Sister Joel Read (December 30, 1925 – May 25, 2017) was an American

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated ''Sr.'' or Sist.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to pr ...

and the president of

Alverno College Alverno College is a private Roman Catholic women's college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. History Chartered in 1887 as St. Joseph's Normal School, Alverno became Alverno Teachers College in 1936. It adopted its current name in 1946. Academics Alver ...

from 1968 until 2003.

Biography

Janice Anne Read was born on December 30, 1925, in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. She joined the

School Sisters of St. Francis The School Sisters of St. Francis (abbreviated SSSF) are an international religious congregation of Catholic sisters, part of the Third Order of Saint Francis, founded in 1874 in New Cassel, Wisconsin. The congregation’s mission covers the United ...

in 1942. Read graduated from

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

and Alverno College. She was one of the founding members of the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

. She died on May 25, 2017, at the age of 91.

Academic career

Read began teaching history at Alverno College in 1955. In 1968, she was appointed to be the college's sixth president. In 1985, she was elected to the Wisconsin Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other education boards she has served on include the Foundation for Independent Higher Education, the

American Council on Education The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educatio ...

, the

Association of American Colleges and Universities The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is a global membership organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. It works to improve quality and equity in undergraduate education and advance liberal educatio ...

and the

National Catholic Educational Association The National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) is a private, professional educational membership association of over 150,000 educators in Catholic schools, universities, and religious education programs. It is the largest such organization ...

. In 2000, she received the Lifetime Leadership Award from the Wisconsin Women in Higher Education Leadership. Read retired in 2003. Her tenure as president is the longest of any college president in Alverno College's history.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Joel 1925 births 2017 deaths Alverno College alumni Alverno College faculty Heads of universities and colleges in the United States Fordham University alumni People from Chicago 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns Catholics from Illinois Women heads of universities and colleges American women academics 21st-century American Roman Catholic nuns National Organization for Women people