Monday Morning Update
March 29, 2010
A Fulbright First: With his selection as a Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Political Science Professor Richard Finnegan '64 has become the first faculty member in Stonehill history to receive this highly competitive honor. Only 40 chairs out of 800 Fulbright awards are awarded annually. Currently the Chair of the Political Science Department, Finnegan will spend a semester next year at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic where he will teach and conduct research comparing the Irish and Czech processes of political development. For more on Finnegan's award and future plans, visit here.
Skyhawks Soar: With March Madness underway, a Boston Globe article recently reviewed poor graduation rates for college basketball players in general but praised Stonehill and other schools for their high student-athlete graduation rates. Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Brendan Sullivan reports that our women's basketball program has a 100% graduation rate against a national average of 76% while our men's basketball program has a 94% rate against a 58% national average. For all of our athletic programs, Stonehill has an overall academic success rate of 97.3%.
Hollywood Star: From Latin America to Africa, Thomas Hollywood '98 has served the poorest of the poor and he credits a Stonehill spring break experience with helping him find his calling as a humanitarian relief/aid worker. Now working with Catholic Relief Services in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Africa, he points to a spring break trip to a Holy Cross run school in Lima, Peru as a turning point for him. To read a profile of Hollywood from Harvest Magazine, a publication of his home diocese in Portland, Maine, visit here.
Hound of Heaven: As he marks 25 years as a priest in the Congregation of Holy Cross, former Director of Campus Ministry Rev. James Fenstermaker, C.S.C. '77 has written a reflection on his call to the priesthood for The Anchor newspaper in Fall River. Now Pastor of Holy Cross parish in South Easton, Fenstermaker recalls that as a young teacher at Cardinal Spellman, he could no longer escape the "Hound of Heaven." To read his reflections, visit here.
Clean Sheets: A new partnership is helping the College offset greenhouse gas emissions from campus laundry equipment. Stonehill is one of 14 colleges and universities working with the campus laundry vendor Mac-Gray Corporation and Carbonfund.org to reduce the carbon footprint of laundry equipment. To learn more about this environmental initiative, visit here.
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