Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin, Barry University’s president emerita, is seriously ill at Memorial Hospital Miramar, where she underwent emergency surgery July 8 for a perforated duodenal ulcer.

O’Laughlin, 83, was Barry’s president from 1981 to 2004. A native of Detroit, she belongs to the Michigan-based Adrian Dominican order of nuns.

Under her leadership, Barry quadrupled its student population, amassed a $22 million endowment, and became Florida’s fourth-largest private university.

O’Laughlin became a respected civic leader, the first woman on the Orange Bowl Committee, and a key figure in the post-Hurricane Andrew “We Will Rebuild” effort.

She made international headlines in 2001 when she became involved in the highly polarizing Elián González saga, siding with the 6-year-old Cuban boy’s Miami relatives, who wanted him to stay in the United States after his mother drowned in an effort to escape Cuba.

Elián was eventually returned to his father in Cuba.