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Priscilla Nava and Sarah Witt fervently cheered for each other as they crossed the Saint Mary’s University commencement stage Saturday—one obtaining her bachelor’s degree and the other earning her master’s degree.

Witt, formerly Nava’s teacher at San Miguel Middle School in Chicago, once counseled Nava and her other students about the importance of going to college. And, Nava says, it was Witt who inspired her to love learning.

“She was amazing,” Nava said. “She was always helpful and willing to help us with anything. She was my literature and my math teacher, and I just loved my literature class. She encouraged us to discuss and care about the subject. I also know she valued me a person, not just as a student.”

Priscilla Nava and Sarah Witt

When Nava chose to attend Saint Mary’s, Witt’s alma mater, they found another shared bond.

Witt had earned her elementary education degree from the university in 2003.

Fulfilling her lifelong dream to teach, she began working at San Miguel through the Lasallian Volunteers program, and then continued as a salaried teacher.

The five years she spent at San Miguel in Chicago were “eye opening” for a young teacher from the quiet middle-class city of Northfield, Minn. Suddenly it wasn’t “just” about helping her students with their academics, it also included counseling them about life outside the walls of school—a neighborhood that included gangs, drugs, and violence.

Students needed to know, she said, that they could depend on her. “It was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it,” she said. “I keep in touch with quite a few of my students. It touched my life and changed me as much as it changed them.”

Nava is one of the students with whom she has stayed connected. Visiting Nava meant coming home to Saint Mary’s. And for Nava, a visit from Witt was a reminder of home.

“Throughout my four years, she took the time out of her schedule to come and visit me at least once every year,” Nava said. “It was something I would look forward to. Being away from Chicago and home, I was homesick, but she reminded me of back home.”

Witt, now a teacher at Dodge Middle School in Farmington, said she had always planned to return to Saint Mary’s to obtain her Master of Education degree, and she hasn’t regretted her decision.

“I loved it,” she said. “I really liked the whole program. I didn’t know how much I was going to grow as a teacher and how it would all circle back to the things I learned in the undergraduate program and through the Lasallian Volunteers program—how all those virtues are present in teaching even if you’re not teaching in a Catholic setting.

“I look back at how much I had already grown and then how much more I learned about myself as a teacher and as a person. I like that the program was focused on me as a whole person.”

Witt will take these skills back with her to the classroom, where she works with math intervention students in grades seven and eight. She assists students whose math scores are 40 percent or lower.

“Teaching is rewarding in itself,” she said. “But working with kids who struggle, you have to come up with so many more activities or ways to approach the lessons. You have to think about what is going to help them succeed. It is extremely challenging, and there are days I am wiped out. But to hear a student say, ‘I got it’ or when I watch one of my students explain it to someone else who is struggling … when they can help each other, that means I have done my job. That is so rewarding.

“At the end of the day I feel like I’m making a difference, which is why I wanted to get into teaching in the first place. And the master’s was a big goal of mine, so I can check that off.”

On Saturday she and Nava shared many of the same feelings of accomplishment.

Nava, a First Generation Scholar, majored in Spanish and minored in biology. With a strong desire to help others, she plans to get a master’s degree and eventually become an ER nurse.

“I am so excited to share this milestone with (Nava) because I know how hard she has worked in high school and at Saint Mary’s,” Witt said. “It’s such a rewarding experience to be here for that, to see her family and her older sister (Cindy Nava ’13, also a former student of Witt’s). It all comes full circle. You always hope they go to college and get degrees, but life gets in the way for so many of those kids. Saint Mary’s Countdown to College and First Generation Initiative programs really help get those students in college and helps support them the whole time they’re there.”

In addition to Nava and Witt, 275 graduate students and 244 undergraduate were eligible to commence Saturday. Go to smumn.edu/photos for more photos from the day, and check out the video highlight below.

Preston Black ’15 always dreamed he would one day work in the professional sports field. He could never have predicted he’d land a job with the Los Angeles Rams just two months after graduating from Saint Mary’s University.

When the former Cardinal men’s basketball player first chose his areas of study, he knew he wanted to double major—in Sport Management and Spanish. Then, when Saint Mary’s began offering a Business Intelligence and Analytics major his junior year, Black decided to take on a third major. “I thought it was a big opportunity, and after I took a class in it, I liked it right away,” he said. “I knew it would make me more marketable.”

Black said that several of his business analysis projects were based on sports analysis. In fact, for his senior project, he created a prediction model that evaluated Major League Baseball players’ statistics in order to determine a free agent’s contract value.

“My range of error was within a half million to a million dollars. I wasn’t 100 percent accurate, but fairly accurate,” he said.

The exercise came in handy when the Aurora, Ill., native applied for the job with the Rams as a data analyst and business intelligence coordinator, a title he’s held since July 2015.

“That was one of my bigger selling points of being able to tell a story through data,” he said.

Black says that in his current position he works in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and deals with all aspects of business for the Los Angeles Rams, from concessions to ticket sales to sponsorships, linking all aspects of the business, from finance to customer service, so each area is in communication. Every day is different for the two-person department.

“There are always different tasks, whether we’re cleaning up data or we’re looking at different data sets,” he said. “We make sure the right people are seeing the right type of information at the right time.”

By looking at the data in different ways, Black also creates dashboards and reports that assist with making business decisions. For example, he creates different lead lists for ticket sales, based on what previous fans had purchased, in an effort to find additional ways to reach new fans.

“Michael Ratajczyk (Business Department) always talked about how a lot of business intelligence is data cleanup, and that knowing what you’re looking at makes it a lot easier to break (the data) down and do something productive with it. That’s what a lot of my job has been, looking at the information and organizing it. Professor Ratajczyk would tell us that the numbers can tell you a story, and you need to know how to look at them just right.”

Black is in the process of moving to California as the Rams make a triumphant return to their former home state, beginning with the 2016 season. “It’s a whole new opportunity to experience the team’s move,” he said. “L.A. hasn’t had a team since 1994, which is exciting and almost overwhelming. Just to be in this opportunity to work for the Los Angeles Rams at 23 years old is incredible … I’m really lucky.”

Black also says he’s proud to be part of the first official class to graduate with the Business Intelligence and Analytics degree. “Professor Ratajczyk was always very helpful, always there to answer questions,” he said. “He helped me get an internship at Saint Mary’s working in the Student Success Center, which was a big résumé boost for me. He was a great teacher. I’d like to see the program grow.”

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota’s second Signum Fidei Award was presented to Pope Francis April 15 in Rome. Conferring the award was Brother William Mann, president of Saint Mary’s University, along with Mary Burrichter and Sandra Simon, both members of the university’s board of trustees.

The Signum Fidei Award is bestowed by the university on an individual, group, or organization in recognition of extraordinary service to the vulnerable and marginalized members of society. It also recognizes and honors work that promotes human solidarity. Its name, signum fidei or sign of faith, is taken from the great seal of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Presented to Pope Francis was a bronze bust of Brother James Miller, an alumnus of Saint Mary’s University who was killed in 1982 in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, while serving as a missionary. Brother James was murdered for his work in defense of the young people he served. He is remembered for his heroic contributions to humanity as a Christian educator, apostle of the poor and underprivileged, and advocate for justice and solidarity.

Fittingly, Pope Francis is known for his humility, compassion, and devotion to the underserved and underprivileged. In his inaugural Mass as Pope, he pledged to “embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important.”

“We are honored to present Pope Francis with this award, which is given to those individuals who reach out to populations too often forgotten in society,” said Brother William. “Pope Francis has repeatedly urged all Christians to serve those marginalized by society, and he continues to model this behavior in his daily actions.”

PHOTO CAPTION: Brother William Mann, president of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, along with Mary Burrichter, center, and Sandra Simon, right, Saint Mary’s University trustees, presented the Signum Fidei Award to Pope Francis April 15 in Rome. Photo from L’Osservatore Romano