After Brescia’s Centennial celebrations on January 27, 2019, faculty are looking ahead to the next century.
Colleen Aguilar is the Director of Communications and External Relations at Brescia University College. She says the celebrations aimed to symbolize the leadership and empowerment that run deeply at Brescia. “One of my big roles was to organize Homecoming, so I spent a lot of time with the anniversary classes, which at that time were the classes of 1950, 1955, 1960, and 1965,” she says.
Aguilar continues, as she says: “The theme that resonated in many of those classes with many of those alumnae was the impact that the Ursuline sisters had on them. In those days, upwards of 40 and 50 years ago, many of the Ursulines actually lived on campus. So, when the young women were dropped off here by their parents, they really were taken in to a home, not just an educational institution.”
Back when Brescia was founded in 1919, Aguilar says it was unique, as Canada’s only women’s University. “Not just in the sense that it stood atop a big, beautiful hill, but it educated women beyond the boundaries of other institutions,” she explains. “That theme resonated to the point when I was congratulating the graduation class of 2010; those same statements came out but in a different version. They would say: “I wanted to lead but I didn’t know how. I know now that I am a bold Brescia student.” So, the same words were spoken that spanned literally half a century between graduates.”
Contract faculty member and Brescia alum, Sara Michelle Weinman has similar feelings towards the institution. She feels that the community’s diversity contributes to a rewarding experience. “Having students at all stages of life, whether they’re new out of high school or they’re coming back as a second or third career, it adds to the vibrancy,” she says. “That’s something that I value here at Brescia. Whenever you open up a conversation, people have so many different perspectives, and that adds to such rich debate and rich conversation, and it benefits us all. I learn something new every day.”
Hear more from Colleen Aguilar in the video below.
