Saint Mary's Newsroom
Campus ConnectionAn update from the president to alumni and parents
Enrollment leadership announcement
To further support and advance our strategic plan goals, with a particular and critical focus on enrollment growth, Saint Mary’s is pleased to announce Michael McMahon, Ed.D., has been named vice president for enrollment management. McMahon will begin at Saint Mary’s on Oct. 17.
Michael McMahon, Ed.D.
Dr. McMahon has deep experience driving enrollment growth and managing teams while serving Catholic institutions of higher education. He currently serves as the vice president for student engagement and mission integration at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., where he oversees enrollment management and student life. Before his work at Carroll College, Dr. McMahon worked in various admissions roles at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., including vice president for enrollment management from April 2016 to April 2019.
McMahon holds an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Administration from the University of Mary. He also holds an M.S. in English Literature and Writing from Utah State University and a B.A. in English Writing from Carroll College.
“As Saint Mary’s continues to find new and innovative ways to navigate through enrollment challenges that are currently being faced by all institutions of higher education, we are excited to welcome Dr. McMahon into this leadership role at Saint Mary’s,” said Father James Burns, IVD, Ph.D., president. “Dr. McMahon has a track record of change management, admissions and enrollment success. He is a mission-oriented leader and collaborator. He will make a wonderful addition to the Saint Mary’s community.”
”I feel privileged to join Saint Mary’s given its strategic and sound vision for the future,” said Dr. McMahon. “All higher education is facing many difficult challenges, and Saint Mary’s has developed a proactive and compelling vision to meet those challenges. I look forward to joining the team and serving our diverse student population on all three of Saint Mary’s campuses and online.”
Saint Mary’s in the headlines
As the new academic year is underway, students and administrators have appeared in regional media, highlighting our work and mission to a broader audience.
Story of Anthony B’59 and Sandra Adducci Family Makerspace shared in the Winona Daily News
Winona Daily News readers recently had the opportunity to learn about Saint Mary’s Anthony B’59 and Sandra Adducci Family Makerspace, the collaborative workspace equipped with 3D printers, woodworking tools, sewing machines, and more for students to express their creative, innovative ideas, and entrepreneurial interests.
The article that ran in the paper as a part of a content-sharing agreement between Saint Mary’s and the Winona Daily News provided insight into how the space can be used, and also focused on a successful microbusiness launched out of the Makerspace by two Saint Mary’s graduates.
If you do not subscribe to the Winona Daily News, a version of the story can be found here.
Merchlewitz discusses return of students in the Winona Daily News
Last week, Ann Merchlewitz, senior vice president and general counsel for Saint Mary’s, spoke to Winona Daily News about the return of undergraduate students to the Winona Campus and the start of the 2022-2023 academic year.
In the article, Merchlewitz spoke about the events and opportunities students will have in their first few weeks on campus to prepare them for “success as a Cardinal.”
“Many faculty and staff have expressed how energized they feel now that the students are back on campus. Their arrival is a highlight of the year, and we are incredibly grateful to have them here. Our wish is that our students feel welcome, safe, and comfortable in their new home. We want them to experience diversity in all its forms, as we know that creates a richer and deeper campus and academic experience. As our students continue to emerge from the pandemic, we want them to feel connected with each other, with our faculty and staff, and with the Winona community. And, of course, we want them to meet and exceed their academic and personal goals,” Merchlewitz said in the article.
Saint Mary’s Junior discusses decision to return to Saint Mary’s in Winona Post editorial
In an opinion piece for the Winona Post, Saint Mary’s junior Patrick Derleth spoke about his decision to return to Saint Mary’s this fall after considering transferring to another college following the academic changes that occurred at the undergraduate campus.
Derleth, who is a history major and political science minor and is involved in music as an extracurricular, said even with the changes, Saint Mary’s remains the “best fit for me as a student.”
In the article, Derleth said, “Saint Mary’s, despite public perception to the contrary, is still not completely deficient in this respect. After all, as U.S. News and World Report made clear last year, its tuition prices and scholarships still make Saint Mary’s the “Best Value in Minnesota.” Moreover, students at Saint Mary’s are still truly able to form close working relationships with their professors, akin to that of a master and apprentice, allowing for extremely personalized learning. Finally, I also believe that the cuts, as painful as they are, will allow me to truly personalize and individualize my major and minor paradigms as well. The administration has expressed openness to this to me, and I hope they will follow through with their assurances.”
Wieser speaks with Twin Cities Business about addressing student, workforce needs
Michelle Wieser, dean of the school of business and technology, recently spoke to Twin Cities Business for an article about how higher education is responding to workforce needs in a post-pandemic world.
In the article, Wieser said Saint Mary’s is helping meeting these needs by offering stackable credentials at the master’s level, additional online degree options, accelerated bachelor’s to master’s pathways, and digital badging.
Advertorial in Twin Cities Business to highlight business programs at Saint Mary’s
An upcoming advertorial in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Business Journal will highlight the value of both graduate and undergraduate business degrees that are offered at Saint Mary’s.
For those seeking graduate degrees, the advertorial offers details about the accelerated MBA program at Saint Mary’s, as well as the “Saint Mary’s Accelerators,” which includes thirteen different graduate certificates.
For the university’s undergraduate business offerings, the advertorial speaks to the high-demand business and technology skills students attain in programs at Saint Mary’s, as well as the business ethics and values that are infused into the courses.
Second cohort of Latin American Sisters visit Saint Mary’s
This past week, the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota community welcomed its second cohort of religious sisters who are a part of the Latin American Sisters Initiative to the Winona Campus.
The sisters’ visit was made possible through the U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program, a partnership between Catholic Extension and Saint Mary’s. As a part of the program, the sisters serve as missionaries in underserved Latino communities across the U.S. while also receiving degrees from Saint Mary’s. The first cohort of sisters had a similar visit to campus last November.
The new cohort of 14 sisters enrolled at Saint Mary’s is working toward an M.A. in Integrated Studies with a focus on Human Services and Pastoral Studies. With the newest group of sisters joining the program, there is now a total of 56 religious sisters enrolled in the initiative. The first cohort of sisters, which started at Saint Mary’s in 2019, had a similar visit to campus last November.
The sisters’ visit offered a mix of classroom experiences and opportunities to interact with the Saint Mary’s community and take in different sights in the region.
The classroom experience included an Introduction to Integrated Studies taught by Robertolino Vargas, the program director for the Latin American Sisters Initiative, as well as an introduction to the Lasallian Catholic charism, which was taught by Brother Larry Schatz, FSC.
The cohort’s visit was also celebrated with a formal dinner attended by Saint Mary’s staff, faculty, and administration, as well as representatives from Catholic Extension. During the dinner, the Most. Rev. Robert E. Barron, D.D., S.T.D., Bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, welcomed the sisters to Winona in a pre-recorded video message.
The trip also allowed the sisters to take in the sights of the region, including a sightseeing boat trip on the Mississippi River and a trip to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wis.
Susan Jarosak, M.Ed., who helps oversee the Latin American Sisters Initiative, says it was wonderful to welcome the second cohort to Saint Mary’s and is pleased to watch the initiative continue to grow.
“This initiative is important to Saint Mary’s because we have this very unique, fabulous partnership with a Catholic Extension, and we’re meeting the needs of a very unique group. The sisters are so appreciative, and they’re so excited about learning. And they want to take what they’ve learned right back to their mission, which they talk about a lot. So it is a really positive partnership,” she said.
Two more cohorts of religious sisters will begin at Saint Mary’s in fall 2023.
Saint Mary’s alumna creates innovative airway used to provide anesthesia
Dr. Roxanne McMurray M’93, a nurse anesthetist by trade, never planned on starting a medical device company.
“I never set out to be an entrepreneur,” she said. “I am very content providing anesthesia.”
But, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. After years of frustration with ventilation equipment used to help patients breathe, McMurray knew something new and innovative was needed in the field. This led to the invention of the McMurray Enhanced Airway and the foundation of McMurray Medical, the company she now runs with her husband and three other investors.
“With liability going up, not having devices that adapt to meet patient needs, and having to do workarounds to keep patient’s airways open, I noticed, ‘We need a device to open the distal pharyngeal tissue and keep patients breathing.” The tools created centuries ago did not work as well as they once did.
So, in 2016, McMurray and her business partners set out to design the McMurray Enhanced Airway. They oversaw the development of a number of prototypes and eventually were able to find a manufacturer for the device. In 2019, they officially launched the product.
The company is now on its third production run and is experiencing success. The device is being used in 49 states and is used in major healthcare systems. According to McMurray, most of the connections the company has made have been through word-of-mouth advertising.
“We’re a bootstrap company,” she said.
And the device is being used beyond just the administration of anesthesia. In 2021, the McMurray Enhanced Airway received the EMS (emergency medical services) Innovation of the Year Award.
“The beauty of the device is that it is easy to use, it’s a multi-purpose tool, and it’s a simple, smarter, not harder device,” she said.
McMurray’s ability to create this groundbreaking medical device comes from years of experience in the field, along with advanced nursing education, which includes a Master in Nurse Anesthesia degree from Saint Mary’s, as well as a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.
Prior to attending Saint Mary’s, McMurray had been working as a critical care nurse. Wanting to attain an advanced practice degree, she began weighing her options.
“Every nurse anesthetist I talked to loved their career,” she said. “I also enjoyed one-on-one critical patient care, and being a nurse anesthetist is a good step towards having increased autonomy with critical patients.”
What impressed McMurray about Saint Mary’s program was the focus on particular body systems during clinical practices.
“We would do six weeks of the nervous system and then six weeks of the cardiac system, instead of a hodgepodge where you might say, ‘Oh, I’ll focus on this system today and this system tomorrow,’ ” she said.
She added that clinical placements during her time in the program were top-notch. “There were always excellent practitioners at all of our clinical sites who provided stimulating learning,” she said.
Now nearly 20 years after her time at Saint Mary’s, McMurray says the education she received during her master’s program has helped her as she leads at McMurray Medical.
“Nurse anesthetists are leaders,” she said. “We’re taught to continuously improve our career, and we’re always wanting to do our best. In each scenario we’re in, we’re passionate about patient care and making sure we have the best devices possible to provide that care. And Saint Mary’s helped me develop that concept of doing your best and going beyond what is expected of you.”
Saint Mary’s student awarded $100,000 fellowship from Bush Foundation to support work with African immigrant survivors of abuse
As the founder of Phumulani Minnesota African Women Against Violence, Comfort Dondo helps women experiencing homelessness and abuse. And she knows what they need because she has been there herself. Dondo, a student in Saint Mary’s Doctor of Education in Leadership program, started Phumulani in 2017, when she was at a self-described rock bottom.
“I was the typical BIPOC woman, facing barriers that most people from marginalized communities were facing. I was fleeing domestic abuse. I couldn’t find housing and was couch hopping,” Dondo says. “I was educated, but the barriers didn’t care about my education level. So as the leader I know that I am, I found a solution. That solution was to identify others who were going through what I was going through and help.”
Phumulani is a nonprofit that seeks to prevent domestic abuse and sexual violence against women of color in Minnesota and across the U.S. She created it using funding from a community innovation grant from the Bush Foundation, which offers grants for community problem solving in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the 23 Native nations in the region.
In the six years since that first grant, Phumulani has grown from a $20,000 budget to over half a million-dollar budget. In 2022, the Bush Foundation recognized Dondo again, this time as one of 24 recipients of the $100,000 Bush Fellowship, which funds educational expenses for changemakers.
The funding will support her expenses as she continues her doctoral studies at Saint Mary’s, where she is studying the impact of childhood trauma and sexual abuse. Dondo is herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence, which she says is a silent pandemic in her community.
“I’m meant to be a silence breaker,” says Dondo, who moved to the U.S. from Zimbabwe when she was 17. Today, her home office walls are adorned with sources of inspiration in her work: a portrait of South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela and a canvas painting of an African woman that represents her mother. “Our community, African immigrants, we don’t have enough psychologists and we shy away from talking about mental health. It’s very stigmatized,” she says.
Minnesota is home to large numbers of African immigrants from Liberia, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, many of whom have experienced war and do not have access to the mental health services that can help them deal with trauma. That’s where Dondo and Phumulani — which means “lover of peace” in Zulu, one of the languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa — come in.
Phumulani offers counseling, resources, and advocacy support for women survivors. They help women who might need to obtain a protective order against an abuser, find safe housing, and get legal help from a pro bono attorney. Starting in the fall of 2022, they will offer retreats twice a year, for women to set goals and reflect. They also opened their first supportive housing location in 2022, and tailored the layout specifically for the women they serve.
“I know that African women like to cook for their children, so I wanted to make sure everyone has their own kitchen to cook,” says Dondo, who is a mom of three herself. “We believe in the housing-first model, where if someone gets a place to be and breathe, they can start their healing. If they’re couch hopping and in motels, there’s no room for healing.”
Dondo, who plans to complete her Ed.D. degree in 2024, has an undergraduate degree in social work from the University of St. Thomas, a master’s in public affairs from St. Catherine’s University, and a master’s in public affairs and leadership from the University of Minnesota. When it was time to choose a school for her doctoral studies, Saint Mary’s stood out.
“There were so many options for schools, but I had friends going to Saint Mary’s and heard their positive experiences — specifically students from the African continent who pursued their graduate studies at Saint Mary’s,” Dondo says. “I did my own research and it was the place that curated programs that work for busy women like myself. Saint Mary’s has a great understanding that we can still be mothers and working professionals and students and accomplish all our goals.”
By Maura Sullivan Hill
‘Jazz at Saint Mary’s’ announces its 2022-2023 season
WINONA, Minn. — As the school year begins, it’s time to mark your calendar for this year’s “Jazz at Saint Mary’s” concert schedule.
Fall 2022
The Red Bird Club opened its doors in 2014 in the Valéncia Arts Center at the crossroads of Vila and 10th streets in Winona. Never heard of it? Maybe that’s because the doors only open once every two years. Every other December, the theatre is transformed into an American Jazz Cabaret, showcasing the talents of Saint Mary’s University student musicians.
This year the Red Bird Club will honor big band’s royalty – Count Basie and Duke Ellington. From the Count’s April in Paris to the Duke’s Take the ‘A’ Train, “One More Once” will feature crooners, an emcee, beer and wine service, and a dancefloor!
In past years, the Red Bird Club has sold out quickly. This season, we’re opening the doors for two nights: Thursday, Dec. 8, and Friday, Dec. 9, at 7:30 p.m. Mark your calendars!
Spring 2023
Looking ahead to springtime, the Jazz Ensemble will partner with Saint Mary’s Concert Band, under the direction of Dr. Janet Heukeshoven, for “All Good Things” – an all-alumni reunion concert, featuring a program of “greatest hits,” selected by current and former members of the ensemble. The celebration will take place on Sunday, April 16, 2023, at 3 p.m. in Page Theatre and will mark the final concert for Eric and Janet Heukeshoven, who are retiring from Saint Mary’s in spring 2023.
Reservation and ticket information for both events will be available later this fall.
For more information, contact Jazz at Saint Mary’s director A. Eric Heukeshoven at 507-450-5622 or eheukesh@smumn.edu.
Annual picnics allow community to gather prior to academic year
Last week, members of the Saint Mary’s community had the opportunity to gather, celebrate university achievements, and prepare for the successful year ahead during the annual employee picnic.
Along with a wonderful meal, faculty, staff, and administration had the opportunity to take part in jumbo Jenga, bocce ball, and a tour of the Harrington Mansion
As is tradition, a bean bag/corn hole tournament also took place, with We are the Champions, consisting of Michael Lovorn and Molly Bigelow, taking first place. The best team name was awarded to Instructional Tossology, consisting of Garey Gill and Joe Gargaro, and the best costume award was given to Corn to Be Wild, consisting of Ben Murray and Andrea Carroll-Glover.
The Winona Campus community will hold its annual employee picnic tomorrow, Wednesday, Aug. 24, at noon on the plaza, just prior to the arrival of first-year students. It’s wonderful to come together in community and conversation as we kick off the new year.
Incoming, returning students receive academic update letters
As the 2022-2023 academic year quickly approaches, Saint Mary’s University undergraduate students, both returning and incoming, received a letter from Father James P. Burns, IVD,
Ph.D., highlighting updates to academic and student affairs.
The letters emphasize our faculty and staff’s commitment to providing an environment where students are able to meet their academic goals, while also having a full student life experience.
Both letters can be read in their entirety here.
Coming soon: The new Saint Mary’s website
We are just two days away from unveiling the New Saint Mary’s website. This site will support our enrollment efforts and offer prospective students a new way to see, experience, understand, and — most importantly — choose Saint Mary’s.
This website redesign has been a top priority for the Marketing and Communication team — and the university — and we have been hard at work on it for close to a year. As we launch this week, please know this is a “soft” launch, as is the case with most new websites. There will be bugs; there will be missing images; there will be questions. We have focused the bulk of our efforts on those pages important to recruit students. (We have more than 500 pages on the site.) It has been our goal to launch this completely rethought and redesigned site at a peak recruiting time for our admission colleagues because the primary audience for the site is prospective students. We are tracking things that we already know will need to be fixed or completed, and that continuing work will be completed with a focus on what matters most to prospective students.
Navigation, language, page design, and calls-to-action all have been developed for a strong user experience for our prospective students. Faculty, staff, and current students will be able to find the information they need, but top level pages and information are designed to showcase all Saint Mary’s has to offer a future student … based on best practices and what future students have told us they want and how they search for information. The new site is being launched in our new content management system (CMS), which is WordPress. WordPress is increasingly the system of choice for colleges and universities, is the most commonly used, and is significantly better and easier to use than the earlier custom CMS we had in place.
Over the next few weeks, we will follow up with updates about ongoing testing and changes, and will provide WordPress training to those tasked with updating specific pages on the site. Until then, thank you for your ongoing support of this key enrollment initiative.
The Rev. James P. Burns, IVD, Ph.D.
President
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
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