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Alumnae Distinctions
Dr. Claudia Morris ’83 is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. She is also the Research Director for the university’s Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. We recognize Dr. Morris for receiving $8.7 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Morris will lead a multi-center study of intravenous arginine therapy as an integrative nutritional approach to treating severe sickle cell-related pain. Dr. Morris is deeply committed to finding treatments that provide relief to children suffering from this debilitating disease.
Award Winning Book
We applaud Maureen Pilkington Rossi ’76. Her latest publication, This Side of Water: Stories, is the winner of the 2019 American Fiction Award in the short-story category. The anthology also was named by the Independent Publisher Book Awards a Silver Medalist in the 2020 IPPY Awards. In addition, favorable press was garnered in a Westchester Magazine book review that described Maureen’s collection of 16 stories as featuring “humor, honesty, and suspense.”
Colleen Keller Chiacchere ’98 Honored with the Ignatian Award
We congratulate Colleen Keller Chiacchere ’98 who received the Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality Award (St. Ignatius Award) at Creighton University on February 4, 2020. This award is given to recognize Creighton’s faculty and staff who live the spirit of St. Ignatius through their participation in the mission of Creighton, and their involvements beyond university life that reflect the Ignatian ideals of Magis, Cura Personalis, and being persons for and with others.
Before joining the Creighton University faculty, Colleen served for five years as an elementary teacher at Red Cloud School at the Jesuit mission of Holy Rosary on the Pine Ridge Reservation. At Creighton, Colleen has been the Director of the Magis Catholic Teacher Core within the Department of Education for more than 10 years. She stays in contact with her students as they spend two years at various Catholic schools around the country. Many Catholic dioceses want Magis teachers. Colleen discerns where the greatest needs are, with a special care for the Catholic schools on the Pine Ridge and Winnebago Reservations which cannot compete financially with other schools. Her students find her a great support both professionally and spiritually as they face the challenges of their first teaching assignments. Colleen organizes their retreats and summer courses on campus. She suffers with them and celebrates their successes with peaceful confidence.
Colleen, who holds an MEd and MS, said, “My time at Ursuline, particularly my religion classes, service work, Peer Ministry and the teachings of St. Angela certainly set the stage for me to be so curious and dedicated to working in Jesuit schools and being so fond of St. Ignatius.” Colleen is pictured here with the president of Creighton University, Fr. Hendrickson.
