In the United States, National Vocation Awareness Week (NVAW) is celebrated each November, this year from November 2-8, 2025. NVAW is a time to highlight and promote vocations to ordained ministry and consecrated life and renew our prayers and support for those who are considering one of these particular vocations. Follow SSND on Instagram and Facebook for special posts throughout NVAW. There are several ways...Read more

On May 22, 1897, a group of women met in the library of the Academy of Our Lady (AOL), Chicago, Illinois, with the purpose of forming an alumnae association. The School Sisters of Notre Dame North American Archives (NAA) holds a book titled, “Alumnae Association of the Academy of Our Lady, Longwood, Ill, Rules and Minutes.” In it we learn...Read more

by Dan Stockman reprinted with permission from Global Sisters Report Debra Sciano was taught by Sinsinawa Dominican sisters in high school, but never wanted to enter religious life. She was going to be a lawyer. But then a friend invited her to go with her on a vocation retreat with the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Sciano didn’t even know what...Read more

On November 11, 1962, Typhoon Karen devastated the island of Guam. Eleven people were killed, and 95% of homes were destroyed, leaving 45,000 people, mostly Guamanians, homeless. Fifty-three School Sisters of Notre Dame, eight postulants, and ten aspirants living in four locations on the island lived through the storm and recorded their experiences in letters, chronicle entries, oral histories, and...Read more

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’ on May 24, 2025, SSND sisters, associates, and partners in ministry share some of the ways that they have incorporated the lessons of Pope Francis’ encyclical into their lives.   SSND associates Donna Haley and Miriam Hankins used the occasion of their parish picnic to display a variety of items that...Read more

Sister Lucy Nigh was reminded recently of the importance of inviting others to become part of the SSND community after receiving an enthusiastic response from Andrea Stapleton to her invitation to consider becoming an SSND associate. Andrea had come to know SSND well in her role as vice president for mission and justice at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, a...Read more

by Kathleen Storms, SSND In early May 2015, I received a call from an editor of National Catholic Reporter (NCR) asking me to be a reviewer of Laudato Si’ before its official publication on May 24. I burned the midnight oil that day reading the entire text of Laudato Si’. Why was I asked to critique it? Because I was a...Read more

Each year on May 9, School Sisters of Notre Dame celebrate the feast day of our foundress, Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger, who died on this day in 1879. We continue to look to Blessed Theresa as a guide for our own lives and times and pray that the charism entrusted to her might continue to find life and expression...Read more

Thanks to Irene Simmons for sharing these photos from the collection of her mother, Louise Klein Bialobrzeski. The first photo shows Louise’s aunt, Sister Ceslawa Kielpinski (second from left), sewing in the convent yard with a group of fellow sisters. The second shows her working in the garden as a novice, perhaps at St. Adelbert’s in Milwaukee where she ministered...Read more

Sister Charlene Zeisset spoke with Libby Collins at Wisconsin’s WTMJ about the Nun Study, a research project fueled by data from the School Sisters of Notre Dame that has changed the way doctors and scientists understand Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The study has analyzed more than 30 years of aging and dementia patterns of 678 School Sisters of Notre...Read more