My Background
My name is Sister Luise. I was born in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and earned my B.A. in English in 1960 from Manhattanville College. Within that same year, I entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation.
Overview of Mission Work
After entering the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation, Sister Luise taught at Mary Rogers College and earned her M.A. in English in 1966 from Fordham University. She then went to St. Anthony High School in Maui, Hawaii, where she taught for three years. She returned to New York and earned her PhD in English Literature in 1973, at Fordham University and was then assigned to Indonesia, where she was a professor in the M.A. program at Provincial University of West Java, Universitas Padjadjaren.
In 1983, Sister Luise was asked to complete the term of a Maryknoll Sisters Central Governing Board member who died in a plane crash in Chile. Sister Luise was elected President of the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation in 1984, and served for six years. In 1985, she received the Fordham University Distinguished Alumni Award.
In 1991, she was assigned to Cambodia to help re-establish the Royal University of Phnom Penh, which was hit particularly hard during the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge. Only two educators and thirty-six students were still alive and able to return to help re-establish the university. Sr. Luise established the English Language program, as well as supported the university library. In addition, she collaborated in the planning of the national higher education system.
Current Mission
After 25 years in Cambodia, Sister Luise returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Maryknoll, N.Y., to serve in the Personnel Department’s Education Office.
Photos from her mission
