Sue Hanssen ’92

Sue Hanssen ’92, Ph.D.,  traces back her love for history to the Oakcrest teacher and first headmistress of Oakcrest, Ms. Pat O’Donovan, whom she called “the most joyful and fascinating teacher” that she had during her Oakcrest years. 

“She inspired in me a desire to study and teach history,” Sue said of Ms. O’Donovan. “She showed us that everything has a history and history can encompass every interest: art, architecture, philosophy, literature, politics, theology, war, diplomacy. It has turned out to be 100 percent true.” 

Now a history professor at The University of Dallas, Dr. Hanssen has the opportunity to bring history alive for her own students. 

Another history teacher she remembers fondly is Ms. Margaret Otto, who introduced the famous Catholic historian Christopher Dawson to Sue’s class. “When I was in eighth grade, she taught (Dawson’s) insight that at the root of every culture is a culture’s mode of worship,” Sue remembers. “First you need to understand a culture’s god and then their family structure, their political regime, their economic workings, all flow from that. It was the exact opposite of Marxism which teaches that economics is the foundation of everything and culture, literature, family relations, philosophy, and theology are nothing more than an ideological superstructure justifying economic oppression. History today is every bit as much of a battlefield as it was when they trained me up!” 

While at Oakcrest, Sue played on the soccer team and the basketball team, and enjoyed singing, dancing, and acting in the yearly plays. She participated on the debate and speech teams, and worked alongside Ms. Otto and Julie (Mitchell ’90) Newlands, Sue also started the Oakcrest Respect Life club. 

After graduating from Oakcrest, Sue studied British and American history at Boston University and Rice University, which she says allowed her to get an inside view of secular higher education. Now at the University of Dallas, she teaches American Civilization at the school’s Texas campus and Western Civilization at the school’s campus in Rome. “What a crazy, blessed life,” she said. “It’s a great way to fight the culture wars!” 

One of Sue’s favorite Oakcrest memories is a road trip in September 1988 with Sharon (Coyne ’92) Ruplinger and 30 other girls to see Saint John Paul II in New Orleans. They had just read his encyclical “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women” and called themselves proud members of “The JPII Generation.” Months later, in the spring of 1989, Blessed Alvaro del Portillo visited Oakcrest, which had a profound impact on Sue. 

“If you have two saints ask you to go on a mission from God, how can you not respond?” Sue said, also recalling attending daily Mass with Oakcrest Chaplain Father Ron Gillis and the moments she had in the Oakcrest chapel between dance rehearsals. “I hope some things never change.” 

Of her Oakcrest experience, Sue recalls friendship as a key component of the education that formed her as a person. 

“Friendship, friendship, friendship,” she says. “There were 17 girls in my graduating class and we developed strong friendships, watching Kenneth Branaugh’s Henry V and singing “Non Nobis Domine” into the night at our bonfire by the lake house for our senior outing, or practicing dances for the show ’til we dropped.”

To the Oakcrest seniors that are preparing to depart from Oakcrest and start a new adventure in college, Sue says, “Stand firm for what you know is right, it's wise as we have found; the mighty Oak was once a nut… that simply held its ground.”