Sisters Lead

ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 18 — The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet gave the largest single gift to the current fundraising campaign of Minnesota's College of St. Catherine.

The sisters, the college's founding religious community, led some 16 donors who gave in excess of $1 million each. The campaign has raised $85.6 million, setting a new fund-raising record for a Catholic women's college.

The money will go toward improving facilities, endowing faculty chairs in biology, education and nursing, and increasing financial aid.

Drowning Castro

THE MOBILE REGISTER, June 20 — A group of anti-Fidel Castro Spring Hill College alumni claimed victory after Tropical Storm Arlene dashed the last day of the “National Summit on Cuba.”

The summit included a series of events in the Mobile area, and was slated to conclude with a discussion at the Jesuit college on religion and society in Cuba.

College officials said their involvement was not an endorsement of the Cuban ruler and that they would not be pressured into canceling the event. That was accomplished by Arlene.

Good Start

THE NEW YORKER, June 20 — The magazine's cover story tells how graduates of evangelical Patrick Henry College in northern Virginia are filling many of the entry-level jobs in Congress and the White House.

Founded in 2000, the school's 61 graduates include two with jobs in the White House, and six are on the staffs of members of Congress. The magazine said eight others are employed by federal agencies.

About 85% of the grads were homeschooled, earning the college the nickname “Harvard for the Homeschooled.”

‘Continual Service’

CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, June 17 — Dominican Sister Mary Andrew Matesich, 66, who served for 23 years as president of Ohio Dominican College, died June 15 of breast cancer.

She was diagnosed and treated for the disease when she was 54, and it returned when she was 59. The weekly magazine of The New York Times featured Sister Mary Andrew in a 2004 cover story because of her willingness to undergo experimental, oftentimes painful, cancer treatments for the benefit of others.

She saw her participation as a natural fulfillment of her vows to her order. She told the Times, “As a sister, a member of a religious order … I want to be of continual service to others. I wouldn'd be alive today if other women hadn'd been in clinical trials.”

An Opening

CHICAGO SUN TIMES, June 27 — St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, Ind., has opened its undergraduate distance education and adult education programs to men, but the residential campus will remain for women only, officials said.

Founded in 1840 by the Sisters of Providence, the college remains “committed to preserving the campus-based program for women, only, and to serving women's unique needs,” said one official.

Not everyone agreed with the change, said Alice Shelton, a 1987 Woods graduate and outgoing president of the alumni group. “There were folks who had strong feelings on either side.”