Acceptance of 2011 Benedictine College Offeramus Award
by Sister Irene Nowell, OSB
June 4, 2011


Sister Anne Shepard, Sister Irene Nowell, and President Steve Minnis.
(Photo courtesy of Benedictine College)

Thank you! Thank you Sister Anne. God has blessed me richly! Thank you to my wonderful community, without whom I would not be standing here tonight. Thank you to my family who are here to celebrate with me. Thank you also to Benedictine College and its two parent institutions: Mount St. Scholastica and St. Benedict’s College. My professional life has been interwoven with all three institutions.

My first association with Mount St. Scholastica was in the 1950s when, as a high school student, I came up to Atchison regularly to play cello with the college orchestra. Dr. Szemler, the conductor, used to say to me, “Play like sixteen!” They needed cellos in those days!

In 1957 I both entered the community and began my college education at the Mount. I could not have had a better education! The list of my professors is, as my classmates know, a litany of the greatest teachers. These are just a few of the life-lessons they taught me, in addition to the academic material. Sister Mary Noel Walter, who knew already in 1959 that the students of the future would be able to find answers easily, taught me that learning how to ask good questions may be more important than the answers. Sister Joachim Holthaus taught me my very first college course and showed me, among many other things, how much fun teaching music could be. She is one of my adopted aunts and has been very encouraging to me my whole life. Sister Dunstan Delehant, who knew everything (or so I thought), came into logic class one day and said, “I am not prepared; I will not waste your time. You may go.” Besides being surprised, I learned to follow her example when, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not prepared to teach. Sister Jeanne Marie Blacet saved my life in a very difficult year by requiring me to document the spring: When did the violets bloom? When did the robins appear? That was the year I also discovered henbit, a scourge but a very beautiful one! Sister Gertrude Marie Sheldon awakened my voice and taught me how to sing and cry at the same time. Very useful.

Sister John Marie Brazzel, by demonstrating to me that I could dissect a frog without fainting, proved to me that I could do a lot of other yucky things. Sister Juanita Pavlick kept us junior sisters aware of current events with those dreaded Friday quizzes, even though we always failed them because we were not allowed to listen to the radio or read the newspaper. She taught me that some things can be accomplished in devious ways! Sister Chrysostom Koppes gave me my love of music theory and told me I had to learn the rules so I would know when I broke them. Sisters Imogene Baker and Joan Offenburger (Paulette) led me into the wonders of literary analysis, which sustained me through graduate degrees in both German and Scripture. The litany goes on with Sisters Mary Austin Schirmer, Elizabeth Coffey, Gonzaga Englehart, Jo Ann Fellin, Laura Haug, Mary Collins. Mounties of 1961, didn’t we have a wonderful college education!

My beginnings in graduate education had to do with St. Benedict’s College. There was a need for a German teacher, since Father Alcuin Hemmen had been appointed president of the college. It just so happened that his sister, Mother Celeste Hemmen, was our prioress at the time. I can’t help but think that this just might be one of the reasons I was sent to Catholic U. to get a degree in German. The very first college class I taught was at St. Benedict’s College, where I was privileged to have some of the 1967 championship basketball team in my 8 a.m. German I class. I learned a lot of German basketball words that year.

I also taught at Mount St. Scholastica College, of course: German, English, and music in those first years. I also was a prefect (R.A.) with freshmen women in Kremmeter. Then, as you just heard, I eventually worked up to the position of residence hall director—my all-time favorite job—and finally Dean of Students. This appointment should have given fair warning to the college that putting me in administration meant challenges were on the horizon. My year as Dean of Students was 1970-71, the year we prepared for the merger. My only other major administrative position was as Acting Academic Dean in 1987-88, when, because of financial difficulties we were forced to declare financial exigency! Watch out if I’m in administration!

Honored classes, you have walked through all that history with me. The class of 1961 is my own class. Class of 1971: those were years of assassinations, school shootings, guitars, sit-ins, and panty raids. You were there for my Kremmeter and dean years. Sandy Schlattmann, my secretary, and I agreed that more than three students in the dean’s office constituted a takeover and we could leave! Class of 1986: I think I taught almost all of you and loved every minute. Thank you for all you taught me.

I loved my years of teaching and working in the college, but in 1994, thirty years after I began, I realized that
• having taught at all three institutions: St. Benedict’s College, Mount St. Scholastica, and Benedictine College;
• having taught in the departments of music, modern and ancient languages, English, and theology;
• having worked in student personnel and financial aid as well as academics;
• and beginning to meet more and more students who said, “You taught my mother!”;
it was time to move on to other pursuits. I still haven’t left the college, however. Now I’m on the Board (of Directors)!

I am grateful to the college for so many things. I am grateful for my excellent education. I am grateful for the positions I have been asked to hold. Except for my two years teaching elementary school in wonderful Nemaha County, the college has been my only full time employer. I am grateful for the friendship of colleagues and for the inspiration of so many superb students who, year by year, energized me. I am grateful for the challenges, whether exhilarating or painful, with which the college has confronted me—challenges that led me to grow in ways I could not have imagined. Now I am grateful also for this award.

Thank you.

Read S. Anne's introduction of S. Irene.