someone is watching: grand coteau

When I am out wandering among the crepe myrtle, the azaleas, and the camellias of our front garden, there is the occasional sensation-no longer than a dragonfly flit-that someone is watching from one of the galleries. Someone in one of the original habits, someone who walked the same halls I walk everyday, someone who devoted her life “for the sake of one child,” someone who has, in her final gift, become a part of the very soil of the Academy grounds. When I hear the murmurings of the cows currently pastured across the road, I remember stories of how when the rains would come, local farmers would drive their herds to the high ground of the school until the floods abated. The community of live oaks across from the Administration building—including the nationally registered Duchesne Oak, dedicated on the 150th anniversary of Philippine Duchesne’s death-was originally planted by the Jesuits as shade for their horseback journey from St. Charles college to the convent for Mass. Now, the natural amphitheater their intertwined branches create is the idyllic setting for high school graduation. The worn choir stalls in the 1852 chapel tell stories too as they cradle today’s students and faculty during liturgies. They tell of joyous praise sung antiphonally and, along with the fading marble plaques of the cemetery, they also tell of the somber tragedies that befell this small, rural community of Religious of the Sacred Heart.

Our history is in the many tales and traditions kept alive in researched documents and lived reality. Our history is palpable in the buildings’ every nook, crack, crevice, and window pane of original glass. The same could be said for many other Sacred Heart Schools in the world. What strikes me, though, is that the history of the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau is also functional. We still hold classes in the main building, constructed in 1830. The equestrian program of 2004 uses the barn also built in 1830. The seniors receive their diplomas for 21st century academic excellence in the embrace of oak trees planted in the latter half of the 19th century. Reading the House Journals, I find evidence that it is not only the physical history that remains functional, but also the philosophical and quotidian. We still strive to educate the whole child, we still offer a broad based education designed to prepare women to enter the world, to influence it, and to work toward making it better for those who come after them. We share some of the same daily concerns—repairs, enrollment, curriculum design—all in the light of fluctuating financial realities.

Our students now carry laptops and the high school classrooms and corridor are on a wireless network. The library books are all barcoded and DVDs are now a part of the collection. Teachers are using streaming video on classroom monitors and we have held national teleconferences with the other Sacred Heart schools. We live, work, and move within an ever present, ever dynamic history, yet we have our eyes clearly fixed on what is to come and we dedicate our resources to that reality. I imagine that is not so different from what the RSCJ of 183 years ago tried to do. If they had not, we would not be here today. We have the same responsibility we give to our students. We must work to prepare the way for those who will come. The vision of Madeleine Sophie, blended with the perfume of the sweet olive tree, is part of the air we breathe in Grand Coteau. It is inescapable.