Mar 3, 2021
In this episode, Meah Austin '22 interviews Danita Beck-Wickwire '94 about her time on campus and her journey after Holy Cross. Their conversation highlights the many ways that you can engage your passions throughout your life, be it through service, hobbies or professional work.
Interview originally recorded on September 4, 2020. Due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, all interviews in season 2 are recorded remotely.
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Danita:
It's always nice to know that what you are doing will change someone's life for the better, that you will affect change in individuals and communities and make this world a better place.
Maura:
Welcome to Mission Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of alumni career development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show. In this episode, we hear from Danita Beck-Wickwire from the class of 1994. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Danita currently makes Baltimore her home, having also spent time in Worcester, Chicago, Mississippi, Europe and Boston. Her professional journey reflects who she is. An artist, philanthropist and volunteer at heart, her career path shows what it means to follow your heart and your passions.
Maura:
Beginning her career as a teacher in the inner city in Chicago, she devoted the rest of her career to supporting education and the arts through fundraising and philanthropy. She is joined by Meah Austin from the class of 2022. They first met in Meah's first semester on campus at the BSU's 50th anniversary celebration in 2018. They have kept in touch over the years and formed a wonderful mentoring relationship. Their conversation showcases the many ways that Holy Cross and its community can remain alive and active throughout your life.
Meah:
Hello, everyone, my name is Meah Austin, class of 2022 and I am here with The Danita Wickwire, class of '94. Fun fact before we get started, Danita is one of the first alumni I met at Holy Cross and I can tell you all that knowing her these past few years have been phenomenal. She certainly has acted as a mentor to me. Danita would you like to further introduce yourself?
Danita:
Yes and I'm also going to introduce you as well. Meah, thank you for joining me for this conversation and thank you for following up with me. Meah and I met at the BSU 50th anniversary celebration in November, 2018 and I met a number of students that weekend and saw old classmates and friends and made a lot of new friends. I was really impressed with Meah because she sent me an email within a week of meeting and she always stayed in touch, and I remained in touch with her, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to see a young woman following in my footsteps as a student at Holy Cross. It's not an easy school, it's rigorous, and it strives for excellence.
Danita:
So I wanted to be there for you and I'm honored to have had the opportunity to have mentored you in the last two years, and to continue to do so, as long as we were together, Meah. So thank you for the introduction and for joining me today.
Meah:
Thank you. Don't make me tear up. So, to start us off, Danita, how did you end up in Worcester, Massachusetts being that you're from Tennessee?
Danita:
The journey to Worcester, Massachusetts, it's funny, when I was 10 years old, I decided that I wanted to go to college in Massachusetts. Now, how in the world would a 10-year old in Memphis, Tennessee take Massachusetts? Well, my elementary school was on a college campus at the Memphis State University at the time, campus school. There were faculty families from around the world, around the nation. Everyone was college bound because we were already on a college campus. Just looking at colleges and hearing the stories of some of my classmates and their families, I realized there were many good schools in Massachusetts.
Danita:
When I was 10, I didn't pick the one but I selected Massachusetts. I remained interested in college, college bound over the next few years from the age of 10 to 18. I did look around the nation. I looked around the world as well but in my junior and senior year, somehow I returned to Massachusetts, when I considered my final college applications. I added the College of the Holy Cross to that combination, because I was interested in the rigor of a Jesuit education and I was really excited by the mission of the College of the Holy Cross, combining service and the rigorous education focusing on excellence, that resonated with me. I really wanted to consider being part of that community.
Danita:
I enrolled in Holy Cross to get a solid, strong liberal arts education and I left Holy Cross as a woman for others, which is the case with our mission at Holy Cross. We are men and women for others.
Meah:
That's awesome. I can certainly agree, the Holy Cross education just fosters your values you come in with and just really creates them and promotes them into being formed with others. So that's amazing, now that we understand why you chose Massachusetts, why the small Jesuit Liberal Arts College, why Holy Cross?
Danita:
Okay, I can break that into parts. First of all small, I was interested in being in a small community where I can be a person, and not just a number, and that rang throughout the entire Holy Cross experience. I will answer your other questions, but I want to tell the story first of how I selected my major. I learned at the end of my sophomore year that there was a difference between deciding your major and declaring your major. When my class Dean, Vicki Swigert called me on a Tuesday morning, and she said, "Danita, you have not declared your major." I said, "Yes, I have. I've declared that it's going to be art."
Danita:
"It's not going to be history. It's going to be art," because I was interested in a dual major at one time and fascinated between art and history for my first year and a half. She said to me, "No, Danita, you need to declare your major, you need to come down to the registrar's office and fill out the paperwork to declare your major. When you get out of your design class this morning, come downstairs. The paperwork, we'll be waiting for you." I realized, "Okay, I need to declare my major." I also realized that my class dean knew that I had not declared my major.
Danita:
She knew my phone number, and was willing to make the call and she knew my schedule for the day. She knew that I was heading to design class and that I had nothing on my schedule after design class. I was a person she knew and she was a person I knew and not just the number. That is part of how a small community is really beneficial for many students as they pursue their college coursework. Now, the Jesuit tradition and the liberal arts tradition, as I just stated, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to study. I was interested in many areas. I've always studied art. I've always enjoyed writing. In high school, I ... I was a triple major actually, now that I think about it.
Danita:
Yeah, you could do that in high school, but I took math courses all the way through. I was a social studies major. I took art courses. So I had a variety of interests and I knew that studying at a liberal arts college such as Holy Cross, I could pursue many of those interests. I could take the courses in the core curriculum, and with the liberal arts degree, learning how to think, learning how to solve problems, learning how to communicate verbally and in a written form, would position me to go into any career field. I might need additional training, additional coursework but I knew that I could do anything with a liberal arts degree and that I wouldn't be stuck in one track that I selected as an 18 year old without necessarily knowing the world or myself that well.
Danita:
So liberal arts appealed to me in that way and the Jesuit tradition, being a woman for others, that had already been critical in my life. I spent most of my summers engaged in volunteer work. I was a volunteer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis for a number of years and through that experience, I became a point of light for those who are familiar with President George H.W. Bush and his inaugural address. He spoke of a thousand points of light and the United States recommitting itself to service in some way, similar to what President Kennedy called for with the creation of the Peace Corps in 1960, 1961, I should say. He spoke of a thousand points of light and it was beautiful to hear him speak of it.
Danita:
From that language, came up Point of Light Initiative. In our local newspaper, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, picked up on the concept of a thousand points of light and they decided to look for 1000 volunteers in the Memphis community, and in my work at St. Jude, I was nominated to be one of those 1000 points of light, and I was one of Memphis's thousand points of light. I had the opportunity to hear President Bush speak to the other 999 and myself the day before Thanksgiving, my senior year. Our points of light initiative in Memphis was considered one of the 1000 across the nation.
Danita:
So I am one one thousandth of a point of light and I am honored and compelled to continue to let my light shine, so that it may be a beacon to others, so I can help them to find their way in this world, and that is part of my commitment in connection to the Jesuit mission of the College of the Holy Cross.
Meah:
That's amazing. I mean, that's so exciting to have that experience and always be able to look back on that experience and realize that that was a pivotal moment that really led to your values and continuing to do the work that you did. So I can truly admire that. Also, touching upon the liberal arts piece, I certainly agree with that. Now, being a current student, I looked through the course catalog every semester, and I'm like, "How do I only take four classes with all these amazing courses that touch upon so many different areas."
Meah:
So I think that just shows like how Holy Cross is so interdisciplinary and really can make the students, regardless if you're a history, major, art major, psychology major, you're all learning so many different things that are really going to promote your professional life and even what you do in the world in your community. So I truly respect that and I think that's awesome. So now, to just dive a little bit deeper, how was your transition your first year? It must have certainly been something so different being raised in Memphis. You're getting cultural changes and not to mention all the winter snow that you find on the hill.
Danita:
So the transition was interesting. I had certain expectations of college. My older sister traveled from Memphis to New York to attend New York University three years before I enrolled in college. So I was prepared for certain aspects of college, particularly college in the northeast. I was prepared for the colder climate. I was prepared to start again, so to speak, going to a school where no one from my high school and in that city, no one from ... Excuse me, in that year, no one from Memphis was at Holy Cross. So I was prepared to start over and find my way, all over again, as I had done in other schools.
Danita:
I was also prepared to meet new people, have new experience and interact with individuals from all over the nation and all over the world. It was exciting. I was thrilled and I was looking forward to making that transition to New England. I must admit, I was very fortunate my freshman year. We did not see a big snowstorm first semester.
Meah:
That's surprising.
Danita:
I was done in the next few years, and we saw really big snowstorms but in that first year, when I was making my transition into living in Massachusetts, I didn't have to deal with a blizzard before Christmas, which was wonderful. Not everything was wonderful and perfect in that first semester, I must admit. The transition was ... Despite my expectations, and what I hoped for, the transition was a little more challenging. To be frank, I wanted to transfer. I was looking at other institutions but my parents, especially my father, made me stay at Holy Cross. They did not force me to stay but they let me know that if I left Holy Cross, I would not be able to enroll in a similar institution at home or at another community, I would have to return to Memphis.
Danita:
Even though I did not have friends from home at Holy Cross, all of my friends who were interested in going away to college had gone away to college. There were so many of us in New England. It was like part of Memphis had been transplanted to New England, to Boston, to Hartford and other communities around that region. I thought about what Holy Cross had to offer and there were some moments, some sparks especially with my wonderful roommate Colleen Keys. I realized it was a caring place, I realized I had not found ... from my place in the circle yet, and I believe in the power of yet, so I did stay.
Danita:
I gave it a second chance. Over time, I developed connections. I deepened relationships with some of the people I knew and some of those people are my closest friends today. The people I speak to on a regular basis. Angela Preston, Matt Dudley, Maury Bonner, Meghan Cecil, those were the individuals with whom I connected then and if you look at the last 10 texts that I sent out or the last 10 phone calls that I've made, those four people are among that list.
Meah:
That's amazing. So I can really attest to that, Holy Cross, it's something about the people there, something about the people that are really making a home. So just to dive a little deeper, if that was your transition, it was a little rough, what kind of involvement did you have during your time at Holy Cross that perhaps alleviated the homesickness, the desire to maybe transfer, what really made that difference?
Danita:
I really immersed myself into my art classes. I took drawing my freshman year. I was very fortunate, I had signed up for an art history course and the course was at 8 AM, 9 AM, some really ugly hour in the morning for me. I realized I wanted to make art and not study art at that point in my life. I met with Susan Schmidt, who had an opening in her Introduction to Design Class. This was in 1990, when you did not have the opportunity of looking on your computer, see an opening in a class and selecting that class and enrolling right away. You needed to ... and I lived in Clark on the fourth floor, at the beginning.
Danita:
You needed to go all the way down to Fenwick and up to the fourth floor at Fenwick to meet with the professor, to confirm that there was still the opening, that you could get into it and then, go down to the registrar's office to enroll. So I raced to Susan Schmidt's office as soon as I could and I asked her about the opening, and she told me that it had already been filled. She asked me if I had any art experience and if I had a portfolio, which I did. So I needed to race down the stairs, up the hill, up to the fourth floor of Clark.
Meah:
My goodness.
Danita:
With the portfolio and race back down to Susan's office, which I did and I was happy to do it. She looked at my work and she told me that I would need to take design later but I could skip Introduction to Design because I had a substantial portfolio that demonstrated my understanding of the basic elements of design in artwork. I enrolled in a drawing course and really enjoyed exploring the creativity and getting to know my fellow students. That was my first true area of engagement and interacting with classmates, friends, new friends on the hall in Clark Three because I moved to Clark Three when I moved out of my triple.
Danita:
That was really critical in my ... finding my way at Holy Cross because there were some great women on that Hall including my roommate, Colleen Keyes and Rachel Pierre and Gina Wilson, they were both juniors and lived around the hall from us. I still remember that night I came back in January of 1991, I didn't want to be there but as soon as I opened the door on the hallway, Rachel, Gina and Colleen raced down the hall, "She's back. Oh my gosh. She's back. We didn't think she was going to make it." They raced down the hall and grabbed my bags and escorted me back in and that was the first time that I really felt welcomed and missed and appreciated and loved at Holy Cross.
Danita:
I continue to feel that especially on Clark Three because Rachel Pierre was actually the SAA, the student alcohol advisor, which is one of the reasons why she was a junior living in Clark instead of one of the upper class dorms. She looked out for me, she and Gina looked out for me a lot. Rachel did my hair. Rachel and I took classes together later and she would grab me out of my dorm to make sure I studied and I remember my first history exam, she was not in my history class but one of her closest friends was, she'd walked into my room and she said, "What are you working on babe?" Because she called everyone, babe and I told her ... and she said, "I think Sayeeda is taking that same exam tomorrow, you guys should study together."
Danita:
She called Sayeda, confirmed that she was taking the exam tomorrow, and sent me down to Sayeeda's room for a study group. Otherwise, I would have been studying alone, I might have fallen asleep but I think I did better on that exam and in that class because of Rachel and Rachel always had cookies, and she fed me. Gina and Rachel both took me wherever they were going, whatever they were doing. Rachel was an RA and I went on trips with her hall to Boston and Gina's capstone project at the end of her senior year, which was my sophomore year was a historical play on the role of black women in the world.
Danita:
I was in an ensemble piece in the play about African women and I was in a critical role at the end of the performance, I was cast as Oprah Winfrey.
Meah:
My goodness.
Danita:
That's a huge role and one of the funny parts is we went through dress rehearsals in a casual manner, to the extent that there were many nights that I rushed from one performance as an African woman, not wearing shoes to the Oprah role. I just put on the clothes. The night of the performance, I walked out on stage with no shoes on, as I had done so many times during rehearsal, and I was about three minutes into the piece before I realized, "Oh my gosh, I'm on stage with no shoes on," but everyone thought it was intentional and part of the performance, so I just carried on from there. That was my first real performance, acting performance ever and that led to other acting performances later in my college life.
Danita:
So I did find my way, there were a few others who helped too on Clark three. I ran track for a little while and Egetta Schumski lived a couple of doors down as well. She had a roommate, Kristal Rice made sure that I made it to track practice and that I made it from the field house all the way back to Clark because I was pretty tired as a new runner. Egetta taught me how to run. She taught me how to breathe. She taught me what to wear. She really prepared me for a track experience and although I didn't stay with the team, I continued and continued to be a runner to this day. Thanks to the Egetta who is now Wellness Coach Alfonso.
Danita:
Kristal Rice, I think before I joined the track team, I tried to join the rugby team. Krystal was on the rugby team. She saw that I'd signed up for it. She was happy that I was interested but she pulled me aside and discouraged me from pursuing rugby any further. I thought, "Well, I think I can keep up. I think I can run and take a few hits and maybe catch the ball and possibly kick it. I think I can do this." She said, "No, that's not it. I don't think you can drink enough to join the rugby team." I trusted her good judgment and she probably really saved me from getting injured and becoming ill playing rugby.
Danita:
So Krystal, if you're out there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Those were simple basic forms of engagement, but in my sophomore year, that was when I truly explored leadership opportunities at the college. I moved to Wheeler and join the Wheeler House Council. I ran for an SGA position. I was the black student representative for SGA. I ... what else did I do that year? As a member of the House Council in Wheeler. There's the basic house council meetings and social events but we had a dynamic head RA, Rick Swanson. He was also committed to the Jesuit ideas and he was a fan of Bobby Kennedy.
Danita:
He created a thing called the dream of the month so that we would focus on some dreams, some aspect of giving back to the community, and he created and we created with him, an event called The Five Winter. It was a big party with food and music on the Wheeler Beach that raised money for the homeless in Worcester and that tradition continued for a number of years. Those were the types of things and the involvement that we had in Wheeler, which is amazing and phenomenal. Moving on in my next years, I used those two experiences, the SGA experience and being on House Council, as stepping stones.
Danita:
In my junior year, I became an RA in Wheeler. In my junior year, I was selected for the SGA cabinet. I was a subcommittee co-chair for the Tampa Center Board of Directors, CCBMD. I wrote for the newspaper. I was not a member of the staff, but I submitted regular editorials and what else did I do? I had a work study position in the art gallery. So senior year, I was a head RA in Clark and it was a funny thing about my Holy Cross experience, I only lived in two dorms. I started at Clark. I lived in Wheeler for two years and then, I moved back to Clark Three as the head RA and my head RA room was two doors down from the room I had freshman year.
Danita:
It's funny I remember my stereo could not pick up the exact same radio stations. Two doors down as I could in my old room. It was the weirdest thing but I found good music anyway. As a head RA in Clark we called the dorm, "the Clark Rock Café, No drugs, No nuclear weapons," and we created T-shirts Elliot Visconsi and I designed the short together. I hand drew the globe in Clark Rock Cafe and he had a computer and designed the rest in a graphic design format. We realized we needed more than T-shirts, so we created an event called the Clark Rock Cafe. It was an opportunity for so many of the campus bands to play on campus, instead of having them playing in the pubs and bars and parties off campus.
Danita:
I did drink and go off campus but I knew not everyone liked to do that. I didn't like to do that all the time and I really valued this event which was held three times as an opportunity for students to do something fun and interesting with the bands and inside the dorm without having to take the risks of going off campus. We served mocktails. We had the coolest bands on campus. We had Spindrift. We had Barfly. We had ... I should know all of them. We had the Sea Monkeys. We had Foot Bob. We had Prodigal and a number of other bands I might be forgetting and they don't know my address now so they won't come to get me.
Danita:
We had great bands and great fun. There was actually an alumni band that came back and performed for one of the Clark Rock Cafes. It was a fun experience, in my opinion. We had crowds in the door for ... both for two of them, one didn't do as well but for the first one and the last one, they were very successful and I'm really proud that that was one of my hallmarks on campus as a Head RA. Another area where I felt the dorm could be effective was, in the relationship between faculty and students. Students frequently spent time with faculty in certain areas on campus, in the classroom, in their offices, in formal events.
Danita:
We rarely had the faculty come to our doors to see where we lived and how we lived. So, we created Clark Tail Parties and invited the faculty to come to the social room where we once again served mocktails and hors d'oeuvres and students had an opportunity to interact with faculty in a casual fashion. I still remember some students asking, "Well, who's going to be there? I'm not doing well in such and such class. Can you make sure so and so come so I can choose with them?" They were great. They were effective. They were fun. The faculty seem to have fun and so did many of the students who were there.
Danita:
I still remember we made Wassail, Wassail for the Christmas Clark Tail Party and we had the social room and we had the study room and we had something on the pot. Something on the stove, cooking and bubbling and making Wassail for the first time. That was fun, but it worked out. So that was a really important event in Clark and I really love being head RA. Clark was great. I still have dear, dear friends who were part of my Clark RA team and my Clark House Council, I'm thinking of Shane McLaughlin and Killian MacCarthy and Isa Squicciarini and Chael Christopher and Pete Cronin, and a number of others who were part of that Clark experience.
Danita:
Cary Anderson was the Associate Dean for Student, like assistant dean or associate, one of those but he also lived in Clark, and he was one of my favorite Residence Life staff members and we're still not super close. We don't talk every day, but we're still in close contact. He sent me a few photos a couple of months ago, with pieces of art in his newish place in Philadelphia. So we're connected and it was great to be in the same building with Cary, but he said we were loud. My dorm room was right above his. So sometimes we were loud. Sorry, Cary. So I had a lot of wonderful opportunities to develop additional skills, make friends and prepare for many aspects of a career, whatever that might be.
Danita:
I learned in my years at Holy Cross that you can select any major at Holy Cross and through your extracurricular activities and through your summer internships, you will be well versed and well prepared to enter into a variety of career fields. You might need additional training, yes, but you will know how to think, how to represent your ideas and how to solve problems. I also learned that and some of those leadership opportunities, you could make many wonderful, phenomenal, lifelong friends and I can't believe I'm forgetting one of my experiences. Also, in my junior year, I was invited to an invitation only production called Crusadist.
Danita:
Crusadist was a comedy performance show that took a satirical look at life at Holy Cross. I'd read about Crusadist my freshman year and people said, "Don't see the show until you're a junior because you won't understand the jokes. You won't know Holy Cross moment up until your junior year to get the jokes." So I didn't see the show freshman year, sophomore year, but junior year I was selected to be in the show and there are only two juniors in the show. If you're selected as a junior, that means you will be the producer of the show in your senior year. So my senior year, I was the producer of Crusadist and with my co-producer Mark Diaz, selected the cast, with the cast created the scripts.
Danita:
We were engaged in all forms of production, selecting the venue which was the crossroads pizza seller, creating the schedule for the event publicity creating the video, editing the videos that we use in the show and selecting the nonprofit to which we would donate the proceeds from the show. Crusadist was a big part of my life as the producer and it's really funny to say that people who were part of the show are still my closest friends today. Some of them, I did not know before the show but we were joined at the hip for weeks straight and we never fully disconnected.
Meah:
That's amazing. So really Holy Cross like, it wasn't just the academics that really formed your experience. It's clear, your story really shows that it was everything from your ... being in Wheeler to being in work study ... working in the art gallery as a work study, all the way to being in a comedy club, kind of thing. So that's really awesome, how so many different things pulled together to form your Holy Cross experience. What did you do after Holy Cross?
Danita:
After Holy Cross that wonderful head RA I had in Wheeler, Rick Swanson, he was an assistant director, initially a teacher then an assistant director in a program in Chicago called Inner-City Teaching Corps. It was a volunteer ... is, I should say. It's still around. A volunteer teaching program similar to Teach for America but the focus of ICTC, as we still call it, was on parochial schools on the south side and the West Side of Chicago only. It was founded by a Jesuit school graduate, Pat Ryan, who wanted to recruit other young people who were interested in making a difference in communities through teaching.
Danita:
So he looked to Jesuit schools, he looked at Ivy League schools to create the first corps of Inner-City Teaching Corps. Rick Swanson recruited me for the program. I realized in my life that education had made such a difference for me. I was college bound already. I found my success. I felt that I was destined to do so but I realized that so many others were being left behind. They did not have access to quality education and education is necessary to uplift communities. As a black woman, I realized that it was critical, especially to uplift the black community and that was very important to me.
Danita:
So I accepted the position in Inner-City Teaching Corps. I moved to Chicago three weeks after graduation. I taught summer school, part time ... yeah, part time summer school, I co-taught with another teacher in a parochial school on the south side of Chicago. At this time, 26 years ago, I was a full time fifth grade teacher at the Academy of St. Benedict, the African Laflin campus on the south side of Chicago. I had 21 boys and 10 girls in my classroom.
Meah:
So you had to have some patience in your early post grad years.
Danita:
My gosh, a great deal of patience. I still remember all the kids' names. I still wonder about those kids. I love those kids. They were an active group. They like to talk a lot. That was the most trouble my kids ever got into. They talk a lot but they were wonderful kids, they all have good hearts. I remember, the day I had laryngitis, I didn't realize I had no voice until 10 minutes before the students arrived. So I found things for the students to do that they could do without my talking to them. The day that I had laryngitis, they were so quiet. They whisper because they knew I could not speak to them. That was 26 years ago and I still remember that's what my students did.
Meah:
That is super thoughtful for fifth graders. So I can see that your heart was really in teaching and I can really admire that about you, especially with them being fifth graders. That's hard in yourself but you really made it work. So why teaching, what made you ... I know you touched upon a little bit with the Holy Cross network connection but what really led you to teaching?
Danita:
It was that desire to uplift the community, uplift all communities for we all rise together. The rising tide elevates all boats and I realized that there were communities who were being left behind. I had the great fortune of attending some of the best schools in my community from the campus school on a college campus to the number one college prep school in Memphis, White Station High and then going on to Holy Cross but I knew that there were so many others who wanted a better education, who wanted a better life that is made possible through education and other avenues. I wanted to be a part of that solution for them.
Danita:
I wanted to do something different, which was to go into the inner city where there were so many needs to reach out to those individuals because they had been left behind. They were still being left behind and that's why I wanted to be part of the Inner-City Teaching Corps in particular. It is now called the Accelerate Institute, but that's why I want to be part of ICTC at that time, in my life.
Meah:
That like touches me. I was going to be a teacher now.
Danita:
You would be a great teacher.
Meah:
What did you say?
Danita:
You would be a great teacher, Meah.
Meah:
I don't know my nephew would say otherwise.
Danita:
That's just one kid. That's just one.
Meah:
So how long were you a teacher for and what was kind of your next stepping stone?
Danita:
The program was a one or two year program and the organization was still in its developmental stages. I was a member of the third corps group for ICTC, now called the Accelerate Institute and a very large organization, larger, I should say, now, 26 years later. As volunteer corps members, we were encouraged to participate in many aspects of the organization. Some of us were encouraged to participate in recruiting trips. I traveled to New Orleans as part of my experience to introduce the program to Xavier University and Loyola University in New Orleans. We were also encouraged and given opportunities to participate in special events, and fundraising.
Danita:
I realized that fundraising ... this thing called fundraising or development really appealed to me, the work resonated with me. I have done something similar in public relations as an intern and it all came together and started to make sense. I also realized that as a teacher, I could affect the lives of the 31 or however, many students I had in my classroom. I further accepted the reality that as a philanthropy professional is one who raised the money to support other teachers, I could, in my work, impact the lives of a great deal more students, in a school, in a community, in our society.
Danita:
That was the first step that started to lead me to a career in this thing called philanthropy, is what I call it development and I didn't even really know the name of it at the time. The first step was in Chicago. I moved back to Memphis after my year of teaching and I began working with a group of artists. We decided to coordinate an exhibition for black history month at the Memphis International Airport because the airport was celebrating the opening of a new wing and a new non-stop flight from Memphis to Amsterdam. It was the perfect time to have an exhibition. I drafted the letters to the airport authority, on behalf of this organization of artist.
Danita:
I didn't realize it at the time but I was becoming sick with Mononucleosis. I was sick and in bed and out of touch for a number of weeks. At that time, the organization dissolved and there were no longer artists or resources. As I was recovering from mono, I had to curate a show. I had to find artists and I had to secure the resources necessary to produce an art exhibition. I was able to make connections to the corporate community in Memphis and secure corporate sponsorships for this exhibition which I didn't what at the time but I quickly learned that corporate support is a big part of philanthropy and a few months later ... the show was a success, by the way.
Danita:
A few months later when I saw a job for development at the Memphis College of Art, I applied. They recognized my name from the publicity the show had received. They also recognized my name because several of the artists were either faculty students or alumni of the college. So, I had inadvertently promoted myself as a philanthropy professional as well as promoting myself as an artist in the art exhibition. I accepted the position at the Memphis College of Art in 1996 and that was the beginning of my career in philanthropy and development in nonprofit management. I'm still working on this field today and enjoying it tremendously. It's an important area. It's been life changing for me to be able to work in this field.
Meah:
That's awesome. So, I really admire ... I know I keep saying admire but it's just like, "Wow, I didn't know about Danita. Yeah, I didn't know that about Danita. Wow, she has so much we got to talk about." I love how you're able to take your major, your passion, what really drives you and connect that with the profession. So, it seems like obviously with you being an art major, that art goes beyond just a common area requirement at Holy Cross and even the major requirements and personally my stick figure drawings. So, what place does art has in your life?
Danita:
First of all, Meah, we are going to work on those stick figure drawings.
Meah:
We'll do a Zoom session together, an art Zoom session.
Danita:
No, we should do that. That would be fun. Second of all, do not embarrassed by stick figure drawings because they are an expression of your creativity and your being and people say stick figures are embarrassing. Some of my drawings are pretty basic so however you express yourself, but yes, art has been an important part of my life. I have a personal goal as an artist, exploring ... building upon Georgia O'Keeffe's thoughts, how important it is to feel space in a beautiful and thoughtful way and to encourage others to do so as a means of self-expression and communication and connection. I started making art when I was in elementary school. At that time, we had art classes twice a week.
Danita:
I began drawing on my own, on the weekends and my art teacher thought I should take private lessons, which I started to do when I was in fourth grade. I created my first oil painting when I was 10 and I continue to take art courses in school and out of school and to make art on my own for a number of years and I am still making art today. I have masters of fine art from the University of Mississippi, where I work ... did painting and print making and discovered photography and digital video. I also spent two intersessions in Europe during my three years in graduate school. I studied in Sicily, water color in Sicily and I studied water color in London and while I was in London, I took a track to Paris to work in photography for a few days.
Danita:
Art has always been central to my life for my personal expression and I've also been an art instructor off and on throughout the years. Yes, Meah, I can teach you to appreciate and enhance your stick figures.
Meah:
Yes. What years were you in graduate school?
Danita:
2006 through 2009.
Meah:
Okay, that's awesome, it also is exciting. Just to loop back around, when did you ... what happened after a month as working in your art center in Memphis, what was your next step?
Danita:
After a number of years of working in philanthropy at the Memphis College of Art, I returned to Massachusetts, and at the corps, the invitation for me to return to Massachusetts in any way, shape or form, interestingly enough, came from the College of the Holy Cross. In 1997, I was invited to participate in an exhibition called Self Images, 8 to 80 and it featured the self-portraits of women and girls in the Memphis community, the youngest one was five years old, I think and the oldest one was 82. The day that the exhibition opened, Tina Chen, who at that time worked in the office of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, contacted me to let me know that one of the paintings she had in her office was going to be moved.
Danita:
I had left a painting with Tina, when I graduated and I had also sold a painting to the college the day I graduated. So College of the Holy Cross was my first art collector, ever as a professional artist. In that conversation with Tina, I approved the moving of the painting. We spoke and she asked me what I was doing. I told her about the exhibition and she told me the college was preparing for the 25th anniversary of coeducation or women coming to Holy Cross. She wanted to talk to the planning committee about this exhibition and the possibilities of bringing the show to Worcester in the spring.
Danita:
She contacted me a few weeks later to let me know that the college wanted to bring selections of the exhibition and they wanted me to have my own exhibition with the cantor gallery, in the spring of 1998. So I was back at Holy Cross that spring with so many of my friends and during our time on campus, three of us who were not in Boston, decided to move to Boston and that was my friend Melissa Jean-Charles and my other friend, Ekwi Nwabuzor both from the class of '96. We turned to each other and we, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking it was that type of moment," and we all clicked and decided we wanted to move to Boston.
Danita:
We did some apartment hunting, and in the end, we moved into a house that had once been the home for the band Naked Thru Utah. They were originally Spindrift on campus, they became Naked Thru Utah. One of the band members was an artist and painted a mural of Utah in the living room, and that remained there while we were there and probably several occupants later because it's pretty cool. When the band disbanded, one of the band members, Shane McLaughlin live there with another friend Chael Christopher, and they let us know that they were ... they and another roommate were moving out of the house.
Danita:
We just needed rooms for three, so we moved into the house. The move was beautiful. It was just well choreographed, even without being choreographed. I showed up from Memphis with my moving van and my parents. Shane and Chael and Melissa and Ekwi were all there to help unload the van and put everything in the house and then, Shane and Chael put all their stuff in the van with my dad and drove to their new place in Somerville. They hung out with my dad and drink a couple of beers and then, eventually my dad came back to the house that I was moving into where my mom was waiting for him. "Everett, where were you? Oh, I was just hanging out with the guys."
Danita:
My dad like my Holy Cross friends and they liked my dad, my mom too. So it worked out beautifully and I've another Holy Cross friend who was like a son to my father too, Kona Khasu and Mark LaFlamme. My dad considered them his sons but that's the beauty of those relationships. You develop and that's how I moved back to Boston and it all began with a phone call from Tina Chen.
Meah:
Wow. So that's a lot. That's like exciting. So you're really given ... Holy Cross never forgets the students and I think that's awesome, because you know what I mean, it could be years after you've already started your early profession, and you get a phone call from someone from Holy Cross and now you're in Boston. I think that's so exciting. So what did you do while you were in Boston?
Danita:
While in Boston, I work for an organization called the Boston Private Industry Council and it's a nonprofit, nearly 50 years old and it connects individuals in the community to jobs and experiences in the mainstream economy. It is the convener of the public private partnership in the community. It connects the corporate sector, the big corporations in Boston with at least one school in the community. So to some degree, it was a bit of corporate relations once again, for me and a little bit of education. I had the privilege of working at Charlestown High School and working through that partnership, stewarding that relationship with Liberty Mutual, with Bain, with Thomson Financial Services.
Danita:
Bringing in additional partners to work with the students in the school and otherwise support the school in its various needs, as public schools tend to have. In my work with the Boston Private Industry Council and at Charlestown High, I had the privilege of meeting a young man named Janniver Castro, a bright young man. I encouraged him to consider Holy Cross, which he did. He applied and he was accepted and he graduated in 2004. It was amazing to have the opportunity to send someone to Holy Cross, so soon after I had graduated from Holy Cross and oddly enough, he had the same class dean. He had Dean Swigert as well.
Meah:
I think it's funny because I'm still at Holy Cross and I'm quick to tell like some of my high school friends and even my younger sister, I'm like, make sure you find Holy Cross. She's literally going into her sophomore year. I'm like, don't forget, because Holy Cross is the place. So what came after your experience in Boston? I feel like we're just walking through all the amazing experiences you had so I must ask.
Danita:
Sure. Sure. Eventually, I did return to Memphis after a number of years in Boston. I returned to Memphis and around that same time, my father was diagnosed with cancer. So, it was really important for me to be at home, but it also seemed like it was time for me to be at home, like fate had a hand in my returning to Memphis because around the time that I was visiting Memphis, visiting my parents, I discovered an opening at an organization called the Urban Art Commission, also a nonprofit organization and the mission of the Urban Art Commission is the proliferation of public art and design throughout the Memphis and Shelby County community.
Danita:
There was a need for someone who had an education, background and arts background and a fundraising background to once again, oversee securing grants and support for some of the projects that would be created by the artists in the community. I interviewed for the position. I accepted the position and worked with that organization, supporting artists and as they filled the space in a beautiful way throughout the Memphis community. It was a dynamic and exciting position and I must admit, working with so many artists in their installations and pursuing large pieces of art, I mean, huge pieces.
Danita:
That inspired me to want to make my own large pieces and installations and that was part of the impetus for me to return to graduate school, at that time in my life, after being out of college for so many years, I realized a tremendous desire to immerse myself in a creative community, creating art and solving problems visually for three years in a row. So that's when I made the leap and did go to graduate school at the University of Mississippi.
Meah:
That's so exciting. I know I keep asking what's next but I just feel like everything just stems from your like, one, your passion with art, your passion with Holy Cross, your connections with Holy Cross. It's kind of phenomenal when you really think about it and I'm sorry about your father as well, I should mention that.
Danita:
Thank you.
Meah:
After your time in Memphis and Mississippi, what came next after that?
Danita:
Before I get to what came next, I need to take a step back. One of the first large installations that I remember, that was finalized and unveiled during my time with the Urban Art Commission was created by an artist named Vito Acconci. The late Vito Acconci, studied at the College of the Holy Cross in the 60s and I believe he wasn't an art major, because there wasn't an art major at the time but he created his own special studies. So he was technically the first art major at the College of the Holy Cross and I had the opportunity of meeting him in Memphis during my work with the Urban Art Commission. Holy Cross is out wherever you go.
Meah:
Yeah. Holy Cross is spread over ... all over the world map, it seems like to me and not only the US map but everywhere.
Danita:
It is true. That is true. To respond to your question, what was next? What was next after graduate school, I knew that I wanted to return to work in nonprofit management and philanthropy. Philanthropy and service were still critical to my life. Interestingly enough, while I was in graduate school, I was approached by the director of the Holy Cross fund at that time, Gary Carskaddan and invited to become my class's co-chair. It was the perfect time to do so because I was in graduate school, I was busy but it was nice to have an opportunity to serve my college in a different way, especially while I was on another campus and feeling connected to the academic experience.
Danita:
Even though it wasn't a Holy Cross, I was on a college campus and I became my class's co-chair in 2006, with Amanda Robichaud at the time. It helped me to reconsider and hone my skills in philanthropy and consider my next direction for after graduate school. I decided not to become a teacher. The masters of fine art, the MFA is the terminal degree in the art field and with that degree, you could become a college professor. I considered it but again, education is important, realizing that securing the resources for education can really change more lives than being in the classroom. For me, that was powerful and effective.
Danita:
So I decided to return to work in philanthropy. I considered returning to the Massachusetts area. I thought about Chicago, other cities and I decided to move to Baltimore. Baltimore might seem a little farfetched after my experiences in Memphis, in Massachusetts, in Chicago. How did I select Baltimore? Well, in Memphis, I met a young man and a wonderful young man, I should say, named Emerson Wickwire. He was kind and interesting and a graduate of a Jesuit school, Boston College. He was in a fellowship program at Johns Hopkins University. It was a one year fellowship that turned into a two year fellowship. While he was in his fellowship program, and I was in graduate school, we would travel together.
Danita:
We would see one another at least once a month, but if one of us had a conference or another event, the other one would go along and we would spend time together traveling in that way. I had traveled to Holy Cross for the class co-chairs and correspondents meeting in November of 2008 and Emerson came with me and on the lawn of the Jesuit residence, overlooking Wheeler, oddly enough, he asked me to marry him.
Meah:
My god. That's like a movie scene.
Danita:
It was like a movie scene indeed. It was a complete surprise, poor Emerson had ... he had this ring burning a hole in his pocket and he was nervous and he was anxious. We were on the Holy Cross campus together for the first time and I had so many stories to tell him. I would not stop telling stories long enough for him to pop the question, so to speak. Eventually, I took a breath and he was able to ask me to marry him and I said, yes. We attended the class co-chair's dinner that night and I introduced him to people as my fiance. I still remember Gary Carskaddan was so cute. He said, "Wait a minute. Danita, we spoke this morning, you said your boyfriend was coming with you."
Danita:
"So what has happened in the last few hours," and shared the ring, told him the story and that was how and when and where our engagement began and our beautiful journey as man and wife, all started at Holy Cross and that is how I decided to move to Baltimore, where I still live.
Meah:
First of all, that's awesome. I feel like that's like a movie scene, like you guys could be in some like scene or something but that timeframe, obviously, was during the recession. So how did you connect with people, navigate life, build a new community in Baltimore being that it was really ... never been a place you then been at prior to that experience?
Danita:
That is true, Baltimore was a completely new city, a new environment. Emerson had been here for two years. At that time, he had a cousin who lived here and he made some friends, made some connections at Johns Hopkins but he was largely focused on his academic career. So you will see this, Meah. When you're in graduate school, you will not make as many friends as you do when you're an undergraduate because you're focused so much more on your studies. So that being said, I didn't make as many friends in graduate school. He had a small and growing network as well, but I was able to tap into the Holy Cross network when I moved here. Gary Carskaddan, introduced me to a woman at Loyola University who introduced me to a number of people, who introduced me to others.
Danita:
Julia Galleazi-Lapan lived here. She worked at Loyola, and later worked at Johns Hopkins. She introduced me to a number of people and Baltimore is a charm city, people are very friendly here. Philanthropy is also known for attracting people who have a sense of kindness and a sense of giving and a desire to help others. So, as I met more and more people who worked in philanthropy, they were willing to introduce me to even more people in philanthropy. I was able to create and build a network quickly based upon a foundation of a Holy Cross Network and a few connections.
Danita:
My first position was with an organization called CCS Fundraising. Oddly enough, the individual with whom I spoke first was in the CCS office in New York but it was Sean O'Connor, who was a '92 graduate of College of the Holy Cross. That helped to confirm my first position where I worked for five years and I've been with Johns Hopkins University for the last five years. I enjoyed my work in consulting. I enjoyed working to advance a number of different missions, but focusing on one mission was critical to me. That was something that I wanted to do and I knew I wanted to, once again, focus on higher education fundraising, especially for a larger institution.
Danita:
The mission of Johns Hopkins truly resonated with me, educating others and cultivating lifelong learning, supporting original research and the service aspect, sharing that knowledge with the world. That spoke to me in so many ways and I wanted to be a part of advancing that mission.
Meah:
That's awesome. So, just a little bit more in speaking about the mission, so how does the Johns Hopkins mission, even in your previous roles, align with your own personal missions and what you see in a profession, what you really ... what motivates you to go to work, what motivates you to really dive deeper and do what you're supposed to for Johns Hopkins and the other organizations you work for in the past?
Danita:
I've always had the fortune of ... good fortune, I should say, of working for many education organizations and arts organizations. Education is critical to the work of the Jesuits. That's part of the appeal of the Jesuits for me and promoting and advancing education, ensuring that education is accessible to more in the community or a better education is accessible to individuals and groups in the community, that has always been important to me and that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. To be able to support a mission. To be able to do great work, the small work that helps to bring forth the resources necessary, so that others can have access to high quality educational experiences both the traditional classroom learning and the experiential learning. That can help connect what someone's going to do when they finish high school, college, graduate school, to what they are doing in the classroom.
Danita:
Education has always been key for me and my family, and the Jesuits, and the work that I do, and I think now, specifically in my work at Johns Hopkins of the recent Bloomberg gift, the 1.8 million dollars for undergraduate aid was a phenomenal gift. We don't think about it as just a number. That's part of the beauty of working in philanthropy for an extended period.
Danita:
You don't think about the money, you think about what the resources can do. How they can affect others. With that gift, Johns Hopkins education is now within reach for so many families who couldn't have thought of sending their children to Johns Hopkins University. They're going to receive a tremendous education and the additional support that they need to stay in school and pursue their dreams as students and after they graduate, and having played a small role in the work to secure that gift is truly meaningful and heartwarming for me. It's always nice to know that what you are doing, will change someone's life for the better, that you will affect change in individuals and communities and make this world a better place.
Meah:
I love that. I love how you don't look at it as a simple dollar sign but instead what that dollar sign can do for students in Johns Hopkins, pursuing Johns Hopkins and even their life outside of Johns Hopkins, so that's awesome. Everyone listening can assume you've been really in touch with the Holy Cross community during your time at Holy Cross, shortly after your time at Holy Cross and even to the present day, so what do you do with Holy Cross currently?
Danita:
Well, Meah, I have the wonderful opportunity of now, spending time with students such as you, an informal mentoring and engagement. I'm also a member of the college's board of advisors. I am still my class's fundraising co-chair. I have a new co-chair now. He's been my partner in this work for the last three years, Matt Dudley, who was actually one of the first people I met, freshman year. I'm also a member of the Bishop Healy Committee. Additionally, I find myself working on a few independent grassroots projects and I really appreciate it that the staff at Holy Cross supports and partners with me and some of these efforts. In the spring, when the ALANA, an international student baccalaureate was zoom bombed by a horrible sign of hatred and fear. I was crushed, to know what happened.
Danita:
To see what happened and I moved quickly to work with other alumni to create messages for those students who had that horrible experience in their penultimate day as Holy Cross students, their last night on campus, that was their experience after being sent home for remote learning due to the pandemic. I knew they needed something, some outreach, some message they could keep with them. So 50 other alumni partnered with me to create brief messages of support, that were curated into one virtual hug, so to speak and sent to all of the 2020 ALANA and international graduates in June. Then, I count my blessings that so many alumni were willing to come forth and partner with me in that project.
Danita:
I also count my blessings that members of the staff and administration were supportive and allowed me to pursue that project. It was completely a grassroots effort and not from any organized group, just people who care and that's another part of the beauty of the Holy Cross community, people who care.
Meah:
I agree. Just the little things, the thoughtfulness, recognizing someone ... Yeah, I mean, these times are hard, what can we do as Holy Cross alumni speaking from your perspective, so you know better the situation. So that virtual hug must have been awesome and very touching in a sense.
Danita:
It was. It was an interesting final production, it was long, it's about 30 minutes long and no one complained that it was too long fortunately. It might have felt long, but in the message that I drafted to be sent to the graduates now, I encouraged them to play part of it, whenever they wanted to hear a few words of encouragement, if ever they felt down or lonely just to play a couple of videos for five minutes or whatever their favorites might be.
Meah:
Right and I remember when we first met BSU 50 and shortly after, getting into each other's email inboxes, you often had a lot of motivational and small things to send off to like a few people. So I know those little things, put a smile on people's faces and I personally got to experience that from you early on in our mentor-mentee relationship, so I appreciate that.
Danita:
You're welcome. You're welcome. It's a privilege and an honor to pass it on. When I was a student, there were alumni who came back for us, who spent time with us who spoke to us. I remember an alum, I think her name was Michelle. She came back to my dorm with me to see my artwork and I was so flattered that someone wanted to come to my messy dorm room in Clark to see my artwork. Ted Wells came back and spoke to us our freshman year, and told us of his experience. He encouraged us to give back as a means of staying in touch with the next generation of inspiring and influencing the next generation, and making a real difference at the college.
Danita:
If there were aspects of the college that we wanted to touch, we would need to be engaged and stay engaged in some way and not just criticize from a distance and hope that someone would hear our thoughts.
Meah:
Right, right. As our time comes to an end, I think it's really worth noting that through these unprecedented times, the Holy Cross alumni, specifically the Holy Cross BSU alumni have been really supportive of myself and even current students. So, I just want to thank you, Danita and the rest of the alum for really building these connections during these six months and continuing to build these connections as our lives are drastically different. So on behalf of students, again, thank you. I enjoyed a lot of happy hour, being able to laugh and talk with you guys, share our experiences and really get to connect deeper.
Meah:
I don't know if you want to touch upon that a little bit but I know I'm certainly grateful for those experiences.
Danita:
Meah, you are certainly welcome, you and the other students. It's really something that has been created for all of us to keep us connected. So thank you for participating and bringing other students to the conversations that we have every other week. This pandemic has been a very difficult time for so many, the social distance as it was called and it was social distance for a while, that we needed to find new ways to connect and interact. Now, that we've done so through Zoom and other means, it's physical distance but we are connected and having those conversations every two weeks were something to look for. A means of connecting and interacting and embracing normal, so to speak.
Danita:
The normal that we once knew and developing new relationships, because the alums who participate go as far back as the early 70s, up to the class of 2019. So we didn't all know one another before we started having these conversations together every other week and then, the side conversations that come out of that. In particular, having black alumni and students come together in late May and June, when we began to realize the unrest in the communities and the racial reckoning, that is again, at the forefront of so many conversations. It has been critical to have so many generations together to talk about what has happened in the past, what worked in the past.
Danita:
What patterns they have seen? What patterns we have seen, and how to determine the path forward so that this moment can be a movement, so that our actions will not just be transactional but transformational. That's been a core point of the conversations because it's time for change in our communities. In changing our community, we will change the larger community as a whole. Everyone needs to survive and succeed, for all of us to truly know joy and happiness in our worlds.
Meah:
I couldn't agree more. So Danita, what exactly is next for you?
Danita:
Meah, what's next? I'm actually moving in a new direction and my efforts to affect change in individual lives and communities. To be perfectly frank, in October, due to the challenges faced by Johns Hopkins University, the fiscal challenges presented by students not returning this fall, some really difficult cuts were made and my position was one of 114 positions to be eliminated. My last day was in November, which was hard and difficult, but I had already started to think about, to your point, what's next and an area that I had not explored fully but an area of interest for me was the climate and conservation. A couple of years ago, after Hurricane Michael was so devastating in many communities across the south, I was just stunned into a need to do something, to do something more than what I had done.
Danita:
Recycling wasn't enough. I began observing, and then my family started to observe Meatless Mondays as a way to reduce our carbon footprint by eating less meat on Mondays and at some times in the year, we just go completely plant based on Mondays. Even with that, I realized that my personal efforts were not enough. It's kind of like being a teacher versus raising money for the teachers to do their work to be effective in the classroom. In a similar way, wanting to contribute to the efforts in support of saving our climate and greater conservation. I wanted an opportunity to link my personal concern with the concern and commitment of others, and the actions of a respected and effective organization.
Danita:
Fortunately for me, I knew someone who was working in such an organization, the National Audubon Society and that was Sean O'Connor, who was the chief development officer as well as a graduate of a class in '92, I mentioned him earlier with CCS. We had started some preliminary casual conversations, even before I had lost ... before my position was eliminated at Johns Hopkins and I looked at Audubon, and the position as a dynamic opportunity to join a well-respected organization with expertise, credibility and a vast network of influencers and activists. Starting in four weeks, I will be the vice president of principal giving for National Audubon Society.
Danita:
I'm very excited to join the team. I get to work with the leadership and the development team and others in the organization to confirm transformational support that will facilitate increased and sustained change for the climate for conservation, for the birds and their habitats. For those of us who share the greater habitat of the birds, we human beings, Audubon is about the birds but I understand and believe and many others do, too, that if the birds are doing okay, everything else will be doing okay, including we human beings. So I'm really excited to do something different and something important that will again, improve lives in so many ways.
Danita:
I'm thrilled to join Sean's team. It's been more than 20 years since I've worked directly with a Holy Cross person, one who shares the Holy Cross values and I'm thrilled for this next new adventure. I will continue to work in education of course, not professionally but as a volunteer with Holy Cross. I have made some great new volunteer friendships with Ron Lawson, Schone Malliet, Payton Schubrick, Harry Thomas, Steve Lovelette through my work on the board and Bishop Healy and other activities in the volunteer leadership and will continue to work with those great individuals and those terrific activities.
Danita:
I will continue to be involved in the arts as an artist, and in my work as a board member for AEMS, A-E-M-S, which is Arts Education in Maryland Schools, which supports ensuring that all public school children in Maryland have access to quality arts and education activities. So I'll keep up with the arts and the education but I'm adding climate and conservation and the birds to my activities, and I'm excited, I'm really excited.
Meah:
Hey, that's awesome. That's awesome and exciting. I don't really have anything else to say except thank you, Danita. Thank you for everyone for tuning in. This has been awesome. Danita, obviously, we'll probably talk shortly after this. Thank you everyone and I hope you all have a good time in quarantine. Thanks for tuning in.
Danita:
Thank you, Meah.
Maura:
That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others.
A special thanks to today's guests, and everyone at Holy Cross that contributed to making this podcast a reality.
If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review.
This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast.
I'm your host Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission Driven.
In the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire."
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Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.