The Reverend Philip L. Boroughs, S.J. the 32Nd President of Holy Cross
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Ceremony of Presidential Installation The Reverend Philip L. Boroughs, S.J. The 32nd President of Holy Cross Friday, the fourteenth of September Two thousand and twelve College of the Holy Cross three o’clock One College Street Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-2395 Francis J. Hart, S.J. Recreation Center College of the Holy Cross www.holycross.edu/inauguration Mission of the College The College of the Holy Cross is, by tradition and choice, a Jesuit liberal arts college serving the Catholic community, American society, and the wider world. To participate in the life of Holy Cross is to accept an invitation to join in dialogue about basic human questions: What is the moral character of learning and teaching? How do we find meaning in life and history? What are our obligations to one another? What is our special responsibility to the world’s poor and powerless? As a liberal arts college, Holy Cross pursues excellence in teaching, learning, and research. All who share its life are challenged to be open to new ideas, to be patient with ambiguity and uncertainty, to combine a passion for truth with respect for the views of others. Informed by the presence of diverse interpretations of the human experience, Holy Cross seeks to build a community marked by freedom, mutual respect, and civility. Because the search for meaning and value is at the heart of the intellectual life, critical examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions is integral to liberal arts education. Dialogue about these questions among people from diverse academic disciplines and religious traditions requires everyone to acknowledge and respect differences. Dialogue also requires us to remain open to that sense of the whole which calls us to transcend ourselves and challenges us to seek that which might constitute our common humanity. The faculty and staff of Holy Cross, now primarily lay and religiously and culturally diverse, also affirm the mission of Holy Cross as a Jesuit college. As such, Holy Cross seeks to exemplify the long-standing dedication of the Society of Jesus to the intellectual life and its commitment to the service of faith and promotion of justice. The College is dedicated to forming a community that supports the intellectual growth of all its members while offering them opportunities for spiritual and moral development. In a special way, the College must enable all who choose to do so to encounter the intellectual heritage of Catholicism, to form an active worshipping community, and to become engaged in the life and work of the contemporary church. Since 1843, Holy Cross has sought to educate students who, as leaders in business, professional, and civic life, would live by the highest intellectual and ethical standards. In service of this ideal, Holy Cross endeavors to create an environment in which integrated learning is a shared responsibility, pursued in classroom and laboratory, studio and theater, residence and chapel. Shared responsibility for the life and governance of the College should lead all its members to make the best of their own talents, to work together, to be sensitive to one another, to serve others, and to seek justice within and beyond the Holy Cross community. Welcome to the Presidential Installation of The Reverend Philip L. Boroughs, S.J. The 32nd President of Holy Cross The Reverend Philip L. Boroughs, S.J. In May 2012, the Board of Trustees of the College of the Holy Cross elected Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., to become the 32nd president of the College. Fr. Boroughs, 63, who has served as a member of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees since 2008, has been professionally involved in Jesuit higher education for 20 years as a faculty member and administrator at Gonzaga, Seattle, and Georgetown Universities. He was appointed in 2003 as Georgetown’s first-ever vice president for mission and ministry. In addition to overseeing a division of the university as well as ministry on campus and at Georgetown University Hospital, Fr. Boroughs taught seminars on the Ignatian tradition, and directed numerous programs for faculty, staff, students, and alumni which further advanced Catholic and Jesuit identity. During his eight-year tenure at Georgetown, he raised funds to develop and endow the Calcagnini Contemplative Center, to renovate the historic Dahlgren Chapel, and to endow positions and programs for the Office of Mission and Ministry. Prior to his work and ministry at Georgetown, Fr. Boroughs served as the rector of the Jesuit Community at Seattle University where he was also a faculty member in the School of Theology and Ministry and an administrator (1992-2001). Previously, he taught religious studies at Gonzaga University (1989-91), served as the assistant novice director for the Oregon Province of Jesuits (1980-82), and was a parish priest at St. Leo Church in Tacoma, Wash. (1978-80). He is a former member of the Board of Trustees at the University of San Francisco. Fr. Boroughs was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1949, and raised in Seattle, the third of five children of the late Robert and Catherine Boroughs. He entered the Jesuit order in 1967, was ordained a priest in 1978, and professed his final vows as a Jesuit in 1986. He holds a Ph.D. in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union. His doctoral dissertation was on John Woolman (1720-1772), the itinerant Quaker preacher in Colonial America, who advocated against slavery and whose journal is considered a spiritual classic. Fr. Boroughs holds a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley; and a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago. He received his B.A. from Gonzaga University. Fr. Boroughs has traveled extensively for professional responsibilities and to pursue his personal interests. He has often visited Ireland on retreats and led Georgetown faculty and staff on immersion experiences to Kenya. Nairobi has also figured frequently in his travels because of his long- standing commitment to support and fundraise for St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School, which serves young people whose parents have died of AIDS. He periodically visits his relatives in Canada, Scotland, and England, and frequently reunites with his four siblings, who live on the West Coast. During his leisure time, Fr. Boroughs enjoys hiking and outdoor recreation. He is also an avid reader of international mysteries and historical biographies. The Order of Ceremony prelude Colonial Song, Percy Aldridge Grainger The Holy Cross Ceremonial Orchestra Eric Culver, Conductor master of ceremonies Timothy R. Austin, Ph.D., Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College order of procession Delegates of Colleges, Universities, and Learned Societies Patricia M. Ring, Registrar Carrier of the College Mace Faculty Trustees Platform Party Academic Festival Overture, Johannes Brahms, Op. 80 Cortege, Eric Culver invocation Marybeth Kearns-Barrett ’84, Director, Office of the College Chaplains Virginia Coakley, Assistant Chaplain/Director of Protestant and ALANA Ministries the national anthem The Holy Cross Ceremonial Orchestra, The Holy Cross College Choir and Assembly welcome P. Kevin Condron ’67, Chair, Board of Trustees The Order of Ceremony greetings The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray The City of Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty The Colleges of Worcester Consortium Jack P. Calareso, Ph.D., President, Anna Maria College The Society of Jesus The Very Reverend Patrick J. Lee, S.J., Provincial of Oregon The Very Reverend Myles N. Sheehan, S.J., Provincial of New England musical interlude Kortte lebe, Kortte blühe! Johann Sebastian Bach The Holy Cross College Choir Christopher Shepard, Director greetings The Faculty Patricia E. Kramer, Ph.D., Speaker of the Faculty and Associate Professor of Psychology The Students Paul J. Misci ’13, Kate J. Shea ’13, Co-Chairs, Student Government Association The Employees Kenneth McNickles, Dining Manager, Jesuit Residence The Alumni Maureen E. Moran ’89, President, Alumni Association The Order of Ceremony poem Robert K. Cording, Ph.D., James N. and Sarah L. O’Reilly Barrett Professor in Creative Writing, and Professor of English In honor of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus The Weeper The name his followers gave Ignatius, who wept While saying Mass, or while listening to the coos Of a common dove. Ignatius never knew When his throat would tighten, a wave of sobs Breaking him open as he stood watching clouds Move in the wide gaze of the sky, or passed a boy Climbing a pine, lost in the play of his body. Yet it wasn’t the reverie of blue sky and clouds, Nor even the boy’s self-forgetful happiness That brought on those tears beyond his control. These days, when passion is cooled by irony, When we try to live as if each day were Predictable and self determined, when God And the soul are off-limits, how can we understand Such abandonment in a man who wept Almost daily—not because of the time he’d wasted Or would waste, not because of his weak stomach Or his leg’s old war injury, or because he’d given up The feel of trembling flesh along the inner curve Of a woman’s thigh or the full, idle hours Spent in his father’s castle. Not even because of The wearied and hopeless poor whom he met On every road and went among in cities. He wept, they say, because he’d suddenly feel Entirely empty, and utterly grateful, all the doors Of his heart, which was and was not his At these moments, and which we know Only as metaphor, swung wide open, able now To receive and find room for all the world’s Orphaned outpourings and astonishments. inaugural address John J.