In January, although she hadn't yet been offered the position, president-elect Amy Novak, EdD, quietly headed to the St. Ambrose campus for an unofficial visit. The last stop on her tour was Christ the King Chapel. Moved by the beauty of the entire Chapel, it was a painting by Rev. Edward Catich '34 that made a particularly enduring impression. 
 “Theophora Icon” depicts a white Madonna holding a Black baby Jesus. The painting had been displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1950, to which the Vatican expressed extreme displeasure at the time.
 As a mother of two adopted Black children, Novak emphatically knew at that moment she had found in St. Ambrose a community she would be proud to lead.
 "That piece of art just spoke to me in a very profound way," she said. "After a really tough summer, struggling with two Black children in rural America, there was this incredible sense of peace that just came over me.” 
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