Inscape Summer 2025

Brenna Smith West ‘13 is the Chief Communications & Customer Experience Officer for the Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan. In her role, she guides the strategy for all internal and external communications for the organization, and oversees three departments: communications, customer experience, and the contact center, an outbound call center. Her organization is one of 110 Girl Scout Councils around the nation, serving 34 counties in the lower peninsula of Michigan, with approximately 16,000 members.

Mariel Galvan ‘16 is a volunteer with the Peace Corps in their Youth in Development sector. Now a year into her service, she is currently based in a rural beach town in Costa Rica with a population of 500 people. She spends her days rotating between three institutions: a daycare, an elementary school, and a high school, facilitating workshops, teaching, coaching, and more.

Karen Spears ‘13 is the founder of Kareracter, a creative and strategic marketing firm that helps brands find their voice and express it visually through thoughtful logo design and brand identity work. Since its inception eight years ago, Karen has worked with a diverse range of clients, including the Poetry Foundation, Thales, Therapy for Black Girls, the Tory Burch Foundation, and Arts Alliance Illinois, as well as numerous small businesses. She also works as Creative Director for Therapy for Black Girls, a digital platform and community dedicated to the mental wellness of Black women and girls.

We have a renewed focus on infusing Mercy into all we do at Mother McAuley - including our interactions and offerings for our greater school community. With this in mind, we launched a new initiative at the start of the 2024-2025 school year to provide a deeper understanding of how our Mercy charism and mission relate to our Catholic identity for all adults in our community - faculty, staff, parents, alumnae, Board of Trustees, benefactors, and friends. Led by Sr. Nancy Houlihan, RSM as the new Assistant Director of Mission Integration, we have worked to bring our Mercy values into every aspect of our school. This spring, Sr. Nancy celebrated her jubilee, honoring 50 years of service as a Sister of Mercy.

This summer, six of our Mighty Macs attended the Conference of Mercy Student Leaders at St. Xavier University. They stayed on campus for a week, joining Mercy education students from around the world as they deepened their leadership skills and shared how they embody the spirit of Mercy and practice the critical concerns within their communities. Sr. Nancy Houlihan, RSM, brought her expertise to the conference, sharing a keynote with the students addressing Mercy charism and ministry in today’s world.