Roseann Fitzgerald ’78 retired in January 2024, concluding a 27-year career in the College’s Office of Advancement. While her title read “senior researcher for strategic initiatives,” her work centered around keeping on top of the College’s 36,000 alumni and what was happening in their lives and careers: who got a new job, who moved, who got married and who passed away, etc. But to us at Holy Cross Magazine, Fitzgerald was a cherished colleague and our longtime MVP in helping us bring HCM to life, from helping us identify potential sources, and providing research and background we needed to create stories, to fact-checking information and sending us dozens of entries for Class Notes each issue. If we had a question and couldn’t find an answer, our first email was to Fitzgerald, who possesses an encyclopedic memory about all things Holy Cross. And if she didn’t know the answer, she could point us to a person or two who would. We could go on and on about her love of and commitment to alma mater, both as an employee and as an alumna, but we’ll let her do what she’s always done best: answer questions well.
What is your favorite spot on campus?
The Thomas P. Joyce ’59 Contemplative Center. If it has to be on campus, the O’Kane stairwell. These stairs have not changed since the 1970s.
What is your favorite fact about Holy Cross?
That an alumnus was the director of the New York Port Authority and oversaw the building of the World Trade Center – Austin J. Tobin, class of 1925.
Is there a Holy Cross mystery you’ve always wanted to solve?
What is the origin of the name for Caro Street? Is it named in honor of a person or an object?
What is the best residence hall on campus?
My first dorm was Alumni Hall and I was a member of the first group of women to reside on the quad. Alumni 2 was a great floor and I’ll never forget sitting on the carpeted hallway with my friends and classmates. There’s magic in the hallways of Holy Cross.
What was the best course you took at Holy Cross?
In my sophomore year, I enrolled in the humanities sequence called England: Genesis of a Culture, which included five courses over the course of a year that studied the culture of medieval and Renaissance times.
What is your favorite Holy Cross tradition?
Fall Homecoming – it has changed over the years thanks to the great work of Patrick McCarthy ’63 and Kristyn Dyer ’94 in alumni relations and their team.
What profession other than your own would you like to try?
National park ranger or tour guide.
What profession would you not like to try?
I took the exam for air traffic controller back in 1980. Vectors were not my strong suit and I don’t think I would have been a good fit for this job.
What was the best part of your job?
The thrill of discovery of a fact that connects an alumnus/parent to Holy Cross. One story that comes to mind: A Holy Cross employee had a last wish to visit Elvis Presley’s Graceland. I knew someone who had a connection there. My colleague Tom Flynn ’85, director of principal giving, reached out and this employee received a VIP experience at the historic site.
What was the hardest part of your job?
Cleaning out my office!
What were your favorite updates to receive about alumni?
Tracking presidential nominations that were then confirmed by the full Senate.
Where did you grow up?
Wethersfield, Connecticut, founded in 1634 and hometown of Thomas Tryon, and well-known as the site of the story “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” by Elizabeth George Speare.
What made you laugh out loud recently?
Anything by Jonathan Winters makes me laugh.
City or countryside?
I like the excitement of the city and the peace of the countryside, particularly the Finger Lakes region where my father grew up.
Fiction or nonfiction?
Fiction.
Early, late or right on time?
Last-minute and probably a little late like this survey!
Art museum or history museum?
Love them both! I interned at the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Worcester Historical Society and was the first staff member on site at the John F. Kennedy Library at Columbia Point.
Write an essay or take a test?
Take a test.
Call or text?
I am a phone person and wish more at Holy Cross could set up their voicemail on Zoom.
What song could you listen to on repeat?
The last song in the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls” – “It’s Hard to Say Goodbye.”
If you had to write a textbook, what would it be about?
Paying attention pays off.
What is your favorite quote?
Rev. Anthony Kuzniewski, S.J., shared this at a 2016 advancement retreat: “Coincidence is a series of events where God remains anonymous.”
What is your favorite time of the day?
Early morning.
What is your favorite place that you have ever visited?
A gift from my parents to tour England’s Lake District in 1986 and seeing the landscapes that inspired the poetry of the Romantic poets – Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron.
What is your dream vacation destination?
Touring Australia for four weeks. Where is your favorite place to be?
I love the Finger Lakes and the village of Aurora, New York, where many in my family hail from.
What’s something most people don’t know about you?
That I helped produce a live radio show in the 1990s called “American Radio Company of the Air” hosted by Garrison Keillor.
What is your go-to coffee order?
Regular, milk, no sugar and now light roast.
What is something that you can’t do but wish you could?
Ice skate.
How do you relax?
Cook a great meal on Sunday night and read a book.
What’s the last book you recommended to a friend?
“Making It So” by Patrick Stewart (the audiobook).
What book or record changed your life?
“Ulysses” by James Joyce, thanks to taking professor Ed Callahan’s semester-long course on Joyce. Thousands of alumni mark June 16 every year because of this great work.
If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
I love Worcester, but also love New York City, and could live anywhere that had a good bookstore nearby.
What is something you can’t live without?
The daily newspaper. I read four papers a day, modeling on President Emeritus Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., ’49: a great example to be informed by the news in the major and local papers.
What is one item that you must have on you at all times?
A printed or downloaded book on my Kindle (borrowed from the Worcester Public Library).
What movie/TV show/book do you wish you could experience again for the first time?
“Cinema Paradiso.”
Who is the most famous person you have met?
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the pavilion of the John F. Kennedy Library at the dedication of the Hemingway Room, where Ernest Hemingway’s papers are stored.
How would you like your career at Holy Cross to be remembered?
Although she was the first director of prospect research, Roseann worked hard to save and build on the research of her predecessors in that role in development and alumni relations. She also worked with campus partners and was on the committee to establish the Sanctae Crucis Award.
Who or what inspires you?
My late father, Richard D. Fitzgerald, whose love and support remain with me and my family.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Try to listen.
What famous person, dead or alive, would you like to have dinner with?
President John F. Kennedy and one of his best friends, Dave Powers, the founding curator of the Kennedy Library (who hired me as the museum registrar).
What quality do you value the most in a friend?
Loyalty.
What is your life philosophy?
It is better to be kind than to be right.
