Starting to get back into stride after taking a few days off following the virtual marathon last week, I went for a chilly morning run around the neighborhood. Running beneath a 50WomenAtYale150 banner on Chapel Street I was reminded that we are reaching the culmination of the year commemorating 50 years of coeducation in Yale College and 150 years of women at Yale. In a Yale Daily News article from last SepteRmber, University Archivist Michael Lotstein commented on the then administrators’ decision to include women in Yale College: “they believed quite strongly that Yale as an academic institution needed women to be a member of the student body because Yale was losing out on an opportunity to bring the best of the best as far as potential students to Yale, regardless of gender.”

As I ran, I couldn’t imagine this place—or STM—without the talented and faithful women and men who make up our community, and, who are training to not only be leaders in their fields, but leaders in the Church.

Creating places of equality has been on my mind since yesterday, when I spoke with fellow runner, Sarah Woodford, the Director of the Vincent Library here at STM, as she reflected on her experience running a virtual 10k around New Haven last Friday evening. Her race benefited Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, MA. Apparently the nineteenth-century novelist, most well-known for her book, Little Women, was quite the runner—even once likening herself to a deer or a horse for the sheer joy and experience of freedom it gave her. Alcott ran at a time when, as Sarah commented, “such a habit was considered ‘unladylike.’” “And yet,” she continued, “Louisa had parents who strongly believed that strenuous physical exercise should be coeducational and encouraged her. This encouragement turned her into a life-long advocate for women to join in and fully participate in the joy and freedom of a daily run.”

Right around the time that Sarah would have finished her race last Friday, the world learned of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Notorious RBG, who fought hard for equality and social justice—not only for women, but for all people—even unto her death. “It was a bittersweet moment for me,” Sarah said, “I had just achieved a PR in overall race time and was feeling very grateful for the advocacy and example of Louisa…and then I learned of RBG’s death. She was a hero of mine and the loss of her is immense. And yet in that moment, I felt a strong conviction to honor both RBG’s and Louisa’s legacies by finding even more ways to fight for equality and social justice in my community.”

I also felt gratitude for those who fought for equality and social justice as I continued down Chapel Street. And, found myself saying a prayer that such gratitude would, in turn, continue to spark action.