Principal’s Message: In the footsteps of Angela Merici

In October I had the privilege to join 35 pilgrims from across the world — Ursuline Sisters, leaders and teachers from Ursuline schools and communities — on a journey to Lake Garda, Brescia and beyond to learn more about St Angela Merici and walk in her footsteps in the places she lived, prayed and led. We visited her home in Desenzano del Garda, the churches she would have attended and Brescia where her mission began. Our shared pilgrimage reminded us that Angela’s vision of faith, education and service is not bound by borders or backgrounds, but continues to inspire communities across continents — including ours here at St Ursula’s College Kingsgrove. 

Angela’s Home in Desenzano Del Garda 

One of the most moving moments of the pilgrimage was visiting Angela’s family home in Le Grezze, Desenzano del Garda. The house, though simple, still preserves the atmosphere of Angela’s early life. Walking through the rooms, we reflected on her early life and the daily rhythm of prayer and work. Whilst close to Lake Garda, Desenzano is also surrounded by beautiful countryside, vineyards and olive trees. Angela’s words, “Cultivate the vine that is entrusted to you” came alive as we could see the influence for her words in her surroundings. The challenge to us as leaders to take care of the vine and keep it flourishing was no longer just words that we had read in a book. The experience of being in her world, in her house, seeing the vineyards through her eyes was a significant experience for us and we felt the need to live out her vision even more deeply.

One of the most powerful images I have included is that of two Sisters sitting in Angela’s bedroom. She always preferred to sleep on a mat on the floor. Some of the Sisters on the trip were experiencing Desenzano del Garda for the first time, like us, and it is here that many of us felt Angela’s presence. Angela’s words came alive “Do not lose heart… He who called you will not desert you.” Her early life reminds us that holiness often begins in ordinary places — homes, families, and daily routines. 

We stayed in the St Angela Merici, Mericianum, a Spirituality Centre in Brodazzo, Desenzano del Garda run by the Ursuline Sisters of St Charles. A place of significance as it is here that St Angela had a vision for a Society of St Ursula. It is a beautiful and tranquil place and these surroundings provided us with an insight into the early life of St Angela. 

During the pilgrimage we celebrated Mass in many churches including St Angela’s Parish Church in Desenzano del Garda. In the church is a large and beautiful wooden statue of St Angela.

Brescia and the Company of St Ursula

In 1535, Angela founded the Company of St Ursula in Brescia, in the Church of St Angela Merici (Sant’Afra) where Angela’s remains rest today. Below the large basilica is a smaller church where the original painting of Angela with her Company of women is hung. It is in this small church that Angela would have come to pray and it is here that she gathered her company of women. This was also another powerful moment of our pilgrimage where I felt Angela’s presence and I asked for her intercession for our school community — that we may carry forward her vision of faith, education, courage, loving relationships and service. Angela’s reminder echoed in my heart “Strive to be faithful to that which God has called you.” 

The Gift of Pilgrimage Together 

What made this pilgrimage especially meaningful was being part of a group of 35 pilgrims from across the world — from Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia. Though diverse in background, we were united by Angela’s vision and the Ursuline tradition. Our conversations, prayers and shared meals became living examples of Angela’s call to cultivate loving relationships with each other. Walking together reminded us that pilgrimage is not only about places, but about people — discovering God’s presence in community. This global fellowship showed me that Angela’s legacy is alive and vibrant, connecting classrooms, convents and families across continents. From the humble rooms of Angela’s home to the sanctuary where she rests and in the company of pilgrims from around the world, I was reminded that our school is part of a global living tradition.

Our last days were spent in Rome where we were fortunate to gather in St Peter’s Square for an audience with Pope Leo XIV as well as at the Generalate in Rome, the leadership headquarters for the Ursulines.

It is here where we met Sr Sue Flood, the Prioress General of the Ursulines of the Roman Union and Council members. She is the first Australian Sister to hold this position and is also an ex student of our beloved College.

This pilgrimage has been an extraordinary opportunity of inspiration, formation, companionship and renewal. I am very grateful to Sr Kari Hatherell, Provincial Leader of the Australian Ursulines, for providing me with the honour of being one of two Australian delegates to participate. 

Vivienne Awad
Principal

Ursuline graduate awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Maria Corina Machado was recently awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, but what you might not know is that this Venezuelan woman is an Ursuline alumni from Merici Academy in Venezuela. She is the first Ursuline graduate to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

The following video was made by another alumni from the school and focuses on Maria Corina and her Serviam spirit:

• Instagram link
• Facebook link

For more information on her work that led to her being awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, you might be interested to read the following articles:

• ABC News
• The Nobel Prize
• Wikipedia

Lynette Wallworth – Edge of Life

Filmmaker and artist, Lynette Wallworth (Class of 1978 and 1978 College Vice Captain) had her most recent work “Edge of Life” premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival and shown at cinemas around Australia! We were delighted to interview Lynette about her career highlights and inspiration.

Who/what inspired your artistic career path and what drew you to film, and in particular virtual reality, as a preferred medium? 

At school it was really helpful to have received encouragement around something that I had a natural tendency and a passion for.  After completing high school I went straight to art school and studied painting, followed by a postgrad in photography. It was through photography that I discovered film. 

I’m interested in the moving image and that’s what I focused on, in its many forms; in virtual reality, in feature documentary, in fulldome and in installation. All of them involve the moving image. My installations, like “Evolution of Fearlessness”, are a form of documentary even though not traditional. My inspirations come from life and I’m fascinated by people’s real lived experiences.

Your works have been showcased globally and you have won many prestigious awards throughout your career, including a couple of Emmy Awards. Can you share your biggest career highlight so far?

I won an award at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. I think I’m the only Australian to have been given that award but it was also about being in the position to give a speech, on receiving that award, in front of approximately 70 world leaders and heads of industry.

It was a crucial moment because it was during the Christmas period of the horrendous fires in Australia and I had the opportunity to make a speech about those fires and climate change in front of a big room full of decision makers, many of whom had resisted acknowledging the effects of climate change. 

Sitting in the front row was Al Gore and other people who have been championing our need to think about what’s happening to the entire planet. Receiving that award gave me the opportunity to speak, at a crucial moment, about what was happening in our country and to position it in front of those world leaders. It really was a career highlight because of the audience I was speaking to.

Congratulations on the release of your latest documentary “Edge of Life”. I have noticed that this is not your first work surrounding the concepts of death. What was the inspiration behind this film?

There’s a Western concept of what happens at end of life, and there’s an Indigenous concept of what happens at end of life. Fear at the time of death is not universal, rather it’s cultural. In a lot of Western culture there is a loss around these deeper philosophical issues. I wanted to put into this film – the experiences of end of life – where there’s more of a comfort or solace, or an acceptance of this transition that everyone must face. 

I took the opportunity of (focusing on) a trial that was carried out at St Vincent’s in Melbourne using ancient medicine traditionally used by Indigenous people for a very long time, in order to explore this deeper underlying concept of why Western culture has created a society where many people are terrified as they approach death.

Many people in Western culture do not have the religious values or concepts to cling to in order to understand what is happening at the end of their lives. For those people, there is a kind of terror of facing a void, as opposed to being held by some values and understandings that provide a different way of approaching death.

I’ve written this work with my friend, who is a Chief in the Brazilian Amazon, and at the heart of the film I am trying to thread together knowledge systems that have been separated. 

What are your fondest memories of your time at St Ursula’s College?

I have a lot of fond memories and I had a lot of wonderful friends. I think what I mostly took from my schooling was the social justice mission of the nuns and the idea of living a purposeful existence beyond your own personal interests and the modelling of that is something that I think I have. You can see the evidence of it in my work.

Click on the below link to view the trailer of Lynette’s documentary “Edge of Life.

Edge of Life

Dr Charmaine Lang’s journey from school science to stem cells!

We were delighted to have a conversation with Dr Charmaine Lang from the Class of 2006 and we are grateful that she was able to share her story in the middle of the very busy “Michaelmas” term at the University of Oxford. Dr Lang is a Fellow of the Oxford-GSK Institute of Molecular and Computational Medicine and is based at Oxford’s Centre for Human Genetics. Her story of how she discovered her passion in the field of Parkinson’s disease is inspiring and she hopes it lights a spark in some current enthusiastic science students!

Can you share your study/career journey since leaving St Ursula’s?

I studied both Biology and Chemistry in years’ 11 & 12 and then chose a Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) because it was flexible and let me explore lots of areas before specialising. By my third year, I realised I enjoyed the practical classes so much, so I decided to do an Honours research year. I was lucky to find a fantastic supervisor at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Prof Antony Cooper, who I really clicked with, and he happened to be working on Parkinson’s Disease. This is where my whole journey into researching aerogeneration began. After getting a first-class honours, I stayed on in the same lab to complete a PhD, expanding my project studying a protein involved in Parkinson’s. While writing up my thesis, I can across an advert for a Postdoctoral Researcher position at the University of Oxford to work on adult stem cells in Parkinson’s disease. I didn’t think I had much of a chance, but I applied anyways, and to my surprise, I got the job. I packed my life into two boxes, said goodbye to my family and moved to the other side of the world. I went on to spend nine years working on various Parkinson’s disease projects in the Wade-Martins group at Oxford, building up my technical expertise, publishing papers and building my own scientific profile. Then, just last year, I was awarded a major Fellowship to start my own research group, the Lang laboratory, at the Oxford-GSK Institute of Molecular and Computational Medicine. It’s been an incredible journey, all sparked by following the subjects I loved at school.

Who/What sparked your interest in Science?

I originally wanted to study medicine because I was fascinated by how the body works and wanted to help people. But during high school and my bachelor’s degree, I realised what I truly loved was the process of discovery, not just learning facts, but uncovering how things work at a deeper level. Research allowed me to ask bigger questions: why diseases happen, how cells communicate, how things go wrong at the molecular level, and how we might develop treatments that doctors could one day use to cure disease. That curiosity, strongly encouraged by my incredibly hardworking and supportive parents, is what ultimately sparked my entire career in science.

You said you were an “average student” but yet you have gone on to complete first class honours. Can you expand on this wonderful achievement?

This was really because I chose the right supervisor for me. When I was looking for an Honours project, I honestly didn’t mind what the research topic was, I cared far more about finding someone who would guide and support me through my first real experience in research. At the beginning, you make a lot of mistakes, have to learn a lot of new techniques and develop a whole new way of thinking, so having a patient, enthusiastic supervisor makes all the difference. I was incredibly lucky to find that. To this day, whenever I’m back in Sydney, I still visit my PhD supervisor, and we even collaborate on Parkinson’s projects together! 

What has been the highlight of your career so far, particularly in regards to stem cell research?

The highlight of my career so far has been using adult stem cells to model Parkinson’s disease in the lab. We can take a simple skin cell from a patient, turn it back into a stem cell (a special type of cell that can become any cell in the body), and then grow it into different brain cells, like neurons, astrocyte and microglia. This lets us study how these cells communicate with each other, and how those conversations break down in neurodegeneration. Using these models, we’ve made several exciting discoveries about what specifically goes wrong in Parkinson’s. We are now developing drugs to stop these harmful processes, with the hope that one day they could reach the clinic and genuinely help
people living with Parkinson’s.

What is your fondest memory from your time at St Ursula’s?

I was incredibly lucky to meet some of my closest, lifelong friends at St Ursula’s. Even now, living on the other side of the world, we’re still in touch and I see them every time I’m back home. I’ll always remember the school sports carnivals (go Dulkara!), the lunchtime sausage sizzles, my Japanese school exchange trip and the wonderful teachers who encouraged me every step of the way. High school really is the foundation for your future, so cherish it, take every opportunity and enjoy every minute.

The Class of 1975 celebrates 50 years!

On Sunday 19 October, 25 former students celebrated their 50 year reunion, and for some 4^th Form leavers, their 52 year reunion. The afternoon was spent reconnecting, reminiscing and catching up on our lives during the past half century!

We were honoured by the presence of our teaching nuns, Sisters Gabriel, Leone, Mary, Colleen and Noelene. Unfortunately, our principal, Sister Kathleen was unwell and unable to join us.  Our School Captain, Kim nee Hanley and Vice Captain, Christine nee Ellis were also there. Kim put together a slideshow of old photos which was wonderful to watch and laugh together.

We were all left with the strong impression that as a result of strong bonds formed at school, the long passage of years melt away very quickly and we easily and familiarly reconnect.

The other very strong impression was, that as mature women now, we are able to regard those formidable nuns of our younger years with the deepest admiration. We can look back and clearly see the strength, guidance and care they showed us and the good values that they instilled in us when they were very young women themselves. A few times it was said last Sunday, “How lucky were we?”

Roslyn Lang (nee Eccleston)
Class of ’75

HSC Showcase Nominations and Selections

Congratulations to the following Year 12 graduates who have had their HSC Major Works nominated and/or selected for showcases.

Lavinia Cacouratos

Lavinia received a nomination and was selected for the HSC Showcase ENCORE, for her outstanding analytical and critical understanding of music in her HSC musicology component.

Musicology selections will receive recognition and be listed in the program at the Sydney Opera House on Monday 2 March 2026.

Alannah Skurray

Alannah’s outstanding HSC Textiles and Design Major Project received a nomination for SHAPE Exhibition and was selected for the TexStyle Exhibition.

The TexStyle Exhibition showcases Major Textiles Projects from around the state at Gallery 76 from 1 March – 24 April 2026.

Jaimee Fong

Jaimee Visual Arts Body of Work has been selected for inclusion in the Class Of ’25 Exhibition, which presents outstanding works by HSC Visual Arts students form high schools across southern Sydney. The exhibition is to be held from Friday 19 December 2025 – Tuesday 20 January 2026 in the Broadhurst Gallery at Hazelhurst Arts Centre.

Jasmine O’Connor

Jasmine’s Visual Arts Body of Work received a nomination for the HSC Showcase ARTEXPRESS!

Jacinta Drumond

Jacinta’s Music 1 performance received a nomination for the HSC Showcase ENCORE!

Exciting opportunities ahead for Julianna

Year 12 graduate, Julianna Kupresak, recently completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma. This pathway has opened up some interesting opportunities for Julianna and she has received early university offers for the University of London.

Have you always had an interest in studying abroad and was this possibility a deciding factor in choosing the IB over the HSC?

What did you enjoy most about studying the IB?

What are your ambitions for the future?

Vale: Mr Geoffrey Laidler

It was with deep sadness and immense gratitude that we farewelled our dear colleague and friend, Mr Geoffrey Laidler (Geoff), a man whose presence at St Ursula’s College was both enduring and profoundly impactful. A Requiem Mass was held for him on 3 November 2025 and was attended by a large number of former and current staff, students, alumnae and families gathered to farewell an inspirational educator.

For 27 years, Geoff was a pillar of our staff, a quiet achiever whose impact was felt in every corner of the college. As a Modern History expert, Geoff brought depth of knowledge and passion to his teaching. His academic excellence was not just evident in the breadth of his historical understanding, but in the way he translated complex ideas into meaningful, engaging lessons. He held himself to the highest standards, always revising and always refining to get the best from each and every student. At the core of his teaching was the belief in the potential of every learner.

Geoff’s classroom was a place of intellectual rigour and genuine care. He taught with heart, and his students responded in kind, with respect, with curiosity and equal passion. Geoff believed in the power of education to shape not just minds, but character. And he lived that belief every day.

As a colleague, Geoff was thoughtful, generous, and deeply committed. He never sought the spotlight, but his quiet leadership and unwavering professionalism set an admirable tone that inspired. 

And of course, if you ever needed to find Geoff, you simply followed the trail of St Ursula’s coffee mugs scattered lovingly around the college, a quirky signature of a man who was always on the move, always thinking, always teaching.

Geoff was an integral part of our ‘Serviam’ community, not just because of the years he gave, but because of the way he gave them. With integrity. With humility. With service.

Farewell, Geoff. Your legacy lives on in every student you inspired, every colleague you supported, and every lesson that still echoes through our College.

Thank you for your wisdom, your warmth, and your unwavering commitment to the students and our College.

You will be deeply missed, and never forgotten.

Sandra Kasses
English Teacher

Upcoming Reunions

10, 20 and 30 year reunions?

We imagine that in 2026, there might be a 10 year reunion for the Class of 2016, a 20 year reunion for the Class of 2006 and a 30 year reunion for the Class of 1996 and a 40 year reunion for the Class of 1986! Perhaps there are other years planning get-togethers?

If you are involved in planning any of these reunions, please do let us know the details so we can include them in upcoming issues of Piazza.

We are always delighted to notify Alumnae of upcoming reunions. Please don’t hesitate to contact us to include something in the next issue.

Serviam – Buy a College Key Ring

Carrying the Spirit of Serviam: Serviam keyrings are now available to purchase

If you would like the St Ursula’s crest on your keys as a reminder of our culture of service, connection and lifelong learning, we encourage you to visit the College Reception, where keyrings are available to alumnae for $5.00 each.

If you can’t drop in to the College, you can email us to arrange your purchase and a keyring will be posted to you.

Please email us at: info@stursulakingsgrove.catholic.edu.au

We Love Hearing from YOU!

Announcements and stories of interest

Please keep in touch and let us know about any weddings, births, deaths or other news. We are always looking for interesting stories to share with our Alumnae, including career milestones, life events, personal reflections and memories.

School Socials

Members of the school community are invited to follow St Ursula’s on Facebook and on Instagram. Our social media platforms feature photos and videos of our students’ many achievements and learning experiences, latest events and other exciting news from around the school. Our handle on both Facebook and Instagram is @stursulascollegekingsgrove

Alumnae Socials

The St Ursula’s Alumnae Facebook page is a private group run by a former student who volunteers her time to manage the page. Whilst the College is not directly responsible for this page we appreciate the effort involved in maintaining such a group. You can find this group by searching for St Ursula’s College Alumnae on Facebook and you will need to answer questions about your schooling to be accepted into the group.

Reunions

If you are organising a reunion and would like to promote it in our newsletter, please do get in touch and provide us with the following details:
(create bullet point list)
Venue
Date
RSVP date and contact details
And anything else you would like to add!

After the event, don’t forget to send us photographs! We would love to include these in the next edition of the Piazza.

Mailing list

The College maintains an opt-in email database of our Alumnae for the purposes of sending out this newsletter and for other important announcements. Please do let us know if your email address changes. Bounced emails will be deleted and unfortunately we are not able to contact individuals to get their updated email address. As we try and refine this database we may from time to time ask you to confirm your graduating year. This information is especially helpful when we are are asked to email reunion details to a specific cohort. Our database is completely confidential and not shared with anyone.

Contact details

Email: info@stursulakingsgrove.catholic.edu.au
Ph: (02) 9502 3300