Kathleen Walker, Campus Minister at Dominican High School and Academy
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My name is Kathy Walker and I am a mentor I am a counselor I am a liturgist I am a teacher I am friend a lot of times. In life, I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a woman, I love that part of me, I am a lover of music, I'll say it like this, I am a speaker of good news, I am often called to give work shops to young people and I like that, that moves my soul, if you asked me what's something I really like to do, on my Saturdays on my time off, that's something I like to do.

What do you do as a Campus Minister at Dominican High School?

Basically I think my job description is to support and challenge the young ladies, facility and staff in our spiritual development and so I plan the liturgical services, the prayer services, our Christian Service department, I do retreats for both staff and facility, planning and implementing. There is some counseling involved with my position with the young ladies in particular and I am also a teacher in the school, I teach Catholicism this year, so I have 40 ninth grades, and that is probably a great deal of the challenge this year in particular. So anything that is under the spiritual development umbrella for the school is part of my duties.

What are your gifts?

I think the gift of compassion is probably my main gift and then from there the umbrella just unfolds and I think it's my compassion for young people, I think it's my compassion for life and people in general, but particularly I have always been called to work with young people, even the ones in that difficult age that everybody doesn't want to work with. It seems like my gift of listening, compassion, fairness, boldness, works with them and it works for me and they're a pleasure to be with and so I've always worked with young people in my career.

What might you be doing if you weren't in church work?

I don't think there's anything else, and not to make it like a corny answer, but I have always wanted to be in church ministry, from a young girl, when I was in 2nd grade having first communion, I just thought that was just so awesome and I actually contemplated in my college days, I went to U of D and I was a campus minister on campus there and in my college days I contemplated going into religious life and after I decided that I would stay in lay ministries, I knew then that it would be all of my life, if I wasn't going to be a religious then I would surely be doing ministry in some kind of way. I am seeking out other venues in which I am doing a psychology major now back at the university in a higher degree position, but again to come back and work with youth and family, child services, is what I'd like to do, in a ministerial way.

Is there career mobility in church work?

I know that we are working very have to have career mobility in church, I don't think it's quite there yet. As you'd probably know a lot people have been where they are, for they can say, 20 years and 10 years and we move around, we ay be at a different church than we were, or a different school, but doing the same thing. So, I think the ministry itself has a cap on it as far as where you can go or how high you go with it, but no cap on how much you can do and how much of your own self you can put in it, so it just depends on what you're looking for.

How is the compensation for work in Lay Ministry?

The compensation in lay ministry to me is something you cannot value by money and you can't value it by the things you can obtain and I know that lifestyle are very important, I am actually a single women so I don't have another income in my home and I don't work 2nd job right now to help compensate that, however there is nothing in this world that I would rather be doing than what I do and what God has called me in each position to do and that for me has the sustained me no matter what the bills are, no matter what car I can get, it's not that I don't complain sometimes or I say, "Listen God, I am working with you here, work with me" because the love of the Lord doesn't pay the bills and you can't take that to the grocery store, but I have never once can say that I have wanted for anything and what's really important is that I wake up everyday being excited that I have the job that I have, that I can do what I do and that I don't have the pressures of having to like my job or wanting to go in or the pressure of not wanting to go in or the pressure of not liking it and how do I live my day out with that, it's just a different type of substance for me than what might be for others. I think there is room for growth in the pay particularly as I am a teacher, I think as we are trying to balance out the percentage between, like Detroit public schools for example your pay, with our basic teacher pay. I think that pay does make a difference on how people put the importance on the job or how they validate the job, maybe not the person themselves, but those in which we work for or the people who receive our services, so I would like to see us find a way to come up in that kind of payback, but I still don't think they could pay us enough, I don't, I don't think we will be able to be paid enough and so the love of the work is 50% of the pay.

Why should others consider Lay Ministry?

One of the things that I would like to remind all of those who work in a ministry and to give as a gift to those who may be thinking about coming into the ministry is that we cannot give what we do not have and so it's an important part of our life and the work that we do in ministry that we take time for ourselves, to rebuild ourselves, to refresh our spirit, to renew our hearts and so in any way that that's possible we should take those moments to do it because we can't give God's love and God's grace to people if we don't experience it and have it for ourselves and that's very important in the ministry itself that we live that, we live what we we're calling other people to be.

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