Tag Archives: St. Francis

Welcome Home, Class of 2025!

Each year, a special introduction is written for our blog to extend a warm welcome to the incoming class and your families as you enter not only a new school but also a new chapter of your lives. There’s a certain quality that attracts students to become Siena Saints, and in four years, you may know exactly what I mean. As I recognize the impact of my time here and all of the knowledge I have gathered, I think what makes a Saint a Saint is resilience.

My senior year unfolded in the midst of a pandemic. Each of us is uniquely aware of the uncertainty, loneliness, challenge, and loss of this past year. During my final year at Siena, I watched the school I have grown to love struggle socially, having to skip many major events in order to prioritize the health and safety of our close community. It is during the Spring 2021 semester that I watched and played a role in the resurgence of our living and breathing campus with the onset of spring and New York’s swift rollout of the COVID-19 Vaccine. In this way, I witnessed and practiced Siena’s resilience; a school that rose from a long and dark winter stronger than it was when it entered it.

Is there anything prettier than Plassmann Hall in the Fall? Photo courtesy of Siena College.

As you become a Saint, you will recognize that Siena’s resilience will find a home in you, just as you will find a home in it. In light of our school’s Franciscan heritage, we glean an important and formative example of resilience in the Prayer of Saint Francis, in which we ask to become instruments of peace. Surrounded by the noise and indifference of the world, Saints strive to be voices of peace with and for others. We seek to sow love where there is hate, planting acts of kindness in the places and in the hearts of those who have been dulled by the world. Where there is darkness, Saints bring light, our optimism and commitment to change remaining unshaken. While observing Francis’ example, we come to know that it is in giving that we receive and in our resilience that we continue to grow stronger.

Saint Francis is the patron saint of ecology and an integral aspect of the Franciscan tradition is reverence for nature. At this point, you may or may not know that Siena’s campus has recently been named one of the top 50 Most Beautiful in the country by Conde Nast Traveler, and while this rings true, I am delighted to share that at Siena, you will encounter beauty in more than just your surroundings.

You’ll find beauty in the little things. Like the way your fellow Saints will hold doors open for one another, the way the light shines off the dome of Siena Hall, the way the leaves are tracked throughout your residence hall during the fall, the way you forget how you met your closest friends but are forever grateful for them anyway, the ways you will come to serve others, the way you’ll get to know the friars and their stories, the way everything will take shape for you over the course of your time here, and so many more small details that will hold a big place in your heart. 

There’s a pot of green and gold at each end of the rainbow! Photo courtesy of Siena College.

In sharing intentions for you as you enter the Siena Community, I hope that you find all of the ways to love this school. Afterall, through all of the peaks and valleys that you have encountered in the past year alone, you found your way here. We couldn’t be happier to have you. This is what makes you resilient. This is what makes you a Saint. As you set your sights on the future, I hope that you carry this inherent courage while you continue to pave your path here on Loudon Road and beyond. 

As you move in this August, the columns of Siena Hall will welcome you to your new home! Photo courtesy of Siena College.

Annual Clare Center Lecture Focuses on Relational Love in the Mayo Clinic

The 26th installment of the Clare Center Lecture Series brought Dr. Amy Koehlinger to campus on the evening of Wednesday, October 2nd. Each year, the lecture series aims to engage the Siena community in learning about a contemporary or historical aspect of the Franciscan tradition. This year’s lecture highlighted the Franciscan value of relational love in the developing of and revolutionary medical practices in the Mayo Clinic.

“I’m coming from Oregon so it may seem raining to you guys, but for me this is just an average Wednesday” Dr. Koehlinger joked about the dreary night as she began her presentation.  Dr. Koehlinger, an assistant professor of history and religious studies at Oregon State University, focuses her research on the culture of American Catholicism, the intersections of social reform and religion, and gender roles within American religious traditions. For her visit to Siena, it was only fitting that she discussed the historical connections between the  Franciscans and the Mayo clinic since the college announced it’s new dual-nursing program with Maria College last month.

As Dr. Koehlinger explained in her lecture, the Mayo Clinic is a premier medical center located in Rochester, Minnesota. While today it is currently ranked as the number 1 overall best hospital in the United States by the U.S News and World Report and is home to one of the top medical schools in the nation, the clinic had very humble beginnings. After a tornado struck the small town of Rochester, many individuals were left in need of immediate medical care. As they both realized their community was in desperate need of aid, a partnership between a physician William Mayo and Catholic nun Mother Mary Moes was born.

Dr. Mayo and Mother Mary Moes  would go on to lay the foundation for  “one of the most unexpected and enduring institutional partnerships in the American medical profession” as Dr. Koehlinger referred to it. The duo recruited local physicians and the sisters from Mother Moes convent and got to work healing their community members. Years later, Mother Moes and Dr. Mayo would go on to open up St. Mary’s Hospital, a Catholic facility fully staffed with Catholic sisters, but open to people from all religious backgrounds. 

“(The Franciscan  sisters) worked back-to -back shifts and slept on the floor when the hospital was filled to capacity, as it almost always was” Dr. Koehlinger stated. In her discussion, she explained that the sacrifices the sisters made were what made the hospital so revolutionary at the time. Patients were never turned away, measures to insure conditions were sanitary were being implemented like never before, and most importantly, the staff treated the entire being of a patient, not just the part of their body that most obviously needed care. Throughout the years, the Mayo Clinic never lost its core Franciscan values, as Dr. Koehlinger expressed in her closing. While eventually the nursing staff would no longer only be made up of  Franciscan sisters and the  Franciscans would let go of legal and financial control of the hospital all together, the core values that started it all still live on in the organization to this day.

Today, the Mayo Clinic has a sponsorship board dedicated to making sure that  Franciscan values are still embedded into every department. Dr. Koehlinger ended the 2019 Clare Lecture Lecture Series by telling the audience that the original  Franciscan values are still alive in the clinic as every new employee to asked to follow in the original sister’s footsteps by “treat(ing) every patient and every colleague with respect and dignity.” It was the Franciscan value of relational love that made the original medical partnership, the care patients received, and Mayo Clinic, so exceptional.

2018 Clare Center Lecture

Siena hosted the 25th annual Clare Center lecture on Tuesday Oct. 2nd, welcoming Dr. Joy Schroeder, a religion professor and Lutheran pastor, to give her lecture on “Compassion and Imagination and Franciscan Biblical Interpretation.” Dr. Schroeder’s concentrations are in the history of biblical interpretation and women in the church. Dr. Holly Grieco introduced Dr. Schroeder and explained the origins of the Clare Center lecture. “It began as a way to welcome the religious studies department into its new home on campus,” Dr. Grieco said.

Dr. Schroeder emphasized the importance of slow, reflective reading during her lecture. She shared the statistic that the human attention span has diminished to eight seconds, which is one second less than a goldfish’s. Tying a majority of her speech and biblical interpretations into the Syrian and Central American refugee crises, Dr. Schroeder focused on the importance of using our imagination and compassion for the betterment of the world.

In reference to Siena’s Franciscan core curriculum, she mentioned the room to integrate compassionate imagination. “It can be done with holiness and imagination,” she said, “the kind that brings about good business ethics and good business practices.”

Dr. Schroeder’s lecture was part of the celebration of Francis Week, a week-long celebration of St. Francis’ life and values. Other events through this week include the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Feast of St. Francis, and Community Service Day. All students are encouraged to take part in this celebration. 

The lecture was a great addition to Francis Week because it highlighted the importance of the Franciscan traditions in both the Siena community and the world at large. “With both compassion and imagination, we can imagine new ways to do just a little bit of repair work to help heal this broken world,” Dr. Schroeder concluded.