Summer 2021 Magazine

While laying out this Summer 2021 issue, we realized something: we were tired of the shadow cast by the pandemic and were longing for new beginnings and the optimism that comes with them. We wanted to see photos of University Chaplain Sharon Kugler tying notes of encouragement to blow-up pink flamingos; we wanted to see our students studying in the Golden Center and the wider STM community worshipping in-person at Mass. Maybe you’re also feeling a bit of that longing too.

Thank goodness then for new openings—whether they be spring cherry blossoms opening in the Riggs Garden or our graduate leaders walking into our open Chapel doors to celebrate in-person Baccalaureate. New openings allow for points of release and spaces for potential joy. And that is exactly what this issue explores: openings. We’re so proud of our graduates, to whom this Summer 2021 issue is dedicated. Though their time at Yale is over, their future is now open for them to take what they have learned and change the world.

A gift from the Mary Field and Vincent DeP. Goubeau Charitable Trust has opened up new possibilities for STM to explore women’s contributions to the Church. While this past April, Reverend Ricky Manolo re-opened the first floor of the Golden Center to live music for STM’s Rev. Richard Russell Lecture on Asian Heritage. And openings also pertain to new ways of relating to others, like finding places for empathy in the law, as the Honorable Raymond J. Lohier, Jr. taught us in his Calabresi Fellowship in Religion & Law.

So, we hope that as you “open” the rest of this magazine you also find optimism in the ways that our STM community is slowly but joyfully beginning to transition from being a pandemic ministry to being one that ministered during a pandemic.

Robin McShane

Director of Development & Communications