Mater Matters FALL 2014 ANNUAL REPORT 2013-2014 OPENING COMMENTS From the Principal This past July I traveled to Ghana, Africa with a delegation of other educators involved with Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Ours was an immersion experience where we saw first-hand the work CRS is doing in a developing country to live the Gospel messages of feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty. I was quite proud to be an American Catholic because I witnessed very clearly how our Church is responding to needs around the world. The impetus behind this trip started last fall when Maureen Meacham, Theology teacher, invited CRS to present an iNeighbor workshop to our teachers (iNeighbor is a CRS program designed to help teachers and students learn more about global issues and to more deeply engage in the work of CRS). Throughout the 2013-14 school year teachers integrated human rights questions, statistics or issues into their lesson plans. An example would be in math: If 75 percent of Sudanese girls are married by the age of 14, based on our student population at Merion Mercy, how many Merion Mercy girls would be married by December 31, 2014? This way of integrating social justice issues into multi-disciplinary subjects brought real global challenges directly into students’ thinking and problem-solving. Because our teachers and students took this initiative seriously and also because we are such a faith in action school, CRS has named Merion Mercy a CRS: Global High School. I am proud that we have earned this distinction and that we are partnering with such a great organization. Our commitment to social justice on the world stage runs deep. In collaboration with other American Mercy schools, our students have raised close to $100,000 in less than five years to build a school in Sudan. This year they will aid a food program at the school—as it is difficult to study when one is hungry. Sister Cathy Solano, RSM directs the school in Sudan. Last spring on her way home to Australia, she stopped to thank the Merion Mercy students for all they have done. Sister Cathy explained the conflict conditions in the Nuba Mountains, where the school is located. Students there listen acutely for jet fighters coming into the territory. Upon hearing aircrafts, they immediately take refuge in nearby fox holes as they know the bombs dropped will send out shrapnel that may maim anyone above ground. In spite of these extraordinary challenges, the desire for education burns deeply within these students. Together with their teachers they look beyond their circumstances and work together toward a brighter future. Merion Mercy continues to do our part to spread the Gospel message and values both close to home and wherever we travel. Whether we are welcoming a new student in the hallway or working to improve the healthcare system in an African country, our Merion Mercy community is doing things both great and small, guided by our Mercy Core Values. Sister Barbara Buckley ’72 Principal IN THIS ISSUE Fall 2014 magazine PRINCIPAL Sister Barbara Buckley ’72 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of ADVANCEMENT Kelley Kuyat MagaZINE StaFF EdITOR Kristina Stanton Cawley ’90 EdITORIAL STAff Linda Miele Benton ’75 Agnes Shields Finigan ’72 Patricia McAleer LAYOUT AND DESIGN Proof Design page 8 MERION MERCY ACADEMY 511 Montgomery Avenue Merion Station, PA 19066 610-664-6655 www.merion-mercy.com FEATURES ON THE COVER Mater Matters is published three times a year by the Advancement Office. 2 Commencement 2014 Mater MattersFALL 2014 2 Graduation Address Follow MMA on your favorite social media sites: By Kathleen Dolan ’14 Facebook 3 Baccalaureate Address Login and get updates. By Elizabeth Loftus ’14 Twitter 5 University and College Decisions Updates and announcements. RT AL REPO ANNU2013-2014 LinkedIn Morgan Iacovella ’14 and Updates and communications. 8 MMA in Africa Taylor McElwee ’14 are all smiles at Graduation 2014. SchoolTube Watch video of school activities. DEPARTMENTS Pinterest Updates and photography. OPENING COMMENTS Instagram Inside front cover :: From the Principal Photography and video of school activities. CAMPUS NEWS PLEASE RECYCLE THIS MAGAZINE 06 :: Athletic News ALUMNAE NEWS 14 :: Class Notes 18 :: In Memoriam For example, our focus this year at MMA has been on enhancing our Mercy Girl Power and becoming Mercy Girl Superheroes. Yet, none of us is going to be like the heroes in the movies. All of us will be average young women going to regular colleges across the United States aspiring to ordinary career goals. We aren’t special. But is that such a crime to not be like the superheroes or superstars in the movies? The author John Green once said “A hero’s journey is a journey from strength to weakness.” That’s not really the hero we’ve all come to know and love in the movies, but we’ve all known some true, flesh-and-blood heroes who have gone through that journey, people who may have fought the good fight in the face of a losing battle. People who through their commencement faith and humility were able to shine by simply existing. We’ve known ordinary heroes 2O14 like this, and with that knowledge, we also understand that we too can shape lives. Now that I think about it, we have so many everyday heroic Graduation Address (abridged) figures in our lives, without whom we would not have made it to where we GIVEN BY: KATHLEEN DOLAn ’14 are today. For example, Sister Barbara and Miss Danovich kept this school I WOULD four years here, only one of the doors together for us. Our teachers kept LIKE TO TAKE to the music room has ever opened. us on task, guiding us through our A QUICK, One would think that after all this courses to help us grow as lifelong INFORMAL time, we’d have stopped physically learners, and our parents, helped POLL OF MY walking into it; but, no, in this, our mold us to be the young women we CLASSMATES. final year at Merion, even the most are today. How many of you level-headed among us has bumped The second lesson of the music have ever walked into the music room right into that door. The lesson of room door is that, while we may not door? I am talking about the one that that music room door is twofold. The end up going through the door we does not open. For those of you who first part of its lesson is that we aren’t wanted, it doesn’t matter, because have not had the pleasure of going always going to get through the door through this experience: during our we want to in life. we will end up where we need to go. There’s always another door that’ll open up somewhere. For no matter Top photo: BriYana Crocker, Emily Turek, and Emma Brown 2 Mater Matters what, we will learn what we still need to learn so that we can have fulfilling lives. We will be heroes not because we are special, but because we are so perfectly, ordinarily human. We will go out, accept, and embrace our duty to our fellow beings. We will reach out and touch those lives we need to touch, whether it is our own families, an entire community, or maybe the whole world. Rest assured, we will run into many a music room door in our lives, but we will shake ourselves off and walk through the next one—not with superpowers, but under our own power. With that in mind, we boldly go forward with our lives, on to new and sometimes terrifying things to us mere mortals, ready to take on the world. Congratulations class of 2014! We’ve made it through the next Deanna Heany door. Whether it opens for us, or not, I cannot say, but we have to try. from her relatives and used that money Baccalaureate Address (abridged) to build a house where she and other GIVEN BY: ELIZABETH Loftus ’14 compassionate women could provide care and an education for homeless MERCY. A SMALL away from home, and I want to tell you women and children. WORD WITH about how it was built: with a blueprint, The foundation of our clubhouse is FIVE LETTERS, a solid foundation, strong scaffolding education. My 113 Merion sisters and yet it has a and a whole lot of helping hands. I are so grateful to be able to stand on meaning so much Our clubhouse’s blueprint started this wonderful foundation. On behalf larger than what with our dear friend Catherine of myself and the rest of the class, any of us could McAuley. Catherine set the precedent we would formally like to thank all imagine. I stand here as a representative of what it means to live in Mercy, of our parents, friends, and teachers of the class of 2014—consider this your which is what our club is all about. who made our education at Merion formal invitation to the clubhouse of Our clubhouse of Mercy began when possible. Thank you for working hard Mercy. This clubhouse is our home Catherine inherited a great fortune to pay our tuition, staying up late with us as we finished that one more physics equation, and for sticking with us through thick and thin. In our clubhouse there are six beams: the Mercy Core Values, handed on to us since the time of Catherine McAuley. The class of 2014 put up the beam of global vision and responsibility by becoming aware of the things wrong in the world and responding in just ways to change them.