Ten minutes before he was scheduled to present, Olabisi Nard ‘20 looked down and said, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this.” In 10 short minutes, the now-empty room would be filled with an audience of faculty and his fellow students, all eager to hear him speak. “You’ve come too far to give up now,” I told him. “Just cross the finish line.” He was the last of my students to give his final presentation this year, and, although I knew he was ready, I also knew that what he needed was to feel ready. I just hoped my last-minute pep talk would be enough. Like all Holy Cross College students, Olabisi’s college career was about to come to a close with his Capstone presentation. Unlike most, however, he wouldn’t be giving his presentation in the conference room at the Pfeil Center, and he wouldn’t be wearing a suit and tie. Instead, Olabisi stood at a battered table-top podium in a khaki jumpsuit, the walls were faded and pitted, and the windows fitted with prison bars. Also very unlike traditional Holy Cross students, Olabisi had been serving time almost as long as the average Saint has been alive. But like all Saints, this one short presentation was all that stood in the way of his graduation. Olabisi was one of my students in the Moreau College Initiative (MCI) at Westville Correctional Facility. Although the students in MCI are fully Holy Cross students, and their names are on the same honor roll sheets and commencement programs as the students
Liberated Minds by Justin McDevitt, J.D., M.A.
Instructor, Moreau College Initiative Senior Capstone and Career Internship Director at the main campus, they are still faced with constant reminders that theirs is a different road to walk to graduation. For example, while there are a small library and computer lab among the cluster of drafty classrooms at Westville, our students have no access to the internet, email or printers. All of the students’ assignments and papers are submitted either
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HOLY CROSS COLLEGE Connections | WINTER 2020
