College of the Holy Cross

The College of the Holy Cross

File:HolyCrossSealColor.png
Motto	In Hoc Signo Vinces (In this sign you shall conquer)
Type	Undergraduate, Liberal Arts, Catholic, Jesuit
Established	November 2 1843
Endowment	$544.3 million[39]
President	Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J.
Undergraduates	2,800
Location	Worcester , Mass. , USA
Campus	Urban, 174 acres
Athletics	27 varsity sports
Mascot	The Crusader File:CrusaderHelm.jpg
Website	www.holycross.edu

Not to be confused with Holy Cross College (Indiana) or other similarly named Holy Cross Colleges.

The College of the Holy Cross is an exclusively undergraduate Roman Catholic college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Holy Cross, is the oldest Roman Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. Opened as a school for boys under the auspices of the Society of Jesus, it was the first Jesuit college in New England.

Today, Holy Cross is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, is ranked thirty-second among liberal arts colleges in the country, and is part of a consortium with other Worcester colleges, including Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University. On July 1, 2000, Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. became the current president of the college. As of Feruary 2007, the Holy Cross endowment was valued at $544 million.

History

Beginnings

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Bishop Joseph Fenwick, founder of Holy Cross.

Holy Cross was founded by Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ, second Bishop of Boston, after his efforts to found Boston College were thwarted by that city's Protestant civic leaders. From the beginning of his tenure as the second Bishop of Boston, Benedict Joseph Fenwick of the Society of Jesus aimed to establish a Catholic College within the boundaries of his diocese.

Relations with Boston's civic leaders worsened such that, when a Jesuit faculty was finally secured in 1843, Fenwick decided to leave the Boston school and instead opened the College of the Holy Cross 45 miles west of the city in central Massachusetts where he felt the Jesuits could operate with greater autonomy. The site of the college, Mount Saint James, was originally occupied by a Roman Catholic boarding school, run by the Rev. James Fitton, since 1832. On February 2, 1843, Fr. Fitton sold the land to Bishop Fenwick and the Diocese of Boston to be used to found the Roman Catholic college that the bishop had wanted in Boston. Fenwick gave the College the name of his cathedral church, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The Bishop’s letters record his enthusiasm for the project as well as its location:

"Next May I shall lay the foundation of a splendid College in Worcester…It is calculated to contain 100 boys and I shall take them for $125 per an. & supply them with everything but clothes. Will not this be a bold undertaking? Nevertheless I will try it. It will stand on a beautiful eminence & will command the view of the whole town of Worcester…."

The school opened subsequently in October 1843 with the Rev. Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J., former president of Georgetown University, as its first president, and on the second day of November, with six students aged 9 to 19, the first classes were held. Within three years, the enrollment had increased to 100 students. The first class graduated in 1849, led by valedictorian James Augustine Healy, the son of a former slave who would go on to become the first African-American bishop in the United States. Fenwick Hall, the school's main building, was completely destroyed by fire in 1852. Funds were raised to rebuild the College, and in 1853, it opened for the second time. Petitions to secure a charter for the college from the state Legislature were denied in 1847 for a variety of causes, including anti-Catholicism on the part of some legislators. Initially, Holy Cross diplomas were signed by the president of Georgetown University. After repeated denials, a charter was finally granted on March 24, 1865, by Governor John A. Andrews

Recent history

In 1998, Holy Cross initiated a eight-year capital campaign, "Lift High the Cross," with a three-year quiet period. The campaign for Holy Cross ended in fiscal 2006 with $216.3 million raised, surpassing its original goal of $175 million. The funds allowed Holy Cross to establish an additional 12 new faculty positions, along with more than 75 newly endowed scholarships for students. The campaign provided support for the renovation of the Mary Chapel as well as construction of new facilities on campus, including Smith Hall, which houses the new Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture; a five-story apartment-style residence housing 244 seniors; and a new 1,350-seat soccer stadium. During the history of the campaign, the College's endowment grew to more than $525 million.

Academic

Admissions

Holy Cross has traditionally drawn many of its students from a pool of historical Catholic high schools and private boarding schools, though a slight majority of current undergraduates come from public schools. Holy Cross received 6,700 applications for admission to the Class of 2010 — a 41 percent increase from the previous year and a school record. Holy Cross' overall undergraduate acceptance rate for the incoming Class of 2010 was 34 percent, with a 33 percent yield. The median score on the SAT I was 1280 out of 1600 for the class of 2010. Even though Holy Cross did not first admit women students until 1973, its student population is currently majority female, as with most liberal arts institutions, with this majority continuing to grow with the most recent entering classes.

In its 2007 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Holy Cross 32nd in the U.S. among liberal arts schools. Holy Cross is also the only Catholic college among the top 50 liberal arts schools on the U.S. News list. Holy Cross was ranked 4th overall in its combined graduation and retention rates, which tied the school with Wellesley College, Middlebury College, and Bowdoin College. The Washington Monthly's "College Rankings," an alternative college guide to the U.S. News and World Report ranks Holy Cross 62nd as a "National Liberal Arts College" in its September 2006 issue.

In May 2005, Holy Cross announced that it would no longer make standardized test scores an admissions requirement, which university officials argued would lower the importance of the tests and place far greater weight on the academic experience of a candidate as demonstrated through the high school transcript and recommendations. As of October 2006, there are over 730 four-year colleges and universities of varying rank which do not use the SAT I or ACT to admit bachelor degree applicants including Holy Cross. Tuition for full-time students for the 2006-07 academic year is $32,820.

Background

Holy Cross has an estimated 297 faculty members, who teach 2,800 undergraduate students. It offers 28 majors mainly focused on a liberal arts curriculum, each of which lead to the completion of the bachelor of arts (A.B.) degree. Of particular note is the Classics department at Holy Cross, which has ten faculty members, making it the largest classics program of American liberal arts colleges. D. Neel Smith, one of the department professors, is a primary collaborator on the Perseus Project, the multimedia database of Greek antiquity created by several college and universities. During the 2006-07 academic year, Holy Cross will specifically be editing the Homer Multitext Project, a long-term analysis and electronic presentation of all the many variations of Homer’s epic poetry. Other programs of note include Political Science, English, Chemistry and Economics.

All A.B. candidates must successfully complete 32 semester courses in eight semesters of full-time study to graduate. Common requirements include one course each in arts, literature, religion, philosophy, history, and cross-cultural studies; and two courses each in language studies, social science, and natural and mathematical sciences. Holy Cross also offers various concentrations, and a few of the undergraduate offerings are pre-professional in nature.

First Year Program

Holy Cross’ nationally recognized First Year Program, often simply referred to as FYP, was created in 1992 and serves as a unique, interdisciplinary approach to curricula and courses for incoming first year students. Each year a new faculty group designs the year's seminars and activities around the theme of the program. By tradition, that theme incorporates 19th-century Russian author Leo Tolstoy's question: "How, Then, Shall We Live?" The theme for the 2006 academic year was "With so many claims of what's good and true, how then shall we live?

There are typically eight year-long seminars offered per year, each taught on a semester schedule. Even though each seminar covers different academic areas, all FYP students read six common readings, three in the winter semester and three in the spring. All FYP members live within the same residence hall, Hanselman Hall, which distinguishes it from other first-year efforts at colleges and universities nationwide minus a residential component. The program also features many lectures, trips, and social activities incorporated with the year's theme.

Holy Cross administration have stated that a unifying goal of the program is an effort to "bridge the gap" between the academic and social lives of students. In its analysis of FYP participants in relation to the first-year class as a whole, evaluations show that FYP students "rated their residence more favorably than did other first-year students", "perceived a greater sense of community and tolerance among their floormates", and "behaved more responsibly than other first-year students as evidenced by fewer disciplinary cases and alcohol-related incidents". Additionally, after their first year, FYP students were more likely than other students to assume campus leadership positions, participate in the Honors and Study Abroad programs, achieve significantly higher grades, and be more active in community outreach programs.

In March 2006, Holy Cross voted to implement a universal program for all first-year students. The proposed expansion of the current optional First Year Program, has been a topic of much discussion over a long period of time, the administration is currently in the process of gathering departmental responses to the suggested expansion in order to better decide the future of the proposal.

Honors Program

Holy Cross offers a distinct honors programs for high ability undergraduates. The Honors program is open to students in all majors. This highly selective program is limited to 108 sophomores, juniors, and seniors from any major, and incorporates an honors colloquium and a thesis. An emphasis on independent research prepares students for their intensive thesis projects, the results of which are published within the College. Honors students also publicly present their findings at the annual academic conference, a highlight of the academic year. Additionally, some academic departments offer their own honors programs.

Holy Cross students have been honored in recent years as Fulbright, Goldwater, Marshall, and Truman Scholars.

Social justice and volunteerism

As noted by the college mission statement, "What is our special responsibility to the world's poor and powerless?", a key focus of Holy Cross, as an institution, is the Jesuit philosophy of homines pro aliis, "men and women for others".

Holy Cross has embraced sometimes controversial schools of theological thought, including liberation theology and social justice. As a result, in 1974, Time Magazine referred to Holy Cross as the "cradle of the Catholic Left" because it educated Phil Berrigan and socialist leader Michael Harrington, author of the influential book on poverty, The Other America. Today, Holy Cross, similar to the religious order of the Jesuits as a whole, has been criticized by some parties for being overly liberal and deviating substantially from official Church teaching and papal directives, especially on such issues as abortion, homosexuality, liberation theology, and in its sponsorship of events such as the Vagina Monologues.

In 2001, Holy Cross was one of 28 colleges and universities in the country to receive a grant from the Lilly Endowment in the amount of $2 million. With the grant, the school launched a five-year program to "make theological and spiritual resources available to students as they discern their life work, including consideration of vocations of ministerial service within religious denominations." The grant has also been used to fund internships within the city of Worcester and Worcester County for students considering career opportunities in ministry, government, and social service agencies.

College Seal

File:HolyCrossSealColor.png

College Seal of Holy Cross

The College of the Holy Cross describes its official seal as follows:

The outer circle of the seal states in Latin "College of the Holy Cross, Society of Jesus, Worcester, Massachusetts."

The inner shield contains an open book (symbol of learning) and a cross of gold (symbol of Christian faith). The Latin motto In Hoc Signo Vinces, "In This Sign You Shall Conquer", has been attributed to King Constantine the Great, a Roman emperor noted for his tolerance of Christians. According to some historians, Constantine had a dream or vision of a flaming cross in the sky with this inscription on the day preceding his decisive victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge (October 28, 312). This victory led to his capturing Rome and convinced him of the importance of Christianity.

The cross divides the lower part of the shield into quarters, which are alternately red and sable, the colors on the ancient shield of Worcester, England. The upper part of the shield has in its center the emblem of the Society of Jesus, a blazing sun with the letters IHS, the first three letters of Jesus' name in Greek. On either side is a martlet, reminiscent of those on the ancestral crest of Bishop Fenwick.

Campus

Overview

Holy Cross' campus, a registered arboretum, has won national awards for its landscaping. In 1977, Holy Cross was cited by the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS) for having the best-maintained school or university grounds in the United States, and has received similar awards recently. Holy Cross is marked by an irregular layout as its 175-acre campus is situated on the Northern slope of a very steep hill named Mount Saint James which offers it a panoramic view of the city of Worcester. The design and landscape is ingrained into many themes and nicknames for the school which is commonly known as the The Hill. Today, some 37 college buildings are divided primarily with residential housing and academic buildings located in the middle sections of the campus, with athletic and practice facilities on the outskirts of the campus on its northern and southern ends. Holy Cross also owns 6 non-campus properties.

Anchoring the traditional campus gateway of Linden Lane are Stein and O’Kane Halls, the latter of which is marked by a clock tower. The oldest part of campus lies in this area, as O’Kane is connected to Fenwick Hall, the first building which was designed in 1843; it also houses the admissions offices and the Brooks Concert Hall. This area contains manicured trees and landscaped greens which include two nude statues on the hillside. This is a popular spot for pranks as students take turns dressing up the statues. Notable buildings north of this area are Dinand Library; Smith Hall, the Hogan Campus Center; the scientific complex housing O'Neil, Swords, and Haberlin Halls, and Beaven Hall, home to an assortment of academic departments. Smith Hall, opened in 2001, was financed in large part by Holy Cross alumnus Park B. Smith, and is architecturally impressive as it is built into a hillside of the campus. Smith Hall connects the lower campus, where much of the academic life occurs, and the upper campus, where much of the social and residential life takes place on campus due to its design which incorporates Fenwick Hall. A plaza outside Smith Hall, named Memorial Plaza, commemorates seven Holy Cross alumni who perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

To the western end of campus lies Millard Art Center, St. Joseph Memorial Chapel, the Chaplains' Office (Campion House), and Loyola Hall, which served as the Jesuit residence in the past, but has since been converted into another hall for student housing. The Jesuit residence is now located in the Northeast corner of the campus, called Ciampi Hall.

Residential life

Holy Cross operates 10 on-campus residence halls divided into three geographic clusters. More than 90 percent of students live on campus. Students are required to live in on-campus housing for their first year if not a resident of Worcester County. Freshman students will often live in one of the residence halls situated at the northern end of campus nicknamed Easy Street: Healy, Lehy, Hanselman, Clark, or Mulledy Halls. Another housing option, near the center section of campus, is Wheeler Hall. Upperclassmen students can choose, depending on the results of the housing lottery held in the Spring, between the above residence halls, minus Hanselman, or the fully upperclassmen residence halls in the lower portion of campus: Alumni, Carlin, Loyola, and the Senior Apartments.

The Senior Apartments are the most sought after living arrangements on campus. Completed in 2003, each apartment houses four students and comes equipped with a bathroom with separate shower, kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. Unlike the other residence halls, there is no official name or designation for this building as of yet.

Second-year to fourth-year students also have the option to live off-campus, but only a small percentage do so, as the school has built additional housing in recent years and the number of desirable apartments near campus are limited.

Libraries

The Holy Cross Library System is comprised of four libraries centrally located within the campus grounds. Including its affiliation with the Central Massachusetts Regional Library System, a collaborative formed in 2003 by more than 20 academic, public and special libraries with research collections in the central Massachusetts area, Holy Cross students have access to a combined total of approximately 3,800,000 volumes and more than 23,000 journal, magazine and newspaper subscriptions.

Dinand Library

The main library, Dinand Library, holds an estimated 601,930 books, serials, and periodicals. Originally opened in 1927, the Dinand Library expanded in 1978 with two new wings dedicated to the memory of Joshua and Leah Hiatt and victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The reading room of Dinand is also the scene of important College gatherings, including the Presidential Awards Ceremony, first-year orientation presentations, concerts, and other events. Dinand is considered by many students the most scholarly and inspiring building on campus. Constructed in the 1920s, the room’s ceiling is sectioned in a grid-like pattern and embellished with gold, painted trim and carvings along the top of the interior walls. Large wooden candelabra are suspended from the ceiling, and Ionic columns—echoing those on the Library’s exterior—anchor three sides of the room. The main reference collection of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and bibliographies are found within Dinand, as well as the on-line catalog, and a staffed reference desk.

College Archives

Dinand Library also houses the College Archives which collects, preserves, and arranges records of permanent value from the college's foundation in 1843 to the present. The Archives contain complete runs of all college publications including yearbooks, the college catalog, The Crusader, its predecessor The Tomahawk, the literary magazine The Purple, newsletters, pamphlets, and similar material. An extensive photograph collection documents administrators, staff, faculty, students, alumni, athletic teams, student activities, the built environment and college life in general. There is also an extensive collection of audio visual material documenting theatrical plays, lectures, and sporting and other events. The College Archives also hold a Special Collections section which consists of the College's Rare Book Collection, and the Jesuitana Collection (material by and about Jesuits). Noted collections include: the papers of James Michael Curley, David I. Walsh, Louise Imogen Guiney, and Rev. Joseph J. Williams, S.J. There are also collections of material by and about Jesuits, college alumni, and friends of the college. It also holds research material about Catholic New England, the education of deaf Catholics, the Holocaust, as well as New England history.

Fenwick, O'Kane, and Rehm libraries

The three smaller libraries, ordered respectively by size and book volume, are Fenwick Music Library, O'Callahan Science Library, and the Rehm Library.

The Fenwick Music Library was founded in 1978. Particularly noteworthy are the Music Library's collections of scores and recordings of 20th-century composers, world music recordings and composer biographies. The Music Library owns many of the authoritative editions of significant composers collected works, such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.

The O'Callahan Science Library, named in honor of Rev. Joseph T. O'Callahan, S.J., houses over 95,000 volumes of works and periodicals serving the Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics Departments of the Holy Cross and the more neuroscientific side of Psychology.

The Rehm Library, dedicated in September 2001, is housed within Smith Hall. The Rehm Library serves as the primary public space for the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and other departments with offices within Smith Hall. Rehm Library provides space for hospitality, Center-sponsored lectures and events, quiet space for reading and reflection, and enhanced library resources on religion and spirituality. While not a library in the traditional sense, the shelves of Rehm Library house primary texts of an array of religious traditions.

Athletics

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Nickname, mascot, and colors

Holy Cross's athletic teams for both men and women are known as the Crusaders. It is reported that the name "Crusader" was first associated with Holy Cross in 1884 at an alumni banquet in Boston, where an engraved Crusader mounted on an armored horse appeared at the head of the menu.

The name was rediscovered by Stanley Woodward, a sports reporter for the Boston Herald, when he used the term "Crusader" to describe the Holy Cross baseball team in a story written in 1925. The name appealed to the Holy Cross student body, which held a vote later in that year to decide whether this cognomen or one of the other two currently in use - "Chiefs" and "Sagamores"- would be adopted. On October 6, 1925, The Tomahawk, an earlier name of the student newspaper, reported that the results of the ballot were: Crusaders 143, Chiefs 17, Sagamores 7.

The school color is purple. There are two theories of how Holy Cross chose purple as its official color. One suggests it was derived from the royal purple used by King Constantine the Great (born about 275 A.D., died in 337 AD) as displayed on his labarum (military standard) and on those of later Christian emperors of Rome.

The other version is attributed to Walter J. Connors, an 1887 graduate, and was printed in the October 1940 issue of the Alumnus. According to the account, there was a disagreement during the 1870s between Holy Cross students from Massachusetts and Connecticut concerning the schools' baseball uniform colors. Those from Massachusetts purportedly favored the crimson of Harvard, while those from Connecticut favored the deep blue of Yale. Legend has it that a fellow student with a sense of diplomacy resolved the dispute in the chemistry lab, where he mixed copper sulphate (blue) with iron oxide (red) to produce the color of deep purple.

Holy Cross playing Brown in game of football, October 7, 2006

Varsity teams and venues

Holy Cross sponsors 27 varsity sports; all but one of which compete at the NCAA Division I level (I-AA for football). The Crusaders are members of the Patriot League, the Atlantic Hockey Association, the Division III Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference in women's hockey, and the Big South Conference in women's golf. Of its 27 varsity teams, Holy Cross supports thirteen men's and fourteen women's sports. The carrying of 27 varsity programs gives Holy Cross the largest ratio of teams-per-enrollment in the country.

It is a founding member of the Patriot League, and boasts that one-quarter of its student body participates in its varsity athletic programs.

Principal athletic facilities include Fitton Field's football stadium (capacity 23,500), Hart Recreation Center's basketball court (3,600), the newly renovated Fitton Field baseball park, which also called Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field (3,000), Hart Ice Rink (1,600), Linda Johnson Smith Soccer Stadium (1,320) and Smith Wellness Center, located inside the Hart Center. The Linda Johnson Smith Soccer Stadium opened in the fall of 2006.

Notable events

Holy Cross has had varied levels of success in athletics. Holy Cross teams have won two NCAA team national championships — the men's basketball team in 1947, and the men's baseball team in 1952. The baseball team of Holy Cross remains the only team from the northeastern part of the United States to have won The College World Series.

Historically, Holy Cross' major rival has been the Eagles of Boston College, especially in football. In 1986, that series was terminated, when Holy Cross joined the Division 1-AA Patriot League. In 2005, the basketball contests between the two schools was suspended as well.

In recent decades, the men's basketball team has been the leading varsity program of the Holy Cross' athletic department. It was the 1947 NCAA Tournament champion and the 1954 NIT champion. The men's basketball team has won four Patriot League titles (1993, 2001, 2002, 2003) since the league's formation in 1991, and the women's team has also made several appearances in the NCAA Tournament. The basketball program boasts such notable alumni as Boston Celtics legends Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn, and longtime Providence College basketball coach Joe Mullaney.

On March 24, 2006, the Holy Cross men's hockey team made history by defeating the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA Division I Tournament by the score of 4-3, in overtime. Coined as one of the biggest upsets in NCAA ice hockey history, never since the NCAA tourney expanded to sixteen teams has a fifteen or sixteen seed beat a number one or two seed. In its history, the Holy Cross ice hockey program has seen two NCAA appearances, and has won the Atlantic Hockey and MAAC conferences three times (1999, 2004, 2006).The ice hockey program competes in the Atlantic Hockey Association in men's hockey and the Division III ECAC East division in women's ice hockey.

In 2006, the women's lacrosse team made its first NCAA Tournament appearance, defeating Colgate in the Patriot League championship game prior to beating LeMoyne in the NCAA play-in game.

Student life

Student groups

A large number of student organizations are associated with the university. With its relative distance from a major city, and without a Greek life at Holy Cross, undergraduate social life revolves around a number of school-sponsored groups, events and off-campus houses on nearby city streets (notably Cambridge, Caro, College and Southbridge streets), which are open to upperclassmen and serve a similar role to that which fraternities and sororities do at some other campuses. The Campus Activities Board (CAB), a student-run organization, runs several committees that oversee campus-wide activities and student services. Holy Cross has award-winning moot and mock trial teams. The team has won and placed highly in various national tournaments, including top two finishes at the National Intercollegiate Mock Trial Tournament during two of the past four years.[40] Holy Cross also has a unique student-published law journal, The Holy Cross Journal of Law & Public Policy, which is published annually by undergraduate students and is believed to be the only law journal in the United States published solely by undergraduates.

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Senior Apartments

The college also features a variety of student journals, media, and newspapers. The latter category includes The Fenwick Review, a journal of conservative thought, and The Crusader, the weekly newspaper published by Holy Cross students for the college community. Free copies of the 3,000-circulation paper are available online or at campus newsstands on 10 Friday mornings each semester. Holy Cross also has a student-run radio station, WCHC-FM 88.1. WCHC broadcasts mostly alternative music during weekdays, and electric music programming nights and weekends. The Student Government Association (SGA) charters and provides most of the funding for these organizations, and represents students' interests when dealing with the administration.

The largest student organization at Holy Cross, Student Programs for Urban Development (SPUD), is a community service organization sponsored by the college Chaplains’ Office consisting of over 25 different outreach programs and over 350 active members. Other volunteer and social justice programs offered by Holy Cross include Pax Christi, the Appalachia Service Project, Student Coalition on Homelessness and Housing (SCOHAH), and the Arrupe Immersion Program, named in honor of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., which Holy Cross describes as a faith based program responding to the call to work for peace and justice in the world.

Life in Worcester

Holy Cross is located in the College Hill section of Worcester, which is also referred to historically by its original Nipmuck Indian designation, Pakachoag, one of the "seven hills" that distinguish the topography and different neighborhoods of the city. Considered a struggling, post-industrial mill town by many, Worcester is experiencing a recent economic resurgence brought about by redevelopment and a housing boom that has seen property values increase rapidly in comparison to other cities in the United States. In 2001, Worcester recorded a median home value increase of 25.2 percent, the highest growth in the nation.

"Worcester" is correctly pronounced with two syllables, not three (IPA: [ˈwʊstər]listen). However, some varieties of the local dialect pronounce "Worcester" roughly to rhyme with "mister", or more precisely IPA: ['wɨstə], since Boston English is non-rhotic. Occasionally, the city's name is misspelled as "Worchester". "Wormtown" is a regional nickname associated with Worcester, Massachusetts, originally used to refer to the ethos of its underground musical subculture, but later applying to the city itself.

Worcester is home to the American Antiquarian Society, Higgins Armory Museum (the largest collection of arms and armor in the western hemisphere), the Worcester Art Museum, Mechanics Hall, the EcoTarium, and the DCU Center (formerly the Worcester Centrum). Worcester is also home to the Worcester Tornadoes baseball team, which currently plays its home games at Hanover Insurance Park on the campus Holy Cross.

In more recent years, "town and gown" relations have soured, and Holy Cross has had varying levels of disagreement with the surrounding residential College Hill community. This has mainly been a result of students housing being situated in the midst of family homes, student alcohol consumption, and noise violations. Police have been noted to respond by invading several houses hosting parties, breaking them up, handing out citations, and arresting underage studdents. There is also considerable isolation of the Holy Cross campus from the surrounding community and relatively low levels of interaction between Worcester residents and Holy Cross students. The administration and the Student Government Association (SGA), have worked to improve this situation by directing various iniatives in recent years including the redevelopment of a nearby park, and its co-sponsorship, with the Society of Jesus of New England, to create the Nativity School of Worcester, an all-scholarship middle school serving boys from the city of Worcester. Holy Cross also has created student liaison positions to attend Community meetings and engage residents and also created new on-campus housing to lessen the off-campus population.

Stickball

Wheeler Hall is the most storied of the three halls, known for its traditional party scene. It is also the site for a popular campus sport known as stickball, a long standing Holy Cross tradition usually played by Wheeler residents. It has been roughly estimated that Holy Cross students began playing stickball at Wheeler Hall around 1940. The Holy Cross version's origins are unknown. The sport lends itself to neighborhood stickball, and is played with a tennis ball and broomstick, just like the popular city sport. Wheeler Hall's five floors and symmetrical design makes it an ideal setting for the sport. A hill behind home plate helps contribute to the playing area's natural amphitheater-like setting.

Traditions

Student life at the Holy Cross is marked by a number of unique traditions and celebrations:

• Senior Pub Night: On most Tuesdays during the school year, seniors, and various upperclassmen, gather at the Pub located in the Hogan Campus. The event coincides with the "10 Spot", a weekly open mic night for Holy Cross bands, and occasionally outside performers, which occurs next to the Pub.
• Spring Weekend: The Spring Weekend, organized by the Campus Activities Board(CAB), is an annual event which marks the end of classes. Always held the week before finals, events include the Spring Carnival, the Battle of the Bands, and a Spring Concert. In the past, invited performers have included The Pat McGee Band (2001), Wyclef Jean (2002), Third Eye Blind (2003), The Roots (2004), Fabolous (2005), and Phantom Planet (2006).
• 100 Days Dance: Each spring, when 100 days are left at Holy Cross for the graduating Senior Class, the Purple Key Society (PKS), a service organization which fosters school spirit, loyalty and enthusiasm, sponsors an informal dinner and dance in their honor. Tradition holds that attendees make list of fellow seniors they would like to kiss, and attempt to follow through before the night is over.
• Purple Pride Day: Each year, the Purple Key Society chooses a day to banner with the campus the color purple, the official color, to foster school spirit. This includes giving out purple balloons, purple t-shirts, purple cookies, purple stickers and various other items throughout the day. Purple Pride Day usually coincides with a Holy Cross sporting event.

Holy Cross in popular culture

Ernest Hemingway mentions Holy Cross in his novel The Sun Also Rises.

In the 2001 film Harvard Man, Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a Holy Cross cheerleader named Cindy Bandolini.

Chris Matthews, 1967, host of MSNBC’s "Hardball", films parts of his documentary reflecting on the 40th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, "The Day America Changed", on the campus of Holy Cross. During the final segment of the documentary, Matthews, while walking on the lawn in front of Kimball Dining Hall, describes where he was when he learned about the president's death as a student.

Holy Cross' Fitton Field provided the scenery for the climatic football scene in the Disney movie, The Game Plan. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays football for the fictional Boston Rebels in the film.

Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out into the Real World, a book by Maria Shriver, published in 2000, evolved from commencement address she had given at Holy Cross in 1998.

Notable alumni

Clarence Thomas, an alumnus of Holy Cross and Supreme Court Justice

Main article: List of College of the Holy Cross Alumni

Holy Cross has more than 35,000 alumni as of January 2007. There are 39 Holy Cross alumni clubs in the U.S. and 1 international club. A number of Holy Cross alumni have made significant contributions in the fields of government, law, academia, business, arts, journalism, and athletics, among others.

Clarence Thomas, United States Supreme Court Justice, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, Bob Cousy, Basketball Hall of Fame member and former Boston Celtics player and coach, are among the most notable alumni.

Bob Casey, Sr., Pennsylvania governor, Bob Casey, Jr., his son, Pennsylvania treasurer and U.S. Senator-elect, and Edward D. DiPrete, Governor of Rhode Island are among the most notable alumni with involvement in politics. Several alumni have held top positions at large companies: Bob Wright, former Chairman & CEO, NBC Universal, and Vice Chairman, General Electric, James David Power III, J.D. Power and Associates founder, William J. McDonough, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and current Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch.

In media and print, Holy Cross has several notable alumni: Bill Simmons, ESPN.com sports columnist, Dan Shaughnessy, sports columnist for the Boston Globe, Bartlett Sher, director of Tony Award winning Broadway musical The Light in the Piazza, Joe McGinniss, bestselling author of The Selling of the President, Fatal Vision, and other books, Edward P. Jones, 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction for writing The Known World, and Dave Anderson, New York Times sports columnist, 1981 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary

See also

• Holy Cross Goodtime Marching Band
• Hart Center
• Fitton Field
• WCHC

External links

• College of the Holy Cross Official Site
• Official Athletics Site
• Making the Parts Whole
• Colleges of Worcester Consortium
• Residence Hall Profiles
• Holy Cross "Goodtime" Marching Band Homepage
• CROSSPORTS: Crusader Fan sports site and message board