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Center for Women in Church and Society Commemorates 40 Years

Founded in 1982, the Center for Women in Church and Society (CWCS) at Our Lady of the Lake University turned 40 this month. A natural outgrowth of the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence and Our Lady of the Lake, the CWCS is anchored in two fundamental beliefs:

  • That all beings are valuable, sacred, and deserving of respect and care; and
  • That where women thrive, all of God’s creation thrives.

The idea for the Center for Women was conceived around 1975, Sr. Kathryn Keefe remembers. She and others were having coffee talking about how wonderful it would be to set up some kind of creative program that would focus on the influence and contributions of women. Sr. Kathryn started a collection of women-related materials which she would later pass to Dr. Al Griffith, Academic Dean, when she accepted a position in the El Paso diocese.

Center for Women in Church and Society organizers Sisters Margit and Maria Eva by a tree in front or Woodlawn Lake

As Providence would have it, Sr. Maria Eva Flores, CDP, PhD, and Sister Margit Nagy, CDP, PhD, historians with expertise in the U.S., Mexican American and Asian studies, knew how often women were left out of history and were looking to respond to the continuing need to advance the position of women within the Catholic Church and in everyday life. After having assessed the need for women’s studies, the two Sisters proposed to Dr. Al Griffith, Academic Dean, that a Center for Women be established at the University. It would be the only church-related program in the city for women. Dr. Griffith took the proposal to Sister Elizabeth Anne Sueltenfuss, OLL President, who supported it. Dr. Griffith turned over the collection Sr. Kathryn started, and Sisters Maria and Margit began to organize the Center. The CWCS was originally housed in the Intercultural Studies program on the fourth floor of the Science Building until it moved to Elliott House in 1987.

Female students at the Center for Women in Church and Society

Over these 40 years the focus areas of the CWCS have evolved in response to the signs of the times. Today, the CWCS exist to provide an environment — physical, spiritual, and virtual — in which campus and community women support each other in living lives of physical, mental, and spiritual abundance, and in which we join with men of our campus and community to advocate for systems and policies that enable lives of abundance for women around the world.The CWCS carries on the living legacy of the Congregation of Divine Providence and provides opportunities for spiritual development, leadership development, and agents of change stands on the foundation “where women thrive, all of God’s creation thrives” and the vision of the current Director, Jackie Walter, and staff. “In honor of our 40th anniversary, The Center for Women in Church and Society will host during Women’s Herstory Month in March an event that gathers women from the early beginnings and those of the present to gather and share the living stories of lives changed through the Center.”

Special acknowledgement to the late Sr. Margaret Ellen Gallatin parts of this article appeared in the CDP Times, April 1989.

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