The impressive contributions of these faculty, staff, alumnae, and friends have helped define Saint Anselm College.
#23
SYLVIA NICOLAS, H.D. ’91
The work of this renowned artist can be found throughout campus; the statue of Saint Anselm in front of Alumni Hall, the statue of Saint Benedict across from the monastery and the Abbey Church, and the 4,500 square feet of stained glass and three statues inside the Church have helped define the look of campus.
Sylvia Nicolas H.D. ’91’s relationship with Saint Anselm College stretches back to 1965. The fourthgeneration stained glass artist was working with her father in his studio in the Netherlands when Br. Blaise Drayton, a Trappist Monk and consultant on the design for the construction of the Abbey Church, visited her father, saw her work, and offered her a commission.
In a 2008 interview with Portraits, Nicolas shared that, when it came to creating the statue of Saint Anselm, she wanted it to resonate with the students, first and foremost. “I thought, the students have to feel close to him. He should be a vigorous man traveling, not an old man,” she said.
#24 & #25
ANN DARBY REYNOLDS, B.S.N. ’61, CAPT., NURSE CORPS, U.S.N. (RET.), AND MARY JO O’DWYER MAJORS, B.S.N. ’69, M.S.N., H.D. ’24, CAPT., NURSE CORPS, U.S.N.R. (RET.)
Ann Darby Reynolds, B.S.N. ’61, Capt., Nurse Corps, U.S.N. (Ret.) was one of the first women to receive a Purple Heart for her service in Vietnam. She was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Nurse Corps in 1962 and served as a staff nurse at the Naval Hospital Pensacola in Pensacola, Fla., and at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C. While home in New Hampshire on leave for Christmas in 1963, she received a special delivery letter notifying her of new orders to the Navy Station Hospital Saigon, Vietnam. One year later, she was one of four Navy nurses injured when a bomb detonated at their living quarters. Reynolds remained in Vietnam after being wounded. In 1965, she was assigned to the Army 8th Field Hospital, Nha Trang, close to heavy fighting. She has received many medals and awards in addition to the Purple Heart and two Meritorious Service medals. In 2013, she received the Alumni Award of Merit by Saint Anselm College. Reynolds wrote her memoir Silent Night, 26 Years in the Navy: A Nurse’s Memoir (2021) before passing on February 25, 2024.
One of Reynolds’ recruits to the Navy was Mary Jo O’Dwyer Majors, B.S.N. ’69, M.S.N., H.D. ’24, Capt., Nurse Corps, U.S.N.R. (Ret.) Receiving an honorary doctorate during last year’s commencement, Majors began serving in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and earned the rank of captain in 1991. She retired in 2011 after 43 years of active and reserve service. Her extensive military and civilian healthcare experience included clinical and senior administrative leadership positions which included at the Pentagon, the Bureau of Naval Personnel, and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Her military honors include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Service Commendation and Achievement Medals, and the Secretary of Defense Badge. She was named Massachusetts Outstanding Woman Veteran of the Year in 2010, and received the Navy Nurse Corps Association’s National Service Award in 2020, and a special recognition in 2022 from the Boston Red Sox for service to country. Here on the Hilltop, she was named the Saint Anselm “Humanitarian of the Year” in 2012, and helped originate the annual Military Service Tribute at Reunion Weekend in 2014.
#26
ELAINE RIZZO, PH.D.
In addition to her role as professor, criminal justice professor emerita, Elaine Rizzo, Ph.D., oversaw the internship program for criminal justice students, broadening their opportunities to not only receive firsthand experience in law enforcement fields and courts, but also social service agencies, federal agencies, and businesses, in particular banking. She also was the college’s first female faculty member in the criminal justice department.
In a 2004 Portraits interview, she shared “Like the field itself, the criminal justice program covers a wide range of issues, including social structure and behavior, public service, economics, ethics, and social responsibility. It also touches other disciplines— politics, psychology, economics, and science. It is truly interdisciplinary.”
#27
CHRISTINE GUSTAFSON, PH.D.
Christine Gustafson, Ph.D., came to the college in 2004 as an assistant professor of politics, and was appointed the college’s first dean of academic excellence in 2022. Prior to this role, she was an associate dean for faculty development and assessment in 2012 and then associate dean of the college in 2015, and she served as cochair for the Women’s 50th Anniversary Committee.
Gustafson’s love of research and teaching brought her to her current role as department chair and politics professor. She continues to publish and present in her fields of Brazilian political economy and democracy, as well as church/state relations in Brazil and Latin America. Photo by Maya Pontes ’26
#28
AHIDA PILARSKI, PH.D.
Ahida Pilarski, Ph.D., joined the college’s theology department in 2006. In a 2023 interview with Portraits, she shared how she began counting her journey at Saint Anselm on the day she visited campus for her interview. “I first visited campus for my interview on December 8, 2005 [the Feast of the Immaculate Conception],” she said. “Part of my day included going to Mass at the Abbey Church. Seeing the students, faculty, and staff gather, I knew this would be a good place for me and my family.”
This year, she became president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), and this past June she led the 35th annual colloquium held at Boston College’s Connors Center, which marked the beginning of her tenure as president. A central moment of the event was a video message from Pope Francis to ACHTUS—the first in the society’s history. Photo by Jeff Dachowski
#29 & #30
SUSAN SWEETLAND GABERT, ED.D. ’91, AND NICOLE LORA ’06
Susan Sweetland Gabert, Ed.D. ’91, vice president for student development and mission/dean of students, joined the campus as an employee in 1994 and went on to accomplish many firsts for the college, including becoming the first lay director for campus ministry and first female director of campus ministry. “When I started working here in campus ministry, I was told no lay woman lasted more than two years,” says Gabert. “But I was really supported by the monastic community and Fr. Benet and others who hired me. To be the first lay person to direct campus ministry, and to be a woman in that role, and to be trusted with that, it was an honor.”
Nicole Lora ’06 became the first female director of the Meelia Center for Community Engagement in 2020, and now serves as its executive director. She leads a team of five full-time staff and 100 student leaders that work collaboratively with more than 50 community partners to help address the needs of the Greater Manchester area. This includes community projects like the Access Academy and the Community Center at Saint Raphael Parish, four to six large-scale events on campus like the annual Holiday Fair and Valentine’s Day Dance, and supporting more than 400 students engaging weekly as community-engaged learners, volunteers, or leaders. “My experience at the Meelia Center has shaped my life in a variety of ways,” says Lora. “I was opened up to new experiences, and it shaped how I viewed community, leadership, and working with others—and it continues to shape how I move through the world, view the world, and think about community members and my neighbors.” Photo by Kim Casey
#31, #32, #33 & #34
KAITLYN CLARKE, PH.D. ’09; LAURA WASIELEWSKI, ED.D.; JENNIFER LUCAS, PH.D.; ANN HOLTHOEFER, PH.D.
These four women have changed the academic landscape for all students with the college’s first 4+1 programs. Kaitlyn Clarke, Ph.D. ’09 is director of the college’s first graduate program, a 4+1 master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice, and Laura Wasielewski, Ed.D., is director of the Graduate Special Education Program. The program offers multiple pathways for a teaching license in special education and/ or M.Ed. Jennifer Lucas, Ph.D., and Ann Holthoefer, Ph.D., are co-directors of the 4+1 Master’s of Public Policy, which began classes this semester.
#35 & #36
JENNIFER KELBER, PH.D. ’01, AND JENNIFER PACE, PH.D. ’13
Professor Jennifer Kelber, Ph.D. ’01, chair of the economics and business department, served as chair of the Business, Industry, and Innovation working group within the college’s 50th Anniversary Committee. Last April, in collaboration with the Women’s 50th Anniversary Committee, the Women in Business Club, the economics and business department, and the Office of Alumni Relations, she facilitated The Celebration of Women in Leadership—a two-part event featuring a question-and-answer session followed by a networking event. In her opening remarks, Kelber shared how women must have courage, grit, determination, and compassion to achieve success. “These characteristics are cultivated by a Saint Anselm College education,” she says. “The college prepares students to think critically and to write well, and the value of these skills cannot be overstated.”
For Jennifer Pace, Ph.D. ’13, an associate professor in the chemistry and forensics science department, redefining how others imagine scientists is always top of mind. “You don’t typically think of a female scientist when you think of chemists,” she says. “I think having a female role model for our female students, and our male students, is really important.” Pace, whose lab, the Pace Lab, has been awarded an NH-INBRE research grant for the last five years, points to the research and lab experience that sets Saint Anselm apart. “One of the reasons I have a research lab is to work closely with my students and help them master their laboratory techniques, and to really understand the work they are doing along the way,” she says. Photos by Christine Hochkeppel and Kevin Harkins
#37 & # 38
EMILY ORLANDO, PH.D. ’91, AND ANN NORTON HOLBROOK, PH.D.
Kicking off a yearlong series of events to celebrate the college’s 50th year of coeducation, a convocation was held in the fall of 2023, with Emily Orlando, Ph.D. ’91, a professor of English and the E. Gerald Corrigan Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., giving the convocation address. Orlando, an internationally recognized scholar on Edith Wharton, is the author of the award-winning book Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts (University of Alabama Press, 2007). More recently, she edited The Bloomsbury Handbook to Edith Wharton (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023) and edited and fully annotated Edith Wharton’s first book The Decoration of Houses (Syracuse University Press, 2024). She also is co-editor of the book Edith Wharton and Cosmopolitanism (University Press of Florida, 2016), and has published widely in several scholarly journals and essay collections. During her convocation address, she paid tribute to her mentor and fellow Anselmian, Denise Askin, Ph.D., H.D. ’08: “Might we be incorrigible in our life-loving and take a page out of Denise Askin’s book. As a tribute to the legacy of that ‘portrait of human greatness,’ let us remind ourselves, habitually, that anything good is possible.”
After the convocation, Orlando, along with English professor Ann Norton Holbrook, Ph.D., co-taught a class on the history of feminist literature offered to Saint Anselm English students. Holbrook, who served as the academic subcommittee chair for the Women’s 50th, specializes in teaching 19th- and 20th-century British literature and literature by women, particularly journalist and novelist Rebecca West. She was president of the International Rebecca West Society, and has edited and analyzed some of West’s posthumously published fiction and published articles on Edna O’Brien, Virginia Woolf, Mary Lavin, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anita Brookner, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. She also co-edited For the Sake of the Song: Essays on Townes Van Zandt, an Americana singer-song writer. In addition to her talents as writer and educator, she also is lead singer for “The Quickfire Band,” which has performed at many campus events. Photo by Leah LaRiccia
#39
LAUREN CHOOLJIAN BAER ’10, H.D. ’24
Lauren Chooljian Baer ’10, H.D. ’24, a senior reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio, was a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Audio Reporting for her work as the host and reporter behind The 13th Step, a podcast about sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. The history major has won numerous awards, including the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, an RTDNA First Amendment Award, and she has been recognized by the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Her work also has been featured in the New York Times: First for co-hosting Stranglehold, a podcast about New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Chooljian Baer delivered the commencement address to the class of 2024 last May, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in journalism by the college.