Convocation Addresses

Spring 2006 Convocation Speech, Jacqueline Powers Doud, President

"Educating Women (And a Few Good Men) from the City for the City"

Jan. 12, 2006

On a daily basis I encounter many Southern Californians who, when I tell them where I am from, say: “Oh, I’ve heard of Mount St. Mary’s.  You are right across the street from UCLA on Sunset Blvd.  Another will say just as confidently: “I know you. You are a stone’s throw from LAX.” And not infrequently, some will locate us in beautiful Palos Verdes.  There are excellent schools in all of these locations.  And, they are all on exquisite real estate.  They all have Mary in their name, and they all have Mount in their name.  You’d think we Catholics, with all our saints, could be more creative!

Of course you know that a distinguished girl’s high school, Marymount High, beautifies Sunset Blvd., near UCLA – that not us. A two-year college, Marymount Palos Verdes, overlooks the ocean above San Pedro. And, a four-year Jesuit-run institution, Loyola Marymount is the LAX neighbor.

Mount St. Mary’s College, on the other hand, houses its original campus at the highest point on Chalon Road, in Brentwood.  We often claim: Only God and Mount St. Mary’s look down upon the Getty!” You don’t pass the Mount (as we affectionately call ourselves) on the way to anything. But, some would say, you pass just about everything else getting to our Westside campus, found on 56 exquisite acres atop the Santa Monica mountains.  If you went to Loyola University in the old days, you have likely made the climb up that hill for girlfriend visits!

It is fitting that I speak with you at this particular time because we are celebrating our 80th anniversary as a College this weekend.  What you may not know is that Mount St. Mary’s College is the only Catholic Women’s College west of the Mississippi! Yes, there are other Catholic Colleges west of the Mississippi and there are other women’s colleges but there are no other Catholic Women’s College this side of the United States! In 1960, there were 180 Catholic Women’s Colleges almost all founded by women religious; today there are 18!  The Mount has been doing something right for a long time.

At our Westside or Chalon campus, we offer our four-year baccalaureate programs to 900 young adult women (and a few good men – about a dozen in our nursing program) during the day, and to over 300 working/older adults on weekends.

In 1959, half way through our history, Mount St. Mary’s expanded its educational mission to the heart of our city, south of the Staples Center in the beautiful oasis of the former Doheny estate, located on Chester Place near Figueroa and Adams.  The Doheny campus, in rich contrast to the Westside campus, houses our nationally known alternative access program – allowing students not immediately prepared for our baccalaureate program to acquire the skills they need to be successful in college while completing their first 2 years. At the downtown Doheny campus we also offer graduate programs in religious studies, nursing, psychology, teacher preparation, and humanities as well as a doctorate in physical therapy.

The Sisters of St. Joseph who founded Mount St. Mary’s College have a maxim that has guided their good works for three and one half centuries. “Divide the City.” The early sisters said, “and serve the dear neighbor” wherever there is a need. And so they did…and so we do today...with two full-service campuses.

Mount St. Mary’s was one of those pioneering institutions that opened its doors to women 80 years ago when, unlike today, college going was primarily reserved for young gentlemen like yourselves (and a few good women like yourselves). When I think about what we do at Mount St. Mary’s, I am reminded of a greeting card I found about 10 years ago for my niece who was finishing Law School here in town.  The card pictured a woman dressed in a pin stripped suit, white blouse and tie.  Inside it read: “Congratulations! You have now become the person your parents always wanted you to marry.”

In earlier years, the Mount educated daughters of European immigrants.  Many, if not most, were the first in their families to benefit from a college education.  Today, with the changed demographic landscape of Los Angeles, we welcome and educate L.A.’s second large wave of California immigrants – primarily from Latin American and Pacific Rim countries. We are proud that our student body mirrors the ethnic diversity of greater Los Angeles, where 93% of our students originate.  It is in this richly varied cultural landscape that our graduates will continue to live and work after they earn their degrees. That is why we say: An investment in the Mount is an investment in the city.  At Mount St. Mary’s, we teach and we believe that you cannot truly know yourself until you understand and appreciate others who are different from you.

Why did Mount St. Mary’s College make a deliberate decision about 25 years ago, to embrace the new daughters of Los Angeles?  I maintain that we thrive today because we have not ignored change. To coin a phrase from a well-know management guru, Peter Drucker: “We have not pretended that tomorrow will be like yesterday, only more so.” The Mount took this bold, costly, often unglamorous, and high-risk decision because of our unwavering belief that every capable and motivated young woman, regardless of economic or social background, should have the opportunity to pursue a college education.  Let me repeat that belief.  EVERY CAPABLE AND MOTIVATED YOUNG WOMAN, REGARDLESS OF ECONOMIC OR SOCIAL BACKGROUND, SHOULD HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURSUE A COLLEGE EDUCATION.

Our philosophy of educating women (and a few good men) stems from what philosopher Martha Nussbaum calls the “capabilities approach.”  The capabilities approach focuses on what people are actually able to do and to become.  Centering on a student’s capabilities is in stark contrast to centering on a student’s limitations or centering on the student as victim – as historically disenfranchised or oppressed. The capabilities approach discourages attitudes of entitlement and focuses on achievement.  We do not view our students as victims of oppression because they are poor or because their parents, in some cases, didn’t even finish grammar school, or because the average parental income this year is $32,510 dollars. We view them as women who have potential to lift themselves and others out of this poverty, who have extraordinary potential to better themselves and their society.  We view them as students with enormous advantage.

One of our biggest challenges is to get our young women to re-envision their own ideas of themselves…to believe in their own potential...  and to act on that belief, with a serious work ethic. As our five-year strategic plan indicates, we need to continually strive to raise the bar for our students’ performance. We are an academically rigorous institution of higher learning. We do not apologize for that.

This, of course, presumes that we believe in their potential. In order to do this, we must maintain a talented, dedicated, student-oriented faculty. We must have a strong system of consistent and careful academic advisement, making certain that classes are available to our students when they need them (so that entry into the workforce is not unduly delayed), and having classes that are optimal in size. It requires a personalized system of inviting students back to learning when discouragement, illness, distractions, or other obstacles (frequently financial) sidetrack or interrupt their college journey.

It requires we offer them internships opportunities in our city. This semester we find our students working at the FBI and CIA Offices, at the accounting offices of KPMG, at E Television, the City of Los Angles Mayor’s Office, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, the Los Angeles Police Department, Paine Weber, Disneyland, and USC and UCLA medical centers  - to name a few.

Mount students learn to believe in themselves – and do it through service to others. They serve the community in numbers disproportionate to the average college population. We find Mount students at Alexandria House – a transitional home for women and children, at A Place Called Home for youth rehabilitation and numerous other social service agencies.

Our philosophy at Mount St. Mary's College calls for a constant student focus and, as you will see in the strategic plan you have before you, for maintaining what we call “a culture of remarkable service,” But it also calls for mutuality of obligation - not only ours to the students; but our students to themselves, one another, and the world around them.

So, who are our students today? The college has this cohort come a long way from only serving 18-22 year-old women, although remains our core population, making up about 1300 of our 2470 students. Approximately 46% are of Hispanic origin, 18% are Asian, mostly Filipina, another 15% are Caucasian, 11% are African American, with the remainder of mixed race. About 55% of them are the first in their families to attend college. And if you think it’s hard to keep your business’s fiscal house in order, consider that 95% of our students receive financial aid.

We also have a thriving Weekend College of 300 highly motivated and able students who are mid-career professionals and working adults; they are students unlike the majority in this room – they did not have the opportunity to earn a degree earlier in life; we educate another nearly 300 in an adult 2-year evening and weekend nursing program. This program, along with 3 other nursing programs, is addressing the city’s critical nursing shortage. As I earlier mentioned, we have five signature graduate programs in teacher education, psychology, humanities, nursing, religious studies and a doctorate in physical therapy. As you can see, we are small but we are complex.
 
You may have read about the recent Pew Hispanic Center study that told us that Latino students are less likely, than others in our country, to seek higher degrees, not because of lack of interest on their part, but because of lack of support - financial and social. They are often born to parents who have absolutely no experience of college, are not familiar with college admissions, scholarship opportunities and the many other challenges of attending a four-year college that many of us take for granted. I continue to be astonished (and heartened at the same time) at the magnitude of the formal educational gap between the parents of some of our undergraduates and their daughters who are our current students.

Many are from single parent households where the parents are often engaged in manual labor or other minimum wage employment. The other day, I was interviewing three undergraduate finalists for the prestigious Rockefeller Fund Scholarship for graduate study in teacher education. I learned that one student's mother is a hotel housekeeper; another's parents are field workers in central California; and another migrated from the Philippines ten years ago. This young woman has mastered English to such an exquisite degree as to prepare her to be one of our outstanding future English teachers in Los Angeles. And she is not alone in that many of our students whose first language is other than English enter our College where oral and written communication is the very foundation of all that follows in the pursuit of their degree and career. Who knows the important of this mastery more than you who yearn for college graduates proficient in communication skills!

It is, without doubt, in our best interest to serve these students. And when I say “our,” I include you, my distinguished friends and fellow Catholics. The Latino percentage of the US workforce has grown by 18 million in the first 5 years of this millennium while the white work-age population declined by 5 million during the same period. Hence, the need is clearly established. This is our future. Mount St. Mary’s is educating the fastest growing underrepresented college age cohort in the nation.

So, what happens to Mount St. Mary's College graduates? Among its 12,000 living alumnae are hundreds of graduates in two areas where our city now faces critical shortages - qualified teachers and nurses. Mount St. Mary’s presently has about 2,000 nurses ranging in ages 22 to 65 serving our city as health care providers along with another 1500 teachers and administrators in the public and private school systems of Los Angeles, including the Superintendent of Rowland Heights school district and numerous L.A. school principals.

In 2002, the Mount received word from the California Council on Teacher Preparation commending us for being the first college in the state to be successfully evaluated under the new teacher standards. The exact quote reads: “Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles had the distinction of being the first to receive full accreditation which places the College in a mentoring position for other institutions about to restructure teaching credentialing programs…. All credential programs emphasize preparation for working in high poverty schools.”

This year the Mount celebrates 53 years of nursing, being the first in the State of California to offer a baccalaureate program, established in 1952. We are equally proud that 80% of our science students applying to medical school are accepted. Other alumnae are serving in the business, accounting, and as legal professionals where we are confident they represent our College as exemplars of ethical behavior and promoters of social justice.

Because Mount St. Mary's College students are encouraged to understand themselves as leaders with a responsibility to the common good and to view their professional lives as a means to serve others, we find our graduates active in their communities and churches. In my own church, for instance, a 2005 graduate and music and business major, directs the choir. We hear from our graduates everyday that family is central to their lives as well.

On a final note, you will be interested to know that it is also our mission to ensure that these graduates share with their families, their coworkers, and their friends a rather unique element of our strategic plan – the principle of beauty. As you can see, it reads, “We will foster beauty in our environment” and elaborates with the statement, “the College will cultivate beauty in our physical, aesthetic, and spiritual environment in order to nourish wholeness in our lives.”

Part of this plan relates to things physical, of course, as in our two beautiful campuses requiring our constant care at 80 years old and you want them to look 18 like the students. But fostering beauty is much more -- it’s a sense of beauty that each of us should experience every day in our lives – something that a liberal education must instill in its beneficiaries. Today, we had an exquisite example of beauty with our all-campus Mass of the Holy Spirit – where everyone wore a touch of red, where music, dance, and the Eucharistic celebration united our academic community.

I conclude with a reflection on the liberal arts and hope that it too inspires the beauty of our mission.

Liberal Arts Reflection
Basis of my inspiration: Aristotle’s Metaphysics as depicted in Happiness and Compassion by Joseph Pieper

TO BE HUMAN IS TO WANT TO KNOW.
We desire to know why things happen the way they do: why the day and night arrive at predictable intervals without fail; why certain chemicals kill life while others restore it;  why the stock market falls one day and rises another;  how emails crisscross the world in seconds;  how the arbitrary symbols of language can express our deepest yearnings, how these same symbols can hurt others, convey new discoveries, transmit knowledge from one generation to the next, distort or clarify the truth, and bring intense joy  to a human being just by the sound of the words or the voice that utters them.  WE DESIRE TO KNOW WHY THINGS HAPPEN THE WAY THEY DO.

A liberal arts course of study offers us the beginnings of knowledge and ways of knowing in the hope that it will wet our appetite for more knowledge, more understanding, and ultimately more wisdom.  In college, we test hypotheses in labs and in studios, in dorms and dining halls, even in classrooms and on shuttles.  We learn to tolerate ambiguity, to leave behind our black and white view of the world.  We learn to differentiate between fact and opinion.  We learn to sharpen our sense of humor.  Best of all, we learn to love what we know.

As undergraduates, we are introduced to English language and literature, other languages and literatures, biology, economics, psychology, art, political science, nursing, religion, history, physics, sociology, education, mathematics, chemistry, business, music and philosophy…we continue our undergraduate journey, in more depth, through one of those areas, not to limit but to expand and deepen our understanding of nature, the world and ourselves.  We begin to see the connectedness between our chosen field and other disciplines.

What we are really doing formally in a liberal arts education is reaching for happiness.  A liberal arts course of study, if genuinely pursued, is a vehicle to happiness.  Happiness is, at the same time, a gift.  At the Mount we actively invite our students to ponder and to seek, through our curriculum, the ultimate beatitude.  Just as happiness is a gift so too is Faith.  We can neither impose it nor dispense it, but, with the gift of Faith, we know that our hearts will not rest until they rest in God.