Reunion 2025 Awards

Mimi Gorak Murray grew up in nearby Elmwood Park. During her summers Mimi was a counselor at Camp Lions for the Blind and Visually Handicapped in Northern Illinois.  It was through her experience working with this special group of kids that she learned about gratitude, optimism and resilience.

Mimi graduated in 1970 with a BA in English and moved to Hawaii in 1971 where the Navy transferred her husband, Mike.  

During their nine years in Hawaii, Mimi was a Girl Scout troop leader, wrote for Hawaii Navy News, and volunteered for United Way.  She also had various part time jobs while raising a daughter and son mostly as a single parent, since Mike was deployed for 8 months at a time.  

The Navy transferred them to San Diego in 1980. During her 26 years with Chapman University and Brandman University, Mimi was a student advisor and adjunct faculty; she also served on boards and committees in several professional associations.  

Throughout her career and in retirement, Mimi has remained committed to volunteerism. She has followed her calling to address social justice issues: from advocating for people in the migrant, impoverished and homeless communities to supporting girls and women in reaching their potential.

Mimi considers herself a “philanthro-activist”: someone who views an issue through the lens of philanthropy and service and who takes action to address it.  

She has been an active volunteer for Girl Scouts for 54 years on both the local and national levels, currently chairing the Planned Giving Society for Girl Scouts San Diego.  

Mimi is an Ambassador for Unbound: an international organization through which she and Mike sponsor seven friends ages 9 to 72 in Costa Rica and Guatemala.  They recently made three humanitarian visits there.  

Mimi serves on the advisory boards of her local YMCA and PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) and has initiated numerous collaborative activities between the two.  

Her commitment to PATH is personal. Their son, Michael, a Villanova and ROTC grad who served 8 years as a Naval Officer, was diagnosed as a veteran with mental illness and substance abuse disorders.  Mimi and Mike became ardent supporters and advocates for PATH and NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) while supporting their son as best they could while he moved in and out of homelessness before his death in 2022. Mimi and Mike have since been recognized by the mayor of San Diego for their work with PATH.

Mimi is a committee member for ElderHelp,  whose mission is to help the elderly live independently with dignity. She and Mike were recognized in 2024 for their work in the community.

The Murrays' love of travel has taken them from Australia to Antarctica and from the Amazon to the Arctic Circle. While on a visit to Lima, Peru, Mimi became aware of a need for soup kitchens in the city’s poverty-stricken areas. She worked during COVID to fundraise to build six fully equipped indoor/outdoor soup kitchens that still serve the people in those communities.  

For their 50th college reunion, Mimi chaired the Class ‘70 fundraising committee. Their efforts resulted in the largest class gift to a scholarship endowment in Dominican University’s history.  

This quote from Mother Teresa reflects Mimi’s commitment:  “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” 

An only child, Kate grew up in New York City, her father’s hometown. Her first visit to (then) Rosary College was when she was two years old and her parents stopped on the way to visit her mother’s (Class of 1936) family in Rockford, Illinois. It took another 15 years before she returned, this time to “scope out” the place for herself. One step onto the campus was enough to put Rosary as her first – and only! - choice. 

From 7 through 17, Kate was involved in Girl Scouts, as both a scout and a volunteer collating/folding/stuffing various mailings at the organization’s NYC headquarters where her mother worked in professional scouting. Kate served as Chair of the International Friendship Sub-Committee and member of the Wider Opportunities Committee for the NY Council as a Senior Scout. 

For three years on the Rosary campus (junior year was spent in Fribourg, Switzerland), Kate was involved in various clubs/organizations and filled a number of leadership roles: Editor, Vice President, President, member, performer. Additionally, she volunteered for a number of fund-raising opportunities for the College. In addition, Kate succeeded in having Rosary bring back its affiliation with the Kappa Gamma Pi National Catholic Graduate Honor Society, which had lapsed for several years. Kate worked on campus sophomore and senior years in the Alumni Office where she got a preview of “life after Rosary”!

Before Kate's marriage, she became involved with the local Kappa Gamma Pi Chapter where she was Publicity Chair and, years later, Convention Chair in 1991 and again in 2011 when the National Convention was held on the Rosary/Dominican campus. She has attended all the Conventions held across the country since 1987 and is in her second term as the organization's Recording Secretary. She was also a member of the Elmwood Park Civic Chorus, where she had several Board positions and through which she serendipitously met her husband. 

After marriage and settling into a house on Chicago's Northwest Side, Kate became a member of/volunteer for number of organizations, including the Northwest Sailing Association, the LincolnLand Chapter of the Gold Wing Touring Association, and the Northwest Neighborhood Federation (NNF) and its newly created Save Our Neighborhoods/Save Our City Coalition (SON/SOCC). Kate held a number of leadership positions in each of these, but is especially proud of her role in various meetings with and presentations to two City of Chicago Mayors, a United States Senator and an Illinois Governor in support of the Guaranteed Home Equity Assurance Program which was overwhelmingly passed through the efforts of the NNF and SON/SOCC. 

Kate was a Rosary College Alumni Board member in 1989-90 while maintaining her role as Class Agent (since graduation). She joined the staff as Assistant Alumni Director for four years in the early 1990s. There she was responsible for much of the nascent event planning for alumni in the Greater Chicago Area in addition to working on the annual Reunions and providing record-keeping and other support for both the Alumni Director and the Vice President of Institutional Advancement. When she left the Alumni Office to return to a career in the travel industry, Kate became involved in the local Caribbean Tourism Organization Chapter (CTO) where she held Board positions and was Co-Chair for many of the organization's annual Charity Balls which raised over $1MM for Caribbean charities. After the CTO Chapter closed in the 2010s, she joined the newly formed Chicago Travel Professionals group and was its Vice President for several years. 

In Huntley since late 1999, Kate has been involved with her parish as both an usher and Eucharistic Minister along with other continuing activities. Although Kate is semi-retired, she still books travel for long-term clients and friends and also works part-time as a Standardized Patient for Rosalind Franklin University, as a legal transcriptionist and as a newsletter delivery driver. 

Kate is addicted to audiobooks, loves dancing of almost any kind - including tap, jazz, Hawaiian and ballroom - and annually adds to her list of countries visited (75 so far)! The ongoing Rosary/Dominican spirit of “Caritas et Veritas” introduced to Kate at a young age continues to keep her motivated to never stop moving and to help whenever and wherever she can.

Mary "Mar" Poelking Sclawy came to Rosary in 1961 because her mom grew up in Maywood and thought Rosary was a great looking school. As always, she was right. But it was much more. Surprisingly enough, Mar was a shy girl when she arrived, but blossomed under the rigorous academic and social teachings of the professors. She co-produced The Albatross (a counter publication to The Eagle, the literary magazine of that era) and the class yearbook. She served as a Torch big sister to Mary I O’Keefe Bateman ’68 (Ruth McGrath O’Keefe’s ’35 daughter) and, as a classmate of the late Maureen O’Keefe ’65 (Ruth McGrath O’Keefe’s ’35 daughter), had dinner on occasion with pals at the O’Keefe table. 

Mar had a teaching career that lasted four years. It led, by happenstance, to her moving to Detroit and her second career as a makeup editor and copy editor at The Detroit News while she studied law at night and met her husband, Steve. Her third career -- as a lawyer --has lasted 50 years. Throughout her life, Mar has thought of herself as a “fixer,” sharing caritas and veritas through volunteer work in her community. She has contributed to DU every year since she graduated—in thanks for the scholarship which allowed to her attend Rosary and in hope that DU can continue the education of many more. Mar has done pro bono work for a family law clinic, supporting a regional land conservancy, rescuing native plants from developers, and as a substitute driver for Meals on Wheels. She has also been a long-serving Class Agent for the Rosary College class of 1965. 

Now lawyer emerita, she and Steve live in a senior community. Freed from the annoying tasks of cooking and cleaning, she has time to look for further opportunities to “fix” her world.