If you would have asked a 15-year-old Paul Dressler if he would be a Catholic priest in 2017, the answer would have been a quick no. The child of a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother, Fr. Dressler spent his formative years as a football player and a member of the wrestling team. During his junior year at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Maryland, the Baptist Evangelical teen attended a retreat sponsored by the local Catholic Church of St. Peter's; this was the initial spark in his life of Catholic service. At age 17, he officially converted to Catholicism and chose to attend Mount St. Mary's College to pursue his degree while being immersed in the Catholic faith. During his collegiate years, he sensed his calling to priesthood, but continued to wrestle with the traditional familial path of life.

Who is a member of a championship Carroll basketball team, the former chair of the math department, and mother of a freshman Lion? Our new Dean of Students, Kristin Jackson-Nesmith.

Hundreds of spectators rose from the pews of The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception as the sounds of Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance filled the room. Seventy three seniors, donned in green and gold robes, were met with facial expressions of pride and excitement as they took their last steps as Carroll students. Two-by-two, the prospective graduates filed into their seats; boys in green on the left, girls in gold on the right. The kind yet commanding voice of President & CEO Beth Blaufuss reminded students in her Call to Order that, “our world is full of change,” and as products of Carroll, they should embrace and enhance the inevitable change that is upon us. She quoted the famous Robert Hoderny saying, “the world will not be saved by sixes or sevens,” as a reminder of the standard of excellence they are to adhere to as they go forth into the world.