GREENVILLE—Three new Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia will arrive in the Upstate this fall to share their knowledge and love of Christ with students at St. Mary School.
Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary Church, said this will be the eighth year that the teaching order, also known as the Nashville Dominicans, has been at the school. The newcomers will join Sister Marie Isaac Staub, who teaches science.
Father Newman said students absorb valuable lessons from the Dominican charism, which was developed by St. Thomas Aquinas and focuses heavily on the virtues.
SISTER MARY SHEILA MAKSIM will be the new principal. A native of California, she decided to join the Dominicans after meeting some of the sisters at Franciscan University in Steubenville. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education at Aquinas College in Nashville and a master’s in administration in the ACE Leadership program at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She taught in Colorado and Rhode Island and has served as principal at schools in Cincinnati and New Orleans.
Sister Mary Sheila developed “Virtues in Practice,” a series of workbooks and projects to help students learn about the saints and how to practice a different virtue each month.
SISTER MAUREEN CLARKE, a second grade teacher, grew up in Nashville and was taught by the Dominicans from kindergarten through high school.
A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, she studied theology and philosophy at Aquinas College, and taught at schools in Ohio and Tennessee.
SISTER VICTORIA MARIE LIEDERBACH is from northern Michigan and earned a degree in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh before entering religious life.
She has a degree in secondary English education from Aquinas College and will teach middle school English and religion at St. Mary.
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