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Sister Mary Alice O'Rourke, M.M., a social work educator, died Oct. 15 at Maryknoll Sisters Residential Care. She was 93. While teaching at Maryknoll College in the Philippines, she founded the social work department there in 1958 and was department head until returning to the United States in 1970 to work on her doctorate in social work from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Returning to Maryknoll College in 1976, she again became head of the social work department and also helped to develop the doctoral program at the School of Social Work at the Philippine Women's University in Manila. In earlier years, she served at the Maryknoll Post Office in Ossining and also did social service work in San Francisco and Stockton, Calif. Born in White Plains, she attended Good Counsel College in White Plains and entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1935. She professed final vows in 1941. She held a master's in social work from Loyola University in Chicago. She returned to the United States permanently in 1984, serving the congregation in various positions until being admitted to residential care in 1999. A Funeral Mass was offered Oct. 18 in the Maryknoll Sisters Main Chapel, with burial in the sisters' cemetery.
