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Ursuline News

A Letter From the Principal

Dear Ursuline Families,

Have you ever experienced just the right moment when you least expected it or even knew you needed it? I try to recognize when those beautiful gifts drop into my life.

On January 5, we welcomed alumnae from recent years for a Back to Campus Lunch. This is always a lovely day, and this year, in that moment of returning from break and readying for the upcoming semester, the day felt especially profound. I told several of our dear alumnae that it felt like Christmas every time I turned a corner. Their faces – their stories – their love and excitement for Ursuline – it was truly energizing! Some of these young women had not been back for years due to COVID-19 restrictions. And, their masks could not hide their joy and connectedness.

Four years is a short amount of time, truly, and when our students – and their parents! – come back, it is a gift. The gift is in seeing their growth and knowing they are out there in the world already making it better. The gift is the comfort of knowing that the pandemic did not break the links of sisterhood here at Ursuline that span back to 1874. The gift is the reminder that what we do here has longer results than we may remember when we are in the thick of daily high school life.

I had the privilege of being educated by the Religious of the Sacred Heart in Houston, and one of the most prominent Sisters in their history was Janet Erskine Stuart, rscj. A quote she left us with resonates for me every time I consider what happens in these life-shaping educational years:

So we must remember that it is better to begin a great work than to finish a small one... A piece of finished insignificance is no true success... Our education is not meant to turn the children out small and finished, but seriously begun on a wide basis. Therefore they must leave us with some self-knowledge, some energy, some purpose…. If they leave us without these three things they drift with the stream of life.

Spending time with our alumnae affirmed for me that they really do keep growing and learning, and that the seeds planted come to fruit in their own time. (I know that is what my teachers would say about me!)  I love the arc of life we are invited to see by being part of Ursuline Academy of Dallas. We meet our students in eighth grade, welcome them as freshmen, walk with them for four years, and then send them off as graduates. And when they come back and tell us about their adventures, it’s the absolute best.

Thank you for the gift of your daughters!

Dr. Andrea Shurley
Principal