At noon each weekday, a group of unhoused people appear at the front gate of the Generalate of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Rome. Some days there are two; other days there are as many as 12. One calls the reception desk and indicates how many are gathered outside at the gate. Once the call is received, Sister Eileen Ennis works with other sisters to prepare a meal for them.
A longtime statistics professor in the College of Business Administration, Sister Ennis now forms part of the staff maintaining the international headquarters of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the religious congregation to which she belongs.
Multiple trips to the airport per day, grocery shopping and managing the recycling are just a few of the tasks that make up Sister Ennis’ daily routine. Hospitality is a major ministry of all sisters who live at the Generalate, a gathering place for various international groups who promote the mission of the sisters.
Sister Ennis first lived in Rome more than 25 years ago. A sister who knew Sister Ennis’ work on a congregational magazine in Milwaukee thought she would be a good fit for a new communication office abroad, prompting Sister Ennis to leave her teaching position and travel to Rome. The multiple languages used throughout the congregation provided a real learning experience and challenge.
“These were the days before Google Translate and email was just emerging,” she recalls. “I’d write reports or letters in English and another sister would translate into German, our two official languages. We would mail or fax our materials out to different areas of the congregation — North and South America, Japan, many countries in Europe and Africa — and they would translate it for their own sisters.”
When Sister Ennis returned to teaching statistics at Marquette, she believed in the value of students getting an education in intercultural awareness, much like she did. Joseph Terrian, assistant dean emeritus in the College of Business Administration, had similar thoughts.
“Students of all majors can gain an incredible amount from navigating unfamiliar situations abroad and learning to think globally about their profession. These are essential skills for today’s college graduate no matter what industry they go into,” Terrian says.
Terrian and Sister Ennis worked together to establish Marquette Business’ two-week summer study abroad course in Rome, an immersive academic, spiritual and cultural experience designed to familiarize students with conducting business abroad. Students would hear a visiting professor from a local university lecture in the morning, visit a sixth-generation gelato maker in the afternoon and eat dinner at a local trattoria in the evening. Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica with a Jesuit priest, a visit to the Colosseum and chats with students at a local fashion academy are widely regarded as program highlights.
Between sips of local wine and walks through the Trastevere neighborhood’s winding alleys, students learn to navigate a place where not everyone speaks English, and hardly anyone views the world the same way they do.
“I would encourage every student to do an abroad experience, because you need to get out of your comfort zone and experience people who live differently,” Sister Ennis says. “In my house, we have varying languages, customs and even spiritualities that reflect the different cultures we all come from. I can’t take the things for granted that I could when interacting with my sisters in America. That’s something students need to grapple with.”
Although Sister Ennis retired from Marquette more than a year ago, seeing students exploring her city reminds her of the many days she spent with them in Milwaukee. Sister Ennis found them “respectful, cooperative and appreciative” in class, if a little too glued to their phones on occasion. (“That was always a fight in the classroom,” she remembers with a laugh.) She also believes the society that modern day students are entering is more complex than the one that existed when she first started teaching.
“There’s a flood of information coming at us every moment of every day, and they have to process all that information and separate truth from fiction,” Sister Ennis says. “It’s hard.”
Passersby still recognize her Marquette shirts sometimes while she’s at the airport when she’s picking up a visitor, and she still gets to feel connected to her alma mater when the students arrive every summer.
“Life really comes full circle sometimes,” Sister Ennis laughs.
