Saint Mary's School Blogs

In Tuesday's Election Day Chapel, Dean Healy reflected on what Election Day means to him.

Today is a special day for me. Election Day always has been filled with great memories. One of the earliest and few memories I have of my parents working together involve painting and building yard signs for my father’s town council races in upstate New York. Then there was always the excitement of Election Day itself. My parents would let me go to the polls with them and vote on their behalf. As you can imagine at four years old, pulling a lever next to your father’s name was exciting. Then there was the excitement of voting in a presidential election for the first time. The 2000 primary was the first time I was able to vote for a presidential candidate, made even better by the fact it was for someone who became a real political hero for me and with whom I eventually spent time. 

Each and every one of us sees the world through a lens that has been shaped by our own experiences, and if we really listen to each other with curiosity and compassion, we can start to see greater complexity in our world. One scene in our summer reading novel, Piecing Me Together by Reneé Watson, really demonstrated how we might experience the same situation differently. The novel centers the experiences of Jade, a Black junior at a predominantly white private school in Portland, Oregon.

International student and Saint Mary's senior Katie Wang '21, shares her experience in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog first appeared in the student newspaper The Belles in October 2020.

I was in a public high school in Southport before coming to Saint Mary’s School, and I was not accepted by other students as I was the only international student in the school. So, my junior year at Saint Mary’s has been really special to me. As a new student from a different country, I felt the warmness when my roommate sent me a video with many people saying happy birthday to me on the first day of the school's Welcome Week. I felt that I was included in this community, and Saint Mary’s was like a second home to me. However, when I thought everything was going to settle down, the coronavirus started.