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Adrian, Michigan, May 30, 2025 – Seven students from Siena Heights University in Adrian and eight students from Barry University in Miami, Florida, extended their learning beyond the spring semester, but not in classrooms or lecture halls. They were participating in the 2025 Environmental Leadership Experience (ELE) at the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse Campus. Both universities were founded and are sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Students in the ELE program learn about environmental sustainability practices and offer a significant service to the Adrian Dominican Sisters and the Congregation’s permaculture area.

During the week, May 12-17, 2025, the students planted 170 trees, cleared areas of the permaculture site of invasive plants, and took samples of pondwater to analyzed. The students also had time to study the vernal pool at nearby Heritage Park, tour the Motherhouse grounds and the nearby ProMedica Gardens, meet and speak with the Sisters formally and informally, experience the new Canopy Walk at Hidden Lake Gardens, and generally come to know one another through meals and other shared time.

The students came to the ELE with multiple levels of knowledge and experience in working the land, and with diverse majors: from environmental sciences and biology to child psychology, art, and nursing.
  
During the week, several students took time to discuss the highlights of their experience, what they had learned, and their hopes for applying what they learned to their future work or everyday lives.

“I’m becoming more environmentally conscious about how everything I do has an impact,” said Kaiden Moss-Moultrie, a Barry University student majoring in clinical laboratory science. “I hope to take this information back home to my friends and family so they can learn how they can affect the environment.” Kaiden also enjoyed the opportunity to get to know some of the Sisters and hopes to start a garden at home, using the techniques she learned at the ELE.

Many students were emotionally affected by their work in planting trees. “My highlight has been planting the trees, knowing that such a small plant can grow to be something bigger and that each of us are contributing to something greater for the Earth,” said Neissa Rousseau, a biology major at Barry University.

Zoe Ornelas, an art and biology major at Siena Heights University, was also struck by the impact of planting trees. “I feel like every time I plant a tree, a piece of me is with it,” she said. She was surprised to learn that tree roots slow down the erosion of the land around them.

As with past ELE participants, this year’s students met during the week with their university group to discuss the sustainability project they would bring back to their campus in the fall. 

The 2025 ELE program was organized and facilitated by Brad Frank, Director of the Office of Sustainability and Mike Walters and Brandon Howard from Permaculture. Sister Corinne Sanders, OP, General Council liaison to the Office of Sustainability, also facilitated the program and participated in every aspect during the week.  

Sister Corinne said the Environmental Leadership Experience began in 2017 when, during a sponsorship meeting, faculty members from Siena Heights University and Barry University brainstormed the idea of bringing students from their universities to the permaculture area of the Motherhouse for service and learning. This is the third year since the pause in the program during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. “It’s both a learning experience and, to be honest, a great service project to us.” 

 

Caption for above feature photo: As part of the 2025 Environmental Leadership Experience, students from Barry University in Miami and Siena Heights University in Adrian clear the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ permaculture site of invasive plants and weeds.

March 26, 2025, Chicago – Sister Jamie Phelps, OP, was honored in early March as Founding Director of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program. The program at Catholic Theological Union (CTU) provides Black Catholics with scholarships and professional and spiritual formation to serve Black Catholics in pastoral ministry.

The program is named after Venerable Father Augustus Tolton (1854-1897), the first recognized Black Catholic priest in the United States. He is among six prominent U.S. Black Catholics whose causes for canonization in the Catholic Church have been opened.

Sister Jamie completed her doctorate from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before becoming a Professor of Systematic Theology at CTU. “CTU is a graduate theology program that prepares men and women for mission all over the world,” she said. “When I came to CTU, I was delighted because it helped me translate my theological study into something that would help people in their involvement” in the Church’s mission. She served at CTU from 1986 to 1998.

Sister Jamie said she and others at CTU realized that few Black Catholics were involved in ministry among Black Catholic parishioners. The Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program was developed in collaboration with Father Donald Senior, President of CTU, and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who wanted a place to train Black Catholics in ministry.

“In order to encourage Black participation, we set up the Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program,” along with a scholarship program to provide for tuition and books, Sister Jamie said. “A lot of people were working in the parishes but didn’t have money for the program. I was interested in providing education that grounded them in Catholic theology.” 

Sister Jamie said the program offers a Master’s in Divinity (MDiv) as well as a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies (MAPS). The MAPS program had a pastoral component, requiring students to participate in practicums in the community and to write about their experience from a theological perspective. 

The goal, Sister Jamie said, was to help students “address the specific needs of Black Catholics in urban settings and to make sense of who God is and who Jesus is in the context of the Black community in the United States in particular.”

Over the years, Sister Jamie said, the program benefited the Black Catholic community. “They have priests, Sisters, and lay people doing more effective, theologically grounded ministry,” she said. Graduates of the program were trained to educate their parishioners about Jesus Christ.

“We developed the method of analysis that was not just left-brain but right-brain,” she explained. “How do you see yourself, your identity in your mission and in your ordinary life? You have to demonstrate your love for Jesus by loving your neighbor. This would compel you to be engaged in justice ministry … helping people to change their behavior to a right relationship with God, neighbor, and self.”

Sister Jamie said the 35th anniversary celebration included dinner and a recognition award for herself as founding director of the program. But she particularly enjoyed the celebration because it brought together former and current faculty members and students of the Tolton Program. “The real highlight for me was seeing [the Tolton Program’s] effects and meeting old colleagues from CTU,” as well as realizing the success of the program: the graduates made a positive impact on Church and society, she said.

During the celebration, she said, “My most profound rejoicing was to recognize that the founding of the Tolton Program was of God – because if it’s of God, it will grow. It has grown and continues to grow.” 

Read more about the celebration and the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program in this article in the Chicago Catholic.

 

Caption for above feature photo: Kim Lymore, Director of Catholic Theological Union’s Tolton Scholars Program, holds a photo of Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized Black Catholic priest in the United States. Seated in front of her are Sister Jamie Phelps, OP, center, with two current Tolton Scholars: Gardis Watts, left, and Kianda Boyd.
Photo Courtesy of Catholic Theological Union