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By Andy Steiner, from .

The first women’s colleges in the United States, in the 1800s, were mostly not much more than finishing schools with the goal of turning out graduates to be “good” wives and mothers. But from the very start, that wasn’t the case at the College of St. Catherine, where pioneering founder Mother Antonia McHugh decided that her institution would be different: this new school was anything but a finishing school. It would educate women who would one day excel in scholarship and career. To do that, Mother Antonia figured, she needed to support and cultivate faculty who were nationally recognized experts in their fields. From St. Kate’s founding in 1905 through the 40s and 50s, she sent them off to be educated at the top colleges and universities around the world, increasing their scholarship while cementing their — and the college’s — reputation.

That commitment continues today at ��ɫӰ��, where faculty development remains a core value that spreads through the University’s ecosystem, according to Anita Thomas, PhD, University executive vice president and provost. While faculty see a direct impact from this support for their scholarship, students also benefit. Mother Antonia’s legacy is lasting.

One of the first things Katie Campbell, PhD, noticed when she came to ��ɫӰ�� five years ago was a sense of support, a campus wide ethic that held up not just students but also the faculty who educate and mentor them. This culture of support felt like a self-sustaining ecosystem, with faculty nourished by opportunities to engage in their research while strengthening their teaching muscles, and a student body eager for the chance to learn and participate in research.

At St. Kate’s, Campbell explains, “We educate women to lead and influence. That focus on leadership is also there when we think about faculty being supported in their roles so they can support the mentorship of undergraduate students.”

As director of collaborative undergraduate research, Campbell heads up Summer Scholars, a unique program where faculty and undergraduate students spend the warmer months of the year collaborating on real-world research projects, an opportunity that is all too rare at many colleges.

“Summer Scholars is broad in terms of its scope,” Campbell says, explaining that participants include faculty and students across all of the University’s disciplines. Strong donor support for the program means that all participants are paid for their work, she adds. “This year we had 13 teams conduct collaborative research over 10 weeks in the summer.”

“SPREE is amazingly high-touch,” Campbell says. “They are incredible partners when it comes to grant writing. Compared to the support I got in the past at other institutions, they offer a hands-on, collaborative approach.”

Programs like Summer Scholars and KARE feature research and out-of-the classroom mentoring, but time spent in the classroom is also essential to the health and development of the student body, an ever-changing organism that reflects society as a whole.

From St. Kate’s very beginnings, it has always been a given that culturally relevant teaching is mission- central. Mary Unger Henderson ’80, EdD, professor of business administration, has a history with the institution that goes beyond her 23 years as faculty. A St. Kate’s alumna, she understands that what goes on in the classroom is at the core of the University.

“Teaching is at the heart of our institution,” Henderson says. “That’s our priority.”

To keep their teaching fresh and relevant to the student body, St. Catherine faculty receive support through development programs focused on enriching teaching and pedagogy, says Dianne Oliver, PhD, associate provost.

“One of the things that’s been important for us as an institution has been trying to work to continue development around diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. Some of that is related to content in courses. Some of it is pedagogy: ‘How do I teach in ways that are inclusive?’ We are teaching — and learning — what it means to be a faculty member in 2022 and 2023.”

A British historian by training, Neiwert understood it would be financially difficult to bring her students to England for hands-on research with primary documents. So she set out to find local history projects, including working with students to research racial housing covenants in the neighborhoods surrounding the University.

In 2019, Neiwert joined fellow professors Kristine West, PhD, and Daniel Williams, PhD, on “”, an in-depth research project that reveals the history and impact of racially-based housing discrimination in the Twin Cities.

Another way that Neiwert’s research is supported is through the Sister Mona Riley Endowed Professorship in Humanities. The award comes with funding that makes it financially possible for Neiwert to do her own research — and support her students in theirs. The professorship is one of many endowed positions available to faculty across disciplines.

“The Sister Mona Riley Professorship is a significant way my scholarship has been supported,” Neiwert says. “Each of these endowed positions comes with course releases to offer us more time to focus on research and build a community of scholars. They are essential to supporting the academic life of this campus.”

Though she knows that her classroom is an essential place for learning and community building, Pa Der Vang, PhD, also has an innate belief that it is important for social work faculty and students to leave the classroom and serve others in the outside world. Over the course of her career, Vang’s scholarship has been focused on leadership development in communities of color.

“All of the work I’ve been doing has centered around developing Hmong leaders in the field of social work,” she says. “There are a lot of barriers

faced by professionals of color interested in entering licensed professions like social work. My work has been around understanding why that happens and how to influence change.”

Vang’s interest in supporting equity in the field of social work led her to create the . “I created the coalition so we could have a collective voice with the Minnesota Board of Social Work,” she explains. Within the first year of the group’s foundation, Vang was asked to join the Minnesota Board of Social Work’s advisory board. She also created an annual conference for Hmong social workers.

At its founding, St. Kate’s was “built from that recognition of oppression,” Vang says. “We wanted to help a group that was oppressed at the time — that group was women. St. Kate’s opened doors for women. Now we are opening doors for other communities who historically did not have access to education.” Because of that history, Vang says her service to students of color and immigrants is very much connected to the ethos of the University.

“I don’t think of it as outside my work. It is very in line with my field, and very much in line with who St. Kate’s is as a school.” Continued work toward diversity, equity, and inclusion is a major focus for the University, and outside service, like her work in the state’s social work community, is a key part of that, Vang says: “It’s part of who we are as an institution, and one of the things that drew me here.”