Early Mount memories Professors look back with fondness
Above: Arts and Letters veterans James Beard, Sr. Catherine Walsh (bottom right), and Irene Nunnari (bottom left) circa the mid-1980s.
D
edicated. Unforgettable. Iconic. For alumni of Mount Saint Mary College, that’s the only way to describe seminal faculty members like James Beard, professor emeritus of Communication Arts; Sr. Catherine Walsh OP ’70, professor emerita of Communication Arts; Louis Fortunato, professor emeritus of Accounting; and Andrea Ackermann, professor emerita of Nursing. Before their retirement, these four professors tenured a total of more than 110 years of service to the college. Their devotion to their students, their profession, and the Mount are outstanding. Recently, they shared some of their favorite memories of the Mount.
The early days Beard and Sr. Walsh joined the Mount family in the early 1980s. The campus, they noted, was quite different back then: Hudson Hall served as the Jewish Community Center, Sakac Hall and the Elaine and William Kaplan Recreation Center didn’t exist yet, and the Dominican Center had not yet become part of the college. Casa San José – which had served as an elementary school many years ago, and later as office space – was still standing near Guzman Hall. “The facilities were not what we have now,” explained Sr. Walsh. “However, it was a place with an emphasis on student success and involvement. Programs were growing or straining to grow. Space was a big issue; office space and student space. But we managed. Yes,
16
MOUNT SAINT MARY COLLEGE MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2022
we whined, but we kept at the mission. I was always amazed at the dedication of all.” Around that time, it was not uncommon for faculty members in different fields to share the same office suites. For example, Joan Miller from Education – now a professor emerita herself – was stationed in the same wing as Arts and Letters. One day the college’s power went out, Sr. Walsh said, and “offices without windows were in complete darkness. Well, those of us with windows still came out to chat, but there was Joan Miller in a very dark office correcting papers to the light of her cigarette. Yes, smoking was allowed in the building then. We joked with Joan about her dedication.” Ackermann joined the Mount faculty right before the turn of the century in 1999 – nearly a decade before the Mathematics, Science, and Technology (MST) addition to Aquinas Hall was built and about 15 years before the Dominican Center would host the Kaplan Family Library. While the college had grown significantly since the decade of Ronald Reagan, The Golden Girls, and Pac-Man, when she started, things on campus were still a bit cozy. “The college was smaller then,” Ackermann said. “Our enrollment was fewer as well, which gave me more time with each student. We also had less equipment, labs, and technology back then, too. My first office was in the Villa attic.” There were, however, some advantages to having a smaller campus. Beard noted that the