Sister Kathleen

Patricia Galli is divorced and the mother of four grown children. And she is studying to become a Roman Catholic nun.Ms. Galli's marital status is an anomaly, but it represents an important change in a church that deplores divorce. Faced with dwindling numbers of women who choose to devote their lives to God, the Catholic Church is opening its doors to people who would have been excluded from religious life in the past.No one is keeping track of the number of divorced women entering the convent, but interviews with nuns across the country suggest that lingering taboos against the divorced are disappearing in the larger orders.

Sister Kathleen Feeley had an old-fashioned message yesterday for her last crop of graduates at the College of Notre Dame: Help those who need it."You must bend your eyes and your ears and your feet and your hands to those who need your help," she urged the 275 graduating students. "They are all around you."Sister Kathleen is retiring after 21 years as president of Notre Dame, the thriving little liberal arts women's school in North Baltimore.Her last message to her students was culled from an essay by anthropologist Loren Eiseley, who wrote about "star throwers," people who rescue others mired in trouble and who trust in the power of grace.

Once upon a time there was a young woman who studied theater, not because she thought it would be her life's work, but because she enjoyed it. ''I was able to indulge my preferences,'' says the now-mature woman looking back to her college days.But life took the young woman in different directions than she had anticipated. It took her to a convent and to many classrooms and eventually back to that college where she had studied theater, but this time to teach theater.And from that small drama department came the seed for a children's theater where grown-up actors put on plays that entertained and delighted youngsters for a long time.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has asked former college President Sister Kathleen Feeley to take charge of the education of nearly 18,000 disabled students and lead Baltimore schools past their long-standing special-education failures.The mayor described her response as a "tentative acceptance."Sister Kathleen, the former president of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, does not have an extensive background in special education, but her management skills are well-known, Mr. Schmoke said yesterday.

Marion Burk Knott, whose name graces many of the educational and medical buildings donated by her builder-philanthropist husband, Henry J. Knott, died of heart and respiratory failure at her Warrington Apartments home in Guilford. She would have been 93 next week. "She with her husband left their children a marvelous example of philanthropy and faith," Cardinal William H. Keeler said yesterday. "She was a devoted mother and I am sure that many will be mourning her passing. I join them."

Small liberal arts colleges for women are endangered institutions. Yet the tradition is alive and well at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, which recently completed a successful $14 million fund-raising drive. Thanks to the generosity of its donors, the 96-year-old college has established a firm foundation on which to prepare another generation of talented young women to take their place in the world.Much of the credit for this success goes to the leadership of Sister Kathleen Feeley, Notre Dame's president since 1971.

From the beginning, the trustees of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland wanted a new leader who belonged to the Roman Catholic religious order that founded it and who would carry on its tradition as a women's school -- an increasingly rare distinction in higher education.The trustees found her in Sister Rosemarie T. Nassif, 50, who will become the ninth president of the college. She will succeed Sister Kathleen Feeley, who is retiring after 21 years in that job.The trustees announced the appointment yesterday.

From the beginning, the trustees of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland wanted a new leader who belonged to the Roman Catholic religious order that founded it and who would carry on its tradition as a women's school -- an increasingly rare distinction in higher education.The trustees found her in Sister Rosemarie T. Nassif, 50, who will become the ninth president of the college. She will succeed Sister Kathleen Feeley, who is retiring after 21 years in that job.The trustees announced the appointment today.

The many healthy-baby programs offered by the March of Dimes depend heavily on funds generated by its spring walk-a-thon. What was once the most financially successful walk in the country, fell short of its spring goal, thanks to a cold, rainy day. Out of despair comes a wonderful idea, a fall WalkAgain. The Oct. 20 walk will be 6 miles through an area that should be of interest to most Baltimoreans, the Canton waterfront and Fells Point. Please register by calling, 752-7990. The rain date is Oct. 27.This walk will give you a first-hand look at all the exciting things that are happening in that area.

At a college in a small town in Ghana where students don't have textbooks, or books of any sort actually, the American professor faced a quandary. Some of the books she kept for them, in a makeshift, bricks-and-boards library in her office, were getting too old and tattered for lending out, but how could she throw them away? So she piled them under a sign saying that any of her students with perfect attendance could take one to keep. "Each one was more worn than the next -- no cover, raggedy, dog-eared -- and yet students would take 20 minutes to pick through them," Sister Kathleen Feeley said.