Patricia “Mary Bernardine” Hutchison

Sister Patricia Hutchison, SNDdeN grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where her father had become a citizen as soon as he could, but her mother did not apply for many years. She says, “I spent time as a child worrying about her being deported – to Scotland!”

Sister Pat first met Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur at age eight, when she attended Dolores School in Santa Barbara.  When the family moved, she also attended Our Lady of Guadalupe School. From third grade on, she loved the Sisters and wanted to be like them.

Sister Pat considered the idea of becoming a Sister throughout most of her years at Santa Barbara Catholic High School until the call couldn’t be resisted any longer. “It was the spirit of the Sisters that drew me in,” she says. “They were simple, caring and approachable.”

Just after she entered the convent, Sister Pat’s father died of a heart attack at age 50, leaving her mother and special needs sister, Veronica, alone.

“I thought about coming home, but my mother said, ‘I want you to be happy, and I think you need to stay. So I stayed,” she says. “It was the right decision.”

As Sister Mary Bernardine, she loved teaching and enjoyed her students in elementary school, high school and college. Her classroom experiences included teaching fifth and seventh grades at St. Columbkille School in Los Angeles; being principal and eighth-grade teacher at Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Santa Barbara; and teaching history, religion and English at St. Francis High School in Sacramento and at Blanchet High School in Seattle, Washington.

In one of her early experiences as a teacher, Sister Pat took over a fifth grade class from a teacher who retired halfway through the year. The class had a reputation for misbehaving, but Sister Pat set them straight right away, and the rest of the year was smooth sailing. “I ended up teaching them for two and a half years (fifth, seventh and eighth grades), and they were just the sweetest kids,” she recalls.

Sister Pat studied for her doctorate in history at Stanford University, a transformative experience that helped her see the world in completely new ways. In 1977, she began teaching history at Notre Dame de Namur University. For 26 years, she loved her experiences as a professor and administrator at NDNU. She chaired the Behavioral and Social Sciences Division and served on many administrative committees. She looks back fondly on developing the team-taught First-Year Experience, a multicultural curriculum and service-learning program for freshmen.

“Students have taught me so much,” she says, “and have so enriched my own life. I have loved being able to interact with them.” Sister Pat was also a major contributor to the writing of the Hallmarks of a Notre Dame Learning Community.

One of the most meaningful honors she has received was the George M. Keller Teaching Excellence Award. The vote from students and their expressions of appreciation for her teaching meant the world to her. Mike Callagy, now an Assistant County Manager for San Mateo County, was at an NDNU event at which Sister Pat was honored as a Trustee Emerita. He said that her Western Civilizations class was the best class he had at the college: “Sister Pat made history fun. She always had a spirit that made you feel great in class and encouraged you all the time.”

Sister Pat with two of her ESL students

Students at the Catholic Worker English Language School in Redwood City, also got the benefit of Sister Pat’s expertise. For many years she taught English classes in the evening to Spanish-speaking women. Sister Mary Jane Floyd, PBVM, director of the school, said, “Sister not only brings years of teaching experience to our women, but more importantly, she gives them much-needed encouragement. Everyone is blessed by her presence.” For her part, Sister Pat marvels that she, a child of immigrants, fearful of her mother being deported, was able to teach immigrants herself. Shet often reflects on the great changes she has been part of over the past 70-plus years since she entered the SNDdeN congregation, and on the profound influence of Vatican II.

“As Sisters, we have all been through numerous transformative processes,” she said. “I am grateful to be part of a caring community that can offer the gifts of compassion, loving kindness and gentleness to the world in these often difficult times, and I give thanks for the experience of life in all its dimensions: for challenges to grow and change, for experiences of wonder and joy.”

At her 70th Jubilee in 2026, Sister Pat reflected gratefully on that decision years ago to join — and stay — with SNDdeN: “I’ve been happy all my life. It’s been wonderful.”

Updated in 2026