Greetings From Dean Maxfield – March 2024

Dear Friends,

Something struck me the other day when I heard the story of Cole Brauer, the 29-year-old from Long Island who recently became the first US woman to solo race a sailboat around the world. Her journey of 30,000 miles took 130 days and included a long list of incredible challenges, navigating 30-foot waves, dealing with injuries, and even inserting an IV into her own arm to help manage the effects of dehydration.

Pondering the superhuman determination it took to accomplish this feat surfaced in my mind the idea that one of the most important characteristics we can nurture in our students is perseverance. Perseverance is sticking with things even when life seems unusually hard. You don’t have to be an extreme athlete to exemplify what we might call an “underdog approach.” Employers often tell me they appreciate that PCSB graduates know they are competing with Ivy Leaguers and bring that underdog ethos to their work, evincing perseverance.

But our PCSB students also know that their success is not a solo act. Foundational Catholic values we embrace in our institutional mission emphasize solidarity with community and inspire our students as individuals and as members of collaborative teams. This is why we talk about “we not me.”

The concept of perseverance is central to Christianity and has also been front-and-center for as long as there has been business education. I think that we are appropriately emphasizing it here at the PCSB. Our students will only succeed in navigating the business curriculum – combined with the college’s core liberal arts studies – if they work hard and accept the fact that nothing worthwhile comes easily. We also challenge them to take on more, through co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences, and we know that a great many have additional burdens of jobs and other responsibilities that fill their days (and nights).

The essential point I want to share with you today is this: our students are meeting these challenges in ways that are incredibly inspiring.

I am thinking of this now, as we move into spring and approach graduation, in the context of the Class of 2024. Our seniors graduated from high school during a time of incredible uncertainty. You will recall that their graduations, proms, and spring sports seasons vanished in the blink of an eye. Those disappointments were compounded by uncertainty about what was to come next. Would the college they had chosen open in the fall? Would there be career paths for them to follow? The list of questions was long, the concerns were legitimate, and no one had the answers.

Then they started college with mostly remote or hybrid classes and limited opportunities to make friends and find their ways as college students, living in an environment where concerns about the virus were heightened by the nature of communal campus living.

But here we are almost four years later, ready to celebrate the achievements of the Class of 2024 and send them on to jobs and graduate schools as prepared as any group that has come before. In some ways, they are perhaps even better positioned for success because of what they have experienced. They are optimistic and excited, as are those of us who have been alongside on this journey.

On that point, I am also thinking of those faculty and staff members who have been with the Class of 2024 all along. We also faced uncertainty in 2020 and 2021, and we have a particular sense of pride in seeing these wonderful students achieve their goals. This represents an inspiring and meaningful chapter in the story of Providence College and the PCSB.

In closing, one more note on Cole Brauer’s story: she is one of fewer than 200 people who have sailed around the world. More than 6,600 have reached the summit of Mt. Everest, itself an astonishing accomplishment. The power of the human spirit is certainly something to behold, and to celebrate, and her story is worth learning.

Thank you for your continued interest and support.

Sincerely,

Sylvia Maxfield, Ph.D.
Dean