Rev. Thomas McMurray, S.J., wears many hats at Nativity School of Worcester — director of admissions, director of Jesuit mission and identity, and chaplain. When he needed help developing a religious education curriculum for the school, he knew where to look — just a few miles away.
Holy Cross, it turned out, had the perfect program to assist the private middle school: The Ignite Fund. A now two-year-old initiative of the College’s J.D. Power Center for Liberal Arts in the World, the program funds student-driven projects, providing the opportunity and resources to put what they’ve learned in the classroom to work. Rather than waiting until after graduation to make an impact on the world beyond The Hill, The Ignite Fund gives students the foundation they need to put their scholarship and skills to the test immediately.
Rev. John Gavin, S.J., associate professor of religious studies, looked to two students: history major Stefanie Raymond ’18 and religious studies major Roxana Ruiz ’20, both women offering backgrounds in Catholic studies and education.
“They understood what a curriculum plan would be,” Fr. Gavin says. “It seemed like a perfect fit.”
The women thought so, too, and embraced the project.
“What most appealed to me was the ability to combine two things that I really loved: religion and education,” Raymond says. “Because my own religious education had played a big part in my life — I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten to college — I was excited to have an opportunity to apply what I had been taught in a new way.”
“I believe in the goodness that a Jesuit, Catholic education can give to students and even teachers that teach it,” Ruiz adds. “It can provide a more holistic development of the person, no matter the background they come from.”
The 16-year-old Nativity School of Worcester (NSW) provides a tuition-free Jesuit education for underserved fifth-through eighth-grade boys of all faiths. Many of the school’s faculty are Nativity Fellows, recent college graduates hired as full-time teachers for a two-year tenure. Fellows are not required to have a background in education, which left Fr. McMurray with the challenge of creating a structured, integrated curriculum that could build year to year. He and Jesuit novice Kieran Halloran, nS.J., developed a framework, which included teaching the fundamentals of Catholicism, providing an interfaith component and addressing social justice issues. Fr. McMurray then approached Holy Cross and the Ignite Fund for help making it a reality.
“We thought this would be a perfect match,” says Patrick T. Maloney ’02, the school’s president, “and we were lucky [Holy Cross] thought the same way.”