Ursuline’s annual Women In Leadership event welcomes successful and thriving alumnae back to campus to inspire and empower current students as they consider their futures and professional goals.
On the morning of Friday, March 8th, I walked into Angela Hall seeing my future reflected before me: a variety of successful Ursuline alumnae seated at the front. They came to discuss their careers and interests, and represented fields ranging from video games to interior design to pharmaceuticals. To honor International Women’s Day, alumnae from the classes of 1987 to 2015 visited Lowder Street to empower and inspire current Ursuline highschoolers.
The motivating morning started out with our keynote speaker, Krista Easterly ‘03, sharing her path to becoming a Senior Associate and Interior Designer at Sasaki. By sharing both humor and vulnerability, Easterly effortlessly related to her audience of high school students as they listened to her stories and perspectives. She began her speech by telling us about her Junior Prom date fiasco. Easterly’s date was no longer able to attend her prom due to a baseball game, and she was devastated. Nevertheless, with an Uncle Sam cardboard cut out and some glue, Easterly brought her date “flat stanley” style to the prom. Easterly creatively shifted the disappointing situation to bring joy to those around her, a skill which she uses throughout her career.
After graduating from UVM, Easterly was still mourning the death of her mother from a few short years before. This time of reflection and grief, however, allowed Easterly the opportunity to reassess her career. At this time, she entered into graduate school at Suffolk University and studied interior design. Easterly’s ability to redirect her path allowed the young adult to “take a sad song and make it better” as The Beatles sing in their song,“Hey Jude.” Throughout her career, Easterly has designed everything from airport nail salons to the “MIT of Mexico’s” new buildings. In fact, Easterly was the main coordinator of Ursuline’s cafeteria renovations. Easterly’s career is impressive, but the most captivating part of her speech appeared as she described how she was able to broaden her life and career lessons with elevated meaning and purpose. “The path of life is always under construction,” she says, and we are called to “embrace every moment of it.”
Ursuline students then split into breakout rooms to hear from esteemed alumnae representing a variety of fields and professions. My first breakout session featured Allison Leed Dybes, a Senior Group Leader of biophysics at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, a nonprofit research institute. With an inclination to innovate, Dybes entered college looking for a career that was hands-on and impactful. After graduating from Georgetown with a degree in biochemistry, she went on to study biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Talking with a room of hopeful scientists, Dybes described her complicated and inspiring work researching protein structures. Despite the stressful parts of her job, like strict deadlines for discoveries, Dybes appreciates working on hands-on projects that could change modern medicine. With a determined and focused mindset, Dybes was able to succeed immensely in her career, and she serves as a great role model for future Ursuline women in STEM, possibly even me.
After hearing from a successful female scientist, I was able to meet with another accomplished alumnae in another male dominated field: finance. Lindsay Pazdan ‘02, is a financial advisor at Morgan Stanley. At a time of increasing inflation and relative economic uncertainty, Pazdan guides families through difficult financial circumstances. Pazdan’s ability to share her story before success was particularly inspiring, as she represents the power of hard work in achieving success in one’s career. She emphasized that all Ursuline girls should carry their work ethic into their careers. Hard workers, she says, are not as common as they may seem.
Witnessing the accomplishments of Ursuline alumnae gives hope and perspective to the current highschoolers working hard for academic success. As a junior in the thick of challenging course loads and extracurricular activities, the women before me represent the potential in us all, not necessarily future interior designers or scientists, to be women with integrity, poise, and pride in what they do. Through these strong values, Ursuline alumnae carry out their alma mater’s mission of Serviam, meaning “I will serve.”
