John G. Roberts Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, Addresses Graduates

A total of 643 men and women from across the country and around the world joined the ranks of Holy Cross alumni/ae on Friday, as they received bachelor of arts degrees from the nation’s only exclusively undergraduate Jesuit college.

The graduating students heard John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, deliver the principal address at Commencement Exercises, held at Fitton Field on the College campus. Roberts, whose wife Jane Sullivan Roberts ’76 is a Trustee of the College and accompanied him to the Commencement festivities, urged the members of the Class of 2007 to persevere and to “be brave.” He told them that Holy Cross’ stellar liberal arts education has given them the necessary tools to face life’s challenges.

Roberts told graduates that after climbing “the Hill” of Mount St. James for four years, they had reached a summit on this special day; yet there will be additional challenges in the years ahead and, therefore, the academic and life experiences the Class of 2007 have had at Holy Cross will serve them well in the future.

It was also an historic day of note, Roberts said, because 220 years ago, the Constitutional Convention opened on May 25, 1787, to address the challenges the United States faced following independence from Great Britain.

An estimated 6,000 people — family and friends of the graduates, Holy Cross faculty, administrators and staff, as well as honored guests such as Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, bishop of the Diocese of Worcester — joined in the day’s celebration. Even as morning temperatures soared into the mid-80s, guests enthusiastically cheered the Class of 2007.

Holy Cross conferred honorary degrees on Roberts and three others: Brendan J. Cassin ’55, chairman and president of the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation; Sister Miriam Duggan, M.D., Congregational Leader, Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Africa; and Annette Rafferty, who founded the Abby Kelley Foster House, better known as Abby’s House, an emergency shelter for battered women and their children in Worcester.

For more coverage, visit the Commencement Web site.

Related Information:

* Chief Justice Roberts Responds to Questions Posed by Holy Cross Seniors * Holy Cross in the News