What's Happening

February 15, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – Composting, recycling, and worms – those are some of the elements of the sustainability efforts at the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse Campus and the focus of the sustainability update presented by Sister Corinne Sanders, OP, Director of Sustainability. 

Living more sustainability is the focus of one of four Enactments approved by delegates at the Adrian Dominican Congregation’s 2016 General Chapter. The Sustainability Enactment calls on the Sisters as a Congregation and as individuals to “sacrifice to mitigate significantly our impact on climate change and ecological degradation.” 

Sister Corinne spoke in particular of efforts by the Sisters to recycle when possible, and to compost organic material. Through the services of Key Green Solutions, the Congregation is able to track how much of its waste goes to the landfill or is recycled or composted, she said. This tracking system revealed that during the 2018 calendar year, some 85 percent of the waste from the Motherhouse campus went to the landfill. This benchmark could motivate Sisters and Co-workers on campus to focus more on recycling and composting to reduce the amount of waste that goes to the landfill, Sister Corinne said.

Weber Retreat and Conference Center is systematically increasing the practice of composting on the Motherhouse Campus by providing plates, cups, and napkins made of compostable material. Sister Corinne added that the best way to cut down on waste, however, is to use the ceramic mugs available at Weber Center’s coffee station.

During much of the presentation, questions about specific practices in recycling and composting were raised as people on campus strive to live more sustainably. Living sustainably “takes a lot of creativity, a lot of thinking, and a lot of changed behavior,” Sister Corinne acknowledged.

On a lighter note, Sister Corinne noted the success of the Congregation’s efforts to compost through the vermiculture process, in which worms help to break down compostable material. The Motherhouse campus now hosts 150,000 worms in its composting bin, an intergenerational community.

February 10, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – Violinist Jillienne Bowers, MM, joins Sister Magdalena Ezoe, OP, pianist, in a concert at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, March 3, 2019. Part of the First Sunday Music Series offered by Sister Magdalena, the concert is held at St. Catherine Chapel on the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse Campus, 1257 E. Siena Heights Drive, Adrian. 

The concert features Romance in F major by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827); “Song of India” from the opera Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908); selected violin pieces by Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962); and Czardas by Vittorio Monti (1868-1922). 

Jillienne Bowers, MM, is Director of the Youth Symphony Orchestra and an Adjunct Professor of Violin/Viola at Siena Heights University in Adrian. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree in music from the University of Boston. Trained in the Suzuki method of teaching music, she teaches 18 violin students in her private studio, directs the String Department at Lenawee Christian Schools, and for the past 18 years has held a full-time position in the first violin section of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Tokyo, Sister Magdalena came to the United States to study at Barry College (now University) in Miami, Florida, where she met and later joined the Adrian Dominican Sisters. She taught music for 37 years at Siena Heights University and has composed parts for the Catholic Mass, hymns, chamber music, and music for the organ and the piano. 

All are welcome to this free concert.