A Note From the Cloakroom: An Avenue for the Arts Saint Mary’s College has two entrances on the east side of campus. The road that enters the campus by the Inn at Saint Mary’s is Brother Andre Drive. The main entrance, a little further to the south, is a tree lined road known simply as The Avenue. It is a polite nod to the history of the College and a view that carries meaning, memory and sentiment for most alumnae. In Tune With the Traditions of the Season The season of Christmas brings with it a chance to bask in the warm embrace of music and reflect on what is holy. President Katie Conboy shares the musical moments that have lifted her heart and mind this holiday. Saint Mary’s Community Gives Back The Saint Mary’s College Office for the Common Good (OCG) is taking the stress off of South Bend residents this holiday season. As Christmas draws near, the office has answered the call to support those in need by participating in the annual Adopt-a-Family program. Through the support of faculty, staff, and students, the office ensured 103 people in the local community will have gifts under their tree on Christmas morning. SMC Talks Brings Alumnae Together The Alumnae Association Board of Directors’ mission is to provide volunteer leadership for the alumnae community of Saint Mary’s College, and to promote opportunities for alumnae to connect. Promoting connection among alumnae from across the country and around the world has always been a challenge but never more so than when the pandemic began in 2020. Avenue News In this issue's Avenue News, check out what's been happening on campus, like the new Le Mans Patio, the naming of a new Vice President for Mission, and learn about our expanded Summer Camp offerings. Jill Lepore Talks Democratic Process Jill Lepore, Ph.D. wears many hats: author, essayist, staff writer for The New Yorker, professor at Harvard University, podcast host, and most recently, the 2022 Christian Culture Lecture speaker at Saint Mary’s. 100 Years of Educating the Educator Saint Mary’s first awarded diplomas in education in 1923. That year just four students completed their Bachelor of Philosophy in Education. One hundred years later, the Education Department at Saint Mary’s College is in a far different place. Expanding Our Worldviews - My Experience at the Border The sidewalks of Brownsville, Texas, were crowded as a group of students pulled wagons full of blankets, toiletries, and cooking ingredients toward the border checkpoint into Matamoros, Mexico. Once through, the sidewalk suddenly gave way to rocky dirt. They didn’t stop to buy candy from the children who ran up to them, because they had used their change to pay the border toll. Tents—dozens of them in every direction—made it clear they had reached their destination. This ‘tent city’ was flanked by a fence on one side and a river on the other; laundry strung along its bank. Residents used water to turn the dusty dirt into clay to make simple ovens. It was here where the students delivered their wagons, full of ingredients like salt, cooking oil, and flour to the 2,000 people who were living there indefinitely, waiting for information about their asylum status. Launching Generations of SMC Researchers In her lab at University of Colorado Denver, Mary Bevilacqua ’13 is facing a challenge.How can global-health engineering teams and industry personnel in low-resource environments effectively create biomedical devices to meet the specific needs of their communities? How can the available technology be adapted to work for them? The questions are not easy, but the answers are there—and Bevilacqua is poised to find them.