Draft:Sr. Carolyn (Lester) Farrell, BVM

Sister Carolyn Farrell was an influential Catholic nun who served as the first woman mayor of Dubuque, Iowa. A Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), Farrell trained in the fields of history and education before starting a long and varied career in higher learning and government service. In 1980, she became the first and only woman mayor of Dubuque, Iowa. It was 1980 when city council, which she served as also as its first woman member, elected her to represent them in the city's highest office. Among the many institutions she served, Loyola University Chicago especially bears the imprint of Farrell, where shepherded the institutional legacy of Mundelein College, a women's university, into the school by serving as its interim President facilitating the creation of the new Gannon Center for Women and Leadership at Loyola.