Category: Alumnae/-i

On October 6, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci ’62, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a Classics major while at Holy Cross, spoke with current students about the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of his liberal arts education at Holy Cross, and much more. See the recording of the conversation below.

Meredith Coolidge ’19 is teaching English and tutoring Latin at the Young Men’s Leadership Academy at Wheatley in San Antonio, TX, through the Teach for America program. At Holy Cross Meredith was a double-major in Classics and Political Science, and in 2018-19 she served as Student Government Association Co-President.

The classics major at Holy Cross is distinct because of its Jesuit affiliation. I was fortunate to take classes with professors and on course material that encouraged me to unlearn or see differently many of the ways the classics has been applied throughout history. By the end of my college career, I found myself reading the classics from a new perspective, namely, “How does this inform how I am becoming a person for and with others?”

Through Teach for America, I was placed in San Antonio, TX as a high school teacher at a Title 1, all-boys, public charter academy. Our school is located on a historically-black campus named for famous classicist and poet Phillis Wheatley.

Studying Latin is especially useful for my English Language Learners. I acquired an ESL certification because most of my students speak Spanish, and Latin has been a helpful way to contextualize commonalities between the Spanish and English languages. It also helps my students, most of whom will be the first in their families to graduate from high school, stand out with rigorous course loads as they consider applying to colleges like Holy Cross. I don’t know if there is anything more substantial to set up students for the rigor of a college education than requiring Latin beginning in middle school.

As an English teacher/Latin tutor, I try to find ways to make Latin “cool” and “relatable” (and not just because my kids perhaps ironically call me Ms. Cool). We’ve played word games with Latin prefixes, read mythology, and applied Latin syntactical principles to better understand the functions of English words, which has already improved my kids’ writing and reading comprehension. Explicitly teaching a critical subject (a core, state-tested one) but having a Classics background has helped normalize taking Latin for my students and colleagues.

I did not anticipate my Teach for America experience to be so profoundly influenced by my undergrad major, partially because before I left Holy Cross, I didn’t always see the link with liberation that I see now. I’ve realized my favorite classics courses at Holy Cross were ones in which I saw strong female characters or read texts I could relate to; I am hopeful that by framing characters in classical texts as liberators, my students can see themselves in the Ancient World. The themes in classical texts can be mostly universally applied to contemporary human experiences. It might be a stretch, but focusing on such commonalities in our shared human experience could help heal our increasingly polarized modern world.

We extend congratulations to Maureen (Gassert) Lamb ’07, who was named the 2016–17 Connecticut Language Teacher of the Year. Maureen has been teaching Latin at the Westminster School in Simsbury, CT, for eight years and is currently serving as the Language Department Head. While at Holy Cross Maureen was a double major in Classics and Music.

Maureen was also recently awarded the 2017 Dr. Elizabeth Watkins Award from the American Classical League, as well as a Mead Fellowship from the New England Council of Foreign Language Teachers to create a website with resources for beginning Latin and Ancient Greek teachers in New England.

For more on Maureen’s honor as Connecticut Language Teacher of the Year, click here for the story in the Hartford Courant.

Alex Simrell ’16 is spending 2016-17 at the University of Zagreb in Croatia on a Fulbright Fellowship. Click here for Alex’s blog, which includes an entry that makes the case for the long-term importance of studying Greek and Latin.

On Thursday, February 18, three Holy Cross Classics alums returned to campus to discuss how their education in Greek and Latin has informed their lives after college. Meg Moran ’08, a human resources executive at Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey, Ryan O’Malley ’09, an elected representative on the city council in Malden, Mass., and Colin Clark ’11, a film and television production professional in New York, reflected back on their paths since graduation and shared some wisdom with current students.

Ryan, who worked in real estate and project management before his successful election bid this past November, singled out the semester he spent in Rome among its age-old monuments – many of which still survive and function. His public service now includes infrastructure planning, and he draws on that time in Rome when thinking about lasting solutions. “Those of us who studied ancient Rome and Greece are better prepared to look at things from a longer perspective,” said Ryan. “We think not in quarters or years, but in decades, centuries, and millennia.”

Meg, who went on to earn an MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, highlighted how her Classics major has always distinguished her from others in her field. One distinguishing factor she emphasized was her ability to read things closely. “In my first internship I became known as the person who could read and edit documents with a critical eye,” she said. “Little details – little mistakes – matter, and that was something instilled in me during my Greek and Latin courses.”

Colin, who has worked on television shows such as HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and films such as the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, echoed Meg’s thoughts. “My Latin and Greek courses were a mental boot camp. The structure of sentences and of language is ingrained in the heads of Classics majors – whether we want it or not!” said Colin. “I’ve been able to use these ingrained reading and editing skills for reviewing production materials.”

During the Q-and-A discussion with current students, Ryan brought up another habit of mind that unites Classics majors – and that has daily relevance for his work in government. “Classics majors are inquisitive people. We’re the types who get excited about the discovery of a lost scroll,” he said. “And this can spread to all aspects of our lives. We’re the ones asking more questions and deeper questions.”