’s degrees and what would become the degree completion program at the Mount. Since 2017, high-achieving seniors in the Mount’s degree completion program have been deemed Boyle Scholars, in recognition of her tireless determination and love of academics.
