Saint Mary's Newsroom / Campus Notes

Fifteen Saint Mary’s students, staff, and alumni joined a crowd of more than 500,000 gathered in Panama City this past January for World Youth Day — an extraordinary emotional and faith-filled experience. Open to all young people, World Youth Day is an opportunity to experience the universality of the church and share in the hope of many who want to commit themselves to Jesus Christ. The week-long event is a unique way to deepen one’s faith through prayer and sacraments together with others from around the world who share the same interests and ambitions. This worldwide gathering is typically celebrated every three years in a different country. Each day was packed with festival programming and events, including encounters with Pope Francis. Read the full story, which includes thoughts from sophomore Brianna Jacobson and junior Kamila Kuchta.

Photo caption: The Saint Mary’s group poses in front of a statue of Saint John Baptist de La Salle at Colegio De La Salle, the Lasallian High School in Panama City.

Two students representing Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota shared their undergraduate research posters at the 2019 Minnesota Private College Scholars at the Capitol on Jan. 23. Austin Kleman ’19, psychology major, presented “Alcohol Consequences and Aristotelian Subjective Well-Being.” Mark Leonard ’19 (above), biology major, presented “Red-bellied Woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) Scavenging: A Possible Alternate Dietary Substrate.”

Photo caption: Mark Leonard ’19 

Saint Mary’s Jazz Combo 1 students brought the music of pioneering American jazz pianist, composer, and poet Horace Silver to audiences in Germany and Belgium during their recent spring 2019 tour. Concerts took place in Cologne, Germany, and various locations throughout Belgium. The tour culminated with a performance at Brussel’s premier jazz club, The Music Village. Local audiences welcomed the musicians back at their homecoming performance on March 5 in the Saint Mary’s Performance Center.

The 26-voice Chamber Singers, directed by Dr. Patrick O’Shea, toured in parallel with Jazz Combo 1, and performed in Wesseling, Germany (combined concert with Jazz Combo 1), Ternat, Belgium (jointly with the choir of the Sint-Jozefsinstituut, a Lasallian school), and Brussels Cathedral. The Chamber Singers also performed for Mass at the Sint-Gertrudiskerk in Ternat. Repertoire included the world premiere of “Father, Forgive” by A. Eric Heukeshoven, who directed Jazz Combo 1 on the tour, with Dr. Janet Heukeshoven on flute. The Chamber Singers performed their homecoming concert on March 7 at the Chapel of Saint Mary of the Angels in Winona.

Both groups have upcoming performances — the Chamber Singers and Concert Choir on April 27 and Jazz at Saint Mary’s on April 28.

After working on national social media platforms, Saint Mary’s sophomore Alec Rudh knows to keep his statements short and to-the-point. So, in describing what it was like working at the 2019 Winter X Games in Aspen Jan. 22-28, he is concise: “best experience of my life, hands down.” Rudh was one of 17 Saint Mary’s business students who were part of the 2019 Winter X Games Student Work Program. Based on skills and personal strengths, students were placed into different departments throughout the event and received a variety of valuable skills that will transfer to future careers — and had access to the fast-paced action. The annual action sports event features snowbiking, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and skiing events, as well as live concerts with big-name musicians. Read the full story, which also highlights two other Saint Mary’s students, Heidi Ledermann ’19 and Blair Sanders ’20, who received #IMPACT awards.

A student group ran a month-long letter writing campaign to promote positive vibes on campus. Now in its second year, Spread the Love was created with the idea of building community and expressing gratitude and appreciation for others on campus. The campaign works this way: people on campus submit names to the Spread the Love team, who then creates and sends personalized letters, accompanied with a Spread the Love button. The Spread the Love mission: Everyone has value, and we are on a mission to share it! Spread the Love promotes friendship and unity by sending personal messages to the Saint Mary’s community.

Portia Mensah ’19 spent a semester working alongside teens in an urban school in the Twin Cities and literally walked in the footsteps of a homeless person. Tyler Aliperto ’19 worked for a political organization which focuses on pending elections and educating others about the candidates’ stances on gender, economic justice, and social justice. Mensah and Aliperto are two of a growing number of young people with a desire to leave the world a better place — a desire to make a difference. Their recent internships, both completed with the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) Study-USA program, fueled this passion. HECUA’s Study-USA program structure includes seminar-style discussions mixed with field visits and guest speakers. By participants’ second week, they are placed at internship sites where they begin working 20 hours per week. Each Study-USA program offers a different theme and experience. Both Saint Mary’s seniors chose “Inequality in America,” through which students examined the growing gap between rich and poor in the United States as well as gained concrete change-making skills through internships and discussions with effective activists. Read the full story.

Students in the Saint Mary’s University Business Department have endless opportunities to tackle real-world scenarios. Skills are built in and out of the classroom as students work alongside peers who share their passion to solve problems of the future. Saint Mary’s professors help students reach their goals as they prepare to find a job they love after graduation. Watch the new video created to highlight the Business Department.

Saint Mary’s University recently completed the school’s most ambitious capital campaign in history. The Discover, Inspire, Lead Campaign, which concluded Dec. 31, 2018, raised a record $73 million for Saint Mary’s — far exceeding its $57 million goal. The university’s most recent capital campaign raised $30 million more than a decade ago. At the center of the campaign was the Science and Learning Center, a $19.7-million-dollar state-of-the-art facility completed in 2017. Another major highlight includes the growth in the First Generation Initiative (FGI) endowment, which supports First Generation Scholars at Saint Mary’s, which started with less than $500,000 and now is close to $5 million. Altogether, the campaign supported many initiatives, including athletics, scholarships, business programs, the facilities and programs at the Twin Cities Campus, Lasallian formation, and the Saint Mary’s Fund. These are in addition to the aforementioned key strategic campaign priorities. Read the full story.

This semester, entrepreneurship students from Saint Mary’s have teamed up with students from Minnesota State College Southeast and Winona State University to develop, design, and produce new products. The project kicked off March 5 with an ideation session and will continue next week on Friday, April 5, at 2 p.m. when the joint teams present their results in the form of pitches and prototypes to the community. The public is welcome to attend this event downtown in the Miller Ingenuity Creation Station.

On March 25, the Kabara Institute welcomed Scott and Hayley Hornberg, a husband and wife duo from southern Minnesota, who decided to branch out into the world of small business ownership to start Nice Minnesota in 2015. They shared with students in an entrepreneurship class how they enjoy running their Etsy shop, from which they distribute their Nice Minnesota products, ranging from hats and shirts to pictures and a variety of other items that celebrate all things Minnesota, including their “River, Donuts, Bluffs. Winona MN” design. They explained how they got started, where they get new product ideas, and what the future holds for their Winona-based business.