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A tool we use on a daily basis, and oftentimes, take for granted, is our voice. Speaking is a very complex action, and it reaches across many concentrations and disciplines. “Speech isn’t just molecules and muscles and airwaves. Speech is beautiful. Speech is used as an art form. It can invoke feelings of joy and sadness, and it’s an amazing tool that we have,” Professor Michele Lemons said.

On February 4th, in Curtis Performance Hall, Professors Alison Myette, Margaret “Peggy” Tartaglia, Michele Lemons, and David Thoreen spoke about voice, speech, and song in a Foundations Lecture titled “The Discovery of Sound and the Human Voice.” English Professor Rachel Ramsey was the moderator.

Professor Myette, who teaches Health and Human Services, began the lecture by defining speech. “Speech is a primary mode of communication. It allows us to take some ideas or thoughts that we have in our brain and transfer those thoughts or ideas into the brains of other humans that are around us,” Myette said.

She then explained that speech relies on five body systems. The respiratory system gives us the breath and energy we need for speaking. The phonatory system, or voice box, causes the vocal folds to vibrate. The articulatory system filters and shapes “the sound wave into distinct phonemes, or speech sounds.” The auditory system listens and judges the speech. And the nervous system controls all these systems.

With all of these systems working together, speech and sound is created. “Sound is a pressure wave that is created by a sound source. And that sound source is gonna disturb air particles. That disturbance of the air particles is gonna carry acoustic energy from the sound source to across a space or across the environment…Your outer ear is going to capture that energy, funnel it down your ear canal, and the air particles that are right up against your eardrum are going to vibrate…,” Myette said.

Michele Lemons is a Biology Professor who specializes in neuroscience. She explained that when the cochlea, a fluid-filled structure in the inner ear, is struck, the hair cells inside the cochlea send signals through the auditory nerve, which then goes into the brain. The outer part of the cochlea responds to high frequency sounds, while the cells in the middle and apex part of the cochlea respond to low frequency sounds. This is called the cochlea’s tonotopic map.

“The brain also has a tonotopic map where cells on the right, they’re super sensitive to really high frequency, high pitch sounds. Conversely, the cells that are as particularly excited by low frequency sounds are on the left…this is how we just hear sounds in general,” Lemons said.

PET scans of the left side of the brain highlighted the different areas of the brain that we use when we listen and speak. “When someone’s just listening or hearing words, we see a lot of activity in the superior temporal gyrus. Now, look how this pattern changes when the same patient is asked to generate words. We see a lot of activity in the frontal lobe corresponding to Broca’s area amongst others,” Lemons said.

David Thoreen is a Professor of English at Assumption, and prior to reading his poem titled “Shuttle,” he discussed how writers pay attention to sound. Thoreen spoke about alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, and slant rhyme.

“If we reach back to Emily Dickinson for our first contemporary poet, who’s keenly interested in slant rhyme words like, “crimp cramp,” where there’s been some little alteration of the echo. I think of slant rhymes as playing with the echoes of language,” Thoreen said.

Professor Tartaglia, or Professor T. as her students call her, teaches voice and vocal health classes. She discussed some of the differences between speaking and singing. “Speaking, we focus on clear words, fast communication. Singing, We focus on sound quality (and “pitches and lengths of phrases”) and emotional impact.”

Professor T. concluded the lecture by talking about the many ways one can take care of their voice. People should maintain the health of their body by exercising, eating a good diet, getting plenty of rest, and using good posture. In order for our vocal folds and tissues to properly function, one should also stay hydrated. Professor T. also encouraged getting into the habit of warming up and cooling down the voice. Limit uses of caffeine and alcohol, and avoid smoking and vaping, as those can restrict and damage your voice.

Staff Writer

This article is a partial retelling of the lecture of the same name and a partial student reflection of the topics discussed. A full recording of the event is available on Assumption’s Vimeo page.

This year is the 250th anniversary of English novelist Jane Austen’s birth. In commemoration of Austen this semester, a 300-level “Novels of Jane Austen” class is being taught by Prof. Rachel Ramsey and several events relating to her work are being held on campus.

A few of these events were hosted by CTEQ, Assumption’s liberal arts program, including one from the Fortin-Gonthier lecture series called “Self Knowledge and the Pursuit of Happiness,” held on October 16th. Professor Dustin Gish, the guest speaker of the evening, came from the University of Houston to give the lecture to a mixed group of students, alumni, and professors.

“Jane Austen rewards close reading,” he began, as he introduced the question of what it means to be a good reader. In general, Austen’s novels explore what it means to read situations and people, and what kind of education an accurate and even insightful reading requires.

Her heroines begin in a state of “wilful self-deception,” which blinds them to the truth both about themselves and others.

Towards the middle, the heroine’s love interest reveals an uncomfortable truth which makes her reconsider her most closely-held beliefs. After experiencing a painful metamorphosis from this circumstantial education, the heroine emerges at the end as a humbled and improved reader, who ends up marrying the man who helped her to grow in erudition of the world.

“Austen does not use her novels to teach us,” observed Dr. Gish. Instead, she merely provides us readers with a story which is meant to inspire self-reflection. She appears to believe that conventional teaching itself does not provide the student with a formational education.

Gish mentioned a conversation in “Pride and Prejudice” wherein the heroine Elizabeth says to her sister Jane, “we all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.”

Through Elizabeth, Austen criticizes the typical education of her period, where every respectable household’s daughters were expected to be taught by a governess, who would teach them history, music (typically from a keyboard instrument like the piano), drawing, and other facts or practical skills in high society. Gish remarked that these are good skills to have, however they lack the more profound wisdom that Austen believes constitutes a true education.

A true education, the things that we cannot teach but that are “worth knowing,” comes from a person’s own reflections about life experiences. This education enlightens a person to a sense of good morality, justice, judgment, and philosophic understanding.

Dr. Gish made the apt comparison of true reading (i.e. “reading” events that happen in the world) to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. A person only frees himself through a painful and reluctant crawl towards the light at the exit of the cave.

The cave itself is comfortable. The prisoners’ complacency makes them wish to content themselves in their blissful ignorance and remain in the cave.

It takes a herculean effort to emerge from these “depths of wilful self-deception,” and in Austen’s novels, this emergence is rather forced upon the main characters than it is willingly and enthusiastically undertaken.

In the beginning of “Pride and Prejudice,” Elizabeth is depicted as a judgemental reader––‘judgemental’ not in a completely accurate way, but in a prejudiced way, where her first impressions govern all of her subsequent interpretations of characters and events.

In this light, it would make sense why the originally intended title of the novel was “First Impressions.” Dr. Gish discussed how Elizabeth’s first impression of Mr. Darcy skewed her view of the truth not only about Mr. Darcy, but also about others (for instance, Mr. Wickham).

Towards the middle of the novel, Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth not knowing her indignation about the things he has done. She rejects him and reprimands him––a shock to Darcy who thinks so highly of himself, rich and well-connected as he is, as to expect anyone to accept his proposal.

The very next day, Mr. Darcy presents a letter to Elizabeth to explain the circumstances and his motivations which she had misinterpreted. “I demand it of your justice,” says Mr. Darcy, upon handing her the letter. Elizabeth, disgusted by Darcy’s character, is disinclined to read the letter at first, but she is bound by something greater than herself––justice.

Gish reminded the audience that her reading and rereading of the letter uproots the unjust prejudices she maintains.

Elizabeth visibly struggles to reconcile with Mr. Darcy’s strong yet well-reasoned contradictions to Elizabeth’s preconceived notions of the truth; it is a struggle against her whole self, especially regarding her attachment to her wrong depiction of the truth. In order to comprehend correctly, she needs to reorient herself away from that object of falsehood.

After reading the letter, when she realizes the extent to which she had been wrong, Elizabeth exclaims, “How humiliating is this discovery!––Yet, how just a humiliation!…I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself.”

Dr. Gish called Mr. Darcy’s letter the “mirror” before which Elizabeth could self-reflect.Yet he also noted how Darcy himself, through the aid of Elizabeth’s just reproach of his action, undergoes a similar self-transformation.

To use Gish’s words, Elizabeth’s reproach prompts Darcy to “explain himself to himself.” It appears that Darcy, like Elizabeth, also ‘never knew himself.’

One might expect that after these characters make amends for their mistakes, they would no longer err in their newly-informed interpretations. Yet, as Gish pointed out in the lecture, they continue to misconstrue themselves and others.

After Elizabeth witnesses Darcy’s transformation and develops a deep admiration for him, she doubts that he will ever propose to her again. In the attempt to avoid self-deception, Elizabeth still deceives herself. She has reoriented herself to another falsehood.

At the end of the novel, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth do get married, which proves Elizabeth wrong that Darcy would not propose a second time. Dr. Gish made the intriguing claim that the mutual concern for self-reflection brings about conjugal felicity.

Darcy and Elizabeth are both wrong about themselves and others in different ways, and their outside observation helps them to guide each other towards the truth.

Even more compelling is the probability that Darcy and Elizabeth somehow fell in love with each other against their will. During the rejection scene of the first proposal, Darcy relates to Elizabeth how he had fallen in love with her against his reason and his inclination, for she was of a far lower class than him, and her connections were embarrassing.

Yet he could not get over the intelligence of ‘those fine eyes’ of hers.

It is possible that Darcy and Elizabeth’s love of the truth brings them together. They work together, unknowingly at first, to help each other gain a better self understanding which enables them to view the world with more clarity.

Only after this enlightenment do they realize that their love for each other is more than just their love for each other. They are bound together by the truth and their ability to view it rightly.

Gish advanced his argument, saying that the couple is brought together, perhaps forcibly, by Divine Providence. Elizabeth and Darcy do not love each other just for each other, but for something far more significant than themselves––something which Austen never explicitly mentions.

This marriage, Gish commented, is also a sign of Darcy and Elizabeth’s possessing equality in superiority, i.e., that the extent to which they are superior is the same.

The other couples in the novel are by some degrees more blind or avoidant of the truth––Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are constantly squabbling about nonsense, Mrs. Collins avoids Mr. Collins like the plague, Mr. Wickham despairs of the irresponsible and infatuated Mrs. Wickham, and even Mr. and Mrs. Bingley (who love each other dearly) both view the world with too much docility and kindness to paint a realistic picture of events that happen.

Gish’s argument about the newly-wed Darcys’ equality in superiority is one not merely about their happiness; it is most importantly about their ability to grow in the understanding of the truth through conversation.

Gish concluded that ultimately, these characters’ prospects in happiness depend on Divine Providence, which alone initiates the reorientation from self-deception to self-knowledge.

The talk was well-appreciated by the audience and was followed by several questions, including ones about whether Mr. Bennet is a true philosopher, why Austen lacks good parental models in her novels, how thumos and eros operate in the story, and what the distinction is between what is simply “knowing” and what is truly “worth knowing.”

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Healthcare is so much more than just an essential field, it’s a vocational one. “When I went to college, I kind of wanted to experience everything. I wanted to try as many classes as I possibly could. I wanted to try as many career paths as I needed to find the exact right one. And my heart always led me back to nursing, which is, I think, indicative of many, many nursing students. You have this immense desire to care for others,” said Sarah Barchi, who works at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham.

On Sept. 23, individuals from Tenet Health visited Assumption to speak to students who are interested in going into healthcare.

The panel consisted of Melissa Warwick-Schwarz, Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Saint Vincent Hospital, Andres Alvarez, Director of Nursing at Saint Vincent Hospital, Ellie Kalemkeridis, Grad recruiter for Tenet Healthcare, and Sarah Barchi, Director of Inpatient Nursing at MetroWest Medical Center. Assumption University senior Gabriel Corey was the moderator.

To those who are just starting out, there are many career and internship opportunities available in healthcare, including becoming a certified nursing assistant or a nurse’s aid.

“There’s also a lot of other positions for healthcare management students. We hire secretaries or unit coordinators, which are a little bit more on the non-clinical side, but still certainly involved in the healthcare field…there’s pretty much always opportunities in health care, regardless of whether actual patient care is your thing or not,” Barchi said.

“St. V’s, Metro West, have teams that specifically do marketing and community involvement. They do a lot with design and sort of all of the things that you see on our LinkedIn page…All of those things are posted by our marketing team and our public relations team. And then beyond that as well, there’s so many other positions through just Tenant Corporate as a whole, whether you want to stay in Massachusetts, work remotely, or interested in moving to a different state. I think we have well over, at this point, right under 100 surgical centers in hospitals across the US, so there’s so many opportunities, whether it’s within Massachusetts or even more broadly in the Tenant network,” Kalemkeridis said.

For aspiring nurses, the panel emphasized getting an externship, as that allows students to both gain experience and to find out what specific units they enjoy working for the most. They also suggested finding a mentor and networking. “For the non-clinical, I think internships are great. We do offer internships in different varieties…it’s really important to get out to the area of the field that you love and to actually go out and experience it because that will help you make decisions as you’re going through school,” Warwick-Schwarz said.

Kalemkeridis brought up the point that it’s fine if students aren’t sure what they’d like to pursue, but they should explore all their options through different opportunities. “It’s not always about your first choice and what you think you’re going to love because if you go into something with a tunnel view, that can oftentimes be really disappointing when you get there and you’re like ‘this is nothing like what I thought it was gonna be.’ So trying clubs, internships, if you don’t land your dream internship, that actually might be the best thing because you could find something that you actually didn’t think you would love. And in reality, you could land your dream internship and you end up really not liking it.”

Healthcare is constantly changing and growing, allowing new fields to always emerge. “AI and IT are absolutely sweeping into healthcare as they are within other fields. IT and nursing is incredibly important because the ability to take IT and translate it into nursing or vice versa is incredibly rare and challenging,” Barchi said.

“Radiology, anything radiology related. There’s non-invasive radiology, there’s  non-invasive cath lab, non-invasive vascular. There’s robotics now. I think radiology is a huge growing field. They’re coming out with all this amazing equipment that can detect things in such minute forms of any sort of cancer,” Warwick-Schwarz said.

“As far as the AI, obviously, the technology is very new, but some of the

things that we’re looking at is for advanced statistics…And another thing that they’re  developing for AI is the rapid readings of imaging,” Alvarez said.

With all of these new developments, those in the healthcare field must stay up to date with the latest news and trends. “They have journals which keep you up to date on all new technology that’s coming out, studies that they’ve done at other emergency rooms…I belong to certain organizations where they also have conferences for leadership where I can see innovation things that’s happening in nursing leadership and what other hospitals are doing,” Warwick-Schwarz said.

Of course, any career in healthcare is both valuable and demanding. “I think my biggest challenge, personally and professionally, is probably just the volume of the work. Every day there’s scheduling needs. There’s budgetary needs. There’s patient care needs. We have to make sure that we have enough staff on every shift and we have to make sure that that’s balanced. We have to make sure that every single patient is getting the best possible care…the only way to overcome that challenge is to work together,” Barchi said.

“I think it’s so important to really take care of yourself first. The old adage you can’t pour from an empty cup is one hundred percent applicable in nursing leadership,” she continued.

On top of all of the experiences and technical skills that one must learn, there are also many soft skills that are needed in healthcare. “I would say the biggest soft skill that you would need is compassion. Be kind. I always think that you don’t know what somebody else is going through. When I get yelled and screamed at by a patient, or they call me every name in the book sometimes, I know that they’re in bed, they’re sick, they’re not feeling well. You just have to learn to have compassion and to be kind,” Warwick-Schwarz said.

“We used to meet people at the worst times, whether it’s the patient or the family members, there’s an emergency that brought them to the hospital… Being open-minded, knowing that it’s the worst day, but you can make that worst day a little bit better,” Alvarez said.

“I think hard work and determination is really important. Everything that I’ve achieved in my life is because I’ve worked really hard for it. I studied really hard, I work really hard at work. I put a lot of effort into being a great nurse, into learning,” Barchi said.

The panel agreed that getting attached to patients can be difficult, but Warwick-Schwarz pointed out that Tenet Health also offers counseling for those who need it. “The most important thing as nurses is that we’re so tough and we take on everything that we forget to take care of ourselves and we forget to process our own emotions and feelings because you’re not human if you don’t feel for that patient that you got so close to. So I think that the one important thing is recognizing that ‘I think I need to talk to somebody about how I’m feeling about this.’ Because you’re the nurse, you’re the superwoman, you’re the one giving all the care, but you also need the care to give the care.”

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On September 10th, Professors Toby Norris, Ben Knurr, and Jeremy Geddert came together to speak about Joseph Wright of Derby’s 1768 painting “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” in a lecture titled “Discover Nature’s Secrets.” The discussion was moderated by English Professor Rachel Ramsey.

Dean Lee Trepanier opened the inaugural event of the Foundations Lecture Series to a full audience in Curtis Performance Hall. “This lecture brings together faculty from different disciplines to examine and discuss a common idea or theme, showcasing the interconnectedness of knowledge and modeling the virtues of a lifelong curiosity about the world around us. These public discussions highlight the need and relevance of a Catholic liberal arts education, one rooted in the foundation of the shared knowledge and enhanced by specialized study,” Trepanier said.

Professor Norris, who teaches Art History, began the discussion by talking about the life and historical significance of Joseph Wright of Derby. “…he was living and working in the second half of the 1700s. That’s to say, the moment at which the scientific revolution was feeding into the industrial revolution in England,” Norris said.

“…he was born in Derby, but he also lived and worked for most of his career in Derby. And that’s unusual because typically, if you were an ambitious artist, and Joseph Wright was an ambitious artist, you would end up moving to London. Like a lot of places, there’s this powerful magnetic appeal to go live in the capital city, but Joseph Wright of Derby chose not to and that’s why everybody called him Joseph Wright of Derby,” he continued.

Throughout Derby’s career, he painted a wide variety of paintings, including many portraits and some landscape paintings.  “…we have just a handful of paintings by him that represent scenes of the Industrial Revolution…And these paintings get a lot of attention from art historians and historians because most artists thought that factories were ugly and they didn’t want to paint paintings of them. Joseph Wright of Derby did choose to paint a few of them and they’ve become a really big part of his reputation. So, in one sense he’s thought of as the artist of the industrial revolution. Or for tonight, we would say the artist of the scientific and industrial revolutions,” Norris said.

“Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight,” “A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on an Orrery, in which a Lamp is put in the Place of the Sun,” and “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” were a series of three of Derby’s paintings that built his reputation. “He kind of made a name for himself painting nighttime scenes lit by candlelight or lamp light… As he went from painting to painting in this series of three, he got bigger. And when an artist paints a big painting, it usually means that they’re expecting to make a bit of a splash with it,” he said.

Knurr, Professor of Chemistry, analyzed the science experiment that is displayed in the painting. “The experiment he’s referencing is an experiment on using air pumps by Robert Boyle. Robert Boyle’s experiment was originally done way back in 1659. So, the painting is of an experiment over 100 years after the original experiment was done.”

Knurr explained that one of Boyle’s air pump experiments involved “sucking the air out of a bird in a glass bowl and watching the bird die,” which is depicted in the painting.

He then described how the air pump worked in the 1700s.  “…the principle is still the same, of this expansion and contraction of gas to move gas through a system. So a couple things here, you need some oil to lubricate things, you probably needed to keep running it, so this experiment, some poor person is sitting there like constantly turning the crank to keep it going. And by modern standards, this would have only achieved low vacuum conditions but to damage a bird, it was plenty,” Knurr said.

“In the original experiment, I’m pretty sure they killed the bird because they sucked the air out and you didn’t know what was going to happen to the bird and the bird died. However, a hundred years later, this is now a commercialized version of the experiment… so they could bring the bird to near death and then let the bird come back to life,” he said.

Professor Geddert, who teaches Political Science, focused on how this painting demonstrates the use of the scientific method and the historical change of how science became available to everyone in Britain. “Science should not start from the top down, but from the bottom up. You don’t have to understand the whole. You don’t have to understand why it works in order to understand how a particular part works. You only need a method by which ordinary people can participate in the pursuit of scientific truth,” Geddert said.

Geddert explained that Francis Bacon, a British philosopher, changed the way people viewed science. “For Bacon, he says, you have to stop deferring to nature, treating it with a kind of awe or reverence or wonder, as though it were an Oxford Chancellor or an English monarch. Instead, Bacon says, you have to go out and wrestle with it. And you have to win. You have to take control of it…So you examine nature almost like putting it on trial. You treat it as kind of a defendant in hopes that it will yield up its secrets,” he said.

“Coming back to our painting, the painting isn’t just about the method, it’s not just about the doing of science. It’s about how the lab can be brought to everybody, even to schoolchildren. And note that the teacher here doesn’t have to be an expert. He can just be a traveling salesman because any person can understand this. All you have to do is to have the right kind of method,” Geddert continued.

Wright’s painting celebrates an increase of education and knowledge amongst all ages and everyday people. “The combination of British organized conflict over the years, the back and forth, and the idea of British power to the people helped to enable the method of experimentation that we see here. And it’s a method that makes knowledge available to the masses. And so this idea of taking control of nature frees knowledge from the philosophical gatekeepers and is able to spread this light of enlightenment to all people.”

Staff Writer

This year marks the 1,700th year since the Council of Nicaea was held in 325 AD. To commemorate this monumental anniversary, the Theology Department and Campus Ministry co-sponsored the “Nicaea, Ancient and New” academic panel, which took place on Sept. 18.

The panelists for the event were Fr. John Gavin, a priest and associate professor at Holy Cross, Dr. James Dever, an assistant professor from Providence College, and Sr. Ligeda Ryliskyte, a member of the Ignatian community and visiting professor from Boston College. Each of these panelists contributed a different perspective to answer the question, paraphrased: how the Council of Nicaea––especially the Nicene Creed––renews its relevance in ages of the past, present, and future.

At the start of the panel, moderator Professor Monroe of Assumption, gave some historical background. He began with the idea that early Christianity, being the fulfillment of Judaism, was struggling to reconcile with the apparent dilemma of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christians were faced with external accusations and internal confusions about whether they were worshipping three gods, rather than the one true God. For this main reason, the Council of Nicaea was assembled to resolve this question and eventually emerge with the doctrine of the Trinity, against many heresies from that time (e.g. Sabellianism, Marcionism, and Modalism).

The Nicene Creed, now a central part of Christian dogma, states two important truths about the faith: first, that God is three persons and one nature. Second, that Jesus Christ is “consubstantial with the Father” (i.e. God the Son shares the same substance as God the Father). These two important truths are foundational for the understanding of the Christian faith, and it is no question why it has endured for 1,700 years.

Building on this background, the conversation further continued with Gavin, who mentioned that initially the Nicene Creed was largely viewed as an authoritative statement, the “legal criteria” for the ordination of bishops. However, throughout the years in the Early Church, the Nicene Creed became the prayer that is said at every Sunday Mass. This transition towards the Creed as prayer makes it a spiritually recognized, personal profession of faith. The Creed unites the past, present, and future of the Christian faith all in one statement. Gavin reminded the audience that the fact of its enduring relevance makes it deserve the faithful’s continued attention today.

Dever approached the Nicene question from a historical and political lens, specifically from the points of view of John Henry Newman and Eric Peterson, who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dever pointed out that Newman fights against the heresy of Arianism, which originated in the 4th century, but was revived by the historical critical method which became popular during Newman’s lifetime. In the spirit of the Creed, Newman insists that Jesus is substantially God, not just a great moral teacher who lived and died a long time ago. The Christian dogma is unconditional, universal, and transcendent, according to Newman. Dever also elucidated Peterson’s thoughts on how the beliefs of the Creed introduce political questions, for instance with Peterson’s discussion of monotheism as a political problem.

Dever concluded that although this current culture is facing a global crisis of meaning, the Nicene Creed can remind us about what truly matters. It recalls the profound meaning that mankind finds in Christianity: that God is irreducibly and eternally personal to us, despite the vicissitudes of current politics and continued attempts to deny God’s full divinity.

To finish the initial presentations of the panelists’ thoughts, Ryliskyte introduced the systematic meaning of the Nicene Creed. To define the term, she distinguished between the descriptive meaning (i.e. how things relate to us––for example, “I am cold today”) and systematic meaning (i.e. how things relate to each other––for example, “It is 45ºF today”), and that the Nicene Creed fits in the latter category. It is not merely a description of something that will soon pass away, but rather it is an enduring definition of something that lasts forever. Ryliskyte emphasized that with the Creed being systematic, it can profess the faith in any age, nation, and language.

After the panelists all spoke, Monroe opened up the floor for discussion among themselves. During this time, an interesting linguistic examination of the Creed’s verbs took place.

Gavin observed that the Creed has three finite verbs in the original Greek. The first is “we believe”––and directly after this verb, they use the preposition eis, which can translate to “into.” This choice to say “we believe into one God” demonstrates how the Creed is an ongoing and living reality. People enter into the depths of the Creed when they pray it.

The second verb is “we confess,” a profession that those who pray the Creed all speak the same language, united by their Baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The third verb is “we expect,” or “we await,” a communal anticipation of the resurrection, and a renewed hope of salvation which is to reward the faithful. Upon hearing these linguistic comments, Monroe was apt to add that when one prays the Creed, one prays oneself into the Creed.

The panelists’ discussion among themselves continued for several more minutes, and then the floor opened up to the audience to ask questions––among which were questions about historicism in Christianity, suggestions on how to pray the Creed meaningfully, the potential definition of political theology, and linguistic nuance in the Creed.

Overall, the attendees agreed the event was pleasant and intellectually stimulating. The full recording can be viewed on the Assumption Vimeo page, under the title, “Nicaea Theology Panel – September 18, 2025.”

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As tenure rates continue to decline, it raises the question of whether tenure is necessary or not. On April 23, Professors Gary Senecal, Bernard Dobski, Smriti Rao, and Daniel Maher participated in a Disputed Questions Forum titled, “Should Tenure Be Retired?”. The event was sponsored by Assumption University’s Provost Office. 

Senecal, who is a Professor of Human Services, recently earned tenure last year. “I’m going to argue in favor of tenure, but more for the process of tenure than the actual results of it. Though, I see some clear benefits to the results of tenure that I believe are absolutely central to the function of academia. Among these, specifically, are academic, intellectual, scientific, and political freedom to voice one’s research with conviction and without fear of employment reprisal,” he said. 

Senecal noted the lack of peer review and comradery in higher education. “Teaching

in higher education, one can feel relatively separated from one’s peers across

departments. Campuses are big, we all work different hours, we teach in different

buildings, hold our office hours in different buildings. There’s not always much of a

central nervous system to this type of work saved for the tenure review process. In

my opinion, the tenure review process is one of the defining central nervous

system pieces to being in academia,” he said

“Being reviewed by the institution made me feel connected to Assumption, made me feel connected to my colleagues and that was regardless of the outcome. It felt good to know that people were taking me seriously, taking my work seriously, taking my contributions to this place or my lack of contributions to this place seriously. Having a positive outcome in my tenure experience solidified a sense of commitment that I had felt to Assumption because Assumption had assessed me and decided that they wanted to commit to my employment here. I really appreciated that feeling and it deepened my sense of connection to the community,” Senecal continued.

Senecal enjoyed the tenure review process and believes that it helps to build a sense of community. “At Assumption, I believe we must keep tenure and perhaps, 

even expand access to it. However, I do want to implore a serious sense of responsibility that comes with full membership in a community. I hope that all of us consider the responsibility to uphold our tenure positions once they are allotted,” Senecal said.

Bernard Dobski, who is a professor of Political Science, believes that tenure should be rare and that there is more academic freedom with tenure. “I argue that we preserve tenure because tenure is a useful tool for preserving the possibility of a liberal education, rightly understood. But like all tools, tenure can be abused…we are right to protect the object of education from academic administrators who might undermine it, ” he said. 

As Dobski mentioned, some of the negatives of tenure include professors slacking in the classroom and departments replicating themselves, which leads to groupthink. Without challenging the standards, there’s a lack of diversity and freedom. “This is extremely dangerous. for while college administrators move on, retire, or get fired every few years, tenured academics remain. Once groupthink has overtaken a field or a department, it’s practically impossible to uproot it…The dangers to education from preserving tenure are thus every bit as great as those that come from tenure’s elimination. To protect itself from this, colleges and universities who are genuinely committed to their missions must aggressively maintain some form of quality control,” Dobski said. 

“What I am suggesting is that those responsible for the stewardship of higher education may mitigate the potential drawbacks of tenure by looking much more closely at hiring decisions…In other words, having faculty who are more likely to be a mission fit and then requiring those faculty to live up to their contracts. So to repeat, as far as I can see, the only way academic leadership can do this is if its members, both among the

administration and the faculty, insist upon hiring, retaining, promoting, and rewarding

those individuals who actively contribute to the school’s educational mission,” he said. 

“Afterall, universities like ours is a partnership in the most authoritative things. It is therefore only just that it distributes powers, honors, responsibilities, and privilege

to those who most contribute to its shared vision of education. such an arrangement is perfectly consistent with the faculty who can teach contending ideas and engage in robust disagreement with each other and their students,” Dobski continued. 

Smriti Rao, a professor of Economics, compared tenure to the rest of corporate America. “One, we get paid a lot less. Secondly, we have no mobility…I realize those are very real problems for me personally, with being so attached to the idea of tenure. And yet I do want to defend the institution…”

Rao highlights how there is more job security with tenure. “I know we like to talk about the fact that sometimes tenured faculty might be less attentive to their jobs or there may be inefficiencies and so on and so forth that arise from this process, but one of the most fascinating things about observing folks who work in corporate America is the amount of time they spend managing their bosses. So for better or for worse, I maybe spend two minutes a day on average thinking about the administration…Whereas my family and friends might spend three, four hours managing, persuading, assuaging…in corporate America, the threat of a new boss and of a complete corporate restructuring is just always around the corner,” she said. 

Tenure provides the opportunity for professors to dedicate more time and energy to their classes. “I think there’s a way in which it actually allows us to spend all our

time thinking about our students and our research, and I really value that very, very much,” Rao said. 

Rao believes that tenure allows her to be herself, meaning, she does not have to put up a front for anybody. “I am my whole self here…I am my whole self in the classroom…I really do not feel, and I think tenure has a lot to do with this, the need to pretend or to perform,” she said. 

“I think one way to summarize all of my arguments for tenure is not tenure as a standalone institution, but as a set of commitments that we’re making to the university as a less commodified space and the university as part of a push against commodified spaces. Successful or unsuccessful. I do see tenure as one aspect of that attempt to create a less commodified environment in which we can bring our whole selves to the classroom, so that we can meet the students as whole human beings, which I think resonates with the mission of this institution and arguably, should be the mission of most universities,” Rao concluded. 

Daniel Maher, who teaches Philosophy, also argued that tenure should not be retired. “I think, as others have said, that there are good and bad aspects of it. I want to just talk about one good thing that tenure makes possible, which is it allows people like me to stand on principle when I’m surrounded by unprincipled people, by whom I mean administrators,” he said.

Maher believes that tenure allows professors to speak their mind and contribute to conversation without ridicule. He brought up how many years ago, the administration wanted to begin an online program titled One Assumption. “Education’s a human encounter…because I was tenured at the time, I was able to say, I think that’s a harebrained idea. You can say this and resist these kinds of things,” he said. 

“I thought my job was to learn how to be a good citizen on this campus. It was not to tell the institution how it needs to run itself, but how do I be the kind of person who contributes well to this institution. And my understanding was that the institution belongs to the tenured faculty, as has been said, the administrators come and go, but if you’re gonna have an identity, a consistency, something that’s recognizable, it’s going to come from that faculty. For good and for ill,” Maher said. 

The whole panel agreed that they would like to see more observations and reviews of other professors’ classes and that tenured professors should continue to prove themselves in order to ensure a high quality education. 

“The real problem, and this is in all categories, is people have to be willing to pass judgment on one another. We’d like to offshore that to just the quantity of publications. We’d like to offshore it to ‘oh, look, top two categories of the students says he’s a good teacher,’ rather than us going in there and saying, ‘you know what, the students may think you’re doing a good job, but I don’t’… It’s hard for administration to pass judgment on us. The first stage in the tenure process, you have to evaluate yourself,” Maher said.

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On April 1, MaryAnn Silvestri, Derek Duplessie, Maria Parmley, and Ella Bradshaw spoke on the pros and cons of social media in an event titled “Scroll Mindfully: Social Media in the Company of Friends.”

Duplessie, who is a Philosophy professor at Assumption, began the discussion by highlighting how social media can be helpful to build connections and stay in touch with others, but that there is also a desire for fame attached to these online platforms. Genuine friendship is more than just a follower or someone who likes one’s post.

“I think part of what it means for us to be social creatures is that we have an intense desire to know others and to be known by others. Part of what social media makes possible is that we can post a video of our talent, of ourselves singing a song, of ourselves again, sort of doing something impressive, and we can gain a larger audience. We can be known,” Duplessie said.

Social Media also feeds into our natural want to learn. “On the one hand, a lot of information is sort of available to us that wouldn’t have been otherwise a few decades ago before these apps were available. On the other hand, of course, the proliferation of this information means that there’s also a lot of sort of false, fake news and a lot of questionable information that becomes harder to tease out,” Duplessie said.

Duplessie also argued that at times, social media is relied on too much. “…it seems to be leading to the atrophy or the decay of something, which is bad. In order to understand whether or not the crutch is needed, whether or not the prosthetic is an augmentation or whether it’s actually a sort of limitation, I think requires that we have a clear sense of ourselves and of what it means to be a human, and what it means to live healthily,” he said.

Parmley, who teaches Psychology at Assumption, brought up the community and togetherness aspect of online platforms. “We have this need to belong and feel connected to others, and I think that’s the lore of social media. We feel that we can connect with others across the globe. I think part of it is sometimes, people feel alone and maybe your ideas are not popular, or you might have a disorder, or you don’t know anybody that shares that view or that disorder. Then, you can find your community online through social media. So I think this social media can help and foster community in those ways that helps us feel connected to others,” she said.

Bradshaw, a sophomore at Assumption, pointed out how social media is both a creative outlet and a news source. “…social media is extremely, not only prevalent, but accessible and I think it is the quickest and easiest source as both a student and just a citizen to gain information…that accessibility really helps make it a positive outlet in many ways because it provides news at your fingertips at all times,” she said.

“I think another benefit of social media is that it can help fuel competition in a

healthy way…social media allows you to promote your platform, to show your achievements,” Bradshaw continued.

Silvestri, the director of Counseling Services, commented on the negative aspects of competition on social media, as it can lead to people feeling excluded. “There’s that urgency sometimes to kind of get that comparison, or this person’s putting out this, so therefore you have to follow up with that,” she said.

Social media can also cause anxiety and isolation, so it’s beneficial to take breaks.  “Unplugging is actually really healthy. Just because you unplug from the phone doesn’t mean you have to give it up. Unplugging from that and giving yourself time to just be is really a great skill to do, and something that I think everybody needs to do,” Silvestri said.

On the flip side of fame, online platforms also allow people to be anonymous. This ability of being unknown can help people find a voice, but it can also promote cyberbullying because there are no consequences. “If you’re saying something negative to somebody to their face, you’re going to see it, whereas through social media, you’re not going to get that immediate reaction. People feel that they can say negative things and there won’t be any sort of repercussions…,” Parmley said.

Algorithms take a user’s data and filter the media in order to match that user’s opinions and interests. “I think you have to make a concerted effort to look at those different opinions…one way we can try to foster a good community with social media is trying to look for not only things that might only support your view, but looking at things that might disconcert your views,” said Parmley.

Much of the news on social media is taken seriously and because the opinions from some sources are so extreme, it limits discussion. “I do think that one of the vices of social media is that in terms of politics, it fuels effective polarization or how you feel about people who are politically different than you. I felt like I saw a lot of this last fall with the election. As a Political Science student, it was very hard to find information, especially on social media, that was completely moderate or unbiased, which I think is important to have that in the back of your head when you’re taking in any information from social media, taking everything with a grain of salt…it will provide a barrier between what’s on my “For You” page and what I hold to be true,” Bradshaw said.

Setting boundaries with social media and dedicating time to in person activities is important, but social media does have its positives. “I get on TikTok too, just to kind of watch those funny dog videos and things that kind of help me detach a little bit sometimes, when I need that… I also know that there’s things on there from an educational standpoint, for my job, that I look up all the time, and I find great ideas on there,” Silvestri said.

Another positive of social media is that it works as an archive. “If you’ve been on Instagram for x many years or Facebook, you can go back a decade now and find conversations and find posts… it’s nice to have that record of the past,” Duplessie said.

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For Edgar Kunz, poetry is more than just an occupation or creative outlet. “Poems can be places where we get to spend time with people that we can’t access in our real lives. Sometimes, I think that all these poems that I wrote about my dad were just a way of making a version of him that I could spend time with, and that I could understand a little better, and that I could love a little better than the real person,” Kunz said.

On February 19th, Assumption University held its annual Michael True Memorial Poetry Reading in Curtis Performance Hall. Edgar Kunz, an author whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and more, discussed and read poetry from his two books, Fixer and Tap Out.

David Thoreen, a Professor of English at Assumption, opened the event by speaking on Michael True’s legacy. “He taught American Literature and then after he’d invented it, Peace Studies, so that he could provoke conversations about poetry, peace, and social justice. Mike was a prolific writer, authoring 12 books, numerous essays, reviews, and poems that appeared both in scholarly journals and magazines for the general reader. Mike True was a scholar, an activist, and a teacher,” Thoreen said.

“Mike and his wife, Mary Pat, were married for 61 years and they spent 54 of those

years in their house on Westland Street, here in Worcester, raising their family and

hosting a steady stream of poets, writers, and activists, many of whom read and spoke

here at Assumption… In 2015, Mike became the first person to be awarded the Kunitz Medal by the Worcester County Poetry Association, an association he had co-founded in 1971, and that association is today, stronger than ever,” he continued.

Wendy Jacobi, who’s part of the class of 2027, introduced Edgar Kunz by recognizing the importance of his work. “In this world, in Kunz’s poetry, everything is tactile and the persistence of love finds itself wedged within it. Love reaches him and us in its complex, confounding, yet honest form. The idea of persistence levers Kunz’s poetry…Kunz persists through the death of a father, through lost love, through raised rent, and we love him all the more for it. He is human, and as we read, we begin to learn that so are we,” Jacobi said.

Kunz read a selection of poems from Fixer, which was published in 2023, and from his first book, Tap Out, which is from 2019. He also shared a new political poem of his, titled “Lawn Care.” This new poem is about how the institution where he teaches threatened student’s who protested.

“I tried for a long time to write a poem about it, but it never felt right. It just felt like me pointing at a thing…pointing means that everyone’s looking at the thing they’re pointing at, and they’re not looking at you, right? This is a way of making my stance safe, because I’m saying look over there, and I’m getting you all to agree that the thing over there is bad. That’s not nearly as interesting or real or true as me pointing in both directions and saying look at that thing over there and also look how I’m bound up in that thing, look how I’m implicated by that thing, look at the ways in which I am enacting that thing over there. by my action or inaction. That’s the territory of poetry. That’s what poems should strive to do…get to a place that’s more complex and refuse to look away,” Kunz said.

Kunz reflected on how his teacher, Louise Glück, impacted his work. “…she changed the way I think about poetry really profoundly. And one thing that she would always say to us is that ‘to insist is to deaden.’ The poems, in Fixer especially, are sort of experiments with trying to say just barely enough for the poem to arrive somewhere that’s satisfying for the reader. Not over saying.”

According to Kunz, all poetry is influenced by other poets. “No poems get written without reading other poets. And from other generations and from other countries also. A problem with young poets today is, I mean my students included, they want to read only contemporary stuff. Only stuff that’s written by people that are their age and speaking exactly their language. I think it’s a huge loss, we have to read stuff in translation. Now seems important because it’s now and we’re all living through it, but every now seemed important,” he said.

Whether it’s through the writing process or reading the works of other’s, engaging in poetry can be a learning experience. “I’ve been changed by reading other people’s poems…the practice of writing poems, the practice of paying close attention, of trying to get something right in language, going back to it and being dissatisfied and saying like I think there’s something more here, I think there’s something I’m not seeing, that practice has by degrees changed me as a person,” Kunz said.

Kunz emphasized the point that poetry shouldn’t be made to please others and that writers should not worry about how others will react to their poetry. “I have been surprised by how well people have received my poems and I don’t think it’s because I’m flattering to them. I think it’s because of that fundamental stance of generosity and also that willingness to implicate myself. I’m not letting myself off the hook either. If I’m giving you a hard time. I’m also going to give me a hard time,” he said.

Kunz concluded the event by highlighting how poetry can be both demanding and fulfilling. “I think the lesson that I keep having to learn and relearn over and over again is that the joy is in the process. The joy is in making something happen on a blank page with  little black marks on paper, that’s magic. That will sustain you, if you protect your relationship with that page. That will sustain you for a lifetime…it’s all about coming back with bravery and openness and faith. Faith that if you approach that page with the right attitude and the right mindset, something will happen, something unexpected.”

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Joan of Arc may be a very well known story, but Professor Bernard Dobski points out how Mark Twain’s portrayal of Joan of Arc is extremely unique, making her a very complex political figure. “The Joan he’s got here is a cut from a very different cloth. I think he presents her as a master political strategist, manipulator with massive political ambitions, which I attribute to a desire to found a new age, breaking from the church,” Dobski said.

On February 26th, Professor Bernard Dobski, who teaches Political Science, discussed his new book, Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc, political wisdom, divine justice, and the origins of modernity, in Curtis Performance Hall. Professor Christopher Gilbert, who teaches English, served as the moderator. The event was sponsored by Assumption University’s Provost Office.

Prior to reading Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Dobski recommends being familiar with some of Twain’s previous works. “I would say there is a series of prefaces, but the real preface to it is another novel called A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which I believe Twain intends to pair with this novel…,” he said.

On the contrary, Dobski also mentioned how Joan of Arc doesn’t read like any of Twain’s other pieces of literature. “Joan of Arc, which is an admittedly weird book, Twain calls it, near the end of his life, his best book. He doubles down on this in a number of different forums, says he didn’t spend half as much time on any of his other works, that this was his labor of love, and yet nobody reads it, or at least very few people I know read it, even among Twain scholars, very few people read it,” Dobski said.

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is written in three parts. Part one is about the French Catholic female saint’s upbringing in Domrémy and her divine revelations. Part two focuses on Joan’s political and military career and finally, part three is about her trial and execution. The whole novel is told as a memoir by Joan’s friend, Louis de Conte, and it’s set in 1492.

“The argument of the book, simply put, is Twain is using this as an opportunity to flesh out his approach to the divine right of kings, while also recounting the kind of origins of modernity, a theme that really, I think, he was obsessed with for most of his life and can be seen throughout his work,” Dobski said.

Twain’s admiration for Joan influenced how he represented her as a political figure. “She represents this wonderful standard of statesmanship, a certain kind of statesmanship, of how to mold individuals, shape their characters, reorient their longings, so that they can be satisfied in a new way through her kinds of politics, and thereby, divorce them from traditional authorities, whether it be crown or altar,” Dobski said.

“One of the things Twain likes to do with Joan is he’s always talking about her in comparison or in conjunction with animals. She bandages animals, she feeds animals, she nurtures animals. He even talks about animals as being kinds of people…You get this sense that Twain’s Joan is really working with the earthly bestial part of human nature and limiting it to that, and showing how we can move away from the more spiritual elevated concerns of the crown and altar to a new modern secular age. I think that’s what he’s doing with that Joan,” he continued.

For Dobski, Twain’s Joan of Arc helps us to understand how modernity came out of The Middle Ages, especially because of Joan’s disapproval towards the king. “I don’t think Twain here is necessarily endorsing modernity. I don’t think Twain wants to go back to the pre-modern world either. I don’t think he wants to go back to the Middle Ages. But I think he’s providing a very critical view of the mechanics of that transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. I think part of that criticism involves thinking about the human concerns for justice and what that transition does to the way we think about justice, what it does to how we define justice or understand justice.”

“I think one of the reasons why Twain thinks this book is his best is because it allows us to see both the roots of our concern that justice be done in the world and the limits and possibilities of securing justice in this world. And our profound hopes that justice be divine in nature, that the earthly political order be brought into line with divine justice,” Dobski said.

Dobski believes that Twain’s political commentary should make us question our human nature and become more thoughtful. “…I do think Twain wants to say if we’re gonna live in modernity, we have to live alive to its strengths and its weaknesses, which means being attentive to the fact that human beings have this other longing for justice that opens them up and makes them open to the call of the divine,” he said.

Twain, who’s known to be a humorist, does not include as many comedic moments in his Joan of Arc as he does with his other books, but some comedy and laughter still persists within the novel. “…part of it’s the laughter, it’s the derision, it’s bringing the high down to the low, it’s exposing pretense, but maybe at its best form, its most purified form, it’s a kind of expression of wisdom that brings its audience around that view as well. And so if that’s how I’m going to understand comedy, then Joan is hilarious,” Dobski said.

Dobski also brought up the benefits of Twain and his characters being unreliable narrators. “It’s the kind of thing where Twain wants you to figure things out for yourself. It’s going to create or construct this work in such a way that you’re invited into a kind of journey with it, prompted to undertake an exploration that will lead you to new insights…He can’t simply show you what he wants you to know and have you thereby know it, simply by virtue of showing it to you. Only way you’re going to get it is if you do the work yourself.”

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In June of 2018, Domenic Esposito dropped a 10-foot long and 800-pound spoon in front of Purdue Pharma to bring awareness to the opioid epidemic. “It was really kind of born out of frustration, anger towards the pharmaceutical industry, and really kind of the government as well, and sort of this inaction that I was seeing around the opioid crisis. More directly, more personally, is because of a family member, my brother, who’s been battling substance use disorder for the last 18 years,” Esposito said.

On February 11th, Domenic Esposito presented a lecture titled, Amplifying Your Voice with Art, to a full audience in La Maison Salon. He is most well-known for the Opioid Spoon Project and connecting art with activism.

At the beginning of the lecture, Esposito explained that art has the power to create change. “I think a lot of art is really activism because art is really a language the way I see it and it’s a way for us to communicate…It provokes thoughts, it stirs emotions, it inspires action, but it also amplifies voices and the voices of those who are voiceless,” he said.

Esposito was influenced to create the spoon due to his brother’s addiction. “My mom would call screaming, you know, she’d found another burnt spoon in the house, so that’s why the spoon.”

“I personally like the spoon because there’s a utility to it. It feeds you, and this is not feeding you, it’s killing you,” he added.

Four different Spoons were placed in front of four major pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue, the FDA, Rhodes Pharmaceutical, and Johnson and Johnson. At each location, the spoon’s handle had the specific company’s name printed on it. “It became national news, and it really kind of gave us this impetus to continue the battle with others.”

Esposito considers the spoon to be an example of disruptive art and activism.  “It creates this energy around the art…It’s breaking down boundaries of traditional art and how we think about it. It creates dialogue because when you drop something like this in front of a pharmaceutical company, it creates, rather than reading a book or watching a long movie on it, it’s like a really quick snapshot, and it creates this dialogue in people’s head, and we get a lot of questions about it,” Esposito said.

The spoon also became a meaningful symbol among those who were affected by the crisis. Families, communities, and organizations began reaching out to Esposito and his team. As a result, Esposito created a blank spoon and took it to a rally in Marlborough. “A couple of hundred families were there and we allowed people to sign the names of their family members that they lost with a small message on the spoon. It was sort of overwhelming, and all of a sudden, that got all over Facebook and Instagram, and then we got requests. We ended up going to 15 cities across 11 states in over two months. The spoon was completely filled with names. Every place we went, we worked with the local community, whether it was Rochester or Philadelphia, and they brought their own organizations to that. But what was also amazing is that we were able to participate with a lot of politicians and lawmakers at that point…the reason why we did this is to listen to stories of loss and make sure that their names were memorialized…”

Esposito’s most current project consists of figures wearing hoodies, bringing awareness to mental health and how it is still stigmatized. “It really is a way, in my mind, to bring awareness to isolation, loneliness, and the mental health issues that we’ve been facing for a long time…it’s sort of an offshoot of the opioid crisis because the two are very interlinked, the theme of societal isolation. This has been a whole series for me. I’ve done different variations of it,” he said.

Esposito concluded his lecture by discussing the importance of being a passionate advocate and creating long-term conversations. The messaging is more important than the art. “Art has the potential to inspire action and change…The Opioid Spoon Project, OSP, really is an example of impactful activism, using everything at our disposal to raise awareness. Encourage people to explore your own role as an artist and activist, I assume there’s a lot of artists in the crowd here, and how to better society, really. It’s not just about making yourself feel good but it’s also about trying to make us a better society.”