by Sister Meg Umoh Ministering with the people of Sierra Leone, particularly among the youth at the University of Makeni as the head of the Public Health Department (HOD) and director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Education and Research, has filled my heart with deep affection for the people I work with and a sincere...Read more

Alumnae files from Academy of Our Lady (AOL), a Catholic girls’ school owned and operated by the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) for nearly 125 years, will be transferred this fall to the SSND North American Archives (NAA) in Milwaukee. The school, known informally as Longwood Academy from the name given to the area in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood where...Read more

On the morning of August 14, School Sisters of Notre Dame and members of the SSND staff from the Atlantic-Midwest and Central Pacific Provinces took part in a one-mile walk in prayer through downtown Atlanta. This group of SSND pilgrims joined several hundred Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) assembly participants, filling the streets with readings, songs, and silent contemplative...Read more

Members of Dr. Margaret Flanagan’s lab, which continues work on the Nun Study at the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s & Neurodegenerative Diseases, presented at the 2025 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) held July 27-31 in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Flanagan presented a new project that she co-leads called the Brain Digital Slide Archive (BDSA), which helps scientists share and study...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