On Wednesday, the Saint Mary’s College Alumnae Association board of directors announced Sincere “Sin” Cannon as the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Senior Award during the Alumnae Association Champagne Brunch.
According to Saint Mary’s College, the award is given to a student who “exemplifies the spirit and values of her school and is distinguished by scholarship, leadership, and outstanding dedication to Saint Mary’s through participation in both curricular and extracurricular activities.”
Cannon, a nursing major from Gary, Indiana, said she couldn’t believe it when she received the news.
“When I got the email, I was at a clinical, and I was having the worst day,” Cannon said. “I literally looked at myself covered in things I didn’t know and I was like, ‘There’s nothing outstanding about this.’ … I still don't know how or why, but I’m grateful either way.”
Cannon shared that a few faculty members nominated her for the award, and when she was notified about this, she was instructed to write a one-page statement about what Saint Mary’s means to her. Cannon received a letter confirming that she had won the award in early March. She said she feels the award testifies to the profound experience she’s had as a student at Saint Mary’s.
“Throughout these four years, I’ve connected with people and I’ve left an impact on what I did. And it’s just the relationships you have, helping each other for the better, making people feel good, I guess that was memorable. And definitely, all of those experiences were memorable to me, too,” Cannon said.
For four years, Cannon worked at the Cushwa-Leighton Library, helping as a research assistant with robotic pets and hosting database workshops during her senior year. Additionally, Cannon helped submit and upload the first-ever recorded first-generation stories into the College’s academic repository.
She was also a member of Saint Mary’s Dance Ensemble Workshop for two years and participated in dance classes ranging from beginner ballet to improvisation and choreography for three. During her sophomore year, she performed in the original play, “By Campfire and Candlelight” as a fox, cat and Mother Nature.
Cannon also participated in a number of panels during her junior year, including a senior preview day panel on the experience of being a nursing student at Saint Mary’s. She also discussed her spiritual life on campus for the 2023 Madeleva Society panel. Cannon also spoke about cultivating sacred ecology in a panel for the Center for the Study of Spirituality titled “Exploring Spiritual Life.”
Over her summers, Cannon participated in the Embody Theology Summer Institute as an intern before her junior year and spent the summer before her senior year at the Saint Mary’s Study of the US Institutes (SUSI) Madeleine K. Albright Young Women Leaders Program as a student program coordinator.
Discussing her SUSI program experience, Cannon said, “We went to D.C. for a week, and I met over 86 women from all over the world. And then when we came back to Saint Mary’s, we had 22 women [join us] from five countries in the Middle East and North Africa. We did five weeks of legal work and prep work and then five more weeks of just [hosting] the women here.”
Cannon shared that she decided to attend Saint Mary’s for the College’s financial aid and strong faith community as well as its designation as a women’s college.
“I have six sisters, so I’m coming from a very matriarchal family. I knew that somewhere where women had a strong presence was where I wanted to be, and what’s more strong of a presence of women than this college?” Cannon said.
During her time at Saint Mary’s, Cannon said the support she received from the nursing department, advisors from SUSI, dance professor Michele Foust, ecumenical chaplain Carrie Badertscher and the librarians at the Cushwa-Leighton Library all helped her succeed.
However, she said she felt most inspired by the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, who, during the Civil War, were called to serve as nurses to aid the injured and dying.
“Being a first-generation student, sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing … And there’s so many times where throughout college, I put myself out there, and I was so scared of failing, but then I just kept thinking of the sisters. [If] they can leave as teachers and go be nurses in a war, I can get on the stage and turn without falling or I can be a mentor to these women,” Cannon said. “There was this one quote from Sister Augusta: ‘They had no experience of being a nurse, but their hearts made their hands willing.’ And I felt like that was very impactful.”
After graduation, Cannon plans to continue her time at Saint Mary’s by pursuing a doctorate of nursing practice while working at Powers Health Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana in their neurology overflow unit. She said she feels excited to enter into the next chapter of her career.
“I feel like that will be the full circle of the sisters. Throughout these four years, anytime I felt like I couldn’t, I remembered that they could, and proving to myself that I can would be really big, because there’s no other alternative. Failure is not an option for me, not an option for any of us. You might have setbacks, but a dream deferred is not a dream denied,” Cannon said.
