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A Profile in Courage Nelba Márquez-Greene ’97 finds strength in love, community, and connection Nelba Márquez-Greene ’97 exudes strength. You can see it as she speaks to audiences across the country, bearing witness as the mother of 6-yearold Ana Grace Márquez-Greene, who was killed at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School with 19 other first-graders and six staff members in December 2012. Márquez-Greene accepts a dozen or so speaking requests a year, she says. You can read it in her poignant writings on grief and gun violence in national and local publications and in the inspired wisdom she shares with thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter. You can feel it at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in New Britain, where, in an office painted a warm purple—Ana Grace’s favorite color— Márquez-Greene directs the community advancement division, a job she has held since November 2020. A licensed marriage and family therapist, MárquezGreene can point to many reservoirs of strength, including a solid family and her unwavering faith. Still, it is her community, she says, that has helped her define it. “I definitely was one of those moms who said if anything were to happen to one of my children, I’d die,” she admits. “We say those things, but what I think is
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important—and what I’ve learned—is that one of the reasons you go on is because of your community. The University of Hartford has played an integral role in that community from the very beginning, from allowing us to host Ana’s reception there to many of my classmates and professors—former professors and current professors there now—supporting our work in one way or another.” Márquez-Greene; her husband, saxophonist Jimmy Greene ’97; and son, Isaiah, have channeled their grief and gratefulness for the outpouring of support they have received since the Sandy Hook tragedy into many uplifting projects. Greene’s Beautiful Life albums are a tribute to Ana Grace. His new album, While Looking Up, was released earlier this year. A playground in Hartford’s Elizabeth Park, paid for by the Where Angels Play Foundation, also memorializes Ana Grace. The “forever home” of the CREC Ana Grace Academy of the Arts Elementary School is scheduled to open in Bloomfield later this year. Perhaps the dearest memorial, though, is the Ana Grace Project, which Márquez-Greene founded in collaboration with the Klingberg Family Centers in 2013. With the slogan “Love Wins,” the project’s first conference on creating stronger communities took place at the University of Hartford’s Lincoln Theater.
