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No Ordinary Nun

Celebrating fifty years as a Sister of Mercy, Marylouise Fennell (SED’76) is a star consultant in higher-ed management.

By Patrick Kennedy

The first time someone referred to Marylouise Fennell as “the godmother of higher education in Central America,” she was so touched, all she could muster in response was a bashful “aww!”

 

But the moniker is apt. Before Fennell (SED’76) helped establish the Association of Private Universities of Central America, its 17 member institutions had no system of accreditation. Now they do, under guidelines Fennell wrote, and with her help they are working on establishing fundraising mechanisms as well.

 

While especially noteworthy, that is just one of Fennell’s many accomplishments. In the fifty years since she joined the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy, the plain-spoken Bridgeport, Connecticut, native has served in numerous positions, including president of Carlow University and senior counsel for the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC). An expert on education management and community relations, she has authored dozens of articles in scholarly journals and guest editorials in newspapers, and she has lectured or consulted in two dozen countries the world over. In 1999, then-governor Tom Ridge named the longtime Pittsburgh resident a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. (“But I’m a New Englander!” was her first reaction to that news.)

 

For Fennell, each stage has flowed naturally into the next, with SED being a watershed. After teaching junior high for ten years; earning a master’s in counseling education from the University of Hartford; and teaching counseling at Hartford and at St. Joseph College, the lifelong Red Sox fan came to Boston in 1974.

 

At SED, “I met some great friends, and professors who cared,” she says. “And that opened up other opportunities.” She earned an Ed.D. in reading education under professors such as the late Thomas Culliton, who taught her “the dignity that comes with having an influence on people’s lives.” When given that responsibility, she learned, “You better do it right.”

 

Returning to St. Joseph, Fennell chaired the counselor education department and became Assistant Dean of the Graduate School. In 1982, some colleagues — “unbeknownst to me,” she says — nominated her for the presidency of Carlow University. She was reluctant even to attend the interview, she recalls, “until a friend of mine told me it would be good experience. ‘Go for the experience.’ Next thing I knew, I wanted the job — and I got the job!”

 

Her friend’s prediction proved correct. “It was a wonderful job. I tell people all the time, if they’re thinking of taking a presidency offer, ‘It’s the best job you’ll ever have.’ It’s a position where you can say ‘Yes,’ and see things happen. That’s very rewarding.”

 

Indeed, talking to prospective presidents is something Fennell does often. After retiring from Carlow (which has since created a scholarship in her honor) in the late ’80s, she went into consulting, most prominently for the CIC. She also started a firm. As of this writing, Gallagher Fennell Higher Education Services has helped to search for, vet, interview, and hire presidents for twenty-four colleges, as well as vice presidents and other executives for another thirty-five. In addition, she runs strategic-planning workshops for trustees and generally advises small colleges on management issues.

 

In the process, Fennell has learned enough about schools across regions and denominations to “start a trivia game,” she says. “Colleges and universities are a lot like people: They’ve got personalities and kinks and histories and culture—and you gotta find all those things out!”

 

Lending her expertise in Central America, Fennell has had some of her proudest moments, and she admires her colleagues in those countries, some of them turbulent. “Being a ‘risk-taker’ means a different thing there,” she notes.

 

Fennell has won a score of honors over the years, but the alumni award she received from SED in 2002 held special meaning for her. “I’m very proud to be a BU graduate,” she says. “The quality of education, the mentoring, the excellence, and the dedication that I saw there — I’ll put it against anybody’s.”