Dear Members of the Campus Community,
Earlier this semester, I shared that the President’s Office would be participating in a series of conversations on higher education’s role in defending democracy. I’d like to invite you to several of these discussions in the coming weeks.
The McFarland Center is hosting 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa on Monday, April 25. Ressa, an investigative journalist and passionate defender of free expression, will give a keynote address at 4:30 p.m. in St. Joseph Memorial Chapel, and engage in an open discussion with me at 7:30 p.m. in Hogan Ballroom. The former event is open to Holy Cross students, faculty and staff; the latter is also open to the public.
Prior to this event, the McFarland Center will host a virtual fishbowl discussion on “The Ukraine War and the Prospects for Democracy.” Scheduled for Thursday, April 21, from 4-5 p.m., the virtual session is open to all with a Holy Cross email address, and will later be posted on YouTube. The “fish” – chosen for their distinct perspective or scholarship on the topic – will include Holy Cross student Viktor Lutsyshen '23, a native of Kherson, Ukraine; Nina Barzachka, Holy Cross assistant professor of political science; Markian Dobczansky, an independent scholar of the history of Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union and an associate of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard; and Roman Zaviyskyy, dean of philosophy and theology at Ukrainian Catholic University, who will be joining us on Zoom from Lviv.
I believe strongly that our nation’s colleges and universities are central to the furtherance of democracy. As a Jesuit, Catholic college, we also understand that freedom and equality are inseparable from a deep engagement with the common good. Our Defending Democracy series seeks to address the role that Holy Cross should play as we pursue a more just and equitable world, and meaningfully engage with those with whom we disagree. It’s similar to the question we posed at my Inaugural Symposium last fall, eliciting this powerful response from our keynote speaker, Martha Minow. I enjoyed re-reading her words before I crafted this note.
I understand that we’ve been interrogating these questions in our classrooms, through faculty research and with an expansive list of visiting speakers, such as my dear friend and Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin, who engaged us to think about how to improve presidential elections. So, Defending Democracy will be equal parts curated and original content, events and dialogues. It will include our best thinking and reflect the College’s ongoing commitment to inquiry, learning, compromise and debate. I look forward to our conversations — and our work — ahead.
Sincerely,
Vincent D. Rougeau
President