Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: I think that Lourdes is extremely special in the fact that so many of the first generation students choose Lourdes college.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: one quarter of the student body, there are nontraditional students, those who are classified as minorities who have been traditionally underserved at the higher levels of education.

Dr. Geoffrey Grubb: If you want a smaller place with a lot of personalized attention in atmosphere, that's designed primarily to help you succeed academically.

We're a very good fit for an awful lot of people.

Dolly Flasck: I think you really can feel the um, and it's it's a cliché values based environment, but it really does exist here.

And I think when the students come on campus, I think they feel that.

Robert Helmer: For us, we're a commuter school.

And so our students come from a 45 mile radius of Toledo and over 90% of our students remain in the greater northwest Ohio area after they graduate.

So for us, every new program has to meet a local needs.

Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: And so we are grateful that this fabulous campus and this fabulous institution that recognizes how education is really the key to the success of our community at large is something that we're, you know, we're very fortunate that they worked so hard to continue to contribute and make our community a better place.

Sister Diana Lynn Eckel: The story began in 1916, when Bishop Ceramics was the ordinary of the diocese here, and there was a need for teachers.

We had an influx of Polish immigrants and they were bringing their children and the schools were crowded and there were a number of sisters teaching from Rochester, Minnesota.

So the bishop approached them and asked them if they would go to their community in Rochester and see if some sisters could come here.

Narrator: In 1916, mother Mary Adelaide Sandusky, the newly appointed provincial of the sisters, traveled from Rochester, Minnesota, to northwest Ohio and established what is more commonly known as the Sisters of Saint Francis of Sylvania, realizing that a larger home was needed.

She received tentative approval for the Sylvania site in March 1917.

Mother Adelaide was a visionary and intellectual, an artist, an organizer and a risk taker.

Her number one virtue was courage.

And in 1917, she envisioned what we now see today.

Sister Diana Lynn Eckel: From 1916 to 1930.

We were a province of Rochester, and then in 1930 we became an independent community.

So we are now autonomous.

Narrator: Mother Adelaide believed in going into the community to make a difference.

She was passionate about education and learning at one point.

The sisters responded to a call for health care assistance during the influenza epidemic.

The Sisters of St Francis started out teaching in three elementary schools in Toledo's Polish community in a short time.

Their ministries grew to include caregiving at eleven hospitals and teaching at three elementary schools, four high schools.

And in 1958, a state charter was signed, officially launching lured junior college as a degree granting institution.

Dr. Janet Robinson: Well, of course, our college is 50 years old, and when they started out, it was a two year college for the sisters, and everything was geared toward getting the sisters ready for their role in the community.

Sister Ann Francis Klimkowski: When the college was founded in 58, it was to provide a liberal arts education for our younger sisters, and it was thought at that time that we would not do a four year college.

We did not want our system to be inbred, so they took their first two years of liberal arts here, and then they went on to senior institutions and got their majors in all kinds of areas.

Narrator: In 1964, the year that mother Adelaide Sandusky died lured Junior College was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

By this time, the number of novices and candidates began to decline.

The sisters realized that if the doors to Lourdes Junior College were to remain open, more students would be needed.

Mayor Craig Stough: But starting in the sixties and the seventies, the sisters opened up their campus and opened up enrollment in the college to people in our community.

And we are just amazed with the artistry and the construction and the programs that are available on that campus.

For many years, we didn't know what was going on.

We could only peer in from the outside, but they've opened it up to us and our lives are enriched because of it.

Narrator: In 1969, with the addition of lay women from the community to the ranks of students at Lourds Junior College, discussion of new degree offerings began.

While those avenues were being explored.

The junior was dropped and Lourdes became independently incorporated in 1973.

Another landmark change in the college's history came in 1975, when laymen were admitted into the college.

Sister Ann Francis Klimkowski: The college was a two year institution for 25 years in 83 when I became president.

That's when we celebrated our 25th anniversary and we move the college to four years because it's a two year college.

We had been attracting a number of people, and what we found was that we had a large adult learner population, the nontraditional learner, and they they were happy with the two year programs that we had.

But they kept asking about whether or not we were going to move to four year status.

Narrator: In 1982, the Ohio Board of Regents authorized Lourds College to grant 24 year baccalaureate degrees, the Bachelor of Individualized Studies and The Bachelor of Arts and Religious Studies.

In 1986, both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in nursing were offered in 2007, there were 28 majors available to lured students with the heaviest degree demands being business, education, nursing, social work and criminal justice.

Dr. Robert Turek: Laws is enjoying a very fine reputation for graduate education in the community.

This would include the master's of organizational leadership that would include the master's programs in education, and it would include Master of Science in Nursing.

Sister Diana Lynn Eckel: And now we look at our and our colleges of this today, and it is.

It's just a bigger image of what what mother Adelaide had in their heart and mind for us in the early days of the college.

I believe it's because of the collaboration and the the different sharing that we do with that we have done that.

It just it has continued and it's it's simply growing.

Narrator: Although the college has grown substantially from its early or junior college status, the one constant is their commitment to the Franciscan traditions that were brought here by the sisters, even as the property was changing and growing.

The fundamental value is that we're taught in the classroom never deviated from the inner spirit of the Franciscan sisters.

Their drive and passion to follow their mission has been passed down to the faculty, staff, administration and the community who have now become part of luchadores college.

Sister Ann Carmen Barone: Well, Lourdes is a very young college.

We're just celebrating our 50th anniversary, but we want our students and everyone was connected with us to know that we have strong roots and a rich tradition that goes all the way back to Francis of Assisi.

And if you've walked the campus, you see the images with him, with his arms out, welcoming being very inclusive.

So we try to engender that in everything that we do here on campus.

And that's why, again, that whole sense of being part of a community here that is willing to embrace the broader community is very significant.

Dr. Geoffrey Grubb: We have as as a Catholic college, we're Catholic and Franciscan, and we have a couple of foundational commitments and one is two faith and one is to reason.

Faith tells us everything ultima all that we learn is somehow connected.

And so when you learn here, it's not a series of unconnected experiences.

Rather, you're urged to build some kind of a synthesis so that you have a big picture of how the world operates and how people function in it, and what kind of service that you can bring to that world.

Dr. Anjali Gray: We believe in giving students an education not just to obtain the knowledge and skills that they need for the modern workplace, but also a deeper sense of values that is reflected in the spiritual surroundings of Lawrence College that are in the historic buildings.

We have the artwork, we have the mosaics, the statues and Franciscan sisters who have given their life to propagating these values.

Richard Anderson: You take that whole package.

It's hard to duplicate that in traditional large universities.

Individuals have to find that for themselves.

It's in the air at Lord's.

Jeffrey Streeter: You know, back from all the way, you know, from my younger days would have never pictured myself coming to a private institution where, you know, they're sisters on campus and there's a structure and everything else.

I was completely the opposite.

I was the rebel with no cause, you know, and and when I got here, it was just like, Wow, I'm home, you know, and and really find myself really drawn to the two, the sisters of Saint Francis and everything.

Sarah Berndt: It's very important there that obviously the sisters created that school or began it on those Christian values of Saint Francis.

And so those are always in the back of your mind, whether your no matter what religion you are, if it just comes down to, you know, the golden rule.

Sister Ann Carmen Barone: That whole sense of respecting every way that we can learn and also of being reverent, that each person, each creature has a dignity and a worth.

Richard Anderson: Somebody who starts with faith and lives based on concern for others and demonstrates that through service, that's powerful.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: I think Values-Based education is priceless.

I think it is what makes us who we are.

It impacts the way our hospital systems operate, the type of care that's given the emphasis on life and the protection of that life.

The enhancement of that life there.

Work with special students.

The emphasis on education, one of their largest programs.

All those who will rear it teach the next generation hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teachers have come through Lourdes College, the nursing program, which is a very large one really in the region.

Those people will care for the sick, will help deliver the babies, will work in the operating rooms or be in the nursing homes will be in the dental offices.

There are so many places where Lourdes will place its imprint.

Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: And Lourdes has just a way about itself to help with the through their mission and through their values, recognize that each individual has something to contribute.

Dolly Flasck: I think there's a feeling here, and I think when they leave the campus, I think some of those values, some of those Franciscan ideals they've absorbed and then when they go out in the community, I think it is reflected in them.

Narrator: Just like the sisters and their mission, the faculty and the administration at Lourdes College take pride in the fact that their foundation values and teaching philosophies have stayed true and consistent throughout the growth and expansion of the college.

They have adapted to the needs of the community and recognized the importance and value of all of their students.

Dr. Geoffrey Grubb: The change in atmosphere has been has been gradual, rather than from a two year to a four year and again when we were a small shop.

This was a college that was founded to teach the sisters to prepare them for ministry, for the service that they do for the Catholic Church.

And over time, as as there are fewer sisters here.

And that and that particular emphasis has gone away.

We've moved to a different kind of student and a different sort of.

Educational process, I suppose.

But we haven't lost the atmosphere that comes with this place and the ethos that comes from the sisters.

Actually, the numbers have changed in terms of the maybe the classes are slightly larger.

I'm teaching a class of 22 people.

I was in classes where six people when I went there as an undergraduate.

Douglass Boston: So there's still that individual, that personal care, that personal touch they give that other schools don't have.

David Seeger: But it's rising up.

The values traditions still remain constant.

They're still there as much as the buildings, the pretty buildings that the the the the way that they're decorated.

When you walk down the hall and the whole experience, the atmosphere still remains.

That has not changed the core values, the core place, the warlords is still there.

Sarah Berndt: I was amazed at the individual attention I got.

I it's it's been really something of respect.

When you are in a nontraditional student and they respected everything you said, even if it didn't fit with the book, didn't matter.

It was, you know, this is the real world.

Carole Martin: The professors here, no one don't just care about the book learning.

They want you to get it to actually experience that.

They offered enough time for interaction between them and the students.

They they provided strategies that I was able to later try and use or incorporate in my job.

Esquarteesha Collins: I feel as if I'm getting the best education I could ever receive.

You know, I felt as if the fact that if I'm going in education and their lives are in my hands, I want nothing but the best.

And I feel as if is that?

Oriana Orozco: When you come here, it's all education and focusing and just everything's calm and collected and just really welcoming, and it's a good environment to go to school, and there's so many other things to get involved in tournaments and like football, and it's tons of fun things to do to get your mind off school a little bit.

Jeffrey Streeter: When I was looking, I look at all the different schools and nothing really seemed to jump out at me when I saw the social work mission statement here at Lawrence.

It was just amazing on how it jumped off the page.

I mean, all the talk about social justice and awareness and everything else that just really came to me and grabbed it and how they really want to make an impact on the community.

And to me, that personally decid Narrator: Leonard's college continues to make progress implementing new and innovative curriculum and designing and building facilities to meet its needs.

In 2002, graduate programs were added to the curriculum.

Students can pursue graduate degrees in areas such as education, nursing and organizational leadership.

Dr. Robert Turek: Physical expansion of the college has certainly been noteworthy in the years that I've been at Lord's.

When I started 13 years ago, all classes and offices were in the main complex.

The three buildings connected together mother Adelaide Hall, Lawrence Hall and St Clair Hall.

Since then, we've had at the Franciscan Center, we've added Carmel Hall.

We've added a city hall.

The Learning Center Hall.

St Joseph's Hall, where the nursing program is housed.

Narrator: The redesign of St Joseph's Hall.

And the addition of the flagship nursing center in 2005.

Enhanced Nursing Students Education and training by providing interactive computer based mannequins and neonatal ICU practice facility and a home care practice area.

Dolly Flasck: The space, the facility where the students learned and practice their nursing skills.

It was very modest.

So if the program was going to grow and if they wanted to adequately meet and meet the needs of the students in the 21st century, they needed this space.

It was.

It was, it was a need.

It was necessary.

And so my husband and I gladly supported it and we believe in it.

Douglass Boston: This is a wonderful center state of the art, and I really believe it enhances the young students nursing career, gives them more real world experience before they hit the hospital.

They feel more confident when they get there with their skills, and that has really helped build Lourdes College nursing education.

Narrator: Perhaps the most visible sign of growth at Lourdes College is adjacent to Mother Adelaide Hall for the first time in over 40 years.

Luchadores opened a new academic building in 2007.

This facility was designed using modern technology without compromising the atmosphere that has become the trademark of Lourdes College.

The design stays true to the Franciscan values of being stewards of the environment and exhibiting a love of nature.

McAleer and Del Pauls use energy efficient geothermal heating and cooling, natural lighting and advanced water management systems.

The Franciscan tradition of being close to nature is reflected on the campus itself.

I know that a large number of the trees were planted by the founders mother Adelaide, many, many years ago.

And as you go around the campus, you really feel like you're in nature.

Mayor Craig Stough: The sisters of St Francis have always been great stewards of the of the environment, and the city of Sylvania is, as you can imagine, with a name like Sylvania, which means city of trees.

We do take care of the environment.

Our quality of life is our main selling point here in the city of Sylvania, and it just matches in very well with what Lawrence College and the Sisters of Saint Francis have done on their college campus.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: The campus has a real, has a growth that reaches outside of it.

And so I think that the Franciscan tradition of closeness to nature is reflected in the way that the properties are managed.

Mayor Craig Stough: But now the college has stepped beyond that.

They're constructing a classroom building that will be heated and cooled with ground source heat pumps.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: Accessing forms of power from under the earth, geothermal using natural rainwater and distributing it to the plants.

Mayor Craig Stough: Which is a great way to have a new building without hurting the environment.

Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: Really, Lourdes is probably going to begin showcasing itself as a green university, one that understands that a clean environment and using the proper light actually helps students focus and learn better and actually helps staff do better in their work environment throughout the day.

And so it's really exciting that they're looking at, you know, green initiatives in the new building that they built.

We're really proud of the fact that Lourdes is looking at energy savings and and really modeling for the rest of the community.

How to do that.

It's better for taxpayers.

It certainly highlights one of the issues of concern in Lucas County, which is high energy costs.

Narrator: Community outreach has long been a mission of the sisters, and Lourdes College continues to offer learning opportunities for people of all ages.

Theater of Vision brings professional theatrical companies to the Franciscan Theater and Conference Center to perform a wide variety of shows for school aged audiences.

The lifelong learning program creates educational opportunities for adults, with continuing education classes and workshops on everything from genealogy and history to memoir writing and world religions.

The Life Lab, where elementary children come to visit and learn about life cycles and the environment, is home to a variety of creatures that swim, crawl, fly and climb, most of which are native to the oak openings region.

The Apple two planetarium has been refurbished and updated to include a state of the art projection system known as Sci Dome, and takes viewers to other planets and through other galaxies with full color full dome projections.

Patricia Appold: We were happy to to expand what Lourdes can do.

That's that's a solid real growth.

Mayor Craig Stough: Well, we're fortunate to have Lourdes College in our community because they add vitality to our local economy.

Any college town is lucky to have the college because they bring extra people into the community.

They bring strengthens that ability to the economy by bringing in their professors and the students both.

We have a lot of people coming and going from our community that wouldn't be here except for the college being here.

Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: There's, you know, over 4000 alumni that are living in our community.

They're buying in our community.

They're part of the bi local efforts that we all talk about, and they contribute to the well-being of Lucas County in in what they do and how they purchase.

And the fact that they provide goods and services back to the community and that they're part of our workforce.

Dennis Johnson: I don't know that they, the community at large understands the role that large plays in training, future teachers and future nurses in our community and future business leaders.

Mary Arquette: And we have outstanding alumni that are in the community that are giving back professionally that are doing an outstanding job, whether they're in the field of business, education, nursing, criminal justice, social work, you name it.

They are doing an outstanding job in really using their value centered education and then giving back to the community and coming back to Lourdes and helping us and helping our current students.

Robert Helmer: Our board of trustees is comprised almost exclusively of community leaders, and I keep in close contact either through the board.

I have an advisory council.

Many of our programs have advisory councils where we invite the community to the campus to say, Are we doing what you need?

Robert Helmer: Are we meeting the local need?

We want to find community partners, community colleges, businesses, health care institutions.

They sometimes have unique needs that they can articulate well enough.

We can come to them or invite them to come here with us.

Robert Helmer: An example would be our master's of organizational leadership degree community said.

We need a program that can help us with diversity and ethics and leadership.

Lawrence College was able to put that together.

It meets a local need.

We have over 100 of our local mid-level managers, CEOs, small business owners in that program.

Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak: The workforce today needs to have special educational requirements.

Lourdes understands that were that the educational opportunities for people today will lead us to the next century.

Dr. Janet Robinson: We are a campus that is a commuter campus, so our students, like never go away from that real world and just stay on campus for four years.

They come here, but they always are grounded in reality and in the community, and we think that makes us different and we think that makes us a strong institution of higher education.

Sister Ann Francis Klimkowski: We look at ourselves as a gift to the community because in essence, we're we're strengthening the community fabric of this region with what we do.

Narrator: Lourdes College has played an integral role in the development and growth of northwest Ohio.

Inspired by the Sisters of Saint Francis and the values of community learning, reverence and service, lured students are provided a values centered education that will stay with them for a lifetime and help them become productive members of our community well beyond graduation.

The first 50 years of this institution's unique history laid a solid foundation upon which lured to college can build new standards and traditions in the years to come.

Larry ulrich: It's amazing to me to watch what's going on on this campus.

It really is a campus of a community or a community campus, I guess would be a better way to say that.

Dolly Flasck: Today, probably almost 20 years, you know, since I first start walking the campus.

It just feels like it has more energy and and it feels good.

I guess I'm just happy about the work.

Robert Helmer: We continue to to set the foundation for the traditions that will serve Lourdes College so well 50 years from now, when the college is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: There are many places in our country and world that absolutely do not have awards.

They do not have the type of uplifted thought, the type of inspired artistry, the type of caring education.

That particular tradition, that value laden tradition is now part of who we are.

It's having a tremendous impact across this community, whether people choose to see it or not.

Lourdes has had a rich history, and today there's an excitement and enthusiasm on campus as never before and the future Lourdes will continue to be an integral part of the fabric of our region, and we look forward to continue to serve our students and our community.