Alverno’s chapel, The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, known today as The Chapel of Mary Immaculate, is located on the second floor of Founders Hall. Facing eastward, the chapel was named to “honor God’s Mother." For the School Sisters of St. Francis, Alverno’s founding religious order, building the chapel was a true labor of love and devotion to God, Jesus, and the Holy Mother. Every detail of the chapel, from the imported Italian rose and green marble to the Venetian glass mosaics, were selected in deference to the reverence of the space being created.
The chapel’s stained glass windows depict the fifteen Mysteries of the rosary from the Old Testament through Mary to the New Testament. Three additional windows are devoted to the subject of the public ministry of Jesus.
Perhaps the chapel’s entrance itself speaks best to chapel visitors about the mission of Alverno College and the college’s founding sisters. The college seal, depicted on the floor in terrazzo, reads: “In Sanctitate et Doctrina”- In Holiness and Learning. The early Franciscan phrase which has been a part of the college seal since the 1940s is meant to inspire the whole student -- body, mind and heart.
This photo taken in late 1952 or early 1953 is of the Chapel under construction.