Goodbye, Dr. Fox-Genovese

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, Jan. 4 — Historian and prominent Catholic convert Elizabeth Fox-Genovese died Jan. 2 in Atlanta. Emory University recruited Fox-Genovese in 1986 to serve as founding director of its Institute for Women’s Studies. But she resigned as director of the institute in 1992 and, in 1995, converted to the Catholic faith while continuing to teach history at Emory. The following year, she published Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How the Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women. Sean Wilentz, a Princeton University history professor, told the Journal-Constitution, “She probably did more for the conservative women’s movement than anyone.”

San Antonio Surge

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, Jan. 6 — In what the Express-News calls a “bumper crop” of seminarians, new enrollments at San Antonio’s Assumption Seminary have soared to a 36-year high this year. Some 26 men enrolled, raising Assumption’s total enrollment from 51 last school year vocations to 76 for the current year — another 36-year high. Said Catholic University of America sociologist Dean Hoge, a national expert on Catholic clergy data, “There’s nothing like this going on at any other U.S. seminary.”

Spring Break, Sanctified

ALL SAINTS CATHOLIC NEWMAN CENTER, Dec. 20 — More than 40 Arizona State University students will be traveling to New Orleans during their March spring break, but not to party. The students will participate in Catholic Charities’ Archdiocese of New Orleans Operations Helping Hands project, helping to repair homes and neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.