September 17, 2005

Thank you, Michael, for your kind introduction and for your skillful leadership during these historic times for the college and its Board of Trustees.

Good evening everyone and welcome once again. I am always so very pleased that you join us for this event and so touched your outstanding support our college. The generosity that all of you have shown and continue to show to Saint Anselm is the reason that our college continues to flourish, and the reason we are here tonight. Please know that I and my Benedictine confreres and colleagues remember you always in prayer.

Before I begin my official remarks, I would like to take a moment to recognize the members of my family who are here this evening; my brother and sister-in-law, Ralph and Gail DeFelice, my nephew and his wife, Ralph Michael and Beth DeFelice (both Saint Anselm graduates) and—the special reason for this—a person who was a founding member of the President's Society and great friend of the college, my aunt Laura Barlow who three days ago celebrated her 90th birthday!

Dear Friends,

For the second time in four short years we gather together to celebrate and recommit ourselves to the good work of Saint Anselm College in the wake of a national tragedy, the likes of which we thought we would never see in our lifetimes.

In 2001 we debated whether or not we should have this event since the smoke still hovered over the streets of New York City.  But, with the encouragement of our friends from that shaken city who traveled to be with us that night, we did celebrate all that was best about the college and our country.

Tonight as we come together to embrace one another and our beloved Saint Anselm, scattered debris and lost lives from yet another catastrophe still fill the streets of New Orleans and what used to be thriving communities along the beautiful shores of our nation's gulf coast. Indelible images of suffering remain in our minds, and again tonight we celebrate with a bit of hesitation and a great deal more gratitude than usual.

We saw the awful suffering; but we saw the valiant as well. And it makes us mindful once again that our community extends beyond the confines of this campus and this region; we are mindful that every woman, man and child who is in need and who suffers is part of the same people of God that we are. We have an inalienable connection to all humanity because we all have been created in God's image and redeemed by Christ's sacrifice; and we stand with them.

National tragedies have a way of elevating our minds and hearts beyond the mundane realities and complaints of our lives and help us to see—as we trust our Saint Anselm education helps our students to see—that there are greater realities than ourselves; and that very ordinary men and women like ourselves are capable of doing extraordinary things.

We certainly don't need a national disaster to find examples of that kind of greatness, but we are more conscious of those examples, more awakened to them when they are so dramatic. All of you here have in one way or another lifted yourselves out of the ordinary to be of help to our college—and particularly to help our students in remarkable ways. All of you have made the sacrifice of your own resources that could have done something else—and you have made them available to young men and women who need assistance to get an education here at Saint Anselm.

I know that many of you are here tonight because of a special bond you share with people you have come to know and admire through this college. I also know that many of you are here tonight because Bill Kelly called and reminded you to help! Perhaps nobody does more to foster relationships and nurture people's connection to Saint Anselm than the chairman of the President's Society, Bill Kelly, whose devotion to his alma mater and whose generosity to all of us brings out the best in us. Thank you, Bill.

Our work is most fundamentally about our students and their growth in knowledge and faith and wisdom. More than 80 percent of our students are able to pursue a Saint Anselm education because of the generosity of people like Bill and people like yourselves who desire that others have the kind of relationship with this place that you all have come to cherish. Because of your generosity, all of our students benefit. We are able to remain in the reach of so many because we have the help of your gifts.

This evening I want to tell you about just a few of those students—there are hundreds of stories like these that are possible because of what you do for us. Senior students Ashley Fielding and Cortney Dunlap (this year's Melucci Scholars) were barely two years old when another beloved Saint Anselm senior, Tom Melucci, died tragically in a car accident the week before his graduation. The love that Tom Sr. and Gail Melucci had for their son turned their grief to goodwill in the form of a scholarship for Saint Anselm students whose love of life and learning serve as living legacies to their son.

Ashley is a biology major from Salem, New Hampshire; but she is also captain of the Rescue Team, prepared to respond to the needs of others within minutes. When not in the bio lab or spending a night on call for the Goffstown Fire Department, she may be found organizing a blood drive or a fundraiser to assist victims like those in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Cortney is one of the hardest-working members of the football team and is vice president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council. A psychology major and student ambassador, Cortney was named community leader of the year by his Connecticut high school and has continued his service to others at Saint Anselm as a big brother, tutor and mentor to children and teens in greater Manchester.

Senior Matthew Moloney, from Brooklyn, New York, never had the chance to meet Father Bernard Holmes or Mr. Robert Davison, but they are just the sort of men he would have admired, and he is just the sort of young person Lucille and Bob Davison had in mind when they established the Father Bernard Holmes Scholarship in 1985, providing assistance for a senior whose life at Saint Anselm reflects the qualities of learning, leadership and dedication that they so admired in Father Bernard. Matthew is the Grand Knight of the college's council of the Knights of Columbus, he traveled to Tucson, Arizona, to serve with Spring Break Alternative last year and plans to go to Central America to serve this year. Upon graduation, he plans to enter the ACE program teaching in a Catholic school while furthering his education. In addition to his aspirations to be a member of the New York City fire department, he may one day return to his home, a few short miles from ground zero. We are certain that whatever he does he will serve and lead others in the very way that the Davisons intended.

Isabela Echeverry originally from Colombia and now from Mexico is connected to us through another Mexican alumnus, Mr. Romulo O'Farrell, whose generosity has enabled Isabela and dozens of other students to achieve extraordinary success here. Today, as an O'Farrell Scholar, Isabela fills this campus with her infectious enthusiasm, remarkable energy and unyielding passion for learning, for justice and for serving others. And did I mention that she is an Honors student who currently has a 3.6 grade point average?

Nearby Londonderry, New Hampshire, is in many respects a long way from Newark, New Jersey. But the Saint Anselm connection has breeched the distance. Freshman Anthony Galluzzo of Londonderry is the oldest of seven children, and the first recipient of the Heritage Property Investment Trust Scholarship, the most comprehensive award in the history of Saint Anselm College, providing full tuition, room, board and fees for four years, as well as an internship and professional opportunities. The man responsible for this annual scholarship is Thomas Prendergast, a 1972 graduate of Saint Anselm, and CEO of Heritage. Tom grew up in working class Newark, learning to appreciate education from his mother and the monks at Saint Benedict's Prep, who eventually steered him to Saint Anselm. He wanted to make a Saint Anselm education possible for an outstanding young person who could not otherwise afford it. Anthony, an honors student and accomplished athlete at Londonderry High School, where he graduated 12th in his class of 400, has all of the promise and determination to make Tom and the rest of us very proud.

These five students, whose studies are made possible by those who have come before them, represent the hundreds of young people whose connections to Saint Anselm are enabled by alumni and friends like you who believe in the value and power of a Saint Anselm education.

Along with those students, I am pleased to include one more, slightly more mature scholar whose achievements as a philosopher, an ethicist, a teacher, a writer, a mentor, a musician, a husband, a father and a friend have made him one of the most admired persons on campus.

You may recall that at last year's President's Society Dinner in Boston, alumnus and trustee Richard Bready surprised me by handing me a check for one million dollars to establish the college's first endowed faculty chair. Tonight, because of Rick's generosity, I am able to announce another milestone for this college. The first Richard L. Bready Professor of Ethics, Economics, and the Common Good will be the man whose latest of four books is aptly titled The Restoration of Reason—our very own Professor Montague Brown of the Philosophy Department. Congratulations, Monte!

I want to close this evening with one more story. This is a voice that speaks from our distant past calling us to greatness in these early years of the twenty-first century. Within days after the levies in New Orleans broke, and the scope of the catastrophe became more apparent, students came to me with their desire to assist those in need in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I was able to tell them of a very special connection that our college shares with the city of New Orleans. One hundred and ten years ago this month a young German immigrant named Joseph Francis Rummel began his senior year here at Saint Anselm College.

When he graduated he entered the seminary for the archdiocese of New York and was ordained a priest in 1902. A talented administrator and renowned pastor, he eventually became the Archbishop of New Orleans, a position he held from 1935 until 1962. As leader of the Catholic Church there, he became a forerunner in what we would come to know as the civil rights movement. A decade before that movement took hold, Archbishop Rummel was insisting that the Catholic schools in his diocese be racially integrated, telling his opposition that segregationist policies represented a "grievous violation of Christian justice and charity."

Glaucoma rendered Archbishop Rummel partially blind for the last 15 years of his life; but despite the physical disability that prevented him from presiding at many official functions, he still saw clearly the injustice around him, and opened the eyes of many others to the need for racial justice and the end of segregation, because, as he wrote, "there is no discrimination in the Kingdom of God." When he died in 1964 he left a legacy of true human and Christian greatness that speaks loudly to our world today.

With the help of our students, faculty and staff, we have organized our efforts on behalf of the victims of hurricane Katrina in his memory by the establishment of the Archbishop Rummel New Orleans Relief fund to help those most in need in the Archdiocese that he once led. We are hopeful that our small effort will bring some much needed assistance; and that we will—over the longer term—reestablish a permanent link to the life and work of this Anselmian. His example and his words will guide our planned efforts to make our college even more welcoming to all people.

Tonight we gather to celebrate that the education we offer our students by your generosity. We know that we simply cannot do it alone without your help. Our education is aimed at connecting students to the great men and women of history so that they will have models and examples for their own lives. Our education aims to prepare our students to be a positive influence in our society and world in new and important ways. I spoke tonight of special connections to New Orleans, Biloxi, New York, Newark, Tucson, Londonderry, Columbia, Mexico, and Manchester; but the connections are endless for those educated here.

We are grateful for your generosity and for God's astounding love. I pray that we will continue to work together to build up this very special college and in doing so to improve the lives of all our brothers and sisters.

May God continue to bless you and your families! May God continue to bless our nation and may God bless Saint Anselm College!

Thank you.

Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B.
President of the College