Friday, Aug. 2, 2013
History from front page active is very different to how it relates to women who will be. “It’s a women’s book and I write about women’s issues,” Atkins said. “You don’t have to be a CSB graduate to find things in this book of interest to you. If you are a woman in the United States, there are things for you. If you were raised Catholic, there are things for you. It’s about CSB but tries to illuminate larger issues as well.” Atkins said CSB President MaryAnn Baenninger asked her if she would write this history. “I had published several books before this, so I think
St. Joseph Newsleader • www.thenewsleaders.com she knew what she was getting into,” Atkins said. “She knew my approach was kind of a story-telling approach. She gave me complete freedom, and I really appreciated that.” Atkins said it took her almost five years to write the book. She wasn’t paid to write the book but was given a reduced teaching load at the college so she would have time to write. Much of the work was done in the summer months when she could have more uninterrupted time. “A real gift MaryAnn gave to me and to the college was to say ‘You write the book the college deserves,’” Atkins said. She said it deserves an interesting, thoughtful, perhaps even provocative book and it needs to be as smart as the
students, faculty and administration deserve. Atkins said the book was harder to write than she had expected it to be. Atkins said she felt it matters in a very personal level to so many people and she asked herself who she was leaving out. “Every author makes lots of choices about what to include, which means there are so many things you can’t include,” she said. “So who’s story has been most important is one of the questions I am asking myself and then am I saying by implication that other people’s stories aren’t as important and how do you balance those things?” She said so many of the leaders of the college have poured their life into the college and
thousands of students have been shaped by it. For many years the staff, people of St. Joseph, the faculty, religious members, SJU and many other individuals have been wrapped up in the college. “Every sentence I wrote I didn’t just have to think about who is this going to touch, but who am I leaving out by writing this sentence rather than that sentence,” Atkins said. When writing the book, she was surprised to discover what a huge financial obligation the nuns took on in order to found, develop and run the college. Amid so many other obligations, such as staffing grade schools and high schools, nursing at hospitals and other locations and various types of missions, the nuns kept the college
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going. CSB was one tiny part of what the nuns did. So many of them were working for a very small salary and they then gave so much of that small salary back to support the college and lived on very little income. Atkins said the first male president of the college, Stan Idzerda played an important role in the college. Idzerda was appointed in 1968 and brought new perspectives to the college. Currently still a St. Joseph resident, Idzerda was not Benedictine and was not from the area so he didn’t need to be humble and he could brag up the college. He both promoted the college outside and also persuaded the people in the college it was a really good college. History • page 8
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