{Download the 2010 Conference Program}

Change and Adaptation
Chair: Regina Bechtle, SC
Sisters of Charity of New York

Vatican II and Beyond
Chair: Elizabeth McGahan
University of New Brunswick, St. John

• “The Welcoming of the Second Vatican Council by Women Religious Orders: Some
  Considerations from a Quebec Perspective”
  Dominique Laperle, Université du Québec à Montréal
• “Women Religious in Norway under Double Fire: Between Conciliar Renewal and Welfare StateBuilding”
  Else-Britt Nilsen, OP, The Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology
• “Role of the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes in the Renewal of Women’s Religious Life post Vatican II: A Case Study of the Union of Presentation Sisters”
  Louise O’Reilly, NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare

 

Struggle and Renewal
Chair: Kate Kuentsler, PHJC
Canon Law Professionals

• “Nobility in the Struggle: Non-Violent Witness of the Minority at the Carmel of Morristown, New Jersey in 1988”
  Eloise Rosenblatt, RSM, Lincoln Law School of San Jose, California
• “Forming a Local Church: The Maryknoll Sisters and Lay Agency in Nicaragua, 1965-75” Christine Baudin Hernandez, St. Louis University

 

Art, Mission, and Memory
Chair: Judith Metz, SC
Archives, Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati, OH

• “Mission and Meaning in a Baroque Painting: Portrait of Mother Jerónima de la Fuente by Diego Velázquez”
  Elizabeth Perry, Framingham State College
• “Preserving the Legacy of American Women Religious Through the Memoir Art Form”
  Dan Vaillancourt, Kathy Vaillancourt, Loyola University Chicago
  
  

Ministries of Social Justice
Chair: Margaret M. McGuinness
LaSalle University

• “Charism, Cultures, Networks, or Call?: Catholic Women’s Congregations Ministries to Migrant Women and Children”
  Meg Wilkes Karraker, University of St. Thomas
• “Teaching ‘Social Consciousness and Social Conscience’: Catholic Sisters and Social Justice in the 1950s”
  Darra Mulderry, Providence College
• “’Nothing Is Too Good For the Youth of Our Race’: Black Nuns and the Struggle for Catholic Education in the Jim Crow South”
  Shannen Williams, Rutgers University

 

Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America
A Discussion of the Exhibit Currently Touring the United States
Chair: Karen M. Kennelly, CSJ
Editor/Coordinator, History of Women Religious

• “Video Tour of the Exhibit”
  Annmarie Sanders, IHM, Director of Communications, LCWR
• “Artistic Considerations”
  Barbara Cervenka, OP, Adrian Dominican Sisters, Siena Heights University
• “Identifying and Collecting Artifacts”
  Carol Shinnick, SSND, Consultant
• “Development of Storyline, Marketing, and Fundraising”
  Helen Garvey, BVM, Sisters of Charity BVM, History Committee, LCWR

Women Religious and War
Chair: Margaret Susan Thompson
Syracuse University

• “There and Back: The Impact of their Crimean Service on Women Religious”
  Moira Egan, Bronx Community College, City University of New York
• “’A certain latitude be conceded’: English Dominican Sisters in the Great War”
  Anselm Nye, Queen Mary College, University of London
• “Trust, Repentance, and Apocalyptic Zionism: Basilea Schlink and the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary Respond to War”
  George Faithful, St. Louis University

 

Religious Government and Reform in the Twentieth Century: Three Case Studies
Chair: Dolores Liptak, RSM
Holy Apostles College and Seminary, Cromwell, CT

• “The Challenge of Canon Law (1917-18): The Response of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary “
  Ann Harrington, BVM, Loyola University Chicago
• “Leaven or Whirlwind? Change in the Society of the Sacred Heart, 1960-1970”
  Patricia Byrne, CSJ, Trinity College
• “‘Change is Blowing Hard’: The Sisters of Mercy and Renewal of Religious Government, 1960s-1970s”
  Mary Beth Fraser Connolly, Purdue University North Central
  Commentator: Elizabeth M. Smyth, University of Toronto

Women Religious and Health Care
Chair: Mary Ellen Gleason, SC
College of St. Elizabeth

• “Irish Catholic Women Religious and Foreign Medical Missions, 1901-1936”
  Carmen Mangion, Birbeck College, University of London
• “The Changing Identity of Catholic Hospitals, 1925-2000”
  Barbra Mann Wall, University of Pennsylvania
• “Enlightened Charity: Reforming the Care of the Insane in 19th Century Maryland”
  Martha Libster, East Carolina University College of Nursing

 

Transnational Perspectives on Women Religious and Change
Chair: Regina Siegfried, ASC
Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis

• “Beyond Adaptation: Call of a Renewing Church”
  Marie Brinkman, SC, University of St. Mary, Leavenworth
• The Shaping of Tanzanian Women’s Religious Life
  Margaret Gannon, IHM, Marywood University
• “Internationalization of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chambéry: The O’Connor Sisters in France, USA and Denmark”
  Susanne Malchau Dietz, University of Aarhus

 

Teaching Sisters
Chair: Kathleen Sprows Cummings
University of Notre Dame

• “Bishops’ Girls: High Expectations and Professional Aspirations for Young Catholic Women in the Diocese of Brooklyn”
  James T. Carroll, Iona College
• “The Loretto Sisters in North America:  Perspectives on Curriculum and Teaching within The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM) in Canada and the United States”
  Elizabeth Smyth, University of Toronto
• “Teaching Sisters, Professional Women: Loretto Normal School, 1897-1934”
  Annie Stevens, Webster University

 

Women Religious and Foreign Policy: The Impact of World War II on the Educational Response of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Germany and JapanChair: Judith Best, SSND, School Sisters of Notre Dame

• "Educational Pioneers: The School Sisters of Notre Dame in 19th-Century Baltimore and 20th- Century Japan”
  Midori Teranishi, Kyoto Notre Dame University, Nanzan University
• "’Everything Passes, God Remains the Same': The Poor School Sisters of Notre Dame at War in Hitler's Germany, 1938 to 1945"
  Martina Cucchiara, University of Notre Dame

 

Re-defining the Mission after Vatican II.
Chair: Mary Hayes, SNDdeN
Trinity University, Washington, DC

• “Congregation of Divine Providence of San Antonio”
  Christine Morkovsky, CDP, Mexcian American Catholic College, San Antonio, TX
• “The Sisters of the Holy Family in Belize in the Post Vatican II Period: Reading the Signs of the Times”
  Edward Brett, La Roche College
• “Two Congregations in Search of Charism”
  Sally Witt, CSJ, Archivist, Sisters of St. Joseph, Baden, PA

Women and Social Movements Website
Chair: Judith Sutera, OSB
Mt. St. Scholastica Monastery, Atchinson, KS

• “Teaching with online documents about the History of Catholic Women in the United States: Document Projects on the Women and Social Movements website“
  Kathryn Kish Sklar, State University of New York, Binghamton
• “Creating a document archive for the Women and Social Movements Website: Catholic Sisters and Civil Rights, 1946-2000”
  Carol Coburn, Avila University

 

Deliberations and Decisions
Chair: Carol K. Coburn
Avila University

• “In Praise of the Active Life: Confronting the Challenge of 17th-Century Women’s Ministry”
  Mary Anne Foley, CND, University of Scranton
• “Relational and Resourceful Mother Maddalena Bentivoglio: Challenging the Perception that the Poor Clare life was not compatible with American lifestyle in 1876”
  Eileen Flanagan, Neumann University
• “Success of a Failure: Sisters of the Holy Ghost”
  David A. Vanderah, Robert Kuhn Center, Dubuque, Iowa

Research and Historiography
Chair: Prudence Moylan
Loyola University Chicago

• “’Who Were the Nuns?’ Project”
  Caroline Bowden, University of London
• “Investigating Change through the Catholic Research Resources Alliance”
  William Kevin Cawley, University of Notre Dame
• “’Global Church and Global Challenge’: Current Historiography and the Gender Gap”
  Christina Stern, State University of New York, Rockland

 

Community Transformations
Chair: Mary J. Oates, CSJ
Regis College

• “From Scarcity to Creativity: The Vitality of One Religious Congregation with Limited Resources”
  Kathleen Keating, SSJ, Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield
• “’Many Congregations, But One Community’: Regina Health Center: A Model of Intercongregational Collaboration in Meeting New Needs”
  Mary Denis Maher, CSA, Ursuline College
• “A New Itinerancy: The Dissolution of Traditional Mother Houses”
  Cecilia Murray, OP

Women Religious in Challenging Times
Chair: Anne M. Butler
Emerita, Utah State University

• “The ‘Escaped Nun’ Phenomenon in Antebellum America: The Case of Olivia Neale”
  Joseph G. Mannard, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• “’A Missionary on the Prairie’: Mother Raphael McCarthy leads her convent through the Great Depression and World War II”
  Margaret Preston, Augustana College
• “The Founding of theSisters of the Holy Humility of Mary: The First Constitutions of 1858”
  Anne York, Youngstown State University