FROM THE PRE SIDE NT
This year, more than 2,000 graduates from the classes of 2020 and 2021 were sent forth from the University of Mary, joining your communities as competent and compassionate teachers, nurses, parishioners, business leaders, mothers, and fathers.
Monsignor James P. Shea President of the University of Mary
T
here’s a distinct rhythm to life on the University of Mary’s campus. The start of the fall semester arrives with the nervous, excited voices of new freshmen and the ringing laughter of joy-filled reunion as upperclassmen see each other again. Winter brings final exams, changes to majors and minors, the quiet transformation of our students in the classroom, the chapel, the court, and the residence hall. And the spring semester shows forth the brightness of that transformation, as thousands of friends and family members arrive to Bismarck to watch our graduates walk across the stage to receive their hard-earned degrees. And the summer! Commencement now behind us, a new academic year ahead of us, a bustle of Year-Round Campus students still living and studying among us … these summer months have their own texture. They revive in us an expectant hope.
They’re remarkable people, and in these pages, you’ll meet some of our very best, those we’re honoring this year with our Alumni Awards. They’re the graduates who have become convicted of the truth that resounds in all our teaching, working, and striving: that our lives were never meant just for us; that we find our deepest joy only in giving ourselves away in love, in devoted service. And come September we’ll have the opportunity – for only the second time in our history – to introduce more than 530 freshmen to that very same life-giving truth these graduates have taken with them. Yes, after all the diplomas are granted each year, we take a deep breath and then begin preparations for Welcome Week in September. Staff in Residence Life and Dining Services assess the past year in order to improve the next. University Ministry and our academic programs set down new plans. And it all signals something much deeper: that the mission of the University of Mary is not spent. The promise of the joy we’re meant for, and that we on this windswept prairie bluff find ourselves at the service of, is still felt by those hundreds and hundreds of new students who will soon join us!
In these summer months, we hold on with new energy to an expectant hope: that God is still eager to fill our new students’ lives with the joy with which he’s filled countless lives before. Join us in our prayers for them, and know that we’re always eager to hear from you. Should you know an alum whom you think is deserving of one of our 2022 Alumni Awards, you can nominate them at umary.edu/alum. And if you, like us, are still missing our beloved Sister Thomas – whose own joy was a steady encouragement and inspiration to so many – you can order a copy of her new, remarkable biography, just published by University of Mary Press. Simply scan the QR code below. My prayers are with you. May God bless you!
Monsignor Shea President
Scan the QR code with your smartphone camera to purchase the Sister Thomas biography.
umary.edu
1
