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courtesy of
The Columbus Dispatch |
COLUMBUS – A celebrated community leader and one of the longest-serving
college presidents in Ohio has died.
Sister Mary Andrew Matesich, O.P., 66, died peacefully on Wednesday,
June 15, 2005, after an extended bout with breast cancer. Sister
Mary Andrew served as the president of Ohio Dominican College (now
Ohio Dominican University) for more than two decades. She was also
the author of numerous papers and presentations; a national and
international adviser on education; a civic and community leader;
a courageous breast cancer patient; and a woman of great faith,
a Sister dedicated to her vocation and to her community of Dominican
Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs.
Sister Mary Andrew was one of only a handful of women college presidents
in the country when she took office in 1978 at the age of 39. During
her 23-year term as president, she led the college through a period
of unprecedented growth and earned a reputation as a national advocate
for higher education and private colleges and universities. Her
dedication to the underserved motivated her to institute several
programs to bring educational opportunities to first generation
students including working adults and soldiers returning from service.
Under Sister Mary Andrew's leadership, the college:
- Grew its student body from 860 in 1978 to more than 2,100 in
2000.
- Became the first Central Ohio higher education institution to
offer weekend classes.
- Started the Village to Child program in 1994, a program that
provides mentoring, tutoring and college awareness programs for
middle school students living in the neighborhood surrounding
the ODU campus – the 43219 zip code area.
- Started the Learning Enhanced Adult Degree (LEAD) program, allowing
hundreds of working adults to earn a degree while balancing family
and job commitments.
- Initiated new majors to meet marketplace needs, including Accounting,
Computer Science and Criminal Justice.
- Transformed the learning environment through innovative technology
and faculty.
Sister Mary Andrew’s successor, Jack P. Calareso, Ph.D.,
became Ohio Dominican’s first l ay
and male president in May 2001.
“Sister Mary Andrew was an extraordinary leader, both at
the local and national levels,” said President Calareso. “While
her courageous struggle with cancer is over, her impact on Ohio
Dominican and Catholic higher education will last forever.”
”Sister Mary Andrew was a leader not only at Ohio Dominican
and in the larger community, but also within her congregation of
Dominican sisters,” said Sister Anne Kilbride, Prioress of
the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs. “She lived
her life dedicated to her faith and to the Dominican ideal of contemplating
the truth and sharing with others the fruits of that contemplation.”
Sister Mary Andrew was born in Zanesville and raised in Newark,
Ohio. She graduated from St. Francis DeSales High School, now Newark
Catholic High School, in 1957. At age 18, she entered the novitiate
and became a member of the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of
St. Mary of the Springs, the founders of the College of St. Mary
of the Springs, which was renamed Ohio Dominican College in 1968.
She graduated with honors with a B.A. in Chemistry from the College
of St. Mary of the Springs in 1962, and earned an M.S. and Ph.D.
in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, one
of few women at the time to earn a doctorate in a physical science.
In 1965, Sister Mary Andrew returned to Ohio Dominican as a faculty
member in the Chemistry Department, and was elevated to academic
dean in 1973. In 1978, she was named college president, a position
she held until her retirement in 2001.
Sister Mary Andrew was one of the first female members of the Columbus
Torch Club and the Columbus Rotary. She served as chair of the Ohio
Ethics Commission. A board member of United Way of Central Ohio,
Sister Mary Andrew worked diligently on behalf of its Race Relations
Committee. She was also active with the National Science Foundation.
She was a recipient of many awards, including the ODU Distinguished
Alumni/ae Award, the Presidential Leadership Award, the YWCA Women
of Achievement Award, the Columbus Foundation Award and the Henry
Paley National Award for Advocacy. In 2001, she was one of 18 women
inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. Sister Mary Andrew
celebrated her 45th Jubilee, the anniversary of when she originally
took her religious vows, in 2004.
She was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer when she was 54.
At age 59, the cancer returned. Her willingness to undergo experimental
breast cancer treatment at OSU’s Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital
was featured in a New York Times cover story in July 2004 and in
a feature article in Columbus Monthly in April 2005 and in numerous
other media. Sister Mary Andrew told the Times, “As a sister,
a member of a religious order, someone in a service capacity my
whole life, I want to continue to be of service to others. I wouldn’t
be alive today if other women hadn’t been in clinical trials.”
Even as Sister Mary Andrew struggled with physical challenges toward
the end of her life, her dedication remained. She was active in
her congregation, and in her spare time created beautiful handcrafts,
which she sold at St. Mary of the Springs, sending all proceeds
to help the people of El Salvador, where her sister Gigi Gruenke
serves as a Maryknoll lay missionary.
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To read Sr. Mary Andrew's obituary, please click here.
The following were presented at the funeral celebrations for Sr.
Mary Andrew Matesich on June 20-21, 2005 at both Ohio Dominican
University and St. Mary of the Springs.
The above files are all in PDF format, which can be viewed and
printed with with Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download this free program,
click here.
Memorial gifts in Sister Mary Andrew Matesich's
honor may be sent to Dominican Sisters, St. Mary of the Springs,
2320 Airport Drive, Columbus, OH 43219.
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