If there’s one piece of advice Dorie Mansen could offer the students of Merrimack College, it’s to always keep their eyes and ears open for their next big opportunity. It’s precisely how she ended up working for the College herself.
In April 2018, Mansen was leading a pilgrimage in Israel as the director of mission at Immaculate Conception Church in Marlborough, Mass.
“One day, I was pondering and discerning what my next steps were professionally,” she explained. “That night, the priest with whom I was traveling received a phone call in the middle of the night from someone at Merrimack College asking if I might be interested in working with the Austin Scholars. That was one of those moments where I felt like the Holy Spirit hit me with a sledgehammer.”
For years, Mansen searched for a way to combine her two passions – teaching theology and leading pastoral work. Austin Scholars was a perfect fit. The program focuses on holistic education that blends traditional college courses with community service initiatives.
Mansen serves as the director of the Austin Scholars curriculum and is an associate professor of practice for religious and theological studies. Austin Scholars began as a living-learning community for first-year students in which students would take one course together and engage in a community service project. Nearly two decades later, the Austin Scholars is a four-year program in which students participate in weekly community service and engagement initiatives with over a dozen local community partners. With the motto of “Leadership Through Service,” the Austin Scholars Program aims to help students grow as leaders on campus, in the local community, and in their chosen professional tracts. As students progress through the program, Mansen strives to help them see that service isn’t simply something that we do, it is part of who we are.
“Austin Scholars is really unique in higher education,” Mansen explained. “We tend to compartmentalize our academic, community service, spiritual and professional lives. Austin Scholars is really a hallmark of holistic student formation at Merrimack because it acknowledges that we are not compartmentalized people.”
Last year, she helped adapt the Austin Scholar’s required first-year course, “Who Am I?,” into a required course for all incoming freshmen. The course encourages first-year students to think critically and reflectively about their mission and purpose not just as students, but as human beings.
Mansen also serves as a staff leader for Merrimack’s Pellegrinaggio, along with Fr. Raymond Dlugos, O.S.A., Ph.D., vice president for mission and ministry, and Matt O’Neil, assistant director of the Stevens Service Learning Center. The four-credit course focuses on the life and times of St. Augustine and culminates in a 10-day-long excursion to Italy.
“Each year, we gather a group of pilgrims who have ranged from 18 to 81 years old,” Mansen describes. “We travel together, walk in St. Augustine’s footsteps together, share meals together, reflect together and learn together. Students meet with members of different communities who are living out the Augustinian mission in their own lives in Italy.”
While Mansen grew up in the Protestant Church, religion was never the main focal point of her life until she was a teenager and took an interest in studying religion from an academic standpoint.
“I found it fascinating,” she said. “I went to public high school and one of my favorite classes was world religions, which was offered through the social studies department. I fell into biblical studies again through my studies at Boston College. I realized that studying ancient history and ancient literature was what I was most passionate about.”
One of Mansen’s favorite things about her work at Merrimack is being able to cultivate that same academic passion for religion among the Austin Scholars.
“What I find remarkable is when students have that ‘a-ha’ moment,” she explained, “and they realize what they’re learning in the classroom is informing what they’re experiencing at service. They realize it’s changing who they are and how they want to be in the world.”
