A long career in education will end next year. Sister Joan Lescinski will retire after serving as president of Saint Ambrose University for 14 years.
"Actually from the time I can remember, that takes you back to maybe four or five years old, I have always wanted to be in education. Teachers in my mind, and I think I got this from my parents, are some of the most important people in the world. Like parents they pass on the wisdom of the ages to the new generation so teachers have always been, from my perspective, probably the most holy of vocations after parenting. And since as a member of a religious community I was not going to be involved in parenting, I knew I wanted to be involved in education."
So when she joined the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1965, she started teaching - first at an inner city high school in New York - and loved it.
"But after a couple of years I got a call from one of my religious superiors that said pack you trunk and we're going to have you go get some advanced degrees because we think you should be teaching at the college level. Frankly I was terrified at the notion and heartbroken really because I loved what I was doing. But I went and I got a Master's and a Ph.D. and the day I walked in a college classroom, as I often say to people, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I realized I was in the place, working with the age level, I was meant to work with."
Teaching eventually gave way to administration, and Sister Joan came to St. Ambrose in 2007, with each stop at a Catholic college.
"I've chosen to stay in Catholic higher education because I believe in it. Obviously our student body is made up of students, as is our faculty and staff, from a variety of religious traditions, but all of it here is based on a belief that faith and reason can work together, not in opposition to each other. So I always wanted to work in a higher educational institution where that belief was shared across the institution."
By some standard metrics her tenure at St. Ambrose has been a success - more than 80 million dollars has been spent on renovation and new construction on the campus, and the endowment has risen from 90 million to 170 million dollars.
But she's also proud of the academic improvements.
"For instance, I'll use the example of a graduate one in physician assistant, or an undergraduate one in social work - these are programs that students are flocking to because we had done our testing, the marketing studies, to see what is it that people today are saying we need education in."
She'll turn 74 next year and decided that would be a good time to retire even though the university and her religious order do not have mandatory retirement ages.
"In American higher education today, often people serve anywhere from four to six years and that's a typical tenure now. So I've been very blessed by the time I've finished to have had 14 years here, and I finished a presidency for nine years prior to coming here, so it's time I think to hand this on to the next person. I feel very good about what we've been doing here but it's just one of those things where you say okay, time for the next person - not for health, not for mandatory retirement, and certainly not becuase the board or anyone has been encouraging me to do that, simply because I believe it's time."
In retirement Sister Joan plans to do volunteer work, including teaching English as a second language, and has agreed to help the new Saint Ambrose president for up to one year. Then she will likely move back to upstate New York where her religious order is based.
