Whitney High and Lindsay Whitehead proudly display their Woods Rings after the 2014 Ring Day ceremony.
Ring Day Ceremony
Saturday, March 21, 2015
2 p.m.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception
Reception immediately following in O’Shaughnessy Dining Hall
As Ring Day gets closer and closer, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (SMWC) juniors gather around a table in O’Shaughnessy Dining Hall and pound on it while chanting a countdown to the big day. Around the room, each Pomeroy who has already earned her ring stands on her chair holding her hand high, showing her ring proudly. This Ring Day Pounding tradition is one way that students show their excitement for the upcoming ceremony.
The 93rd annual Ring Day will be held on Saturday, March 21, 2015, and for participating Pomeroys, that day cannot come soon enough. During this most anticipated tradition at The Woods, President Dottie King, Ph.D. will place a ring – a unique design of gold and onyx displaying the SMW emblem – on their finger.
“Ring Day is a culmination of all of the years we have been working toward this type of recognition, and it is a milestone in our careers that denotes our ability to achieve on an intellectual level,” states campus biology major, Alexandra Sarell. “It’s been a day that I have looked forward to since becoming a Woods woman, as my mom was a graduate of The Woods and always stressed the importance of what it meant to be a Pomeroy as well as the significance of the Ring. She and other alumni that I have the honor of calling my friends still consider this to be one of their best accomplishments.”
Students earn their participation in the ceremony through academic success in their junior year at SMWC, or for graduate students, when they are three-quarters of the way toward completion of their degrees. This year, 89 traditional campus, Woods Online and graduate students will receive their Woods Ring in the emotionally moving ceremony.
“My mom graduated from here. I am following in her footsteps, and maybe someday my daughter will follow in mine,” states Woods Online English major, Ashtyn Robinson, whose mother, Coleen Kehoe Alley, graduated in 1988. “The ring means that I am a part of something that will live on forever in the hearts of generations past who have done some wonderful and empowering work in this world. I will finally be able to join that legacy.”