3 minute read
CELEBRATING 175 YEARS
REFLECTION BY JOSEPH MASTER, ENGLISH TEACHER
In 1998, as I completed my tenth teaching year at Ursuline, I was honored and humbled to have written a 150th anniversary history of Ursuline Academy in St. Louis, adding to a “tapestry of faith, of service, and of education, begun in previous anniversary texts.”
This retrospective revisited the beginning days of the Ursulines in St. Louis in 1848 as four valiant women traveled from what was then Austria-Hungary to set up a school to educate German youth in what was then a growing city of approximately 62,000 inhabitants, many of them immigrants, The history chronicled many rich and exciting threads in a tapestry woven by an unwavering commitment to leadership, innovation, service, and faith–all which continue to be hallmarks of an Ursuline education today.
Now, entering my 36th year at Ursuline, I have witnessed the continued growth and development of our school in ways I could not have imagined back in 1998. Since then we have added two new buildings to our campus, O’Hara Hall and Hartnett Hall; we have embraced the opportunities and challenges that technology has brought to our community; we have expanded educational offerings to meet the ever-changing demands of a world that spins, seemingly, more quickly than ever.
Our current course catalog boasts the creation of an Innovation Lab, an eSports room, new courses in areas as diverse as yoga , engineering, fashion design, coding and robotics among many others. We have connected, hosted, and traveled to Ursuline schools in England, Brazil, Japan, Australia, Thailand, South Africa, and France and have continued to witness the Ursuline charism and commitment to education and service that is our mandate as global citizens.
I have also witnessed, humbly and in awe, the Ursuline spirit come alive in my three daughters, all of whom attended Ursuline and graduated since my 1998 history. As different as they all were in terms of academic interests and talents when they entered Ursuline, they have each grown into smart, capable and strong women who are leaders in their communities because of Ursuline Academy. Today they work to house the unhoused, to educate people who are economically disadvantaged, grow their own food and improve their neighborhoods, to minister to the sick and dying. This spirit of Serviam which–truly more than a motto but a vibrant lived value–is the thread that continues to bind and strengthen and grow this tapestry that is Ursuline Academy.
