Ron Lawson ’75 had worked for 14 years as a financial analyst and manager for some of the biggest firms on Wall Street. So when he was suddenly laid off in the early 1990s recession, he didn’t think much of it. “I figured with my professional and academic background, it would only take me two or three weeks to find another job,” he says.
Three weeks stretched into three months, and then four or five, with no new job materializing. Despite his high-powered lifestyle, Lawson hadn’t given much thought to savings — “everything I earned I wore on my back or on my feet,” he says — and suddenly he found himself unable to pay his rent.
At age 39, he was homeless. “I wound up on the floor of a friend of a friend who I barely knew,” he says, “and all I had to my name were three wardrobe boxes of clothes, a mattress and a sheet I used to pull over my head so that the roaches wouldn’t crawl on me.”
He spent the next six months without a home, without a job and feeling increasingly desperate. The only thing that kept him going was the kindness of friends, one of whom introduced him to a church in Brooklyn Heights led by civil rights icon Rev. Dr. Paul Smith.
“I’d go sit with him and we’d talk and pray, and he’d say, ‘Hard times don’t last always,'” Lawson remembers. Every time, Smith would give him an envelope with a couple of subway tokens and a few dollars that would help him get his next meal. Finally, a good friend asked if he’d be willing to help manage finances for Mayor David Dinkins’ re-election campaign, and suddenly Lawson went from homeless to managing the finances of an $11 million campaign.
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.
“Before, we emphasized that students could ‘major in anything, succeed in business,’ but we only offered the one pathway, the co-curricular certificate of readiness through COES,” says 
Before tech startups flocked to Silicon Valley, before entrepreneurs competed for millions in funding on the TV show “Shark Tank,” and before entrepreneurship was part of the cultural zeitgeist in the U.S., Arthur “Art” Ciocca ’59 saw entrepreneurship as the future of business.
Each week, dozens of Holy Cross student volunteers take a short drive across the city to continue a commute that started two decades ago. The students, members of 
Jimmy Murray ’17 sees opportunity where others see stop signs. He first worked his way onto his high school football team and later onto the Holy Cross football team as a walk-on. In 2018, he beat the odds once more, going from undrafted free agent to earning a place on the practice squad of the Kansas City Chiefs and, ultimately, the active roster.
During a single hour-long conversation, former director of speechwriting for President Obama and current podcast celebrity Jon Favreau ’03 covered myriad topics: the strengths and failures of the new Democratic House majority, 2020 presidential candidates, his tense first encounter with Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his gratitude for Holy Cross.
Prominent American educator Jane McAuliffe, a world-renowned scholar of Islam and one of the senior leaders at the Library of Congress, will address this year’s graduates during the College of the Holy Cross Commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 24, at 10:30 a.m. at the DCU Center in Worcester. This year’s commencement marks the College’s 173rd graduating class.
Holy Cross students are driven to make a difference in their communities — on campus, in Massachusetts and across the globe. Propelled by the College’s 
College can often feel like a linear journey — take a few classes, decide on a major, join a club or two, fulfill your requirements and graduate in four years. For many, though, that path is much less precise. Interested in chemistry but have a knack for entrepreneurship? You can do both, and even get support from professors in creating a new, cool product. With countless opportunities at their fingertips, Holy Cross students explore winding paths that lead them in the right direction every time.
