As the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism marks its 50th anniversary, a highlight of the year will be the 13th triennial Conference on the History of Women Religious (CHWR), scheduled for June 22–25, 2025. Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Spirituality at Saint Mary’s College, the next CHWR will be a special occasion to remember, celebrate, and look ahead to the future. Since its last gathering in June 2022, the CHWR community mourned the passing of its founding coordinator, Sister Karen Kennelly, C.S.J. (1933–2023). At the same time, the long-running conference has secured dedicated, long-term support.
CHWR and the Cushwa Center: A graced history
On October 2, 1987, the Cushwa Center, with support from the Lilly Endowment, hosted a highly anticipated colloquium, The History of Women Religious in the United States, which spurred Sister Karen and a team of collaborators to launch History of Women Religious News and Notes and to announce the first CHWR for June 1989 at the College of St. Catherine. Every three years since then, researchers, archivists, and women religious have gathered at a Catholic college or university in the United States to share scholarship, celebrate achievements, and chart new directions in the study of Catholic vowed women’s history.
In 2007, the Cushwa Center and Notre Dame hosted CHWR for the first time on the initiative of Kathleen Sprows Cummings, then the center’s associate director. In the early 2010s, as Sister Karen stepped back from leadership, the coordination of CHWR moved forward under the Cushwa Center’s auspices, with the help of external steering committees and dedicated collaborators including Diane Batts Morrow, Carol Coburn, Mary Ewens, O.P., Margaret McGuinness, Mary Oates, C.S.J., Catherine Osborne, Thomas Rzeznik, Elizabeth Smyth, and Judith Sutera, O.S.B.
During Cummings’ directorship (2012–2023), the Cushwa Center co-hosted CHWR with Santa Clara University (2016) and Saint Mary’s College (2019) and welcomed the 12th triennial conference back to Notre Dame in 2022. Cummings also convened several other events dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of women religious, and took the effort abroad to Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Italy.
Building a legacy
As Cummings looked to the future of CHWR beyond her tenure at Cushwa, she and collaborators at Notre Dame worked to ensure the conference’s continued vitality. In 2018, thanks to a gift from Anita McMahon, the Cushwa Center launched the Mother Theodore Guerin Research Travel Grant Program to support projects on Catholic women in modern history.
Now, as the 13th triennial CHWR approaches, the Cushwa Center is deeply grateful to share that CHWR has a bright future thanks to the generosity of the McAlee and Woodward families—each inspired by Catholic sisters as well as by Cummings’ tireless work in telling their stories.
Thomas and Laura Woodward of West Chester, Pennsylvania, have established the Woodward Family Endowment to sustain and expand CHWR’s legacy. Longtime supporters of Notre Dame, the Woodwards have enabled undergraduate research through the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, summer research internships with NDnano, and various initiatives through the IDEA Center. Most recently, they helped establish lab space for the College of Science’s newly established Professor for Public Understanding of Science, an appointment held by Dr. Kate Biberdorf (also popularly known as “Kate the Chemist”). The Cushwa Center is honored to be able to carry CHWR forward thanks to the Woodwards’ remarkable generosity.
In the spring 2025 American Catholic Studies Newsletter, Kathleen Cummings offers her own tribute, “Full Circle with Sister Lucy,” sharing how it came about that Larry and Michele McAlee endowed a fund at the University of Notre Dame in honor of Sister of Mercy Lucy Schluth. The future of CHWR owes much to Sister Lucy, the McAlees, the Woodwards, and to Cummings’ leadership. Readers may preview the next conference schedule and may register by visiting cushwa.nd.edu/chwr2025.
This article appears in the spring 2025 issue of the American Catholic Studies Newsletter.