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A tree was planted on Holy Cross’ Linden Lane in honor of Rev. Robert Athickal, S.J., founder of an environmental organization dedicated to preserving biodiversity, when he was on campus to receive an honorary degree at Commencement.

A native of India, Fr. Athickal founded Tarumitra (Hindi for “Friends of the Trees”) with some high school students in 1988 in Patna, India. Later, his Jesuit superior missioned him to be the adviser and support person for this movement — and in 2004, the United Nations accepted Tarumitra for non-governmental status.

Upon learning about Fr. Athickal’s story, Jim Long, superintendent of grounds, put together a plan to plant a Linden tree at the entrance of the College. Rev. James Hayes S.J., rector of the Jesuit community, delivered a blessing before the tree was planted.

Tarumitra currently enrolls 55,000 members through 900 high schools and colleges in 18 states of India, and student delegates attend global conferences around the world every year. Fr. Athickal has built a bio-reserve and training center on 10 acres of the property of the Jesuit novitiate in the state of Bihar. At one time there were thousands of species of plants and trees in Bihar; now there are less than 50.

Holy Cross president Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., presented Fr. Athickal’s honorary Doctor of Ministry degree, with a citation that read, in part:  “As a Jesuit, you have been trained to see God in all things — especially the natural world in which the wonders of creation continue to unfold. How fine and how appropriate, then, that you have found vigorous expression for your spiritual energy in your efforts to rescue our planet from environmental ruin. Amid dire warnings of ecological wreckage, you have found a mission born of your Jesuit vision. We can imagine Ignatius himself smiling upon Tarumitra.”

Pictured: Rev. Robert Athickal, S.J., founder of Tarumitra, poses next to a Linden tree that was planted in his honor.
Related Information:

• Commencement 2008
• Read about the grounds in the current issue of Holy Cross Magazine
• Read a profile of Jim Long, who has worked on the grounds for 50 years, in the current issue of Holy Cross Magazine

The Summer Business Program at Holy Cross is a four week program that immerses Holy Cross students in the world of business. Each day seminars are presented on topics ranging from accounting and finance to executive leadership to problem solving within a business. I took part in this year’s program which took place on the Holy Cross campus from May 27 to June 20. While these lessons are an essential part of the program, the most interesting part of the four weeks was meeting the Holy Cross alums who returned to campus to teach and give dinner talks.

For instance, Jim Keyes ’77 came back to the Hill to give a dinner talk on adapting to change in the business world. Now, I had no idea who Jim Keyes was before that evening, and it would probably be a stretch to say that he is a household name. But I’m sure most people are familiar with his work. After graduating from Holy Cross, Jim worked as the CEO of 7 Eleven, and after a brief retirement, took on his current position as CEO of Blockbuster.

As luck would have it, Jim sat next to me during the dinner. I couldn’t have asked for better dinner conversation. Mr. Keyes is one of those increasingly few people who truly love what they do. The man works something like 70 or 80 hours a week, but I don’t think he considers it work at all. He also has some really interesting ideas about how to expand Blockbuster in an age dominated by online rental services. Add to it all that he piloted his own private jet to get to the dinner (38 minutes from New York to Worcester) and you can begin to see why Mr. Keyes is such an interesting guy.

Of course, the capstones of the program are the presentations which each team gives before a panel of executives. All students in the program are assigned to a team of four groupmates and given an assignment such as developing a new product or marketing campaign. My teammates and I were responsible for creating a strategy for General Electric to acquire Vestas, a company that specializes in manufacturing wind turbines. We analyzed the financial data, corporate structure, and trends in the market for both companies in order to craft a pitch for the panel. Ultimately it was this experience of working in a team to pitch our proposal before the panel that was the most beneficial part of the program. It made for great experience that will definitely translate well when I enter the business world.

Lastly, I would be remiss to talk about the Summer Business Program and not mention Professor David Chu, who runs the program as part of the prebusiness program and the Ciocca Office of Entrepreneurial Studies. Professor Chu is the lifeblood of the program and does a wonderful job of bringing in successful Holy Cross alums to come in and share their experiences in business. Included in this list of alums (more than 30 participated in this year’s program) is Art Ciocca ’59, who played a major role in helping me land an internship in Silicon Valley and has been key to the founding of the entrepreneurial studies program at Holy Cross. All of these passionate alumni, and the enthusiasm displayed by Professor Chu, are what made the program more than just another series of lectures. It really was an excellent crash course into the world of business.

Ryan Wiik ’09 is an economics and political science major from San Diego.

Being a superhero is a tricky thing. Not that your job description isn’t clear: save the world is pretty self-explanatory, but that rarely comes with instructions. You’re also expected to live forever (which can prove difficult), always get the bad guy in the end (which can be impossible), and always, always protect those that need protecting. Superheroes are, simply, men and women for others.

When Tim Russert died on June 13, a heart attack taking him away at only 58 years old, we didn’t hear about the things you would generally expect to hear in a superhero’s obituary. No nuclear bomb deactivations, no saving the world from an asteroid, etc. We heard quiet things. We heard about a man who loved his job, a man who loved his country, and a man who loved his son. We heard about a man who loved his faith, a man taught by the Jesuits. From Chris Mathews ’67 to Bill O’Reilly, from People magazine to The New York Times, across the spectrum, all these sources mentioned Russert’s Jesuit education and its profoundly positive impact upon his actions and his character.

I was never more proud of my own Jesuit education than in the days surrounding Tim Russert’s death as it was used to describe a man that I consider one of the great, quiet superheroes of our time. As Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal, the coverage of Russert’s death “offered extremely important information to those age 15 or 25 or 30 who may not have been told how to operate in the world beyond ‘Go succeed.’ ”

I remember being told during my freshman year of college that I was to live my life for others — the Jesuit ideal. All that this led to was a panic — guilt that I was an English major rather than studying to be a doctor. What good could an English major do? Noonan reminds us that Tim Russert showed us all that “honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work” is truly how you live a good life. By bringing honor, respect, professionalism, and pride to his profession, Tim Russert brought politics to all of us in a way that we could relate to and trust — and we were all better for it.

Though not a Holy Cross grad himself (he graduated from our Jesuit sister institution John Carroll University) Russert offers Crusaders, both current students and grads alike, the lesson that being men or women for others does not always mean seeing who has participated in the most immersion programs or how many charitable organizations you belong to — not that such things are to be belittled. They are wonderful, noble pursuits, but so is doing what you love, being the best you can be at it, and honoring those around you by making whatever occupation you choose better. Tim showed us that we could live the Jesuit ideal within our own lives, with our own unique talents and passions.

And that’s a rare power indeed.

Cara Caporale is a member of the Holy Cross Class of 2008, graduating with a degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She currently lives in New York where she is pursuing a career in media.

Photo: Tim Russert delivers the commencement address at Holy Cross in 2005. He also received an honorary degree at the ceremony.

Related Information:

• Statement from Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., president of Holy Cross, on Tim Russert’s passing (Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Web site)

• In an op-ed in the Buffalo Daily News, Ted Kresse ’00 writes about his decade-long friendship with Tim Russert, which began his junior year of college through an internship at “Meet the Press”

Lauren Courtney ’09 recently served as the head orientation leader at this year’s summer orientation program at Holy Cross, which means she shepherded the incoming class on their first steps toward establishing a successful college career.

For the past three years, Courtney has worked as an orientation leader. When she is shown a 2005 photo of herself during her own orientation session, she stares with astonishment.

“I was so nervous,” she says, with a wide smile. “Honestly, it’s unbelievable to think that three years ago this is where I was, all of which makes me even more passionate telling these incoming students to make the best of all these opportunities to get involved. I wouldn’t have expected three years ago to be where I am now. It’s an entire growing and learning experience.”

Courtney, from Ashland, says she knew she wanted to be one of the 24 orientation leaders just minutes into her own orientation. They looked like they were having fun, and she appreciated their warm welcome to Holy Cross, she recalls.

“I can still remember when I was in the audience in the Hogan Ballroom when the orientation leaders were giving their introductions about themselves and citing the things they loved. It was the idea of being relatable — she likes Disney, he likes humor, stuff like that. I enjoy having a good time and I could see myself helping people become comfortable and making the transition,” she says.

“That was just at the beginning of the orientation — you can imagine how unbelievably enthusiastic I was about the rest of the program.”

It didn’t come as a surprise to Courtney, who is on the women’s track and field, that she gravitated toward wanting to help others before even beginning her first academic year at Holy Cross. A psychology major, she worked as a camp counselor for 11 years and believes that most everyone can be motivated and has leadership potential.

“It’s not always going to be people who surface to the top,” she explains. “Sometimes it’s a matter of finding those students. Brenda [Hounsell Sullivan, director of Orientation, Transition and Leadership] finds the hidden leaders, and I think that’s wonderful. What can they do for this community? What are you motivated by? What do you want to get passionate about?”

Indeed, one of the main goals of Gateways Orientation is to encourage students, who have different interests, to seize the many opportunities available at Holy Cross — inside and outside the classroom.

“There are so many different people with so many stories and Gateways helps them make a deep connection to the College before even beginning their studies,” she says. “It really widens and broadens their experience, and prevents them from just going through the motions of college life.”

Related Information:

• Read more about the Gateways Orientation Program and the 2008 summer orientation leaders

“We had a few parents who said they want to come back to school,” said Kristine Cyr Goodwin after one of the Gateways summer orientation sessions last week.

She was only half-joking.

From the time students and their parents step onto the Holy Cross campus to begin their college careers, they are in good hands. A team made up faculty, administrators and students is there to offer information about academic and social life at Holy Cross during what can otherwise be a nerve-wracking experience.

Instituted by Jacqueline Peterson, vice president for Student Affairs and dean of students, Gateways, now in its tenth year, allows students to learn about all the things the College has to offer, meet faculty, administrators, and students, and take care of practical matters like course selection during the calm of the summer months.

The success of Gateways lies largely on these passionate individuals — like Peterson and Goodwin — who value the College’s academic program and believe in the difference that a Holy Cross education can make.

Since her arrival in 2001, Goodwin has overseen several departments in Student Affairs: Residence Life and Housing; Orientation, Transition, and Leadership; and Student Programs and Involvement, which also includes Intramural and Club Sports. She says this is her calling, and that her arrival to campus was instigated by God.

Goodwin had been working at another liberal arts college for eight years. Her only experience with Jesuits was through the Sacred Space Web site, run by the Irish Jesuits. During that time, she had gone on a retreat and had begun to feel a calling that “I was supposed to do more with faith formation” but didn’t know how. She received a call from a search firm looking to fill the open position at Holy Cross, but had to decline due to a contractual obligation.

Meanwhile, the search at Holy Cross proved fruitless and Goodwin received a second phone call.

“Ironically the day they called me a second time the president resigned from the college where I was working, so all bets were off. I really do think God labored for me to come here. It was so clear to me.”

Goodwin even asked her spiritual director, “Do you think this is it?” Her response? “If this isn’t obvious then I don’t know what is.”

The reasons Goodwin came to Holy Cross are the same reasons she stays.

“When I first got here, the College had just received a Lilly grant [which supports colleges’ religion, community development and education],” she says. “It wasn’t so much the money that came along with it but the idealism and the connection between what Lilly wanted to do with theological vocational discernment and what the College does as a Jesuit institution. And having gone on a pilgrimage I just fell in love with the idea of pilgrims, companions — with the idea of personal transformation.”

She pauses, and adds: “I just believe it with every ounce of my being. I believe it’s so in line with student development theory and then some. I even see parents who leave orientation saying ‘this was rejuvenating for my own way of living.’ ”

Goodwin says Holy Cross’ Jesuit principles shape the college experience.

“What I think Holy Cross brings is that additional connection to something bigger than academics,” she says. “It’s this understanding and this call to find meaning in life. After you graduate you have to ask yourself: What now? Where do I go from here?”

She underscores her point. “At a liberal arts college the question is what do you want to be when you grow up? And at a Jesuit college like Holy Cross it’s who do you want to be when you grow up?”

Goodwin says she sees parents and students come alive during the presentations about Holy Cross’ mission. Other administrators and faculty at the College agree.

“As dean of last year’s entering class, I approached Gateways with some apprehension; given all that had to happen, it was hard to imagine everything coming together smoothly and seamlessly,” says Mark Freeman, dean of the class of 2011. “But it really did — in terms of organization, in terms of the quantity and substance of the information people received, and, not least, in terms of the spirit of the whole enterprise. Parents, many of whom had been to other orientations, seemed especially pleased with Gateways. They were therefore able to leave after a packed two days well assured that Holy Cross was in fact the right choice for their kids.”

The evaluation forms that both students and parents fill out give high marks to the more than 30 programs — from “Planning for Academic Success” to “Finding God: Spiritual Challenge and Growth on Campus” — that are a part of Gateways, and the comments reinforce the ratings.

“This orientation was very productive and worthwhile,” one parent wrote. “I commend the entire faculty and staff for the quality of all sessions. This was a most impressive introduction to Holy Cross and only served to reaffirm our decision.”

Related Information:

• Lauren Courtney ’09 works as orientation leader for third consecutive year
• Profile of Brenda Hounsell Sullivan, director of Orientation, Transition and Leadership
• Gateways Orientation Program

At a White House ceremony on June 19, President Bush awarded the nation’s highest civilian medal to six Americans, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ’62, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Bush told about 250 guests that the award “recognizes outstanding individuals who have been leaders in their chosen field, have led lives of vision and character and have made especially meritorious contributions to our nation and the world.”

The text of Fauci’s citation reads: “As a physician, medical researcher, author, and public servant, Dr. Anthony Fauci has dedicated his life to expanding the horizons of human knowledge and making progress toward groundbreaking cures for diseases. His efforts to advance our understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS have brought hope and healing to tens of millions in both developed and developing nations. The United States honors Anthony Fauci for his commitment to enabling men, women, and children to live longer, healthier lives.”

As director of NIAID, Fauci oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.

Fauci serves as one of the key advisors to the White House and Department of Health and Human Services on global AIDS issues, and on initiatives to bolster medical and public health preparedness against emerging infectious disease threats such as pandemic influenza.

Fauci, a classics major with a premed concentration, has credited Holy Cross with instilling in him a life-long commitment to social justice. When U.S. News & World Report asked about one thing he did in college that still makes him proud he said: “Developed a deep social consciousness.”

In 2005, Fauci told Research & Development Magazine, which named him 2005 Scientist of the Year, “The Jesuits created an environment and a demand for excellence that was profound. They also created an atmosphere and an environment to seek the truth, to obtain a command of the intellect in your specific area, and to seek public service.”

In September of last year, Fauci received the 2007 Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service for his role in developing two major U.S. public health programs, in AIDS and biodefense. In June of last year, President Bush honored Fauci with a 2005 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for scientific achievement.

View photos and videos of the event on the White House Web site where President Bush mentions how much Dr. Fauci credits his success to his Jesuit education. (Click on “Current News” on the left and scroll to June 19, 2008 to view the video.)
Related Information:

• Alumni Success Story: Profile of Anthony Fauci ’62
• Integrated Science Complex

Watch as we take you on a video tour of the new four-story integrated science complex, which is currently under construction.

Related Information:

• Integrated Science Complex
• Watch construction of the science complex via a webcam

Professor Joanna Ziegler says it is not a matter of if ethics should be incorporated into the curriculum at Holy Cross, but how.

Ask her why, and she rises high in her chair and responds in mock horror with rhetorical questions: “Can we start with the environment? You mean the rise of violence globally? You mean the increasing disparity among the rich and poor?”

Ziegler, professor and chair of the visual arts department, has begun her three-year term as the new Edward A. O’Rorke Professor in the Liberal Arts. She will work with faculty members to incorporate ethics into their courses. The professorship was made possible by a generous gift from Edward A. O’Rorke, a member of the class of 1929.

Of course, students at Holy Cross are constantly engaged in ethical and moral issues as part of both specialized ethics courses and cocurricular activities (Student Programs for Urban Development, Chaplains’ Office immersion trips, retreats, among others). Ziegler plans to create new opportunities for intellectual ethical reflection in classrooms across the curriculum.

Her 25 years as a professor of visual arts at Holy Cross and experience in incorporating ethics into her own courses, makes her ideal for this position. A recipient of the College’s Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award in 1994, she is highly respected among faculty and students alike.

Ethics wasn’t always a big part of Ziegler’s work. She came to Holy Cross to teach history of architecture. Her dissertation at Brown University was on medieval architecture, and she was drawn to “the performative enactment of faith,” she says. “Faith as a performance. It’s participatory, dramatic, sensory.”

A LIFE-CHANGING RETREAT
Zielger’s journey into ethical reflection didn’t start in earnest until 1997.

That year she attended Collegium, a summer colloquium on faith and intellectual life. Rev. Brian Linnane, S.J., a former professor in Holy Cross’ religious studies department and the current president of Loyola College in Maryland, presided at a retreat that Ziegler says “changed my life.”

“He said that throughout the day that you want to return to the same place and listen for God because if you don’t go to the same place, how is God going to find you? It was a lot about repetition, returning to the same place, saying the same prayer, going through the same door. And for me it was a real time of thinking about the mission of the College and my own faith and doubts. I returned to Holy Cross and I thought: I want to do something like this with art.”

The following year she and Joseph Lawrence, professor of philosophy at Holy Cross, applied and received a fellowship by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, where she explored ways to integrate such reflection by heightening students’ awareness of their unexamined dogmatism and preconceptions regarding art, all while deepening students’ connections to the discipline of art history.

“I asked myself, How can this elite enterprise, which is art, make humans more socially just and more aware of their place in the world? That’s what I’ve spent the last ten years doing,” she says.

NATIONALLY-RECOGNIZED PEDAGOGY
Her answer has earned her national acclaim, and, along with Christopher Dustin, associate professor of philosophy, resulted in their book Practicing Mortality: Art Philosophy, and Contemplative Seeing. She has incorporated the exercise in her Introduction to Art History course.

“What I came to see — and what brought me to this position — is this idea of returning to the same work of art over and over and over and over throughout the semester. I usually start with a work of art that I know students are going to hate; something abstract. They typically respond with ‘Oh, I hate this. It’s boring. This is ugly.’ They have to go back to the same work of art [at the Worcester Art Museum] every week and write the same paper: What do you see now? By the end of the thirteenth week most of the students have fallen in love with this work of art. They know it like the back of their hand; they’ve become intimate with it.

“What’s happened is that they themselves have experienced their own prejudices. And I say to them, Well, if you can experience your own preconceptions and prejudices with a work of art, imagine if you could do that with a human being.”

This pedagogy has gained recognition by faculty from a wide range of disciplines at institutions of higher learning across the country. They have taken the “practice” that she has developed – having students engage, for an entire semester, a single work of art – into using a line of text, a musical phrase, a cell under the microscope, and so on. The work was cited in The London Times Higher Education Supplement in 2006.

FIRST STEPS
Incorporating ethics into the curriculum at Holy Cross won’t happen for several years, until faculty have engaged in extensive discussion about the proper ways of incorporating ethical awareness into their coursework. During the upcoming academic year, Ziegler plans to host a faculty seminar every few weeks. Three Holy Cross professors — Mary Hobgood and Mary Roche of religious studies and Rev. William Stempsey, S.J., of philosophy — will discuss the specialization of ethics in their academic disciplines, so as to begin from a point of understanding the methodologies of the departments that “house” ethics.

Ultimately, Ziegler would like to host regular seminars, host nationally-recognized figures to lecture at the College, and offer two-day retreats in particular discipline-based areas.

Although the initiative is strictly volunteer, and those professors who decide to participate will get to choose how ethical reflection will be incorporated into their courses, Ziegler says Holy Cross, as a Jesuit, liberal arts college, is uniquely suited to engaging students in life’s tough questions because of “its implicit and explicit mission of care for others.” In addition, she believes that Holy Cross must continue to engage the “me generation” in critical thinking.

“Moving into the 21st century, Holy Cross could be at the forefront of this movement — of shaping the curriculum. Students are hungry for this,” she says, pointing to the increasing number of students who are committed to environmentalism and social justice. “They come in asking, Why am I here? What do I do with my life? And at Holy Cross we don’t shy away from tackling those questions.”

After two nominations (The Light in the Piazza and Awake & Sing), Bart Sher ’81 took home his first Tony Award for best musical director for the Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The Tony Awards show was broadcast on June 15 on CBS from Radio City Music Hall.

South Pacific was nominated for 11 awards and won in six other categories: best revival of a musical, best performance by a leading man in a musical (Paulo Szot), best scenic design of a musical (Michael Yeargan), best lighting design of a musical (Donald Holder), best costume design of a musical (Catherine Zuber), and best sound design (Scott Lehrer).

The musical, based on James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about World War II, Tales of the South Pacific, focuses on romance and prejudices on a South Pacific island occupied by American soldiers.

Sher has served as artistic director of the Intiman Theatre in Seattle since 2000. His other credits include The Barber of Seville; Nickel and Dimed; The Dying Gaul and Cymbeline. He has credited his involvement in theater at Holy Cross with helping to make him a successful director. “Much of what I learned at Holy Cross I put to use every day,” he told Holy Cross Magazine.

His upcoming directing projects include the opera Roméo et Juliette for the Salzburg Festival, and the New York premiere of Prayer for My Enemy at Playwrights Horizons.

• Read Bart Sher’s acceptance speech on the Tony Awards Web site
• Watch two videos of Bart Sher (scroll to Winner’s Circle) on the Tony Awards Web site
• Read a profile of Bart Sher in The New York Times earlier this year

Despite her awareness of the problems in Africa, Catherine “Katie” Moran ’08 wasn’t prepared for the poverty and devastation she witnessed in Tanzania. In an online journal, she is sharing her reflections on the country and the people she met during the second of two trips to Africa organized this spring by the Chaplains’ Office.

“Everything surprised and shocked me,” she says. “No matter how many times I have seen appeals to send aid to Africa or listened to the news or read articles about the continent, nothing prepared me for actually being there.”

An English major and anthropology minor from Boston, Moran was in Tanzania from May 25 (two days after she graduated) to June 4. She traveled with 13 other students and assistant chaplain Rev. William R. Campbell, S.J.

“I could not drag my eyes away from what we saw as we drove in our bus, and I could not help but feel such a strong connection with the people that we met. I did not expect to feel such love for a country so different from my own,” she says.

Moran, who is pursuing a career in book publishing, hopes that other students will be encouraged to explore immersion trips after reading her journal.

For two decades, Holy Cross students have participated in the international immersion programs offered by the Chaplains’ Office. By traveling to areas in Africa, Mexico and Jamaica to meet people who are poor and marginalized, this faith based program responds to the Jesuit call to work for peace and justice in the world.

“I highly recommend the immersion programs at Holy Cross to every student,” she says. “It really was a life changing experience — both for the Holy Cross students who went on the trip and the people we met, as our job on returning to America is to share what we have learned and raise awareness, better aiding these people who deserve all our support and love.”

For her, it was the ideal way to end her Holy Cross career.

“I could not think of a more perfect ending to my life at Holy Cross,” she says. “What we saw in Tanzania completely reinforced the Jesuit ideal for me that we all are meant to be ‘men and women for others.’ Standing in solidarity with the poor in Tanzania helped me appreciate even more the past four years of education I have received at Holy Cross, and gave me a better sense of purpose in my own life.”

Related Information:

• Read more about the Tanzania trip in the Telegram & Gazette
• Holy Cross Blogs
• Chaplains’ Office