DETROIT — The president of Madonna University said she was humbled and inspired by the 75-year tradition of the Livonia institution, and Archbishop Allen Vigneron closed its diamond jubilee with a reminder to keep Jesus at its heart.

The small junior college founded in 1937 to further the education of Felician Sisters has grown to today’s flourishing Madonna University, with an enrollment of 4,500 and outreach programs in three other countries.

Founded as Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Junior College, it became a four-year institution for women, renamed Madonna College, in 1947.

Men were also allowed to enroll beginning in 1972, and the first graduate-level programs were initiated in 1982.

Madonna achieved university status in 1991, and its first doctoral program — in nursing — was launched in 2008.

Long-standing programs in teaching and nursing have continued to grow, while more recent decades have seen the development of additional programs in such areas as sports management, gerontology, hospice care, sign language studies and criminal justice education, among others.

And the university prides itself on having kept tuition affordable and offering substantial student aid.

Commenting on the university’s past, present and future, Sr. Rose Marie Kujawa, CSSF, said, “While our accomplishments are impressive, we are not a group that is content resting on its laurels, but rather we are a family that is strong, loving and eager to press forward with sweeping plans for expansion, for depth of purpose and a future poised to ‘educate for truth and service.’”

Sr. Kujawa, a 1966 alumna and Madonna’s president since 2001, continued, “With academic excellence, student success, and service for others as our guide posts, and our Franciscan values for inspiration, we need only ask that God light our path to the future, and may Mary, our Madonna, bless us all with countless more years of faith, growth and prosperity.”

She said she couldn’t have imagined the small college she attended back in the mid-1960s would grow to be the thriving institution she heads today.

Sr. Kujawa attributed the growth to the dedication of the Felician Sisters and to “a strong academic community that has really worked together to create a strong university.”

Archbishop Vigneron helped Madonna University conclude its yearlong celebration of its 75th anniversary Nov. 18 by celebrating Mass for the university community in the chapel of the Felician convent.

In his homily, the archbishop remarked that “the Eucharist is the consummation of the [the university’s] jubilee.”

“He is here strengthening you for this noble endeavor to assist students to become ready to shine as wise women and men so that when the end comes they will be praised — all the alumni and alumnae — for what they have done,” Archbishop Vigneron added.

Twenty-three bishops and priests concelebrated the Mass, and Cardinal Adam Maida sat in choir.

The Madonna University Chorale, and the Felician Sisters Chorus, under the direction of David Wagner, joined voices in hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Sr. Kujawa expressed gratitude to all who took part in the liturgical celebration: “We are grateful to those who have come before us, to those who serve with us today, and all who are yet to join the Madonna University family.

“Deo Gratias, and may God bless us with a future as fruitful as our past,” she said.

For more information about Madonna University, call (800) 852-4951 or go to www.madonna.edu.