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Golf coach Bob Molt will retire this spring after more than four decades with the College. Under Molt’s leadership, the program experienced great success, with the men’s team making two consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament in 1982 and 1983, as well as winning numerous Worcester City Championships. In addition to coaching the men’s team for 41 years, Molt also served as head coach for the women’s golf team from 2000-2013. In total, Holy Cross golfers have earned 13 spots on the All-Patriot League teams under his direction.

Molt understands well the student-athlete experience, having attended the University of Arizona on a golf scholarship and graduating in 1972. He became a member of the Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) of America, earning his PGA Tour card in 1982 and playing in tournaments overseas from 1983 to 1996. For 22 years, he served as the resident golf professional at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton, Massachusetts, and has owned and operated the Solomon Pond Golf Center in Berlin, Massachusetts, since 1996.

With his wealth of experience and dedication to the game, Molt has been an essential part of the Holy Cross golf program. We sat down with him as he reflected on his tenure with the College.

Holy Cross Magazine: What initially brought you to Holy Cross?

Bob Molt: I was the director of golf at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton. Fr. Markey [then-vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and current associate director of Jesuit relations in the Office of Admissions] played at Pleasant Valley Country Clu.b occasionally and was a close friend. He suggested that I apply for the coach’s job at Holy Cross, when Gerry Anderson ’38 [men’s golf coach from 1966-1976] retired. I applied for the position and was hired in 1976.

HCM: Is there any moment that stands out to you over your coaching career that was particularly special?

Molt: Yes, there are two moments that are very special to me. One is receiving the Gordon McCullough Award in 2006, naming me the Coach of the Year in New England. The second is coaching my daughter, Alicia ’09, at the Big South Championship in May 2009 in Charleston, South Carolina.

HCM: What is the best piece of advice that you can give your players?

Molt: I learned the game from Paul Harney ’52, Holy Cross Hall of Famer and a top player on the PGA Tour. Paul told me to work very hard on my short game and said, “Anyone can shoot good scores when they are hitting the ball well; good players can shoot good scores when they are NOT hitting the ball well.” I have given this advice to every player that I have coached at Holy Cross since 1976, both men and women.

HCM: Are there any traditions that have developed over the years or is there anything you do for luck before a tournament?

Molt: We always leave from the Hogan Center. I believe that we have left from Hogan for all tournaments during my 41 years of coaching. When his schedule permits, Fr. Markey often sees us off from Hogan and wishes us good luck.

HCM: What do you most want to accomplish in this last season?

Molt: I would like to win the Patriot League Championship.

HCM: What will you miss about coaching at Holy Cross?

Molt: The student-athletes. A great deal is written about how the “millennials” are totally different to coach than their predecessors. I do not find this to be the case. The student-athletes that I coach now and that I coached 40 years ago are extremely motivated to compete and to exceed both on the golf course and in the classroom. They understand that the coach has a job to do and adhere to any rules put forth by the coach. The sport they have chosen to play is based on integrity and adherence to rules and they accept it. In 41 years I have never had a player not graduate.

HCM: What do you plan to do in retirement?

Molt: I own and operate the Solomon Pond Golf Center in Berlin, Massachusetts, which is a large outdoor golf driving range. I have been a PGA Professional for 44 years and do a great deal of teaching and have clients from all over New England. A very large percentage of my former players stop in at the range and visit with me over the summer. This contact and friendship with former players is very important to me.

Written by Caroline Shannon ’17 for the Spring 2017 issue of Holy Cross Magazine.

About Holy Cross Magazine

Holy Cross Magazine (HCM) is the quarterly alumni publication of the College of the Holy Cross. The award-winning publication is mailed to alumni and friends of the College and includes intriguing profiles, make-you-think features, alumni news, exclusive photos and more. Visit magazine.holycross.edu/about to contact HCM, submit alumni class notes, milestones, or letters to the editor.

The In Your Own Words alumni essay appears in each issue of Holy Cross Magazine. Porath wrote the essay for the Spring 2017 issue based on research for her book, “Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace,” which was included on The Washington Post’s list of “10 books on leadership to read in 2017.“

The summer after I graduated from Holy Cross, I thought I landed my dream job: helping launch a sports academy. However, I quickly learned that this workplace was rife with rudeness. The actions of a narcissistic, dictatorial boss trickled down through the ranks. He belittled employees, demeaned managers in front of others and barked orders at subordinates. Employees felt disconnected and disengaged. Some intentionally sabotaged the organization; many took out their frustrations on others, disparaging colleagues, making snide remarks to customers and failing to pitch in like good teammates do. This experience led me to study the costs of incivility — defined as any rude, disrespectful or insensitive behavior. My goal was to help organizations build more positive cultures.

The Cost of Incivility

Over the past 20 years, I’ve researched the experiences of tens of thousands of people, across six continents and in nearly every industry and type of organization. I’ve learned that our interactions with people — even our non-verbals — impact others more than we might think. You lift people up by showing people respect: making them feel valued, appreciated and heard. Uncivil behaviors — which vary widely and include ignoring, demeaning or undermining others — hold people down. Incivility is extremely costly to people and organizations.

In a poll of 800 managers and employees across 17 industries that I conducted with Christine Pearson of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, we found that when employees don’t feel respected, they perform worse. About half intentionally decrease the time spent at work, 38 percent said that they deliberately decreased the quality of their work and 66 percent acknowledged that their performance declined. Twenty-five percent admitted to taking their frustration out on customers. Eighty percent lost work time worrying about the incident, and 63 percent lost work time in their effort to avoid the offender. Twelve percent said they had left their job because of the uncivil treatment.

Separate experiments conducted with Amir Erez of the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida reveal that incivility exacts a deeper toll because of the subtle ways it affects people’s thinking skills and helpfulness. In one study, in which an experimenter belittled the peer group the participants belonged to, participants performed 33 percent worse on anagram word puzzles and came up with 39 percent fewer creative ideas during a brainstorming task focused on how they might use a brick.

In our second experiment, a stranger (a “busy professor,” encountered en route to the experiment) was rude to participants by admonishing them for bothering him. Participants’ performance was 61 percent worse on word puzzles, and they produced 58 percent fewer ideas in the brick task compared to those who had not been treated rudely. In these studies, people were also nearly three times less likely to help the experimenter pick up something that had been intentionally dropped. In subsequent experiments with Erez, I found the same pattern for those who merely witnessed incivility.

Harm in a Hostile Work Environment

Even if people want to perform at their best, they can’t in a hostile work environment. Incivility hijacks focus, decreasing creativity and performance. Just being around incivility shatters focus, stifles success and squashes helpfulness. It shuts people down. People stop speaking up, sharing ideas and discussing issues.

Civility pays. In a social network study of a research and development department of a biotechnology firm, Alexandra Gerbasi at the University of Surrey, Sebastian Schorch at the Universidad de los Andes and I found that people who perceived a colleague as civil — defined as treating someone respectfully, with dignity, politeness or pleasantry — would be more likely to seek that person out for work advice and were twice as likely to see that person as a leader. Those seen as civil performed 13 percent better as rated annually by their manager. By being civil, leaders create a positive cycle in their organization.

In another study in which I surveyed over 20,000 employees across industries, those who felt their leader “demonstrated respect” reported 56 percent better health and well-being, 92 percent greater focus and prioritization, 26 percent more meaning and significance and 55 percent more engagement. In fact, no other leader behavior had a bigger effect on employees across the outcomes measured. Being treated with respect was more important to employees than recognition and appreciation, communicating an inspiring vision, providing useful feedback — even opportunities for learning, growth and development.

Mastering Civility

Little actions you take make work better. Small actions, such as listening attentively, humbly asking questions, acknowledging others, thanking people and sharing credit can give you a performance boost. Yet, when you’re busy or feeling stressed, it’s easy to forget pleasantries, lose sight of our tone, speak brusquely, fail to smile or acknowledge others and ignore other niceties when interacting with your employees, team or others. Becoming more mindful of your interactions and more aware of how you’re perceived are key to mastering civility.

In every interaction, you have a choice.  Do you want to lift people up or hold them down? Who do you want to be?

Take a “Civility Quiz” to assess assess how civil you are towards coworkers, and learn what you can do to improve.

Written by Christine Porath ’95 for the Spring 2017 issue of Holy Cross Magazine.

About Holy Cross Magazine

Holy Cross Magazine (HCM) is the quarterly alumni publication of the College of the Holy Cross. The award-winning publication is mailed to alumni and friends of the College and includes intriguing profiles, make-you-think features, alumni news, exclusive photos and more. Visit magazine.holycross.edu/about to contact HCM, submit alumni class notes, milestones, or letters to the editor.

“Learning about wine is a celebration of life,” explains Joseph P. Donelan II ’72, the larger-than-life founder of Donelan Family Wines, a boutique winery in Santa Rosa, California.

Indeed, this was motivation enough for Donelan to leave his executive position in the paper industry in 2000 and pursue his passion for wine full time.

Today, he and his family own and operate one of Sonoma Valley’s premier wineries, consistently producing acclaimed Syrah, pinot noir, chardonnay and a variety of blends. Donelan and his team work tirelessly to create only the highest quality wines — and their commitment to excellence is recognized by connoisseurs and critics alike. In fact, two Donelan wines have been awarded the exceedingly rare rating of 100 points by renowned wine critic Robert Parker.

Building a Family Business

Donelan and his wife, Chris, are parents to four children: Keltie, Tripp, Cushing and Moriah. Tripp serves as the winery’s director of sales, and Cushing, the director of marketing.

For Donelan, operating a family winery is a perfect fit with his personal values and goals: “I like meeting people, learning about what they do and why,” he says. “I have a sense of adventure, and I wanted to build something from the ground up.”

A self-described teacher at heart, Donelan strives to share his deep knowledge of — and appreciation for — wine with each customer. Guiding people through their discovery of great wine is a philosophy that appears on the label of every bottle he produces: “Wine is a journey not a destination.”

In keeping with this principle, Donelan and his team pride themselves on offering exceptional customer service. Whether on a tasting visit to the winery or at one of the many wine dinners Donelan hosts around the world, customers delight in their many opportunities to learn firsthand from the Donelans.

“We hope they’ll say it’s among the best experiences they’ve ever had,” says Donelan. “If I could bring joy to people every day with a bottle of wine, that’s pretty powerful.”

Equal to the company’s commitment to outstanding service is its dedication to superior quality. Case in point: In 2011, the company planned to make 6,500 cases of wine but only released 3,900 because Donelan did not feel the wines were up to par. And while it was a financial loss to his company, Donelan simply was unwilling to sacrifice quality.

Supporting an “Undiscovered Gem”

Is it any wonder, then, that a man as discerning as Joe Donelan would want only the best for Holy Cross — and its students?

A former trustee and longtime benefactor of the College, Donelan is quick to point out the many advantages of a Holy Cross education — from its innovative program for first-year students to its exceptionally strong and engaged faculty body.

“I think Holy Cross is an undiscovered gem … students can learn a lot about themselves and how they can change the world,” he says. “Everything to me is about changing the world.”

It’s that perspective that drives him to give back to the College — to give its students, in his words, an “unfair advantage” by providing them with the education and the real-world experiences that will shape their perspective. That’s why he established the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning with a generous endowment in 2000, enabling faculty and students to combine challenging course work with experiential learning in the Worcester community.

“The liberal arts teach us how to think. I believe students who participate in community-based learning can learn firsthand about the richness of life by helping others — and in turn, their lives will be totally changed forever,” Donelan says.

The idea for the office grew out of Donelan’s own student experience, when he decided to spend his junior year abroad in Vienna. That exposure — and his personal interest in understanding the history and societal attitudes that led to the Holocaust — broadened his understanding of the world and his responsibility to be a positive force within it. Donelan returned to campus and immersed himself in all that the city of Worcester had to offer.

“To me, the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning allows students to understand how the world works, how a city works — good and bad — and to work with professors who really want to enhance their experience to learn and grow and develop,” explains Donelan, who currently serves on the College’s Advisory Board. “In learning and helping others, one becomes more conscious of the people around them and what needs to be done.”

Since the office opened in September 2001, more than 6,000 students have participated in community-based learning courses, according to Donelan Office Director Michelle Sterk Barrett.

“Year after year, I’ve witnessed the powerful way in which students, faculty and community partners are deeply impacted by the opportunity to be involved with community-based learning — an opportunity that would not be possible without the generosity of Joe Donelan,” she says.

During the 2015-2016 academic year, a total of 39 courses offered contained a community-based learning component, which put 705 Holy Cross students out in the Worcester community. Faculty members that collaborate with Sterk Barrett say the unique opportunities offered by the Donelan Office transform the classroom experience for their students.

And that, says Donelan, is just what he envisioned.

“We all have a responsibility to give back. And to do that, students need to get out into the world, understand how it works and then decide how to change it.”

Written by Rebecca Smith ’99 and Kimberly Staley ’99 for the Spring 2017 issue of Holy Cross Magazine

About Holy Cross Magazine

Holy Cross Magazine (HCM) is the quarterly alumni publication of the College of the Holy Cross. The award-winning publication is mailed to alumni and friends of the College and includes intriguing profiles, make-you-think features, alumni news, exclusive photos and more. Visit magazine.holycross.edu/about to contact HCM, submit alumni class notes, milestones, or letters to the editor.