What's Happening

July 13, 2026, Adrian, Michigan – Julie Barst became the Director of Weber Retreat and Conference Center on June 29, 2026, succeeding Sister Janet Doyle, OP, who served in that role since 2016. 

Julie served as Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs during the last academic year of Siena Heights University. She sees her new role at Weber Center as an extension of her involvement with the Adrian Dominican Sisters for the past 14 years at Siena Heights University. During those years, Julie worked with many Sisters, both at the University and at the Motherhouse. 

“My first semester here at Siena, I joined the anti-human trafficking task force that Sisters Thérèse Haggerty and Jean Tobin started,” she said. “I have developed over 14 years such a deep respect for the Sisters and the Dominican Charism, and the opportunity to keep contributing to that mission was very exciting to me. It felt like a natural extension of a lot of the work that I’ve been doing at Siena.” 

A native of St. Charles, Michigan, in Saginaw County, Julie grew up one block from M-52, which leads circuitously to Adrian. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an accounting major at Central Michigan University. She also holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in literary studies, both from Purdue University. 

Julie began her career in accounting but realized that field was not fulfilling, so she reconnected with an earlier desire to be a teacher. “One of my passions has always been reading and talking to other people about fantastic books,” she said. “I love what you can learn about what it means to be human from reading other people’s stories, and you can step into someone else’s shoes.” 

After earning a PhD in 2009, she began her career in higher education at South Dakota State University as Assistant Professor of English. In her third year, she read about an opening at Siena Heights University, researched the school, and saw it as a good fit. She began her career at Siena Heights in 2012 as Assistant Professor of English, then moved up to Associate Professor, Professor, and Chair of the English Department. Later, she was named Chair of the Humanities Division and Assistant Dean of Academics before stepping into the Provost position in August. 

This past year – the last academic year of Siena Heights University – has been “very challenging but also very rewarding,” Julie said. As Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs, she worked with students to figure out their next steps. “One of the key priorities for my office was collaborating with other institutions on teach-out agreements for students unable to graduate this year,” she said. A teach-out is a legal document between Siena Heights University and another college or university, guaranteeing that the other institution will accept Siena Heights students’ credits, keep the same timeline for graduation, and waive application fees and residency requirements, she explained.  

“Because the Sisters gave us the gift of honorable closure that included a full academic year of operations, we were able to graduate our seniors and secure 20 teach-out agreements and 53 transfer pathways for our remaining students,” Julie said. 

Julie is looking forward to her new role at Weber Center. She brings much of what she learned at Siena Heights to this new role. As founder of Siena Heights’ Ethnic and Gender Studies Institute, she organized speakers, film screenings, and special events. Julie hopes to function as a teacher at Weber Center. 

“I’m excited to think of the programming I could bring in, and the audiences it might serve,” she said. She also hopes to add a course on current events in race or gender studies and to fulfill the role of hospitality, welcoming Sisters and the broader community to Weber Center. 

“I feel honored to have been chosen to continue the mission of the Weber Center,” Julie said, “and my hope is to build on the amazing foundation that Sister Janet and the others before her have created.”  

June 30, 2026, Nogales, Arizona – For Elizabeth Guerrero, this past year has been one of learning. This May, she was one of seven women who learned more about the experience of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As a Candidate with the Adrian Dominican Sisters, Elizabeth is completing her first year of formation. During this time, she has learned about the history of the Adrian Dominican Sisters and the Charism of the Dominican Order, improved her Spanish skills, ministered as a literacy tutor and a team member with Holy Family Parish’s food pantry, and come to know many of the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

The experience at the border was with Catholic Sisters Walking with Migrants, a program offered through the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Arizona. Elizabeth was among seven women who participated in a week-long program in which, through various experiences, encounters, talks, and group discussions, they learned and experienced the plight of immigrants at the border.  

Early during the program, Elizabeth noticed a contrast between the experiences of different people. In downtown Nogales on the Arizona side, people were enjoying a pre-Cinco de Mayo celebration. “In the U.S., it’s celebrated and kind of commercialized – a parade of queens and princesses, some food booths, [and a choir] singing traditional ballads in Spanish. “We walked two blocks down and there we saw the border. We saw the wall, 20 feet tall with wire around it and another barrier so you can’t even get close to the border. It was a strange juxtaposition to see the pre-Cinco de Mayo festival and, just around the corner, a horrible scar between the two cities.”

Throughout the program, Elizabeth continued to see the differences in experiences – particularly the plight of migrants struggling to find a new life in the United States. The group spent one of the first mornings on a hike in the desert that simulated the kind of walking that migrants had through the desert of the United States until they passed the check points patrolled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

“We walked through various parts of the desert – dried out river beds, through thorny brush and overhang of branches, and up to the top of hills that were rocky and had no cover whatsoever,” Elizabeth recalled. The journey could take five to seven days, and migrants frequently travel by night, often climbing a mountain without the help of a light to gauge where they are. 

Many migrants don’t survive the trek through the desert, and their bodies – and often the items they left behind – are discovered by KBI staff members or others on search and rescue trips. Staff members call the authorities and, if they find any identification, KBI keeps it in their records in case a family member calls about them. 

Elizabeth particularly resonated with a story she heard from a young husband who lost his wife in the desert. They were traveling with a group when his wife became dehydrated and could not go on, but the group had to continue. The husband was picked up by Border Patrol and he had to beg them to let him go back to his wife. By the time they finally allowed it, his wife was dead.

“That was a powerful experience of knowing that if I had been crossing, I would have been left behind long ago,” Elizabeth said. Because of recent knee surgery, she had trouble keeping up with the group. “The group slowed down for me or rested,” she said. “That was a powerful experience of knowing that if I had been crossing [as a migrant], I would have been left behind a long time ago.”

Participants also had several opportunities to prepare and serve meals to migrants staying up to 20 days at the Kino Center in Nogales, Mexico, a shelter for migrants.  The center offers “holistic, wrap-around services,” including an attorney who can work with them on their case and another who helps them navigate the U.S. and Mexican immigration systems, as well as a teacher who can work with the children, Elizabeth said. 

“What we learned from Kino is before this current administration [in the United States], the facilities were full and the Kino Center was serving 300 people every day,” Elizabeth said. “Now maybe 20 people are coming. The flow is going South now because people are trying to self-deport …. Even if you’re trying to leave the country, they could arrest you and put you in detention.”

Participants also heard from Judge Eric Markovich who hears about 50 cases in the morning in his Special Proceedings Courtroom in Federal District Court in Tucson, Arizona. Many have been in detention centers, and the judge often sentences them to time already served. 

Elizabeth learned that the migrants are given 20 days to decide if they will pay a fine to stay in the United States or if they will accept a bus ticket to return to the country they came from. She noted that some people have decided to stay in Mexico, possibly until a new U.S. administration takes office. 

Elizabeth, a third-generation U.S. citizen of Mexican descent, said the stories she heard during the experience reminded her of people she ministered with – people who were trying to rebuild their lives in the United States but were deported. The stories she heard “led to a realization for me,” she said. “The stories she heard “made me reflect on how much I take for granted because I was born in the United States … I started to see family members in the faces I was looking at.”    

 

Caption for above feature photo: Serving lunch to the migrants at the Kino Center in Nogales, Mexico, are, from left, Elizabeth Guerrero, a Candidate with the Adrian Dominican Sisters; Sister Theresa “Terri” Ann Schell, OP, a Dominican Sister of Peace; and Gregoria Bueno-Rodriguez, a sister who is transferring to the Dominican Sisters of Peace.