Additions to the family

Editor Dennis Coday was traveling during publication week to Quebec City for the annual conference of the Catholic Press Association. Ask him sometime just how difficult it is to get from Kansas City, Missouri, to Quebec.

To make up for his travel woes, I volunteered to write this column. Actually, this gives me a chance to introduce three people who are joining the NCR Board of Directors. You may already know or have heard of one or all of them. It would be a blessing to capture the time and attention of any one of these folks, but to welcome all three to the NCR family is an especially joyous task.

The board recently elected Jacqueline Doud of Los Angeles, Terrence J. Rynne of Chicago and Dan Schutte of San Francisco.

Doud is president emerita of Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles after serving 11 years as that institution’s first lay president. She spent 35 years in senior administration and has been a consultant for many colleges and universities. She serves as a trustee of the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation and as a director of Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

She has received many awards, including Woman of the Year in Los Angeles and the Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic higher education from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. She and her husband, Robert Doud, live in La Verne, California.

Rynne and his wife, Sally Rynne, are the founders of the Center for Peacemaking at Marquette University, where he teaches peace studies. The couple also runs the Sally and Terry Rynne Foundation, which is dedicated to peacemaking and the empowerment of women.

Previously, he was president of the Rynne Marketing Group, a nationally recognized health care marketing firm, and before that he was a hospital administrator in the Chicago area. He has served as a parish priest in the Chicago Archdiocese and as a faculty member of the archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein.

Rynne is the author of Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence and Jesus Christ, Peacemaker: A New Theology of Peace, which received a best book award in the justice and peace category from the Catholic Press Association.

You probably know Schutte as one of the founding members of the St. Louis Jesuits, who in the 1970s shaped the music of liturgies for decades to come. He is now composer-in-residence at the University of San Francisco and travels around the country to share his gifts with parishes and communities through concerts, retreats and workshops. Three universities have bestowed honorary doctoral degrees on Schutte for his ongoing contributions to the life of the church.

Some of his best-known songs are “Here I Am, Lord,” “City of God” and “Sing a New Song,” all from his years with the St. Louis Jesuits. He continues to compose, though, and his more recent works include “These Alone are Enough” and a Mass setting titled “Mass of Christ the Savior.”

They are joining a board of directors composed of people from all over the country who are committed to and passionate about the work that NCR has done and continues to do. Board members are often asked to give “time, talent and treasure,” and the directors of NCR give all three generously and with enthusiasm. I am very proud to be working for them and thrilled to be able to announce that these three incredibly talented and experienced Catholics will join them.