This past Wednesday, Jackie Esposito (University Archivist), Tim Pyatt (Head of Special Collections), Robyn Dyke (Records Management/PSUA), Nicole Hendrix (Library Development Director), and Jane Ingold (Penn State Behrend Reference Librarian/Archivist) attended the dedication of the Sister Joan Chittister Archive at Mercyhurst University. It was a momentous occasion that celebrated the culmination of hard work, dedication, and collaboration in creating a truly amazing collection. We at Special Collections are honored and excited to make Sister Joan's collection accessible to the public and preserve it for future generations.
We would like to thank Erie TV News and the Erie Times News for their coverage of the event and permission to post their videos on our blog. You can find video clips of Sister Joan and the dedication of the Archive at Mercyhurst University here and here. Additional pictures from the event are also available on the Benedictine Sisters of Erie website here. Below, you will find the text from Jackie's speech at the ceremony, which beautifully illustrates the contributions, struggles, and the lasting legacy of Sister Joan, a truly amazing woman.
Dedication
of Joan Chittister Room, Mercyhurst University
Wednesday, April 30,
2014
Presented by Jackie Esposito
It is my pleasure
and privilege to address you this afternoon to honor Sr. Joan Chittister and
her contributions to Mercyhurst University, Mount St. Benedict Monastery, Penn
State University, and, perhaps most importantly, to the archival traditions of
women nationally and internationally.
Sr. Joan has made
numerous bold and courageous choices over the course of her life. Each choice
bracketed by challenges and obstacles to be overcome. She has faced head on many
battles over which she emerged victorious. But, perhaps, no action of Joan’s was
quite as courageous or forward thinking as consciously and deliberately
establishing research centers that document her activities as a writer, a
social scientist, a theologian, and as a woman. This seemingly fearless act
defies tradition and patterns of historical knowledge development. For hundreds
of years, history ignored or deliberately censored the role of women and their
contributions to society. Historical accounts treated women as invisible to the
event surrounding them or, more likely, treated them as completely and totally non-existent.
Women’s lives and narratives were unheard. Their voices were silenced.
Joan Chittister
evaluated her personal contributions to society, reviewed her own history, and
scanned the horizons of documentary evidence. The vision she saw was lacking in
voices which she recognized as resonating her experiences, documenting the
cries she had heard around the world, and, most significantly, preserving for
all time the everyday lives of women. Joan stood back and decided this void had
to be filled and it needed to be filled deliberately, professionally,
academically, and with careful thought and planning. Joan’s desire to change
the landscape of history, archival services, and personal documentation has
resulted in the treasures we celebrate today.
By creating
research centers at the Mount, Mercyhurst and Penn State, Joan Chittister has
challenged the historical record to explain the narratives she has witnessed,
to listen to the voices she has heard, to validate the experiences of women
across five continents, and to honestly acknowledge that these women represent
realities that must be recognized, cherished, and valued in a manner no less
important than the great words of the great men vaulted in archives, museums
and libraries internationally.
At an archival
conference held here in Erie last year, Joan entreated the attendees to value
their vocation by recognizing that “it is a matter of going where our talents,
our interests, our excitement, our gifts, our skills lure us and lead us rather
than struggling to go where prestige or status or power or money are our only
real goals…” Without archival collections documenting the lives of women, there
are no role models to follow, no leaders to emulate, no seers to open our eyes
to what is possible, no traditions to follow.
The Joan
Chittister Research Center at Mount St. Benedict Monastery establishes for
visitors a place of peace and comfort to follow the footsteps of a woman who
served a “good, holy and devoted life” within a ministry of God and in a sense
of religion.
The Mercyhurst University
Center establishes a sanctuary for undergraduate students to explore their own
personal futures by questioning the various trends of times, recognizing social
change and the engines that drove it, defining sweeping transformations, and
acknowledging epochal undertakings for their soundness.
Penn State
University’s Joan Chittister Collection establishes a formal repository for the
various formats and creations documenting Joan’s long and distinguished career.
Highlighting her correspondence, writings, broadcasts, speeches, and public
policy statements, the Penn State collection is open to researchers worldwide
to investigate the course of one woman’s life and the impact this life had on
the thousands of people she came into contact with over the course of her
varied and successful career.
As Joan has
stated, “without archivists a society loses its history, whole peoples are made
invisible. The world ignores the richness of difference, the lessons of social
change, the paths that were tried and failed, the paths that were trodden over,
the paths that were never tried at all. And great ideas are lost in cobwebs of
time.” If Joan is correct and archivists are “the real keepers of a culture,”
they cannot do their jobs without collaborating with courageous creators of the
record. In this case, Sr. Joan Chittister.
So I ask each of
you here today to contemplate two archival realities. The first is positioned
solidly in the decision of Sr. Joan to preserve her heritage, to document her
activities, to recognize that voices need to be heard and narratives need to be
shared. The monumental work of creating the Chittister Collection has fallen
onto many shoulders, has taken numerous hours, and required enormous prescience
and patience. Without the day-to-day development of her documentary heritage
strategy we would not be here today. My personal and professional gratitude is
extended to the many hands and hearts who have developed and preserved this
collection.
Second, let’s take
a moment to recognize and acknowledge the leaders of the three research centers
for their dedication and perspective. The Mount, Mercyhurst and Penn State have
each taken on their individual responsibility to maintain and provide access to
this collection in perpetuity. I don’t say the word perpetuity lightly because
it assumes a commitment for generations to come. It also provides those
generations with history that otherwise would be lost. These administrative decisions
require significant resources and a commitment for the future that recognizes
the value and need to document this particular history, to bring the voices to
life once again, and to stand at the crossroads and welcome the challenges with
open arms. Congratulations to the leaders who stood at the precipice and said
yes to the future of knowledge for tomorrow. Well done.
I will close my
remarks with a quote from the feminist author bell hooks which envelopes the
concepts and ideas we have discussed so far. Hooks has stated, ”…education is
and should be a place where there is a sense of struggle, where there is
visible acknowledgment of the union of theory and practice, where we work
together as teachers and students to overcome the estrangement and alienation
that have become so much the norm…” For all of us here today, let us allow the
Chittister Collection, the Chittister Research Centers, and the Chittister
legacy be writ large as the opening of the doors to the sounds of joyous voices
and narratives of human beings, particularly women, here in Erie, Pa., throughout
the nation, across the world, and, perhaps one day, through the universe.
