In a recently published review article synthesizing over 30 years of work, Kyra Clarke highlights how the Nun Study has shaped the understanding of dementia. Key findings include the importance of early-life factors in influencing cognitive health decades later, the frequent presence of multiple brain pathologies contributing to dementia, and the observation that some individuals can maintain normal cognition despite...Read more

The Provincial Council and the Corporate Responsibility Committee of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Central Pacific Province, have signed on to an interfaith investor letter supporting a shareholder proposal at Palantir Technologies—the company whose technology is the backbone of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surveillance that tracks and targets migrants for detention and deportation and revokes people’s immigration...Read more

The 63rd World Day of Prayer for Vocations will be observed Sunday, April 26, 2026. This is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The purpose of this day is to publicly fulfill the Lord’s instruction to, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2). Please pray that...Read more

Sister Ann Scholz, a founding member of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking Board; Sister Barb Pfarr, representative of the board of Sister House, an SSND-sponsored ministry; and Associate Dawn Martz, co-director of the SSND Central Pacific Province Associates, participated in the Alliance’s annual conference, April 14-17 in Boston. The gathering brought together a diverse group of 175 advocates, practitioners,...Read more

SSND remembers a sister who traded the classroom for the capital and turned a singular conviction into a lifelong crusade for human rights. Sister Alice Zachmann, a School Sister of Notre Dame (SSND) and the founder of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, died on April 9, 2026, eleven days after her 100th birthday, in Mankato, Minnesota. In a life that...Read more

For the past few years, scientists on the Nun Study research team have been investigating a protein in the brain called TMEM106B which sometimes forms tiny thread-like clumps, called fibrils, inside brain cells. These fibrils, found especially in older adults and people with Alzheimer’s disease or memory problems, may interfere with how brain cells stay healthy and communicate with one...Read more

Where there is no peace and harmony, there the blessing of the Lord vanishes. – SSND Foundress Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger. The School Sisters of Notre Dame’s Atlantic-Midwest and Central Pacific Provinces have joined a broad coalition of Christian and ecumenical faith organizations in calling on Congress to oppose any supplemental appropriations that would fund a war with Iran....Read more

In 1964, Sister Sara Jean Donegan and Sister Gloria List graduated from the Marquette School of Dentistry. The two opened a dental clinic at the SSND convent in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, where they performed basic dentistry for sisters. At a recent talk given to sisters living at Trinity Woods in Milwaukee, SSND North America Archives Director Michele Levandoski got a...Read more

The way scientists study the brain is changing — and Dr. Margaret Flanagan, who directs the Nun Study, is helping lead the transformation with the help of brain tissue contributions by more than 600 School Sisters of Notre Dame. For more than a century, pathologists have relied on microscopes and glass slides to examine brain tissue and uncover the causes...Read more

Click here for the SSND Atlantic-Midwest Province Lenten Reflections The following Lenten reflections, prepared by the SSND North American Vocation Team, are based on You Are Sent, the Constitution of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. (Print PDF) For more information, please contact sisters@ssnd.org or hermanas@ssnd.org. The Lenten season brings us the opportunity to look more carefully at our life...Read more