Rev. John H. Vaughn ’82, Son of Late Ogretta McNeil, Named Executive Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Holy Cross in the News
Rev. John H. Vaughn ’82 offers remarks after receiving the 2015 Sanctae Crucis Award. Image by Shannon Power Photography

Rev. John H. Vaughn ’82 offers remarks after receiving the 2015 Sanctae Crucis Award. Image by Shannon Power Photography

Rev. John H. Vaughn ’82 was recently named executive pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he will be responsible for the overall leadership and direction of church staff, leading all functional areas in the accomplishment of the church’s mission. Known for its notable pastor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ebenezer is part of the MLK Jr. Historical Park and serves a congregation of more than 6,000 members.

Vaughn is the son of the late Ogretta McNeil, the first woman hired on a tenure track to teach in the psychology department and the first African-American woman to serve on the faculty at Holy Cross.

“I am deeply honored to be named the Executive Pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. This is a great opportunity to build on the national and international legacy of faith-rooted justice forged by Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr,” said Vaughn. “I come with a commitment to personal, communal and societal transformation and am ready to face the challenges and opportunities that this call provides.”

Previously, Vaughn was executive vice president at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, where he led overall strategic planning and management as the seminary worked to build communities and pursue justice.

Vaughn writes and lectures frequently on issues related to justice, race, economic equity, education, and community-building. His work has appeared in Huffington Post, The Living Pulpit, among other publications.

A French major at Holy Cross, Vaughn is the recipient of a 2015 Sanctae Crucis Award, the highest non-degree accolade the College bestows upon alumni, honoring his life’s work, dedicated to shedding light and spurring action on issues of justice, race, economic equity, and education.

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Important Information Regarding Holy Cross Women’s Rowing

Posted on January 15, 2020 by College of the Holy Cross

UPDATE: Monday, 1/27

Holy Cross is extremely grateful to report that every person involved in the Jan. 15 crash has now been discharged from the hospital in Florida.

Anne Comcowich left Lawnwood Regional Medical Center Monday morning. She will travel back to a hospital in Massachusetts to continue her recovery. Women’s Rowing Head Coach Patrick Diggins was released late last week.

Comcowich, a sophomore from Hopkinton, Mass., issued a statement upon her release.

“I am so grateful for the kindness, warmth, and love shown to all of us affected by the accident. We’ve been uplifted in countless ways by the gestures of so many whose gracious acts will never be forgotten, though their identities are unknown to us,” Comcowich said. “I came to the hospital broken, but I left as one, not only physically but with the community.”

Throughout the past two weeks, people across the country have offered their help, support, prayers, and care to members of the Holy Cross family. College President Rev. Philip L. Boroughs on Monday expressed his thanks to them:

“We cannot adequately express our gratitude to the many people in Florida, Massachusetts, and across the country who have offered their help and support in this difficult time. I have been so moved by the people of Vero Beach, who adopted the Holy Cross community as their own. The outpouring of aid from our alumni community has once again reminded us of the deep bonds connecting our Holy Cross family. We have also been blessed by countless acts of selflessness and kindness, from the first responders and witnesses of the crash who helped pull our students to safety, to the medical professionals in Florida who have gone above and beyond to care for the injured, and the hundreds of friends and strangers who have written or called with offers of support, time, money and prayer. All we can say is thank you.”

Sophomore Grace Rett was killed in the Jan. 15 crash, which occurred while the women’s rowing team was in Florida for winter training. The Holy Cross community on Friday gathered in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel on campus for a memorial mass in Grace’s honor.

UPDATE: 2 p.m. Wednesday, 1/22

We are again grateful to report that two more Holy Cross students from the women’s rowing team have been discharged from the hospital in Florida.

First-year student Bianca McIver from Scarsdale, N.Y., was released from the hospital Tuesday. Maggie O’Leary, a first-year student from Waterbury, Conn., was released on Monday.

College staff and students joined hundreds of family and friends on Wednesday at the funeral mass for Grace Rett ’22. Please keep the Rett family, along with all of those affected by this tragic event, in your prayers.

UPDATE: 1:45 p.m. Tuesday

Hannah Strom, a sophomore from Marion, Mass., was airlifted Monday afternoon from Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Florida to continue her recovery closer to home in Massachusetts after last week’s crash. 

We continue to pray for all of those injured, along with their families and friends.

UPDATE: 11 a.m. Sunday

We are grateful to report that another Holy Cross student has been discharged from the hospital in Florida.

Paige Cohen, a junior from Atlanta, was released from Lawnwood Regional Medical Center Saturday afternoon.

We ask for continued prayers for the four Holy Cross students, our rowing coach, and the driver of the truck as they continue to recover in the hospital.

As Holy Cross students return to campus Sunday for the start of the spring semester, the College is offering support in a number of ways. On Sunday afternoon between the hours of 2 to 8 p.m, we will be providing space for the campus community to gather and support each other at Campion House. Chaplains and counselors will be available throughout this time to provide support as needed.

Students can access the Counseling Center by calling 508-793-3363 or coming to Hogan 207. The Counseling Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., with urgent care times available at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. After hours, an on-call crisis counselor can be reached by calling the Counseling Center at 508-793-3363.

UPDATE: 1:15 p.m. Friday

The College is happy to report that one of our students who was injured in Wednesday’s crash, Maegan Moriarty ’20, was released from the hospital Thursday evening.

As of midday Friday, five Holy Cross students and a coach remained hospitalized at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Florida. We ask that everyone continue to keep our students, coach, and the driver of the other vehicle involved in your prayers.

Holy Cross President Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, who has been in Florida supporting the family since Wednesday afternoon, addressed the campus community in an email late Thursday.

Fr. Boroughs is planning to return to campus Friday. The College will continue to have support staff on the ground in Florida working with the affected families for the foreseeable future.

The College community will have the opportunity in the coming weeks to gather together in remembrance and prayer. We will share that information once plans are in place.

Plans are also being made to support Holy Cross students as they return to campus following winter break. Those plans will be communicated to students as they return this weekend. Classes will resume as scheduled on Tuesday.

ORIGINAL UPDATE: 7:47 p.m. Wednesday

Members of the College of the Holy Cross women’s rowing team were involved in a serious motor vehicle crash Wednesday morning while on a winter training trip in Vero Beach, Florida.

The College is stunned and saddened to report that 20-year-old Grace Rett ’22, passed away as a result of her injuries sustained in the accident.

Grace was a sophomore English and psychology major from Uxbridge, Mass. She recently set a world record, rowing for 62 straight hours on an erg machine.

The College’s thoughts and prayers are with Grace’s family, friends and teammates at this time.

Six other members of the team and a coach suffered injuries in the crash and were transported to local hospitals.

College President Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., Athletics Director Marcus Blossom, and representatives from the College’s Office of College Chaplains were traveling to Florida Wednesday afternoon to support the team.

“Our community has suffered a tragic loss. I extend my deepest condolences to Grace’s family, members of the women’s rowing team and their coaches, and all who loved Grace,” said Boroughs. “In our grief we pray that the healing power of the love of Christ will touch their hearts and provide some peace. I ask that all members of the community support one another at this time and pray for the healing of those involved in the accident.”

“Today, our community is faced with unimaginable tragedy and devastating loss. Everyone who knew Grace was touched by her warm heart, tenacious work ethic and inspirational drive,” said Blossom. “Our entire Holy Cross community is mourning today, and our focus is on supporting our Crusader students, families, faculty and staff, both here and in Florida. Our prayers are with Grace’s family and all those injured in today’s events. We ask for everyone’s thoughts and prayers.”

Hundreds of students attended a brief gathering at the Luth Athletic Complex Wednesday. College chaplains and counselors along with staff from the Athletics Department were present to offer their support for all members of the community. Plans for additional remembrances will be forthcoming.

The Holy Cross vs. Army West Point men’s basketball game scheduled for Wednesday evening has been postponed until 2 p.m. Thursday.

The College reminded members of its community that a number of campus resources are available to them in this time of grief.

Students can access the Counseling Center by contacting 508-793-3363 or chaplains by contacting 508-793-2448. After hours, an on-call crisis counselor may be reached by telephone by calling the Counseling Center at 508-793-3363 and following the prompts.

For College employees, counselors from KGA Associates (Employee Assistance Provider for the College) will be on site on Thursday, January 16, to meet with employees seeking support and counseling. Counselors will be in Hogan rooms 328 and 404 from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.

This page will be updated with additional information as appropriate.

Posted in Featured, News | Comments Off on Important Information Regarding Holy Cross Women’s Rowing

Artistic Director Valerie Curtis-Newton ’81 Named One of Seattle’s Most Influential People of the Decade

Posted on January 14, 2020 by Holy Cross in the News
Photo courtesy of Valerie Curtis-Newton

Photo courtesy of Valerie Curtis-Newton

Valerie Curtis-Newton, Holy Cross graduate of 1981 and an award-winning artistic director, has been named one of Seattle’s most influential people in the past decade by the Seattle Times. Other notable figures making the list include: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Currently Head of Directing at the University of Washington’s School of Drama, Valerie is co-founder of the Hansberry Project – an African American Theatre Lab, a theatre company devoted to artistic excellence in Black theatre.

Curtis-Newton, who was a sociology major and theatre minor at Holy Cross, is considered a titan in the Seattle cultural scene. And according to the Seattle Times article, “she got there not by being flashy, but by doing the hard work, in the trenches, with the community and inside arts organizations large and small, doggedly insisting on two things: artistic excellence and increasingly incorporating a Black lens into the collective view of what theater is and can be.”

To read the full article, go to SeattleTimes.com.

Posted in Alumni, In The News, News, Sociology and Anthropology, Theatre and Dance | Comments Off on Artistic Director Valerie Curtis-Newton ’81 Named One of Seattle’s Most Influential People of the Decade

Holy Cross History Professor Shares Leadership Lessons From Across the Pond

Posted on January 13, 2020 by Holy Cross in the News
Edward O’Donnell, associate professor of history. Photo by Tom Rettig

Edward O’Donnell, associate professor of history. Photo by Tom Rettig

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s recent announcement that the couple will “step back as ‘senior’ members of the British royal family and work to become financially independent” has generated a fierce debate around the topic of relinquishing leadership responsibilities. Is there ever a good time to do so?

Edward O’Donnell, associate professor of history at Holy Cross, was quoted in a recent Forbes article making the case that there are instances when moving away from a leadership role is not only acceptable, but the right thing to do.

To make that case, O’Donnell draws a parallel to President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation. According to O’Donnell, Nixon knew he was likely to be removed from his position anyway, so he “decided that it wouldn’t be worth fighting. It was better to cut his losses and go.”

But even without an imminent threat to one’s career, stepping down from a leadership position could be the best course of action, as it was for baseball player David Ortiz, for example. Ortiz retired from the Boston Red Sox at the height of his stardom, not because he had to, but because he realized it would be increasingly difficult to maintain his level of excellence, according to O’Donnell.

To read the full article, go to Forbes.com.

Posted in Edward O'Donnell, History, In The News, News | Comments Off on Holy Cross History Professor Shares Leadership Lessons From Across the Pond

Holy Cross Economics Course Explores the Intricacies of Inequality

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Kolleen Rask points at a blackboard in a bright classroom full of students“What is your opportunity cost of buying an iPhone?” Kolleen Rask, professor of economics, asks her class. “You wouldn’t be able to buy other products, right?”

In the case of this conversation, the term “opportunity cost” denotes the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one option is chosen.

“What is the opportunity cost of a mother in Malawi buying diarrhea medicine for one of her children?” Murmurs make their way around the classroom. “Her other children won’t eat.”

That rhetorical question is just one of the many ways Rask is asking her students to think outside the box in her course, Economics of Inequality. The course, run for the first time last fall with 48 students in two sections, was Rask’s brainchild.

“I was looking for issues that I thought would be really interesting to students and we’ve been hearing a lot about inequality,” Rask says. “It’s been on my mind for a while, but I didn’t have a structured understanding of the issue. So, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year looking into the research in inequality. I finally decided I could put together a course and try to make it work.”

Once word about the course spread around campus, other majors and concentrations felt it could suit their needs, as well. Now, with some expansion, the course also incorporates materials that are relevant to the international studies major and the peace and conflict studies concentration.

With a heavier-than-usual load of reading, Rask runs the course differently than many others at Holy Cross — she treats it like a graduate-level class. In addition to weekly readings, each student is responsible for writing a summary of two readings per semester. That way, Rask says, students have help reviewing readings.

The students, in turn, have taken the course and run with it.

“You don’t typically get this much opportunity for discussion in an economics course,” Rask says. “So for me, this has been really fun.”

For Darwin Contreras ’21, one of the biggest points that stuck is that there is so much more to inequality than just wealth disparity.

“Inequality is more intrinsic in our society than we thought because America is thought to be meritocratic,” he says. “In the course, we learned how much inequality actually undermines this meritocratic society we think we have created.”

The course has also allowed students to explore topics they’re passionate about.

“I’m particularly interested in diversity in the job market on a gender basis, and this class has allowed me to dive deeper into the economic, social and political dimensions of that,” says Bridget Alkin ’21. “And with the mix of economics and international studies majors in the class, the environment creates dialogue to learn from different perspectives.”

And for students like Alkin, the course has emphasized that economists can incite meaningful change.

Posted in Economics and Accounting, Holy Cross Magazine, International Studies, News, Peace and Conflict Studies, Winter 2020 | 1 Comment

Roger Hankins Retires from Cantor Art Gallery

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Roger Hankins stands with un-hung artwork in the Cantor Art GalleryAfter 18 years and nearly 100 exhibitions, Roger Hankins retired as director of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery in September 2019. His 2001 arrival in Worcester followed a two-decade career as head of gallery at the University of California.

Posted in Holy Cross Magazine, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on Roger Hankins Retires from Cantor Art Gallery

Holy Cross Alumnus Runs Across Country for Charity

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Matty Gregg stands with 31 pairs of sneakers lined up next to himMatthew “Matty” Gregg ’00 was six years old when he first dreamed of being a transcontinental runner. The idea was sparked after he watched a biopic on Terry Fox, a Canadian amputee, who ran coast to coast in 1980 to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

Gregg let the idea simmer until Nov. 6, 2018, when, at the age of 40, he set out from Cupertino, California, on a nine-month, 5,425-mile epic adventure. His journey crossed 24 states, ending in Concord, New Hampshire, and included unexpected twists such as being mistaken for a highway bomber by Louisiana police, running through snowstorms and heatwaves, and adopting a stray kitten that followed him through a desolate town in Georgia.

Gregg was a manager and engineer at Apple for 13 years, leading the Apple Pay global team and developing internal and external training tools that are still in use at Apple retail stores. He decided to plot his run — and give his 18-month notice — in 2017 after surgery to repair a neck injury. “If I didn’t do it soon, I wouldn’t be healthy enough to do it at all,” he says, explaining that years of undertaking ultramarathons (50-mile and 100-mile races) and ultra-distance obstacle course racing had taken their toll.

Posted in Holy Cross Magazine, News, Political Science, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on Holy Cross Alumnus Runs Across Country for Charity

Holy Cross Alumna Likens Greek Classics to Hip Hop Music

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

An illustration of numerous hip-hop legends

I’d been a hip-hop music fan from grade school, when a Catholic kid’s idea of rebellion was bellowing Blondie’s “Rapture” a cappella on the school bus until the driver screamed. I graduated to old-school hip-hop classics, “Rapper’s Delight,” “White Lines” and “Jam on It,” delighting in warp-speed rhyming you could dance to. When I got to Holy Cross, UB40 and U2 were the music of the moment, so I shelved Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang.

Still, my relationship with hip-hop continued, through the poetry of Langston Hughes, introduced to me by Professor B. Eugene McCarthy. My study of stained-glass windows under Professor Virginia Raguin allowed me to see allegory at work in the street art of hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy and New York neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat. And in 2018, when Vanity Fair hailed Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar the heir to James Joyce, I understood that because of Professor Edward Callahan’s teaching of “Ulysses” and the epic as a mutable form.

Not that I understood that at the time.

Last year, I was assigned a short profile about a hip-hop pioneer who’s been rapping for 30 years. It turned into a five-part series as I realized that hip-hop — which some may view as misogynistic, homophobic, violent, obscene, profane or racist — is also high art and more.

Hip-hop is an artistic and cultural movement with a language and an aesthetic built upon four pillars: MCing (aka, rapping), deejaying, breakdancing and graffiti writing. Bronx-born, hip-hop is the street-smart child of disco, funk, reggae, dance and R&B grown to Goliath proportions, powering a $10 billion-a-year industry.

The more I learned, the more awed I was. Hip-hop artists so revere words that they profane them. They add and subtract letters at will. They stretch and pull words like gum wound round the finger. They take two words and smash them together. They take one word and split it like an atom. And the fallout is music — and more: insight into the human condition, the outpouring of a soul expressing love, lust, anger, frustration, hatred, unity, pride, virtue and vice. It’s all there in an art form born of urban poverty, where cardboard was the dance floor; the voice, the instrument and mic; and the street corner, the stage.

Scholar and literary critic Sir Geoffrey Hill wrote that poetry fights “the inertial drag of speech.” Hip-hop is airborne. Its most gifted practitioners are revolutionaries, delivering depth charges that happen at the level of the sentence, if not the word. Even its criticism pulsates. Poet Kevin Coval writes, “The break down, polyrhythmic, funky sections of records extended by Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash [laid] a sonic foundation for the largest global youth culture in the history of the planet rock.” This culture sounds its barbaric yawp, slams its poetry and dances in “pop and lock and spin . . . defying the limitations of body and gravity,” Coval says. Hip-hop artists are Whitman’s heirs, the type of epic poet-inventors Shelley envisioned in “A Defence of Poetry.”

Hip-hop soars while doing heavy lifting, acting as a conduit for literature, philosophy, art, music, social justice, theatre, history and advocacy. Hip-hop artist and activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses the medium to raise awareness about climate change. Jay-Z, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis use it to preach acceptance and inclusion of the LGBTQ community.

Of course, the art form has, at times, been rightly criticized for all of the reasons I mentioned earlier. Much like Picasso has been criticized for misogyny, Twain for racism and coarse language, and Bukowski for misanthropy and vulgarity. And then there’s Joyce, who was well-acquainted with critics’ charges of the lewdness, pornography and blasphemy in his work. But criticism is just opinion and art never promised to be pleasing.

I can offer no proof, but I am pretty sure I’m one of the few 52-year-old white women who couldn’t wait to buy “There Existed an Addiction to Blood,” the 2019 release from experimental hip-hop group clipping. I know many, however, who paid a premium to see the group’s lead, rapper Daveed Diggs, play Thomas Jefferson in the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” And your kids and grandkids adore him as Mr. Noodle on “Sesame Street.” Hip-hop culture is everywhere and we are the richer for it.

Posted in Holy Cross Magazine, News, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on Holy Cross Alumna Likens Greek Classics to Hip Hop Music

The United States of Anxiety: Experts Weigh in on How to Stay Engaged in Politics Without Burning Out

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Two people play the game Guess Who where the faces have been switched for Democratic and Republican political figures

If you thought presidential election seasons were tumultuous in the past, brace yourself for Election 2020.

The 24-hour news cycle, smartphones and ubiquity of social media have caused politics to invade Americans’ lives in ways that have upended their sense of calm and left many constantly on edge.

In a newly published study, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Kevin Smith found that following the 2016 presidential election, 38% of people in a nationally representative sample felt stressed-out by politics, with 26% experiencing depression and 21% a lack of sleep. Nearly 30% reported they lost their temper over the topic and 20% said that political disagreements cost them friendships. About 4% even said it made them consider suicide, a figure representing about 10 million Americans.

“Political interest and engagement is typically viewed as a good thing — a civic virtue,” says Smith, the Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Chair of Political Science and department chair. “But we found tens and tens of millions of Americans perceive it as exacting a significant toll on their social, psychological and physical health.”

Posted in Holy Cross Magazine, J.D. Power Center for Liberal Arts in the World, News, Political Science, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on The United States of Anxiety: Experts Weigh in on How to Stay Engaged in Politics Without Burning Out

Holy Cross Alumna Founds New England’s First Social, Activity Group for Those Living With Limb Loss

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Melissa DeChellis reaches for a barbell, showing her prosthetic legMelissa (Pierre) DeChellis ’02 needed an ambulance.

Instead, she was bouncing around in the back of a pickup truck, on a winding mountain road on the Caribbean island of Dominica. That morning, she had woken up with pain and swelling in her right leg and, instead of going to her classes at Ross University School of Medicine as planned, she needed immediate medical attention. It turned out to be a blood clot, in the same leg that had endured a congenital clubfoot throughout her childhood and 15 reconstructive surgeries throughout her late teens and 20s.

“It was a great American medical school, but you [still] don’t want to become sick when you’re on a remote island,” DeChellis says. “They took me to an adobe hut of a hospital, where I became infected with parasites. They needed to MedFlight me to Puerto Rico.”

In Puerto Rico, DeChellis used the medical Spanish she learned during an immersion and medical service trip to Guatemala years before, advocating for her care in her second language. Meanwhile, she was trying to get in touch with a vascular surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for whom she had worked in a research job. With the surgeon’s help, DeChellis was able to arrange a MedFlight home to Boston, so doctors at Brigham and Women’s could treat her leg.

“I was not sure I would make it off either of the islands,” DeChellis says, thinking back on the November 2007 ordeal. “At first, they tried multiple procedures to save the leg, but several years later in late 2012, my leg was completely compromised, and I had a really difficult decision to make: salvage what was left of my leg or amputate it. I was facing several surgeries and probably a lifetime of intolerable, chronic pain. Having been in chronic pain before, from all the reconstructive surgeries and years of immobility that followed, it was a difficult decision, but probably one of the clearest and best decisions of my life. Not many people have the opportunity to hit a reset button — and making the decision to electively amputate my leg was my reset button.”

Posted in Biology, Health Professions Advising, Holy Cross Magazine, News, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on Holy Cross Alumna Founds New England’s First Social, Activity Group for Those Living With Limb Loss

Holy Cross Long-Term Study Abroad Program Ranked No. 1 in the Country

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Jane Carlton

An elephant walks across a field in front of a large mountain covered in snow

For the 2019-2020 academic year, 261 College of the Holy Cross students are living and studying abroad — in other terms, roughly 8% of the student body is spread out, learning around the globe.

Seventy-six of these students are spending an entire academic year abroad in one (or two!) of 17 countries — Argentina, Australia, China, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Panama, Peru, Russia, Scotland, Spain and Tanzania. The College’s long-term study abroad program allows students to put down deep social and academic roots in other countries.

Recently, Holy Cross was named No. 1 among baccalaureate institutions for long-term study abroad participation by the Institute of International Education — the 11th year in a row the College has held one of the top three spots. According to the report, Holy Cross sent 90 students abroad for a full year in the 2017-2018 academic year, leading over Spring Hill College with 71 students and Sarah Lawrence College with 57 students.

Through a structured experience abroad, Holy Cross students are given the opportunity to enhance their academic opportunities and experience significant personal and cultural growth. There’s no one better to talk about study abroad, though, than the students themselves. Below, find some insight from our study abroad bloggers as they’ve navigated living and learning in another country.

Posted in English, Featured, French and Francophone Studies, Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies, Mathematics and Computer Science, News, Peace and Conflict Studies, Sociology and Anthropology | Comments Off on Holy Cross Long-Term Study Abroad Program Ranked No. 1 in the Country

Mable Millner Looks Back Over a Career Spent Looking Ahead

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Holy Cross Magazine

Mable Millner sits in her office“The message was so special,” says Mable L. Millner, smiling as she reads a card resting next to a bouquet of flowers on her desk: “‘Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.'”

The Shirley Chisholm quote, signed with words of gratitude from an alumna, is just one of the many notes, texts and calls Millner has received from alumni since last fall. In October, she announced her January 2020 retirement as associate dean of students for diversity and inclusion and director of multicultural education.

After nearly 20 years of service striving to make Holy Cross a more inclusive home for all students, Millner sits in her office, the sun setting out the window on Hogan Courtyard, and reflects on a career deeply informed by her own life journey. “You wanted to do it. You had to do it,” she explains. “There were people who gave their lives for us to be able to go to school … and so it wasn’t necessarily a choice. It was kind of understood that you would contribute with the time, talents and skills that you had.”

Posted in Africana Studies, Holy Cross Magazine, News, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Winter 2020 | Comments Off on Mable Millner Looks Back Over a Career Spent Looking Ahead

2019 at Holy Cross: A Year in Stories

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Jane Carlton

The O'Kane clock tower at duskWith 2019 wrapping up in just a few short days, we took a look back at major Holy Cross stories and accomplishments throughout the year.

Here are some of the most notable:

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Two Holy Cross Faculty Members Receive Grants from the National Institutes of Health

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Jane Carlton

Julia Paxson teaches in a lab and Michelle Mondoux teaches in a classroomTwo College of the Holy Cross faculty members have recently been awarded over $300,000 each in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Michelle Mondoux and Julia Paxson, both associate professors of biology, received grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for $322,200 and the National Institute on Aging for $391,000, respectively, to continue the research they’ve been conducting at the College.

Mondoux has been studying the effects of sugar consumption at the cellular and molecular level. Her lab uses an organism called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) — a microscopic worm — as a model to understand the cellular effects of a high-glucose diet, and which genes and pathways are involved in the response to glucose.

“The cells we have chosen to study are the eggs and sperm of the reproductive system. Like humans, C. elegans have reduced fertility on a high-glucose diet,” says Mondoux. “Given the high rates of sugar consumption and the fact that infertility affects an estimated 15% of those trying to conceive, it’s critical that we understand how cells might respond to high levels of glucose in order to identify potential strategies that might help protect and maintain the survival and quality of eggs and sperm.”

Paxson focuses her research on how the functions of stem cells in the adult body change with age. The NIH grant money will help accelerate this research.

“Little is known about how the functions of stem cell populations change with age, or how those changes may contribute to functional declines that we see in aging bodies,” Paxson explains. “With this grant, we are now able to correlate the cellular function and behaviors that we have already documented with underlying changes in complex molecular mechanisms.”

Both Mondoux and Paxson are looking forward to how the grant money will allow them to expand not only their research capabilities, but student opportunities in the lab, as well.

“This grant will impact my students enormously,” Paxson says. “I usually have 10-14 students working in my lab in a variety of capacities including as student volunteers, students doing research for credit and students participating in the College Honors program. The financial resources provided by this NIH grant will enable students at all levels working in the lab to gain advanced skill sets in working with technologies that would otherwise be unavailable to us because of financial limitations.”

For Mondoux, the grant allows her to give more students an opportunity to do research in the lab, and also makes those research experiences more productive.

“Having the grant contributes to a livelier, more vibrant research environment, which improves our collective ability to do great science,” she says.

Posted in Biology, Featured, News | Comments Off on Two Holy Cross Faculty Members Receive Grants from the National Institutes of Health

Video: A Very Holy Cross Christmas

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Jane Carlton

Mount St. James is dressed up for the holidays and there’s a feeling of Christmas in the air. We asked students, faculty and staff to think about some of their connections to the season, like the favorite gift they’ve given to someone or their favorite thing about the holiday season. Below are some of their thoughtful anecdotes about the most wonderful time of the year.

Posted in Featured, News, Videos | Comments Off on Video: A Very Holy Cross Christmas

Cantor Art Gallery Exhibit Featured in New York Times ‘Best Art of 2019’ List

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Holy Cross in the News
Holy Cross students are seen here admiring the objects of Buddhist devotion displayed in the Cantor Art Gallery's Dharma and Punya exhibit. Photo by Avanell Brock

Holy Cross students are seen here admiring the objects of Buddhist devotion displayed in the Cantor Art Gallery’s Dharma and Punya exhibit. Photo by Avanell Brock

The prestigious New York Times Art & Design section released their “Best Art of 2019” as determined by their art critics. Making co-chief art critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Holland Cotter’s list was our own Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery‘s exhibit “Dharma and Punya: Buddhist Ritual Art of Nepal.”

Recognized for bringing contemporary Asian art to the attention of Western audiences, Cotter visited the exhibit while on campus to deliver a lecture co-sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture.

According to Holy Cross’ student newspaper The Spire, Cotter was full of praise for the gallery, telling the audience, “They don’t do these shows any more…We don’t get this information you’re getting here in New York.”

Here is Cotter’s description of the exhibit from the New York Times.

“This year, as in most years, I looked to smaller museums and university galleries for unusually inspiring and instructive shows. I found a gem in “Dharma and Punya: Buddhist Ritual Art of Nepal” at Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Assembled by two scholars, Jinah Kim and Todd T. Lewis, it uses objects to tell a tale of the little-studied traditions of a popular religious art in the Kathmandu Valley, an art that is devotional, intensely social and inevitably political, and one that takes the pursuit of do-no-harm generosity as its subject, creed and goal.”

This is an incredible honor for the gallery at its director emeritus Roger Hankins, as well as co-curators Todd Lewis, distinguished professor of arts and humanities and professor of religious studies at the College, and Jinah Kim, professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard University.

The exhibit, which took three years to plan, features historic objects of Buddhist devotion, on loan from major art institutions and private collectors, and has been accompanied by extensive programming throughout the fall semester, including Buddhist rituals rarely seen outside Nepal. Dharma and Punya was made possible in part through a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

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Is Today’s US Politics Replaying the Era of Tacitus? Holy Cross Professor Explains

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Holy Cross in the News
Tim Joseph, associate professor of classics. Photo by Tom Rettig

Tim Joseph, associate professor of classics. Photo by Tom Rettig

Over the past three years, political commentators have compared President Donald Trump with a range of Roman emperors, from Tiberius to Nero and Commodus.

In an article for The Conversation, Tim Joseph, associate professor of classics at Holy Cross, suggests another comparison might be more meaningful, which is the one between other elected officials in the U.S. and members of the Roman senate described by ancient historian Tacitus.

According to Joseph, who was spent the last 15 years researching and teaching Tacitus’ works on the history of the Roman Empire, Tacitus paints a picture of the Roman senate declining from a long-held position of authority under the Roman Republic to become a body largely dependent on the whims of the emperor.

“Is this same process playing out in the U.S.?” asks Joseph. “Or will political figures in the U.S. – or the U.S. electoral process – respond to a growing autocracy in ways that the ancient Romans did not?”

To read the full article, go to TheConversation.com.

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LA Times Interviews Holy Cross Economics Professor on the Run-Up to 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Holy Cross in the News
Victor Matheson, professor of economics. Photo by Tom Rettig

Victor Matheson, professor of economics. Photo by Tom Rettig

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are still months away, but NBCUniversal, the network exclusively airing the games in the US, is already running ads in anticipation of next year’s Summer Olympics.

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, Victor Matheson, professor of economics at Holy Cross and leading expert in sports economics, explains the move, saying, “They’re trying to make back a huge amount of money… in a world where people are consuming sports much differently than in the past.”

There is much at stake for the network, having paid $7.75 billion for broadcast rights through 2032. According to Matheson, even in this increasingly fragmented media universe the appeal of the live-action coverage of Olympics events is high, with sports broadcasts being “one of the last things we still watch live.”

To read the full article go to LATimes.com.

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Renewable Energy Policy Thesis Earns Landon Cass ’20 the Maurizio Vannicelli Washington Semester Away Program Award

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Jane Carlton

Landon Cass speaks in front of a room full of people

A thesis paper on renewable energy policies has garnered Landon Cass ’20 the Vannicelli Washington Semester Away Award for the Spring 2019 semester.

The Vannicelli Award, named for the late Holy Cross political science professor and Washington Semester director Maurizio Vannicelli, is given each semester to the student who produces the best thesis during the Washington Semester Program.

While in Washington, D.C, Cass, an economics and political science double major, interned at the consulting and lobbying firm Flywheel Government Solutions. There, he worked on different consulting projects, focusing on state-level policies and looking at renewable energy. His thesis, titled “Renewable Energy Policy in a Changing World,” explored the subtleties of people from different sides of the aisle pushing for similar ideas.

When he was back on campus, Cass discussed his thesis in a presentation in the Rehm Library. “The policies I’ve looked at are those policies that impact pretty much everybody,” says Cass. “If you consume energy, which we all do, you’re impacted by these policies. To be able to dive into those in a very in-depth way has been really rewarding.”

Now in his final two semesters on The Hill, Cass’ time in Washington, D.C. has changed his perspective on college — and what comes after graduation. In fact, Cass already has his next move lined up — a post-grad job at a major defense contracting company. “That workplace understanding has shaped how I’ve chosen my classes and how I focus on different assignments. I’m doing things that I know will benefit me in a work setting.”

“Before going to Washington, I went through all my classes really focused on the readings,” he says. “I still do that, but now I do it with a much more targeted perspective.”

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Important Winter Weather Notification – Dec. 1, 2019

Posted on December 1, 2019 by College of the Holy Cross

Date: Sunday, December 1, 2019
From: College of the Holy Cross

Due to inclement weather and in consideration of those members of our community who will be traveling in it, the College will be closed beginning at 3 p.m. on Sunday, December 1 until 11 p.m. on Monday, December 2, 2019.

Emergency Personnel are required to report for work as directed. Non-emergency personnel are not required to come in. While all on-campus classes are cancelled on Monday, faculty may choose to hold class through an alternative medium. Students are advised to check their Holy Cross email for further instructions.

During this closure, the following facilities/services will remain available to our residents:

  • Kimball Dining Hall
  • Luth Athletic Complex

All other facilities, services, and campus events will be closed.

The safety of our students, faculty, staff and guests is our top priority. In case of an emergency, please phone the Public Safety emergency line at Ext. 2222 / (508) 793-2222. For non-emergencies, please call Ext. 2224 / (508) 793-2224.

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