Mary Shindler Boyle '67 Center for Women's Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation

While discourse skills are put into classroom use every day, St. Mary’s students are taught additional tools of discourse and given weekly opportunities to practice those skills within and across differences in the BC. These opportunities vary from loosely structured opportunities for our freshmen to practice and play with discourse skills every Tuesday to more formal discourse every Wednesdays to give any interested student the ability to think and discuss more deeply on the topics coming up in our classrooms and our world. 

Not every student is an entrepreneur, but every student can develop the spirit of SMAntrepreneurship, including but limited to the ability to be courageous, resilient, and innovative. While these skills are nurtured in our classrooms, the BC provides opportunities for those who want to take their entrepreneurial practice a step further. The SMAntrepreneur club teaches real world business skills for students who might want to open their own business one day and, for the SMAntreprenerurs who participate in our semi-annual SMArket, we offer worktime every Thursday. One Thursday a month someone from our larger SMA community with entrepreneurial skills is invited to hold “office hours” for our SMAntreprenerurs who might be seeking some advice in their area of expertise. 

Because SMA is located downtown, we have the unique opportunity to engage with the city of Portland from the moment we walk out our door. A vast and varied collection of people, experiences, and opportunities exist here, and the BC supports students in taking advantage of that fact. Whether their interest is in politics, business, social entrepreneurship, or art, the BC helps students connect in the city at large so they may learn from and be inspired by all those around us during dedicated Rose Day blocks as well as one Saturday per quarter. 

As the only young women’s high school in the state of Oregon, St. Mary’s Academy, and the BC in particular, has a unique ability to be a convening hub for conversations with, for, and about women. This year the BC will host several conversations ranging from women in sports to women at the intersections of artificial intelligence. These events focus on leveraging the skills and talents within the SMA and our surrounding Portland communities an opportunity for learning and discussion. 

Leadership does not look, sound, or feel one way, nor does it live within one category of school programming. To truly support a culture of leadership at St. Mary’s, it is critical to meaningfully support our faculty and their ability to model and provide experiences that implement the skills of leadership, the orientation to innovation, and the spirit of entrepreneurship.  

In addition to supporting the work of the podcast club and Digital Media Production, a one-semester elective that puts the Boyle Center Broadcast Studio tools to use, this spring Boyle Center Media will be producing oral histories of SMA's Sisters, both past and present, in service to preserving and sharing the legacy of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary.