Panel Discussion – “Inspired by Faith: Women in Leadership” Photos
On Tuesday, January 23 the University of Saint Mary of the Lake and Regina Dominican proudly co-sponsored a captivating Catholic women’s panel discussion on leadership, guided by the foundation of faith. This event was not just a conversation; it’s was inspiring celebration of the strength, resilience, and grace that women bring to leadership roles.
The Power of Women in Faith and Leadership
Our panel of distinguished Catholic women leaders who gracefully navigated the intersection of faith and leadership shared their wisdom and insights. Our esteemed panelists, accomplished leaders in their respective fields, shared personal stories, challenges, and triumphs that showcased the transformative impact of faith on their professional journeys.
Regina Dominican and the University of Saint Mary of the Lake would like to thank our moderator, panelists, and attendees for this wonderful inaugural event. Stay tuned for upcoming panel discussions.
Meet the Moderator: Elizabeth Schuster
Elizabeth Schuster is Regina Dominican’s first lay president and is currently in her 8th year leading this wonderful school. A product of Catholic school from kindergarten through college, Elizabeth knows firsthand the value of what is created inside the walls of Regina Dominican. Elizabeth joined Regina after a 15-year career in financial services most recently as an executive at Vanguard.
Elizabeth received her Bachelor of Science in Retail Fashion Merchandising from Marywood University and her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Elizabeth and her husband Chad love to play outside and travel. They share this passion with their daughters and future Panthers; Bodhi age five and Ruhani who is 18 months old.
Meet our Inspirational Panelists
Judge Kendall, RDHS ’80, was appointed to the federal bench in January 2006. She is the co-author of Child Exploitation and Trafficking: Examining Global Enforcement and Supply Chain Challenges and U.S. Responses (Rowman & Littlefield 2016) and Child Exploitation and Trafficking: Examining the Global Challenges and the U.S. Responses (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2012), with T. Markus Funk. Judge Kendall teaches human trafficking, supply chain law, and public corruption at University of Chicago Law School, Northwestern University School of Law, and Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She was the Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights at Yale Law School in 2018. She has authored numerous articles on a variety of topics including international human rights, human trafficking, public corruption, and transnational investigations.
Aside from her own writing, she also serves as an editor of Litigation Magazine where she regularly contributes articles to the periodical. She is a member of the American Law Institute where she works as an Advisor to the drafting of a model penal code for sexual offenses. She is a member of the UNODC’s Judicial Integrity Network and served on an Expert Committee which drafted an international model social media ethics code for judges. She served six years on the Judicial Conference of the United States’ Codes of Conduct Committee where she drafted the Advisory Opinion for the US judiciary on its use of social media. In 2019, she was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve on the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on International Judicial Relations. She lectures extensively both domestically and internationally (more than 30 countries) in the areas of human trafficking, public corruption, ethics, and judicial training. She has taught in numerous African, European, Southeast Asian, and South American countries. When she trains judges in other countries, Judge Kendall researches the laws and practices of that country and creates a unique program to address the specific needs of that state. Domestically, she created a human trafficking training module for the creation of task forces and judges that has been implemented in numerous jurisdictions throughout the United States.
Aside from her work in human trafficking and international human rights, Judge Kendall serves as a multi-district litigation judge and as a Patent Pilot Program judge in her district. She is a judicial liaison to the Federal Circuit Bar Association and was the 2017 Federal Circuit Bar Association Global Fellow. As a Global Fellow, Judge Kendall lectured on a comparison between German and American patent law in Munich, Germany. She serves regularly on Federal Circuit Bar Association panels and American Bar Association panels focused on patent litigation including a recent panel entitled Empowering Women in the Law Virtual Summit. She participated as a conference panelist for the Master Dialogue on Intellectual Property Adjudication – Judicial Perspectives on IP at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Washington, D.C in September 2019. Judge Kendall serves on the board of the Linn Inn of Court (Intellectual Property and Patent Bar) received the Distinguished Judicial Service Award from the Intellectual Property Association of Chicago.
Aside from her work with the Federal Circuit, Judge Kendall has sat by designation with the Seventh, Ninth, and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Prior to her judicial appointment, she served over ten years as a federal prosecutor in Chicago in both the Public Corruption Unit and as the Child Exploitation Coordinator where she tried dozens of jury trials. While a federal prosecutor, she was appointed to the U.S. Attorney General’s Advisory Panel that reviewed all multi-jurisdictional child exploitation and trafficking cases and served as Project Safe Neighborhoods Coordinator. She has received numerous awards for her work with victims and honorary degrees for her human trafficking work and her pro bono work. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Northwestern University and her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law.
Maureen Maher has been a devoted journalist, dedicated to sharing and connecting people across the globe through important and unique stories for more than thirty years.
She spent nearly 25 years as a correspondent with CBS News. Most recently, she was an investigative reporter for the CBS News Magazine, 48 Hours, from 2002-2021, where her work on International Adoption helped to helped change Federal laws, convict a serial killer, and exonerate two wrongly convicted men. Among her numerous honors, she has been awarded the distinguished Edward R. Murrow, an Emmy, and honors from the National Association for Black Journalists, as well as an Alfred Dupont and New York Press award for team coverage of breaking news.
In 2021, Maureen left broadcast news to fulfill other lifelong goals. In the spring of 2024, she will graduate from Chicago Theological Seminary where she has been studying at the Inter-Religious Institute, using the language of faith to foster more understanding and peace in the world. She is the author of a children’s book, The Day We All Got Sick…Better, which will be released in 2024. Maureen is also currently producing and directing a film on a transgender child whose life she has been documenting since 2003.
Maureen lives in Chicago with her husband and children, 2 on two legs, and 2 on four.
Meg Kissinger, RDHS ’75, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author, will help you see and think about people with mental illness in a new light. Her engaging memoir, “While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence,” has been praised for its incisive reporting, boundless compassion and surprising humor. It was named as an editors choice by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, Goodreads and Independent Booksellers Association. Audible chose it as the Best of the Year.
Kissinger, a 1975 Regina Dominican graduate, spent more than two decades traveling across the country to report on our nation’s failed mental health system. She taught investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and is a trainer for the school’s Dart Center on Trauma and Journalism.
Kissinger lives in Milwaukee, Wis., along the shores of Lake Michigan, her favorite place to plunge, even on the coldest day in January.