DEPARTMENTS
Living and Learning
The residence life experience at Holy Cross integrates opportunities to grow in academics, faith, spirituality and, of course, friendship. More than a place to hang a backpack at night, the College's residence halls are designed to foster meaningful moments for students.
By Mark C.N. Sullivan
The Holy Cross campus isn't called "the Hill" for nothing. The architecture and the panoramic view take one's breath away. So does the topography.
"I don't think anyone gains the Freshman 15," says Raven Tukes '15, a member of the College's cheerleading squad. "You walk off all your meals just returning to your dorm afterward. And the Hart Center on top of the hill-you get a workout just getting there."
In fact, there's only one row of residence halls that sits along a flat road, earning that thoroughfare the nickname "Easy Street." Living on a slant is a shared experience that leads to a distinct camaraderie, students say.
"It's a commonality we all share," says Solon Kelleher '15, who hosts a Friday-morning radio show on WCHC. "Everybody needs to truck up the hills. You can extend that to other aspects of life. Everybody has challenges in life."
Someone suggests a Jesuit could do something with that metaphor. "Absolutely," Kelleher agrees, with a smile.
PHOTO: The photographs on the wall and the dress code may have changed, but the students in this archival photo from 1938 (inset) seem as relaxed as Mulledy resident Connor May '15 of Wakefield, Mass., (with basketball).
That communitarian spirit is part and parcel of the student experience at Holy Cross, where a cornerstone of the residence life system is the Jesuit concept of cura personalis, or care for the whole person. At Holy Cross, a residence hall is not just a place to sleep and hang your backpack. "Our hall motto at Wheeler," observes Tukes, "is 'More Than a Building.' "
"More than a building" is a phrase Ed Coolbaugh, assistant dean of students and director of residence life and housing, likes to hear. "The mission of the department of residence life and housing is to create residential communities energized by all residents. We provide residence halls that are not only safe and clean, but also promote fun, personal growth and development," he says. "The residential experience is where ideas are discussed, concepts explored and skills practiced."
Ben Kadamus, associate director of residence life and housing, agrees. "Residence halls provide an outside-the-classroom education. A lot of life skills are learned there," he explains. "We stress community."
Coolbaugh notes that the resident assistants (RAs) in each hall encourage the cura personalis concept. "Each RA is integral to the development of floor communities that role model care of self and others," he explains. "This and the other three cocurricular cornerstones-reflective habits, community and citizenship, and multicultural competency-serve as the foundation of the out-of-class learning experience."
RAs, whose positions are considered premiere leadership opportunities at Holy Cross, are the "lifeblood of our residential campus," Coolbaugh says.
The residence life staff, which prides itself on the welcoming atmosphere of their offices in the Hogan Campus Center, shares the belief that a student's residence hall is a place where he or she can learn and grow. "And maybe make some mistakes," Kadamus adds, "which is all well and good. It's a synthesized education. It's important to be a whole person. Overall, we try to help students develop a balanced life."
Consider Montserrat, a program that "introduces first-year students to a liberal arts education," director Denise Schaeffer explains. The freshmen enroll in a two-semester Montserrat seminar from one of five thematic clusters: Self, Divine, Natural World, Global Society and Core Human Questions. The students from each cluster are assigned to the same residence hall, so they can engage with each other in their living space as well as the classroom. It is, quoting an oft-used phrase when describing the programs, a "living, learning and doing experience."
Montserrat helps students connections on several levels, Schaeffer continues. "In the small seminar, students and professors really get to know one another, setting the stage for long-term mentoring relationships and friendships," she says. "Also, the common texts and events in each interdisciplinary cluster foster connections among the different seminars in that cluster. Students learn to look at issues from multiple perspectives and to connect the specific topic of their course to broader questions and themes."
But the icing on the cake is how the concepts raised in their Montserrat courses carry over to their home life. "The program fosters a connection between what students learn in the classroom and the other parts of their lives, as they continue their discussions in the residence hall and participate in off-campus activities," Schaeffer says.
When Montserrat's living-in-community plan was introduced, Coolbaugh says, the Division of Student Affairs was involved from the very beginning. "During implementation many residence life programs were modified to complement Montserrat," he says. "And Montserrat faculty have office space in the three first-year halls as well as seminar space." In addition, all RAs participated in Montserrat their first year and are able integrate their experience into their leadership positions.
Tukes, from Jonesboro, Ga., lives in Wheeler in the Divine cluster, whose seminar focuses on religion and literature. Already she and her Divine classmates have taken field trips to a synagogue and to the DeCordova Museum, where, in keeping with an assigned reading on the place of quiet in religious faith, they toured the art exhibitions in silence.
PHOTO: Giggling is not an uncommon occurrence in the Wheeler Hall room of Georgia native Raven Tukes '15 and Kelly Garcia '15 of Chelsea, Mass.
In her Divine seminar class taught by Helen Whall, professor of English, Tukes and her classmates this fall considered creation myths from different cultures; in the spring, they will take up good and evil and the role the latter plays in the world, in a course titled "The Devil Made Me Do It." ("That's going to be interesting to have on my transcript," Tukes says, with a laugh.)
For a self-described "interdenominational Christian" from an African-American evangelical background in Georgia an "18- hour drive away," the intellectual give-and-take in this Jesuit and Catholic milieu on a hill in central Massachusetts has been both invigorating and eye opening, she says. "It has been very refreshing to experience not just going to a liberal arts college but being open to other beliefs," she comments, describing the Holy Cross classrooms and the residence halls as great melting pots, places to engage in dialogue about different ideas and concepts.
Kelleher brings a Worcester native's perspective to what he calls Holy Cross' "community within a community." For more than 90 years his family has operated a local landmark, George's Coney Island Lunch on Southbridge St., where he has worked since he was a kid, and where he now brings his college friends. "I like to consider myself a bit of a tour guide, showing classmates where to go and what to do in Worcester," he says.
Kelleher lives in the Nature cluster on the fourth floor of Mulledy with 30 other men and a female RA, Sam Fregenti '13 from Melville, N.Y. They all call Fregenti "Mom." In a very mom-like maneuver, she provided cookies and soda to her charges at a Halloween shaving party, the last time many of them would touch their razors before the end of "No Shave November" (a fundraiser for cancer research).
"One night we all went to the movies-about twenty 18-year-old guys with our RA going to see The Lion King in 3D," Kelleher recalls, with a laugh. "I'm into music, some of the guys are into hockey, some are into football-but we all went to The Lion King together."
There is a friendliness about Holy Cross, where people walking past one another tend to exchange little pleasantries, Kelleher notes. "People care about you, and they assume you care about their lives," he says. "When I bring friends from outside Holy Cross on campus, they'll say, 'Wow, you know so many people here.' I'll say, 'No, that's just how we talk to each other.'
"Looking past the outer beauty of campus, there is an inner beauty to the place," he adds. "The place has beautiful personalities as well as a beautiful landscape."
It's all part of the shared experience of living on the Hill, students say.
In the wintertime, snow brings the need to spread lots of sand and salt, which inevitably is tracked into the rooms, explains Figge RA Caitlin DiMaina '12, of Annandale, Va. "Very quickly you come to appreciate the housekeepers," she says. "They are the nicest people in the world."
Students add live-in professional staff-community development coordinators (CDCs)-to that list of "nice people." There are several at Holy Cross who call the residence halls their home.
Having prepared for their positions by obtaining masters' degrees in education and working as interns, CDCs often invite students to their apartments for meals and to interact with their friends and families. "In addition they are available 24/7 to help students with the transition to college life," says Chuck Stanley, associate director of residence life and housing who resides in Alumni Hall. "They supervise the RAs and advise the House Councils, the elected leaders in the residence halls."
This is the sixth year Kadamus and his wife, Katie, have lived on campus. Their apartment in Williams Hall bustles with daughters, Ellie, 4, and Anna, 1.
"We enjoy it a lot," he says. "There are a lot of upsides, especially having children. They've lived on campus their whole lives. Everybody knows who Ellie is. People joke our daughter is famous on campus.
"Having children and wives and husbands around gives students a long view of what they might expect later in life, Kadamus says. "It gives a perspective on families and on the larger world beyond campus."
But for now, the larger world waits while students enjoy their homes away from home. Sloane Burns '15, from Tucson, Ariz., who sings with the chapel choir and competes in the butterfly for the swim team, says she has come to know "everybody, practically" living in her hall, Mulledy. "At Holy Cross, you have
a feeling you're at home."
Mark C.N. Sullivan has written for newspapers and college publications in New England.
Up next: The new $19.5 million residence hall and how Holy Cross brings faith into the halls…