Elizabeth (Fox) Hayden ’76, P’04 Receives Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree at Commencement 2025
The citation conferring this honor highlighted the alumna's efforts to positively impact others through her work with various organizations, including Stonehill College’s Board of Trustees.
As a member of Stonehill College’s Board of Trustees, you are a dedicated steward of this institution. Your wise counsel has helped to ensure that the campus community can embrace its bold future while remaining true to its mission of educating hearts and minds.
As the loving wife of fellow Stonehill graduate James Hayden ’76, you channeled the difficult emotions around his passing into the creation of transformative change. Inspired by your husband’s optimism and compassion for others, you helped establish the chair position for Stonehill College’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice, which fosters dynamic opportunities for research and public dialogue.
As a supporter of Friends of Bass River, a group dedicated to preserving one of Cape Cod’s most treasured waterways, you helped create an environmental restoration internship for chemistry majors at Stonehill College. This impactful initiative has provided students valuable research skills and taught them the importance of public engagement.
As a long-time educator, you have used your expertise to help enhance the academic experiences of young people in Massachusetts. Your scholarship, which emphasizes improving children’s wellbeing, has empowered other professionals in your field to adopt practices that promote student success.
You were instrumental in helping establish Mass General Brigham’s Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, as well as the Congregation of Holy Cross Mission Center’s David E. Farrell Pavilion in Peru. Your efforts to offer light and hope to those in need through these venues and others have been truly admirable.
For your contributions to our campus community, the field of education, and the world at large, the people of Stonehill College hold you in high regard.
For the many profound ways that you have made a difference in the lives of others, Stonehill College is proud to bestow upon you, Elizabeth (Fox) Hayden, honoris causa, the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.