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Sister Thomas Welder, OSB, (born Diane Marie Welder; April 27, 1940) is a former president of the University of Mary.
Welder was born on April 27, 1940, in Linton, North Dakota, to Mary Ann (née Kuhn) and Sebastian Welder. Her father died in 1951; her mother became a Benedictine sister in 1968, after raising Welder and her siblings. Four of Welder's maternal aunts also joined religious orders.
Welder attended Cathedral Elementary School and St. Mary's Central High School in Bismarck, North Dakota, graduating in 1958. She studied at the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota, where she discerned a vocation to religious life. She returned to Bismarck to enter the community of Benedictine nuns at Annunciation Monastery. The Benedictines founded Mary College in 1959; Welder was a member of their first freshman class. She joined the order in 1961, completed a bachelor's degree at the College of St. Scholastica in 1963, and made a perpetual monastic profession in 1964. Welder received a master's degree in music from Northwestern University in 1968.
Welder began working for Mary College in 1963 and in 1978 was named the school's fifth president. Under Welder, the college attained university status in 1986, becoming the University of Mary, and the enrollment increased from 925 students to nearly 3,000. In 2004, Welder was granted the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, the highest honour of the state of North Dakota. In 2009, she retired and was named President Emerita. Her tenure of 31 years set a record for female college and university presidents in the United States.
Welder has a chronic kidney failure condition, for which she received a kidney transplant in 2001. In 2005, a virus caused her to require a second transplant. She sought a transplant in 2007, but could not receive the operation. The procedure was successfully performed in 2011.
Awards and honors
- Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award from the State of North Dakota– 2004
- Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame of the Norsk Høstfest– 2007 inductee
- Caritas Award from Catholic Charities – 2013
- Honorary doctorate from Belmont Abbey College – 2015