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O’Kane Hall as seen from Linden Lane. (Photo by Avanell Chang/Holy Cross)

The College of the Holy Cross raised $58.1 million over fiscal year 2022, making the period its second most successful fundraising year over the past five. Of that figure, $39.3 million was donated by alumni, parents and friends.

Fr. Jim Hayes, S.J., ’72, Holy Cross associate chaplain for mission, speaks at the Integrated Science Complex during a ceremony dedicated to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ’62 Hon ’87 on June 11, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Ivins/Holy Cross)

Fr. Jim Hayes, S.J., ’72, Holy Cross associate chaplain for mission:

Let us pray in profound gratitude: Brilliant God, we marvel at your mysteries and we praise you as the author of life and the God of the sciences. We invoke your blessing today, the eleventh of June, two thousand and twenty-two, and we rejoice in the dedicated service and the humane wisdom of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, as he marks his 60th reunion at Holy Cross. 

We thank you for his years of steadfast labor at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. We glorify you for his zealous work to find a remedy for HIV, Ebola, Zika and relief from the COVID-19 pandemic.

We invoke your special blessing on this integrated science complex that now bears the name Fauci.

We thank you for the contribution of Monsignor Haberlin, for the presidency of Fr. Raymond Swords, S.J., and for the generosity of the O’Neil and Smith families, all of whom supported the sciences at Holy Cross and are the namesakes of the buildings that make up the Fauci complex.

Help all who work here to exercise curiosity, employ the scientific method, persevere in testing hypotheses and devote time and energy to serious research. We ask your blessing on all the faculty and staff members who teach and supervise research here, and all the undergraduates who work to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

May this magnificent complex serve as a setting for disciplined study and comprehensive research. 

We ask all this in your name, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., ’62, Hon. ’87 at the dedication ceremony for the integrated science complex named in his honor.

Warm greetings to you all and thank you so much President Rougeau for that kind introduction. Really, I’m terribly moved. How wonderful it is to be back here on Mount St. James at the College of the Holy Cross at this very special occasion of my 60th class reunion.

Helen Boucher ’86, dean ad interim for Tufts University School of Medicine, chief academic officer for Tufts Medicine and incoming chair of the Holy Cross board of trustees, speaks at the Integrated Science Complex during a ceremony dedicated to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ’62 Hon ’87 on June 11, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Ivins/Holy Cross)

Helen Boucher, M.D., ’86, dean ad interim for Tufts University School of Medicine, chief academic officer for Tufts Medicine and incoming chair of the Holy Cross board of trustees:

Thank you, Margaret. I’m delighted and very honored to be here on this historic day as we celebrate our fellow Crusader, Dr. Tony Fauci. Like Tony, I am an infectious disease physician — a formerly obscure medical specialty recently thrust into the global headlines by the pandemic.

Before I was a physician, I was an English major at Holy Cross. So, I love a good story. Tony’s would go something like this: Educated by the Jesuits at Regis in New York and here at Holy Cross, he remains unfailingly committed to serving others. Upon graduating from Cornell Medical School, he assumed a position at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was promoted to director in 1984, and never left. He has led our nation’s infectious disease response for nearly 40 years. In this role, he led efforts to treat a number of emerging infections, from HIV/AIDS to Zika to COVID-19 and to understand how the immune system responds to infection.

In addition to infectious diseases, Tony’s work advanced the field of rheumatology. He developed life-saving therapies for several formerly fatal inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases. Tony’s scientific contributions are myriad — he’s among the most cited living researchers in any specialty — and he’s been recognized with many honors. His work in establishing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, and leading our nation’s response to COVID, including his work on the mRNA vaccine, saved millions of lives around the world. Throughout all this, Tony always takes time to speak with and mentor colleagues, especially junior colleagues, and to support the efforts of our professional society in advocating for the next generation. We are forever indebted to him for his creative, unwavering, and brave leadership of the ongoing pandemic, and the many crises he has managed or averted in the years prior.

Where our two stories intersect, beyond infectious disease, is our love for Holy Cross, and our belief in the very kind of outstanding education we offer here. Intellectual rigor, learning to discern in the face of ambiguity, and developing the ability to communicate clearly and concisely all characterize the Holy Cross education. Tony also lives the Jesuit mandates of care for the whole person, a commitment to social justice, and a responsibility to the marginalized among us every day.

Today we celebrate that pride and purpose. We celebrate the College and its promising future — a future in which I will be enormously proud to serve as Chair of the Board of Trustees.

And we celebrate one of our own … Dr. Anthony Fauci. Thank you, and now it’s my pleasure to introduce Vincent D. Rougeau, the 33rd president of the College of the Holy Cross.

College of the Holy Cross President Vincent D. Rougeau speaks at the Integrated Science Complex during a ceremony dedicated to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ’62 Hon ’87 on June 11, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Ivins/Holy Cross)

College of the Holy Cross President Vincent D. Rougeau:

Thank you, Helen. We have an abundance of brilliant servant leaders with us today, and we are grateful for your contributions to medicine, society and your alma mater.

In a 2016 speech, Pope Francis said that “vocations aren’t the result of planning, but an encounter with God that changes your life.”

And though Dr. Anthony Fauci certainly prepared for his extraordinary career, his encounters with God have no doubt changed his life … and the lives of so many others.

In preparing today’s remarks, I asked myself: What is left to say about Dr. Fauci that hasn’t already been said? Here is a man so accomplished that we awarded him an honorary degree in 1987, 35 years ago, for his pioneering contributions to the global AIDS crisis.

Lest anyone think we jumped the gun, President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor for especially meritorious contributions to the national interest of the United States — in 2008.

And if I may go off script for a moment, I’d like to recognize another Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient with us today: Bob Cousy, Class of 1950. I understand Bob and Tony have great admiration for one another, but then again don’t we all? Bob, it’s wonderful to see you.

Dr. Fauci’s directorship of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases dates to 1984 — a validation of his political dexterity and intellectual fortitude. He is most proud to have been a principal architect of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved 21 million lives throughout the developing world, particularly within marginalized communities.

Dr. Fauci has advised seven U.S. presidents, oversees $6.3 billion in annual funding, and has been awarded 58 honorary degrees from academic institutions here and abroad.

And yet, before COVID-19, the bobbleheads and SNL skits, and the global superstardom — Tony Fauci was a student at Holy Cross. Walking these familiar brick pathways, carrying trays in Kimball, studying in Dinand, and playing pickup basketball with his friends. His life’s calling was heavily influenced by his childhood in Brooklyn, where his family owned a pharmacy. He embraced his Jesuit education, at rigorous Regis High School and later at Holy Cross, and its mission to serve others. In many ways, his faith and his family loaned him to us, and we are proud to now loan him to the world.

But we also like to think that Dr. Fauci’s encounters with God at Holy Cross did, indeed, change his life. Here, he earned the degree in classics and premed that would launch his medical career. A degree that Dr. Fauci said, “was absolutely a natural marriage of the humanities and science and medicine, where (he could) get a feel for the nature of evolving civilizations and how they related to each other; and what mankind is … and is not.”

Dr. Fauci has shown us that mankind can be courageous, kind and undeterred. We can trust science and eschew the “normalization of untruths.” We can believe in public service and social responsibility. In the darkest hours and brightest spotlights, we can be joyful, purposeful and hopeful.

In that same speech I mentioned earlier, Pope Francis said that Christ wants to “put people on the move, moving them from a lethal inactivity, breaking the illusion that it’s possible to live happily … staying comfortably seated among one’s own securities.” The desire to seek,” says Francis, is a “treasure often found in the “most young.”

So, Dr. Fauci, this is our abiding gift to you. Within the Anthony S. Fauci Integrated Science Complex, the “most young” scholars of Holy Cross will rise. They will continue to engage in learning across multiple academic disciplines to encourage the kind of broad and collaborative thinking one needs to thrive in an interconnected and just world. They will actively participate in research and debate, encompassing science, ethics, the environment, psychology and human behaviors. They’ll embrace their Jesuit values, take risks and learn from mistakes, and channel your unbridled energy and optimism.

And here they will follow in your incomparable footsteps, and encounter God and human knowledge in ways that will inspire their careers and change their lives … and the lives of so many others.

On behalf of a grateful nation, and your very proud alma mater, it’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Anthony Fauci to the podium.

Margaret Freije, provost and dean of the College of the Holy Cross, speaks at the Integrated Science Complex during a ceremony dedicated to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci ’62 Hon ’87 on June 11, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Ivins/Holy Cross)

Margaret Freije, provost and dean of the College:

Good morning, my name is Margaret Freije. I am the Provost and Dean of the College, and I am delighted to welcome you to the dedication of the Anthony S. Fauci Integrated Science Complex.

I particularly want to welcome and thank the members of the Holy Cross COVID-19 team. These colleagues have worked tirelessly over the past 2.5 years to monitor the progress of the pandemic, to keep us informed about current medical understandings of COVID-19 and to implement policies to protect our community and allow us to continue to teach and learn together. We owe them all a debt of thanks.

We are gathered here in the atrium of the College’s integrated science complex, a complex that was expanded, renovated and dedicated in Spring 2010 with a keynote address from Dr. Anthony Fauci. It is a complex designed to ensure that our students would have access to state-of-the-art equipment and to support the research efforts of our faculty. But it is also designed to facilitate interactions between student and faculty researchers across the disciplines, to be a welcoming space for those within and outside the sciences and to make the work and the joy of science visible on our campus and in our world.

This is particularly important because our commitment is to offer an education in the sciences and mathematics as part of a Jesuit liberal arts education. We offer an education that certainly challenges our students to achieve at the highest levels of scientific excellence — classes and laboratories that offer students the opportunities to use powerful scientific instrumentation and to participate in cutting edge research.

But we want much more than that; we want our students who are majoring in the arts and humanities to also be scientifically literate, to understand the types of questions science asks and the process scientists use to begin to answer those questions. We want our students pursuing science also to be well trained in the arts and the humanities and the social sciences; to be able to write well and speak compellingly; to be able to see the world and see science through the lens of philosophy or literature or history or sociology.

We want that because we believe it makes our science students better scientists … scientists who will ask questions others might not ask and will open new lines of research that others might not think to pursue. But we want that also because we believe it makes all of our students better citizens, better members of the communities they will participate in, and better leaders.

We want that because our commitment is not only to the what our students will do, but also to the who our students will become and the with whom our students will stand.

We are unapologetic — our commitment is to both education and formation. We want our students to be intellectually curious and highly trained and we want our students to be leaders who uphold the highest ethical standards. We want our students to be leaders who will serve, to be people for and with others. We want our students to be those who will cross borders and transcend boundaries — students who will continue in the tradition of Ignatius — to leaven the common good.

For me, this is what this day represents. This is what we celebrate as we celebrate all of our returning alumni and as we particularly recognize the ways in which one alumnus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has lived out our Holy Cross commitment — as a skilled scientist and an ethical leader dedicated to service and to the common good. It is a pleasure to have all of you, students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends, with us for this celebration.

And now it’s my pleasure to introduce Dr. Helen Boucher, Holy Cross Class of 1986, a nationally respected infectious diseases physician and healthcare administrator. Dr. Boucher currently serves as dean ad interim for Tufts University School of Medicine and chief academic officer for Tufts Medicine, a role that was created for her in July of 2021.

She was instrumental in leading Tufts Medicine’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is the first woman to lead the Tufts University School of Medicine in its 128-year history. Helen will soon begin her term as Chair of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees on July 1, becoming the first woman to lead the Board. Her selection fortuitously coincides with the College’s 50th anniversary of the first women students being admitted to Holy Cross, to be celebrated during the 2022-23 academic year.

A resident of Wellesley, Massachusetts, Dr. Boucher is married to fellow Crusader Norm Boucher, Class of 1985.