Greetings Holy Cross students!As the academic year 20-21 begins, I extend to you a warm and enthusiastic welcome! To our returning Saints, welcome back to campus after months of attending class remotely during the spring semester. Welcome to our HoCro first year students and transfer students as you embark upon an educational journey in a unique academic community, a journey in the contemporary liberal arts, rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition. Welcome, also, to Gateway 8.0! You are the eighth generation of Holy Cross students invited by Notre Dame to enroll in a unique one year honors experience as a member of the Holy Cross community. As I begin my fourth year as president, I reflect upon the zeal and grit of Brother John Driscoll, our founder, who fashioned an academic experience that focused upon helping Holy Cross students gain the next level of their educational aspirations. He did so by modeling for them the necessity of hard work, his own personal grit and the benefits of serious diligence and perseverance, virtues that play out within a supportive communal and intellectual environment.Holy Cross students participate in the tri-campus community. Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross share a common “educational DNA” rooted in the apostolic educational traditions of the Holy Cross priests, Holy Cross sisters and the Holy Cross brothers going back to the mid-19th century. This community presents a vast array of opportunities at every level of life from the academic to the spiritual and social. Undoubtedly, the unusual circumstances that face us due to COVID-19 will place boundaries and conditions upon some of our extra-curricular activity. Nonetheless, that should not diminish the quality and importance of these experiences of university and college life in 46556.We are thrilled to have the Saints back home, and we are happy for the arrival of our newest members! In closing, let us commit ourselves as individuals and as a community to ensuring a safe and healthy environment. Let us be proactive in assisting one another to do so. We commit to this for Holy Cross, and we commit to this for our colleagues and friends at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s. Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Fr. David Tyson
president, Holy Cross
Aug. 2
