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Event Details:
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
12:00 pm Central

You are invited to join Chicago area alumni and friends for a Zoom conversation about Saint Mary's First Generation Initiative (FGI) program featuring Alisa Macksey, dean, Student Success and First Generation Initiative and Mary A. Dempsey '75, president, DePaul College Prep.  If you would like to make a donation to the FGI initiative, please click here: connect.smumn.edu/giveFGI

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Mary Dempsey is the president of DePaul College Prep, a coed Vincentian Catholic high school founded in 2014 by Mary and a group
of trustees and administrators of DePaul University. DePaul Prep is located on the north side of Chicago and currently serves 725 students.
Enrollment is expected to reach 900 students in August. Mary has served as president since 2016. From 2014 to 2016, she was
the founding chair of the Board of Directors. Previously, she served for 18 years as commissioner of the Chicago Public Library and she
practiced law in Chicago for 12 years. Mary is a trustee and former chair of the Board of Trustees of DePaul University and she serves on
the boards of a number of nonprofits in Chicago including the Philip H. Corboy Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, Misericordia,
Mercy Home for Boys and Girls and the Big Shoulders Fund.  Mary received her law degree from the DePaul University College of Law,
her masters degree in library science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her BA from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. 

Alisa Macksey, dean of student success and the First Generation Initiative, oversees our FGI scholars and countdown to college, learning
assistance, access services, academic advising, new student experience, and is an advocate for all students. She has been at the university
since 2015.  Alisa was a Lasallian Volunteer for two years in Kansas City, Missouri. For the past 12 years she has been involved in mission
formation programs at the Regional (US and Canada) level for the De La Salle Christian Brothers. Alisa received her B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology
from Saint Mary’s College of California and an M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. Alisa is currently a doctoral student,
working on her dissertation, in the Ed.D. program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.  Alisa was also the recipient of the Distinguished
Lasallian Educator Award from Saint Mary’s University in 2019 as well as from the Midwest District of Christian Brothers in the same year.