December 10, 2022 SMC Talks Brings Alumnae Together The Alumnae Association Board of Directors’ mission is to provide volunteer leadership for the alumnae community of Saint Mary’s College, and to promote opportunities for alumnae to connect. Promoting connection among alumnae from across the country and around the world has always been a challenge but never more so than when the pandemic began in 2020. December 9, 2022 Avenue News In this issue's Avenue News, check out what's been happening on campus, like the new Le Mans Patio, the naming of a new Vice President for Mission, and learn about our expanded Summer Camp offerings. December 9, 2022 Jill Lepore Talks Democratic Process Jill Lepore, Ph.D. wears many hats: author, essayist, staff writer for The New Yorker, professor at Harvard University, podcast host, and most recently, the 2022 Christian Culture Lecture speaker at Saint Mary’s. December 9, 2022 100 Years of Educating the Educator Saint Mary’s first awarded diplomas in education in 1923. That year just four students completed their Bachelor of Philosophy in Education. One hundred years later, the Education Department at Saint Mary’s College is in a far different place. December 9, 2022 Expanding Our Worldviews - My Experience at the Border The sidewalks of Brownsville, Texas, were crowded as a group of students pulled wagons full of blankets, toiletries, and cooking ingredients toward the border checkpoint into Matamoros, Mexico. Once through, the sidewalk suddenly gave way to rocky dirt. They didn’t stop to buy candy from the children who ran up to them, because they had used their change to pay the border toll. Tents—dozens of them in every direction—made it clear they had reached their destination. This ‘tent city’ was flanked by a fence on one side and a river on the other; laundry strung along its bank. Residents used water to turn the dusty dirt into clay to make simple ovens. It was here where the students delivered their wagons, full of ingredients like salt, cooking oil, and flour to the 2,000 people who were living there indefinitely, waiting for information about their asylum status. December 9, 2022 Launching Generations of SMC Researchers In her lab at University of Colorado Denver, Mary Bevilacqua ’13 is facing a challenge.How can global-health engineering teams and industry personnel in low-resource environments effectively create biomedical devices to meet the specific needs of their communities? How can the available technology be adapted to work for them? The questions are not easy, but the answers are there—and Bevilacqua is poised to find them. December 9, 2022 Upon Reflection Each autumn, we wonder when the first leaf will turn: first one, then a few—and, overnight, a panorama of reds, yellows, and oranges! The campus canopy is constantly adapting. In my comings and goings along The Avenue, I note its enchanting display of the seasons, and I often imagine how our founders thought of this tree-lined Avenue as an example for our students. The word “resilience” feels appropriate: the trees bend (mostly) without breaking, and they experience change, rebirth, and loss every year. December 1, 2022 Madrigal Dinners: Celebrating 50 Years of Holiday Cheer For 50 years Saint Mary’s College has put on the Classic Christmas Madrigal Dinner. This cherished tradition never fails to put guests and performers in the holiday spirit. The Christmas Madrigal Dinner is an intimate dinner-theater event held in Rice Commons, where singers, dancers, actors, and musicians perform right in front of audiences. Rice Commons is transformed to a renaissance style banquet hall, complete with a roaring fire, candles, spruce, pine, wreaths, and holiday decor to whisk the community away into a story of the Christmastide. November 28, 2022 Saint Mary’s College Receives Physics Grant President Katie Conboy announced a five-year, $498,900 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to establish the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professorship in Physics. The grant will be used to hire an early-career female assistant professor in physics, adding a tenure track line that builds on the growing strength of STEM education at Saint Mary's.