Nun finding keys to locks so she can serve elderly nuns

Sister Carolyn Schanz, CSJ, would be the first to admit that. After 52 years of religious life, focused almost solely on school administration and teaching, she veered off in a totally new direction by enrolling in Albany's Austin Beauty School to become a hairstylist.

"I always enjoyed doing hair," but "it's not as easy as it looks!" explained the 70-year-old sister, who is best-known in the Albany Diocese for her two decades as principal and then president of Catholic Central High School in Troy.

Cutting edge

Sister Carolyn used to style her mother's hair; and whenever she went to have her own hair cut at June's Unisex Hairstyling in Troy, she watched the stylists' scissors with fascination.

After she left CCHS in 2001 to teach math -- her forte -- at other schools in the Diocese, she began to think more and more about how to serve the approximately 200 retired sisters who live at St. Joseph's Provincial House in Latham.

"We have so many infirm sisters," she mused. "They don't go anywhere, but it makes you feel good to have your hair done."

Styling

With permission and funding from her religious community, Sister Carolyn decided to begin classes in hairstyling. Two cosmetologists currently come to the Provincial House to cut the sisters' hair; but with hundreds of heads to shampoo and style, there's always room for another pair of scissors.

In a bit of irony, the former principal now dons a school uniform herself for her classes several days a week -- and her smock and slacks are in CCHS' purple-and-white school colors.

She remains unmoved by Catholic students' complaints about uniforms, asking: "What's so hard about wearing the uniform? Some of the girls [at the beauty school] turn up with red socks, and I think, 'What's so hard about coming up with enough white socks to last you through the week?'"

Classmates

Most of Sister Carolyn's classmates are young enough to be her grandchildren.

"They're nice; they really are," she remarked, noting that their personal styles run more to nose piercings and tattoos than her own conservative attire. "Their conversations are always about their children, their boyfriends or their weekends."

Having introduced herself simply by name and not by title, she joked that "they probably think I'm just a little old lady!"

Still, the group has bonded over lunch and the common desire to pass state boards and receive their stylists' licenses. With her fellow students, Sister Carolyn spends her days learning about chemical straightening and pedicures, the proper way to put rollers in hair, and how to use a razor vs. scissors.

Keys to locks

Some of those skills, she admits, won't be of much use when a retired woman religious asks for a wash and set.

"I'm still questioning, do I really need the license?" she said. "As long as I know how to cut hair, set hair and give perms, do I really need anything else?"

After all, it's not as if she plans to work professionally in a salon -- although she does plan to charge for her services.

"It's an expensive program," she explained. "I'd like to make enough money to pay back the community for [funding] this."

Blockheads

Sister Carolyn has been attending Austin Beauty School for four-and-a-half months; she expects to complete her 1,035 required hours of training in June or July. But she has yet to work her way up to cutting hair on real human beings. She almost always uses a mannequin head.

"You're constantly either putting in a set [on the mannequin] or taking it out," she noted. Every completed task must be signed off on by a teacher.

Once, Sister Carolyn got to cut a real woman's hair and was excited to receive her first, three-dollar tip. The senior student also sits in "theory" classes once a week.

"Last week was 'removing unwanted hair,'" she said wryly. "I've done very well with theory."

Precision

The future stylist said her math skills are coming in handy now, as she learns about parting hair at half-inch or quarter-inch intervals, mixing chemicals and creating symmetrical cuts.

Math, she said, "makes sense. Once you understand it, you can do anything."

Apparently, she had added hairstyling to that mantra. Sister Carolyn declared herself "ready to start cutting" and is enthused about beginning her new ministry as soon as possible.

In fact, she confessed, it's gotten a little hard to concentrate on other things -- like praying in the Provincial House's chapel. Sister Carolyn can't help noticing which of her fellow sisters could use her services.

"It's very distracting," she groaned. "You go to Mass, and you're sitting there, thinking, 'Look at her hair!'"

(Sister Carolyn's ministry started in 1955 with five years of teaching at Sacred Heart School in Troy, followed by a year at CCHS, where the math whiz taught a half-dozen algebra classes.

After that, she spent five years teaching math in Syracuse and earned a degree in the subject from Purdue University. That was added to her previous bachelor's degree from The College of Saint Rose in Albany. She eventually became principal and superior of St. Francis de Sales School in Utica, switching over to administration except for one more year of teaching. She spent three years as regional superior for her religious community before coming to Catholic High in Troy in 1980, where she stayed on as principal and later president until 2001. As president, she helped to raise more than $3 million for renovations at the school. After leaving CCHS, Sister Carolyn took a year off to travel and do volunteer work, then did teaching stints at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany and LaSalle Institute in Troy.)

(1/13/05)