From the President

The journey of higher education is a series of exciting, sometimes scary, beginnings. When students come to us, they experience a world of ‘firsts’ — for some, the first time living away from home, for others, a new step forward in their career. We here at the University of Mary have been called to support their dreams by opening doors to a deeper and richer life. Our highest goal is to see our students at commencement in love with life’s possibilities and eager to take on the challenges of the wide world, steeped in virtue, spiritual vigor, and intellectual integrity.

What a privilege it has been to begin the academic year with a full, active, and vibrant campus with record numbers. And after a year that was yet touched by and adapted to the pandemic, this academic year we find our campus once again in full form: we hosted a full Welcome Week schedule, Homecoming, Prayer Day, and our Candlelight Gala.

It is our joy to have wonderful young men and women with us, to watch them become fully themselves. As they take to these opportunities given them, there is a special fervor in their hearts this year, a fiery determination to embrace an invitation to cultivate greatness of soul.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

Underneath all the activity on campus, the fervor of our students comes from a readiness to see with awe, to fall in love with life’s possibilities from the day they arrive here … and to thank God for them. To acknowledge, joyfully, that life is a gift; and that life, however difficult, is good. Truly, astoundingly good.

As 2021 comes to a close, we recall a year of gift, too: from the opportunity to cohost the North Dakota March for Life, to our Marauders hockey team winning its first ACHA Division II National Championship; from our nursing program being named #1 in the nation again, to our track and field star, Ida Narbuvoll, winning not just one, but two NCAA Division II National Championships.

Of course, none of this is possible without our dedicated faculty and staff, as well as the support and prayers you, our alumni and friends, give. Your support and care sustain us, and the example of alumni like those in this issue, taking to all their work with a spirit of awestruck gratitude, revives and inspires us. When we consider all the ways you bless us, our happiness is doubled indeed!

And our sense of wonder is magnified as we give thanks to our good and faithful God and look, still, toward a future filled with Radiance and Life. In anticipating all that 2022 holds, our hearts and minds linger in that highest realm of thought, filled with our gratitude for you and for the mission we have the privilege to serve every day. You are ever in our prayers. God bless you!

Monsignor James P. Shea, President