In 1840, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, was just a hamlet. Five years before, Joseph Thralls acquired a significant parcel of land from a land grant initially established by Andrew Jackson that George and Polly Smith had acquired in 1825. In 1838, Thralls and his wife, Polly, sold a portion of that land to Bishop Simon Bruté of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vincennes for $15 to establish a Catholic mission for Vigo County. When Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and her five companions arrived from France, the land was a dense forest with a log cabin and a few other small buildings. This spot was where she was to establish the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and an institution of learning for young women, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.
Fast forward 182 years, and for many, SMWC has only recently been viewed as an international institution resulting from memorandum-of-understanding agreements with other colleges worldwide and the launch of the College’s first doctoral degree, a Ph.D. in Global Leadership. But according to Kim LaComba, Ph.D., assistant professor of global leadership at SMWC, The Woods has had an international reflection from the beginning.
LaComba has been mulling over the idea of a project to showcase the international connections at The Woods for some time. Earlier in the fall, she saw a chance to create a graduate student-faculty research project with some Ph.D. in Global Leadership students. The project will help students that participate in fulfilling the residency component of the program.
“I wanted to share with the world that The Woods has been international since our foundresses, Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and her companions, arrived from France in 1840. From that moment on, we have not stopped being global between the Sisters of Providence and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College,” said LaComba. “We take our international status for granted because being international is who we are.”
The combined campus of the Sisters of Providence and SMWC has 66 buildings, sites, structures and objects listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The group wanted to expand on interest in the historic district to create a walking tour/virtual tour of the representation of the world on the campus. The project, The World Reflected At The Woods, consisted of a tour and it was launched during International Education Week, which started November 14.
Just over a month ago, LaComba and some of the students that were working on the project met on campus for a half-day to tour the campus through a global lens. They began at The Shrine of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, and Sister Jan Craven helped the group understand the history and the architecture of some of the buildings through a global lens. The group toured the entire campus and several buildings belonging to the sisters and The College to find international items. “It was exciting looking at different artifacts and paintings and scouring them to determine where they came from,” explained LaComba.
Later on, the students met virtually with LaComba to sort through an extensive list of items they found during their tour. The list grew to over 100 and was themed and reviewed to determine the items to feature on the tour. “We filtered the list through the view of education using a global lens. We could not share certain things because the pieces were not open to the public right now but could be in the future,” LaComba said.
Marianna Foulkrod, an international student in the doctoral program originally from Cypress, appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the campus and the countries represented. “I was amazed by how the world’s diversity is represented here at The Woods,” she said.
Ph.D. student Emilee Roberts was surprised at the amount of culture on campus. “There is such a rich history here that many people from this area don’t know. We hope people will download the app, participate in the tour and enjoy.”
LaComba spent much time in the newly combined archives for the sisters and the College which supplied documents, history and artifacts. “We are very grateful to Sister Janet Gilligan, the archivist for the sisters and Alice Quinlan, the archivist for the College, for their help in this project.” In the lobby of the archives located on the lower level of the Rooney Library, display cases showcase items that the group found during their search. “The display case is just a sampling of the thousands of items we could have pulled,” said LaComba. The display case includes items that highlight global connections of the world at The Woods, such as the original daguerreotype (photograph) of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin. On the wall hangs The Woodsies of the World map, which highlights more than 70 countries that alums of The Woods represent.
Karen Dyer, a Ph.D. student, who worked on the project was grateful to see it come together with such a full display for the tour. “We found more than we could put on our tour map. There are so many connections that we have throughout the world.”
Connections that are part of the tour include a musical organ from a World’s Fair, marble structures from Africa and Europe, stained glass windows made in Germany, sculptures and art from Italy, Vietnam, Taiwan, France and other places around the world. The group even added a page of international music connected to The Woods for the web visitors.
An item they realized was essential to The Woods’ history in creating world connections was the train station that was located across from the main entrance of the campus. Saint Mother Theodore Guerin had advocated for that location, understanding the connection it would create for people coming to The Woods and for the people of The Woods as they went into the world.
Doctoral student Kristen Merchant is excited about the tour she helped create during this project. “We did this in an incredibly short period of time. We created this tour so that people coming to campus or just downloading the app and touring virtually can learn about the different artifacts and architecture from the different international influences.”
The tour was created using PocketSights and is available on the SMWC website and can be downloaded in the App store and Android Apps on Google Play or downloaded to your computer.
LaComba is pleased with how the project turned out. She was speechless when she first saw the original photo image of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and was amazed by the map showing the countries represented by alums. “It was impressive to see the map quantify the number of countries that Woodsies have populated.”
LaComba and the students agreed that choosing what to include was a challenging task and the tour highlights just a tiny portion of the thousands of items that The Woods has linking the campus to the world throughout its history.
In just over four weeks, the group listed, categorized and themed the pieces designated to show the global connections. The PocketSites tour was created and launched just before the start of International Education Week. “This was really a collaborative effort bringing in faculty, students, staff and sisters,” LaComba said about the finished product.