Faculty Profile
Father Nicholas Polichnowski
Assistant Professor of Nursing“I'm just your typical, boring guy,” says Father Nicholas Polichnowski, TOR, assistant professor of nursing at Franciscan University.
Which is true, if typical, boring guys spend a year traveling from one remote mission to the next by riverboat in Brazil's Amazon Valley.
Which is true, if typical, boring guys dwell in KwaZulu, South Africa, helping a local Franciscan order.
Which is true, if typical, boring guys commute from the United States to Gaming, Austria, for work.
A Pittsburgh native, Father Nicholas knew by the age of 20 that he had a vocation to religious life and to the priesthood. At the time of his discernment, he was earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from West Virginia University. Shortly after, he entered the TOR community, professing vows in 1974. He was ordained a TOR priest for the Sacred Heart Province in Loretto in 1977.
In the next eight years, Father Nicholas embarked on two mission trips: to Brazil and South Africa. “It was quite exciting, really,” he remembers. “The TORs have a Zulu vice-province now. And to see the work of the Holy Spirit in a local church, calling these men, was very incredible.”
Back in the United States, Father Nicholas taught high school chemistry and returned to school for nursing, eventually earning his PhD in nursing from Johns Hopkins University in 2008.
In 2002, Father Nicholas joined the Board of Trustees for Franciscan University and began working for the Kartause Maria Thronus Jesu Foundation, which operates the physical buildings of the University’s study abroad site in Gaming, Austria. From Washington, D.C., where he was working on his doctorate, he flew to Gaming several times a year to oversee the buildings where Franciscan students studied.
Father Nicholas began teaching in Franciscan's Nursing Department in 2008.
He leads quite an exciting life... for a typical, boring guy.
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