Tribute and Farewell to Sr. Nancy Hawkins, IHM, Ph.D.

It is with a very heavy heart that I announce that our beloved Sr. Nancy Hawkins, IHM, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, has decided to take up a new position at Marywood University in Scranton, PA.

Marywood was founded in 1915 by her order, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They still operate the University and have welcomed her into its Religious Studies department as an Associate Professor. In addition to this, Nancy will also be working with the order as the Coordinator of IHM Mission and Charism.

Sr. Nancy studied French at Marywood College and received a Master’s in Systematic Theology at Duquesne University and a Doctorate from Fordham University. She joined the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1978, after spending time around the order during her undergraduate years. She has published articles on the theology of Dorothee Sölle and Meister Eckhart, and her areas of research are the mystics, the theology of suffering, and the spiritual concept of the void.

Sr. Nancy has taught hundreds of students over the course of her 45-year career: from theology and French language at the elementary and high school levels to Master’s students in theology at St. Bernard’s. She has been a cornerstone of our community for the last 21 years, over the course of which she has brought her love of teaching and advising to our School, both inside and outside of our classrooms. She is a brilliant teacher and has dedicated her life to sharing knowledge and wisdom with her students and advisees, many of whom have gone on to become ordained deacons and lay ministers in the local dioceses and beyond. She has taught classes in Catholic Social Thought, Spiritual Formation, the Trinity, the Theology of Suffering, and Discernment (to name a few) and spent many years traveling to and from Syracuse to teach St. Bernard’s classes at Lemoyne College. Sr. Nancy has meant so much to our School community; while we are elated at the opportunity presented to her to be physically closer to her community and the work that she will be doing, we are most deflated (to say the very least) at her departure from our community.

We cannot begin to express the debt we owe Sr. Nancy for her decades of loving service to St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry. She will be missed greatly and lovingly by all of us. If you would like to submit a note, message, memory, and/or picture(s) of your time with Sr. Nancy, please feel free to do so via this form. We will be compiling these messages as a gift for Sr. Nancy to take with her to Marywood when she departs Rochester in June.

Please join me in praying for Sr. Nancy as she moves into this next phase of her life of service on behalf of God and the Church!