Let’s Make History

Dear Saint Mary’s Friends,

For the second month in a row, I’m getting my monthly letter out in the last days of the month rather than the first ones. I’m going to try to inch back by a few weeks next month, so you’ll hear from me again quite soon with April news! And maybe by then it will feel more like Spring—we actually had snow on campus this week!

But I want to get this letter out before we put Women’s History Month in the history books. Given all the work we are doing at Saint Mary’s to support women and girls across the lifecycle, I’d like to feel celebratory. And certainly, while the proverbial glass ceiling is still a reality, there are advances for women to celebrate. But news in our country (and surely mirrored in many places around the world) about the health and safety of teen girls—the very people we want a women’s college to serve—should give all of us pause.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data from their 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Administered every two years, this survey is the first since the pandemic. I’ve linked to the report here, but be forewarned: it includes shocking data showing dramatic increases in suicidal ideation, forced sexual activity, and persistent sadness and hopelessness among teen girls in particular. I first read about the report in The Washington Post, which described the findings as “nothing short of a crisis in American girlhood.”

Issues uncovered by the CDC report are bolstered by another research study conducted by an organization called Ruling our Experiences (ROX). It’s called THE GIRLS’ INDEX™—“the first-ever, large-scale national survey designed to develop a deeper understanding of the thoughts, experiences, perceptions, beliefs, behaviors and attitudes of teen girls throughout the United States.” Whereas the CDC report focuses on important information such as sexual behavior, substance use, experiencing violence, and mental health, ROX wanted to produce data that reveals attitudinal trends: their research focuses on “the lived experiences of girls and provides the opportunity for girls to share their thoughts and opinions related to a variety of relevant issues currently impacting their lives.” Their findings are also sobering. Among girls in grades 5-12: 

• 46% don’t think they are smart enough for their dream career (indeed, 1 in 3 girls with a GPA over 4.0 does not think she is smart enough for her dream career)
• 31% of girls say they have been bullied or made fun of on social media
• 80% of high school girls report that guys their age are not respectful of girls
• 1 in 3 girls say they are afraid to be a leader because they don’t want others to think they are bossy 
• 76% of girls believe most girls are in competition with one another
• Girls who get along with other girls, have supportive friends, and trust other girls report lower levels of sadness and depression
• Time on technology is related to sadness and depression in girls

I know this information is overwhelming. But it is also a call to action. Women’s colleges have a special responsibility to respond to this crisis, and this is why Saint Mary’s is undertaking some of the initiatives that are inspired by our strategic plan. 

We are working to ensure that our students have appropriate access to mental health services—and robust coordinated support from residence hall and student life staff, academic advisors, inclusion initiatives, and ministry offices. We have put in place special initiatives to identify students who are at risk socially and academically. And we have created new, grant-funded resources for our first-generation and low-income students who sometimes have no safety net to fall back on. In a few weeks, we will host our second Raise Your Voice symposium to increase awareness about sexual violence. As I mentioned in my letter last month, we are also deep in the process of creating a new “signature experience” for our undergraduates and consciously considering this data as we plan for our future students and their needs.

Recognizing that the teen girls whose experiences are documented in the CDC and ROX research are the pipeline for Saint Mary’s—and for the future of our society—we are also committing ourselves to doing everything we can to reach teen girls and provide important programming for them on our campus. This summer, with the help of the $1 million Lilly Endowment grant I mentioned in my October letter, we will double the number of youth on campus for our camps and pre-college programs. Almost all of these programs are designed specifically for girls—and they include leadership and mentoring opportunities for our own students. We are actively exploring whether there might be a space on campus that could be repurposed to bring girls and young women from our local community and the Michiana region to campus for retreats, conferencing, skill building, and other programming that can support wellness, resiliency, spirituality, and strength. We look forward to working with women- and girl-serving organizations to help maximize our impact.

As always, our work is inspired by our special mission as a Catholic, women’s liberal arts college and by the vision of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. We are called to develop leaders of moral imagination and civic commitment—people who will build community, strive for justice, lift up the least advantaged, and collaborate to steward our planet. At this moment, when girls and young women have momentous needs, let’s be part of women’s history by shaping the future. 

Warm regards,

Katie Conboy, Ph.D.
President

March 31, 2023