For the past 30 years, every ninth-grader at Notre Dame High School in San Jose has gone through the same rite of passage: Creating a table place-setting to honor a notable woman from the past or present.
The Woman’s Place Project was inspired by Judy Chicago’s famous 1979 art installation, “The Dinner Party,” a triangular table with place-settings representing 39 real and mythical or symbolic women from history. Sr. Maureen Hilliard brought the idea to Notre Dame for the 1994-95 school year, launching a tradition that has spanned three decades and more than 5,000 place-settings.
Notre Dame High School students sit in front of the table place-settings they created to honor significant women for the Women’s Place Project, an art and history tradition at the school, on March 24, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
“In my mind, this project is absolutely needed in the world, specifically in San Jose. But what is really special is the awareness of this project and the longevity of it,” said Ashley Rae Mathis, head of school at Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic school in downtown San Jose. “This is the picture of what legacy looks like at Notre Dame.”
Each place setting has a plate, a glass, a flower and other items like silverware and napkins, all chosen or decorated to represent the woman being honored. There are usually photos of the woman and other decorations — maybe a phonograph record for Nina Simone or a blueprint for architect Julia Morgan — as well as a “toast” written by the student in honor of their subject. Students are assigned a subject based on their interests, and then research them to create an appropriate place-setting — mixing lessons in art and history.
Ashley Rae Mathis, head of school at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, stands next to a place-setting honoring St. Julie Billiart that was part of the Women’s Place Project, a 30-year tradition at the school that combines art and history, on March 24, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
Alumni, faculty and community members gathered last Friday for a 30th anniversary celebration, which included Hilliard. Mathis, the head of school, said it was amazing to listen to alumni talk about working on the project and remembering the women they researched.
While there are lots of historical women represented like Eleanor Roosevelt and Joan of Arc, there are contemporary names, too, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Michelle Obama. And Silicon Valley women of note are usually part of the project, too, and this year that included new Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong, left, talks to Angeline Phan, a ninth-grade student at Notre Dame High School in San Jose, on Friday, March 21, 2025. Phan created a table place-setting in honor of Duong as part of the Women’s Place Project, an art and history project at Notre Dame that has been an annual tradition for 30 years. (Courtesy Notre Dame High School)
Notre Dame ninth-grader Angeline Phan had Duong as her subject and said the supervisor’s life resonated with her, in part because they share a Vietnamese heritage and the Catholic religion. Phan was one of several students who wrote to their subjects to let them know about the project. Duong not only replied, she showed up to visit with Phan and see her place-setting.
“It’s like my biggest highlight of freshman year,” Phan said. “Getting the chance to meet her was really amazing.”
CITY HALL BEATS: It should be a lively Saturday night in downtown San Jose, with a massive concert by DJ Fisher taking place at San Jose City Hall plaza starting at 2 p.m. and running for hours afterward. When the wildly popular social media account San Jose Foos announced the show back in January, tickets reportedly sold out in a matter of minutes and the crowd is expected to number around 13,000 people.
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Of course, that also means some of the streets around City Hall will be closed off to cars for the event, including Fifth and Sixth streets from San Fernando to St. John Streets and Santa Clara between Fourth and Seventh streets. While VTA light-rail won’t be back up, at least the buses should be back in service for Saturday after a judge put a halt to the ATU strike.
CONFERENCE RECOVERY: With somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people in downtown San Jose for GTC, Nvidia’s big tech and AI conference last week, there was the potential for a lot of wasted food. That’s where Hunger at Home came in as the official food rescue partner for the conference, working behind the scenes to package unused food and get it to food insecure families in the valley.
At the end of the week, Hunger at Home had recovered nearly 16,000 meals and 8,500 lbs. of additional food, including tofu rice bowls, beef shawarma wraps, bánh mì sandwiches, hummus and rice crackers, Skinny Pop popcorn and apples. After collecting the food, Hunger at Home sent it out to its 46 nonprofit partners.
