Feature Article
The Competitive Side
Those who know Sister Peg best know better than
to challenge her competitiveness. A star athlete
at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Sister Peg
was voted “Most Athletic”by her classmates. Her
brothers raised her on a steady diet of baseball,
football, basketball and golf – but tennis was her
sport of choice.
A standout on her high school team, she was slated
to be the squad’s No. 1 singles player. However, she
had to settle for No. 2 when someone named Chris
Everett – one of the all-time tennis greats – came
along and bumped her from the top spot.
“Perhaps I should have taken tennis a little more
seriously,” Sister Peg said, with a grin.
“I only played her once,”John said of his sister.
“I was a hotshot coming home from college, playing football my freshman year. I popped off to
her and told her that anybody could play tennis.
She took me over (to play) one day. I didn’t know
how to keep score, but whatever it was, she beat
me that to nothing. So I never played tennis (with
her) again. She is very competitive.”
Nowadays, that athletic competitiveness is flashed
only occasionally on the golf course. But her drive
to succeed suits her well as a university president.
12
Reflections Winter ’07—Be Bold. Think Higher.
“I just loved to be with them,”
Peg says, recalling her first
Dominican teachers.“There was
that sense of commitment to
people that I liked, and that very
much attracted me. I knew what
I wanted to do. It was a call, I
believe, from an early age that
only solidified as I got older.”
The Great Listener
As an undergraduate student at Wayne State University in Detroit, Sister Peg completed her degree
in sociology with a pre-social work curriculum.
She began her professional career helping people,
and she still does so today – although in a different way as an administrator in higher education.
“I think I’ve been blessed with a gift of establishing good relationships,”said Sister Peg, who holds
a Ph.D. in social work and brings a counseling
background with her to Siena Heights. “I’ve always been able to establish healthy, appropriate
relationships and have been able to use the skills
and the knowledge that I have, to assist people in
changing their lives.”
Above Top: Sister Peg (far right) enjoyed a festive inauguration ball
Nov. 4 with family, friends, administration, faculty, staff and students.
Above Bottom: Sister Peg’s family attended her inauguration. Pictured
with her are her father, Ronald (center), and her sister, Mary (right).
Drug addicts, alcoholics, battered women, marital
turmoil. Sister Peg has listened to and counseled
people with all kinds of troubles and turmoils
during her career. First, just out of college, it was
helping troubled souls from the streets of innercity Detroit. Then it was counseling students,
faculty and staff at Barry University in Miami
Shores, Fla.
“I don’t think there’s any greater joy than seeing
somebody who’s suffered emotionally get to a new
point in his/her life,”she said. “I was blessed to see
that happen time and time again. It’s not necessarily what I did (that made it happen), but what each
person was willing to do to change. I’ve listened
to some difficult things people have experienced
in their lives.”
At Barry, she began counseling students, and her
reputation as a therapist, listener and problemsolver was so impressive that eventually she was
advising the administration on how to successfully
deal with issues on a university-wide level.
“I see life as relational,”Sister Peg said. “Relationships are the most important thing in my life.”