Sister Janice Vanderneck
Founding Director, Casa San José
2023
Sister Janice Vanderneck is the Founding Director of Casa San José. She is a Catholic religious sister with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden, and she has worked in Latin America, educating and organizing community members to think critically about power structures, oppression, and political engagement. In the U.S., Sister Janice worked for decades as a religion teacher and principal at Catholic elementary and high schools in the Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Altoona-Johnstown in Pennsylvania and the Archdiocese of Miami, Florida.
Sister Janice has received numerous awards for her extraordinary service. They include: the Michael McGrady Award for Service at the Art Rooney Awards Dinner in 2017, the OHTLI Award for 2017 given by the Secretariat of the Mexican Government for service to the Mexican community in the US, the 2016 El Sol Award from the Hispanic Attorneys Committee of the Allegheny Bar Association and the 2021 Volunteer Preceptor of the Year (IPPE) awarded by the School of Pharmacy of the University of Pittsburgh. In November of 2022 she was recognized as one of the recipients of the National Catholic Association of Diocesan Directors of Hispanic Ministry 30th Anniversary Regional Recognition Awards.
This cannot be thought of as a conference or a summit. The stakes are simply too high and the data/conversation and methods to drive action more valuable/motivating than any gathering I have attended. I took more than 100 pages of notes and have shared them with my CBS News leadership team, anchors, producers, and correspondents. Nothing about this gathering was easy. The agony around this topic is real. But no one curious about it could ask for a more devoted, rational, or unflinching look into this dark but decipherable world.
