By Alysse Kuglitsch
For On The Edge
April 19, 2022
Known affectionately to students as Mama John for his compassion and baking and as the heart of the Religious Studies Department to the staff, faculty and community, John Leonard, an Edgewood College religious studies professor, will retire in a few weeks after 28 years at Edgewood College.
“John is a Dominican. Simply put, he is the conscience of the college,” said alum Lucy Keane who has served the college as a volunteer for decades and recently led the Board of Trustees as chair.
Students call Leonard by his nickname, Mama John, because of his tradition of baking treats and accommodating their dietary restrictions. They say he is also known for his compassion and his ability to engage them which helps them dig deeply into their values.
First-year student Anna Volk, who studies in Leonard’s Women and Multicultural Theologies class, said Mama John is a good-natured professor and feels his passion for teaching in every class.
Leonard makes his students “feel like we’re a part of his family, especially when he cooks for us!” Volk said.
The Mama John nickname arose from Leonard’s dietary accommodations in his baked treats and extended to other traits that students admired, he said.
“Eventually students added to the list of ‘motherly’ traits: compassion, nurturing, setting up assignments to make them ‘easier’ to complete, creating alternative assignments, listening to their problems… So, I began introducing myself at the beginning of the semester as ‘Mama John’— ‘I will love you like ‘another mother’ and if you need anything let me know,’” Leonard said.
Leonard said his favorite part of teaching is “(g)etting to know, working with, and falling in love with my students. I love seeing what happens when students realize that the exploration of the spiritual dimensions of their own lives—whether they are religious or not—provides them the language to identify their deepest beliefs and values and to challenge the limited and limiting ways that they were taught.”
Prof. Jill Kirby, who also teaches Religious Studies, said Leonard is one of a kind.
“John’s departure will have a very significant impact on the Religious Studies Department, as there is simply no way to replace a colleague with John’s length and quality of service,” Kirby said. “His deep expertise in liberation theology, his casual control of the intricacies of the Dominican tradition, and the joyful exuberance with which he lived out the spirituality of ecology are quite simply irreplaceable.”
“Sr. Loretta Dornisch, who was chair of Religious Studies at the time, asked me to commit verbally to three years. She assumed I would move on to teach in some graduate program or at a seminary,” Leonard said. “I think it only took from August to December for me to realize I was ‘at home’ and would probably stay at Edgewood for the rest of my teaching career.”
Leonard attended St. Meinrad College in Southern Indiana from 1974 to 1978, majoring in classical languages and double minoring in philosophy and music history. After gaining some teaching experience, he began graduate school in 1980 at the University of Notre Dame. He completed his Doctorate in Liturgical Studies with a double-minor in Catholic Sacramental Theology and the History and Performance of Liturgical Music.
Leonard also has been a leader of the campus faith community and the chapel at Edgewood College and served as an interim Vice President of Mission, Values, and Inclusion in 2021.
Keane said that Leonard “embodies the values of the College.”
“When he has been asked to step-up or step-in, he has done so 100 percent of the time,” she said. “I have been on the campus for 42 years, in my opinion, there have been a handful of people who embrace the responsibility of carrying the Dominican traditions on their shoulders and John Leonard is one of them. There is no higher praise I could offer than that.”
Keane said that while Leonard may retire, he will leave behind lasting lessons.
Post your comments