Dialog reporter
WILMINGTON – Ursuline Academy will induct six women into its Distinguished Alumnae Hall of Fame during a ceremony March 11 at the school.
According to Ursuline, these graduates have “brought distinction to our school through their talents as demonstrated in their career and/or throughout the community.” The honorees also encourage current students to live the Ursuline motto, “Serviam,” or “I will serve.”
Tickets to the event are $40. Current students can purchase tickets for $25. It will be held in the Anna Raskob Auditorium from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
The inductees are:
- Mary McDonough, Class of 1971. McDonough has worked in the public sector since her admission to the Delaware bar in 1978. She has been a legal services attorney for low-income Delawareans and a federal prosecutor, and she was nominations counsel for then-Sen. Joe Biden when the senator chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. She also was the head of the Consumer Protection Unit of the Delaware Department of Justice.
For the past 14 years, McDonough has been a judicial officer in the Delaware state court system. She launched the Human Trafficking Treatment Court in 2012 and teaches a college course in human trafficking. Her community service includes membership on many nonprofit boards, including the Ministry of Caring.
- Megan Manlove McGlinchey, Class of 1990. As executive director of the Riverfront Development Corp. of Delaware, McGlinchey “guides the creation of strategies and objectives” to create economic vitality along the Brandywine and Christina rivers. She has been a member of the RDC for the past 20 years, holding various roles, including director of operations and deputy director.
McGlinchey serves on the board of directors of several organizations, including the March of Dimes – Delaware Chapter and the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation. She is also the chairperson of the Governor’s Tourism Advisory Board. She lives in Wilmington with her husband, Brad, and daughter, Norah.
- Valerie Biden Owens, Class of 1963. Owens is one of the first women in the United States to manage a modern U.S. senatorial campaign and a presidential run. She has led every campaign in her brother Joe’s political career, including seven straight successful Senate bids. Last March, she was named the vice chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware. The institute’s mission is “to influence, shape and work to solve the most pressing domestic policy problems facing America.”
She also serves as vice chair of the Biden Foundation and the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. She has served as U.S. senior adviser to the United Nations, and from 1997-2016 Owens was executive vice president of Joe Slade White and Company, a media consulting firm. In addition, Owens has trained women to engage in the political process. She and her husband, Jack, have three children.
- Kristie Robson, Class of 1991. Robson, a commander in the United States Navy, is an emergency medicine physician who has held leadership positions in the military for several years. In her career, she has been a senior medical officer, head of the emergency department at the naval hospital in Okinawa, Japan, and department head of clinical programs for the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. She is also a qualified Fleet Marine Force medical officer and a naval flight surgeon.
Robson served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and recently deployed as the officer in charge of the Shock Trauma Platoon supporting missions in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. She also helped found and complete the Navy’s first fellowship in global emergency preparedness and disaster response at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. In 2014, she graduated from the Department of Defense-sponsored fellowship program in Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, the only physician selected for the program.
- Robin Toner, Class of 1972. Toner was the first woman to be the national political correspondent for The New York Times. In her nearly 25 years at the newspaper, she covered five presidential campaigns, scores of congressional and gubernatorial races. She was the lead reporter on the Times’ coverage of President Bill Clinton’s election in 1992.
A native of Chadds Ford, Pa., Toner began her journalism career in West Virginia and also wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She was married to fellow journalism Peter Gosselin and was the mother of twins, Nora and Jacob. She died in 2008. Her friends and family created the Robin Toner Program in Political Reporting. More information about that initiative is available at tonerprogram.syr.edu.
- Jennifer Woolley-Wilson, Class of 1981. Woolley-Wilson is the chairperson, CEO and president of DreamBox Learning, a software startup that provides millions of students and tens of thousands of teachers with educational material. Before joining DreamBox, she was president of Blackboard’s K-12 Group and president of LeapFrog SchoolHouse.
Woolley-Wilson serves on the boards of several educational organizations, including Rosetta Stone, Newsela, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and Western Governors University board of trustees. She is a two-time recipient of EdTech Digest’s EdTech Leadership Award, and in 2015 Seattle Business Magazine awarded her its Executive Excellence Award in the CEO of the Year category. In addition, she has been recognized by other organizations for her personal and professional accomplishments.
