The following article appeared in the Centennial Newsletter on June 23rd, 2025.
Presidential Ponderings
Sr. Francis de Sales first came to Albertus Magnus College as a member of the Class of 1935, however she transferred to St. Mary of the Springs College (now Ohio Dominican University) in her junior year to finish her degree in Latin and French. Heffernan earned a MA in Latin from The Ohio State University, and earned her PhD in Classics from Yale in 1944.
In 1947, Heffernan returned to Albertus Magnus and was appointed Dean of the College. As dean, she held monthly “Dean Assemblies” where, according to Sr. Charles Marie Brantl’s 1982 tribute to Sr. Francis de Sales in Focus, topics could range from “lessons in personal hygiene, to the quest for knowledge and truth, to instructions in the principles of leadership, or to a lecture on Mary, the Mother of God, and what influence Mary should have on our lives”.
By 1959, Heffernan had returned to Ohio and was elected to the General Council of the Dominican Sisters and served as its Secretary General until 1961. It was then when she was elected as Mother General of the Dominican Sisters.
Heffernan led the sisters as Mother General from 1961 to 1974, and oversaw the greatest number of Sisters in the congregation’s history (735 in 1967) as well as a great departure of Sisters after the changes initiated by Vatican II. She led the expansion of missions both domestically and abroad, founded many schools; expanded a hospital wing at St. George in Cincinnati; and built Nazareth Towers, a HUD housing project for seniors in Columbus, Ohio. Sr. Francis de Sales served her final term as Mother General in 1974.
In October of 1974, Sr. Francis de Sales once again found herself at Albertus Magnus, but this time as its eleventh president. Upon assuming the presidency at Albertus, she very quickly found herself at the front of a College in financial straits. Heffernan inherited a $900,000 deficit, but succeeded in operating the College in the black for seven of her eight years at the helm. This success was accompanied by the commencement of long-range planning; the introduction of the first computers to campus; the establishment of academic development and counseling centers; and the renovation of many buildings on campus. Heffernan retired from Albertus in 1982.
After Albertus, Heffernan returned to Ohio to become the Motherhouse Prioress from 1984 to 1997. In addition to being Motherhouse Prioress, she was also a part of the Dominican Leadership Conference and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Heffernan served on the State of Connecticut Health and Education Facilities Authority for seven years, funding hospitals and colleges through bond issues. Heffernan received honorary doctorate degrees from Ohio Dominican College (now Ohio Dominican University) and Providence College.
Sr. Francis de Sales retired to the Mohun Health Care Center in Columbus, Ohio in 2003, where she died on June 9, 2010.