Portrait of Possibilities
Malea Schulte Richardson ’14 Establishes Fund in Honor of Susan Vanek ’70
By Tess Hayes '25
Malea Schulte Richardson ’14 recalls vividly the moment she arrived at Saint Mary’s College for the first time during the spring of her senior year of high school. Surrounded by magnolia trees in full bloom, “The College was framed by the stunning architecture, and the students I met were articulate and engaged. The campus felt like home,” she remembers.
Armed with a generous scholarship, Richardson felt Saint Mary’s was an institution that took seriously the formation of both intellect and character. At age 18, that mattered to her. That first visit would forever shape the Iowa farm girl’s worldview.
Upon her arrival, Richardson auditioned for the Women's Choir. One of the first things Nancy Menk, the Mary Lou and Judd Leighton Chair of Music, asked her was: “Do you have a passport? We’re going on tour.” She didn’t, but once she obtained one, Richardson travelled with Menk and the rest of the Women's Choir to China. Later, she studied abroad in Rome, then travelled to Kigali, Rwanda with a women’s delegation. After Saint Mary’s, she earned her MBA from the University of Oxford, where she met her husband, Aidan Richardson.
A decade later, Richardson and her husband established the Susan Vanek Experiential Learning Fund, a tangible form of their beliefs in action. As part of the College’s Ring Out Ring True comprehensive campaign, the Susan Vanek Experiential Learning Fund will provide support for costs associated with the transformational, hands-on learning experiences like those that shaped Richardson.
Susan Vanek ’70 worked at Saint Mary’s for 44 years. At the time of her retirement in 2018, she was the Associate Dean for Advising and Director of First-Year Studies. Richardson first met Vanek a few weeks into her first year at Saint Mary’s. With a demanding course load, Richardson entered Vanek’s office with the intention to drop two of her courses. As her advisor, Vanek took the time to help Richardson see that not only could she handle the course load, she could succeed. “She was right,” Richardson said. “She had a way of instilling confidence.”
Richardson continued to seek out advice from Vanek throughout her undergraduate years; their relationship is one of the most important of Richardson’s time at the College. “When I called her to describe the fund and ask if we could name it in her honor,” Richardson explained, “[Vanek] said, ‘This is exactly what I wanted all our students to achieve in their Saint Mary’s education—a strong liberal arts foundation coupled with the opportunity for meaningful experiences outside the classroom.’”
The Richardsons agree that since 1844, Saint Mary’s has lived up to its promise of promoting rigorous, liberal arts academics, experiential learning, and moral and ethical formation. The Susan Vanek Experiential Learning Fund affirms and supports this promise. Their hope for it is simple: create access. Future generations of Saint Mary’s students will gain confidence, perspective, and leadership skills with greater support for learning outside of the classroom.
Malea Richardson believes that in today’s AI-driven world, having the ability to think critically and ask the right questions is becoming increasingly important. “If you want to shape the future, you need to invest in the leaders who will build it, and in the institutions that will form them. Saint Mary’s core ethos—that you cannot educate the mind at the expense of the heart—feels especially relevant now,” she says.
I hope this fund will make it possible for generations of women to find their own purpose and fulfillment.
- Malea Schulte Richardson ’14
Experiential learning is a growing part of the academic journey for Saint Mary's students, and is built into the curriculum-to-career pathway known as the Avenue Experience. Students who participate in internships, study abroad programs, professional conferences, and research are better prepared for life after college, and often have better outcomes. While the majority of SMC students participate in at least one professional preparation experience during their four years, the goal through the Avenue Experience is for every student to have multiple high-impact opportunities.
While studying art and mathematics on her own academic journey, Richardson enjoyed a busy extracurricular calendar with the Women's Choir, Bellacappella, and the Friends with Sisters program. She also began exploring leadership opportunities through the Intercultural Leadership program, and working as a Resident Advisor. Ultimately, she was elected to the College’s Board of Trustees as Student Trustee her senior year, and was given the Outstanding Senior Award. For her senior comprehensive project in the art department, Richardson created an installation called Storybank. She painted 26 portraits of Saint Mary’s community members, ranging from students, faculty, staff, Sisters of the Holy Cross, and trustees.
A Non-Linear Path
Richardson’s road to career success was propelled by her liberal arts education, but also came with several twists and turns, a fact that partially inspired the couples’ gift to Saint Mary’s. If Richardson could do it all over again, she would have spent more time exploring opportunities, such as internships through the career center, saying, “that kind of experiential exposure is now more built in the curriculum, which is a great evolution.”
After graduating, Richardson went to the East Coast exploring a Master of Fine Arts program. “Ultimately, it wasn’t the right fit, and at the time, leaving felt like a failure; but it was actually the pivot I needed.” She moved to Silicon Valley and joined the Service Excellence team at Stanford University, where she learned human-centered design and innovation methodologies from leaders trained at Apple and Google. It was that experience that led her to pursue an MBA at Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Oxford University is home to the oldest library in the English-speaking world, the Bodleian Library, holding over 13 million books in print. Aidan remembers, “Malea was intent on finding this book about a nun, deep in the library. She searched for weeks. Apparently, a Sister of the Holy Cross had studied at Oxford, so she was on a mission to find her biography. And then she finally found it, and was so excited when she checked it out.” The book Richardson was searching for was Professor Emerita Gail Porter Mandell’s Madeleva: A Biography, which contains a chapter on Madeleva’s European sojourn, and her whimsical discovery and experience of the Bodleian Library.
He remembers wondering, “Of all the books in the world—in this library—why this one?” Malea explained the book’s importance to her, as well as how important it was for her to visit a piece of her “home” away from home.
Aidan has visited Saint Mary’s twice since marrying Malea. “What’s important to Malea is important to me. This fund is one of the ways our family will continue to give back to Saint Mary’s.” The Richardsons advise students to stay curious and follow their interests—even if they do not necessarily seem practical at the time—and to seek out experiences beyond the classroom to complement the robust academic rigor at Saint Mary’s.
Today, Richardson is Vice President of Strategy at a Canadian AI company, and serves on the Board of the National Portrait Gallery. Richardson reflects, “The path of discovery that started at Saint Mary’s and was encouraged by Susan Vanek ultimately led me back to my passions for math, science, and art. I hope this fund will make it possible for generations of women to find their own purpose and fulfillment.”
April 30, 2026