Labor Day

Throughout this past summer, I couldn't walk around the Holy Cross campus without running into, then detouring around, a construction project. The new senior apartments, started the previous summer, were completed, which included some serious landscaping and a repaving of the adjacent (and expanded) parking lot. Routine maintenance on infrastructure necessitated a number of deep trenches that revealed a network of underground pipes, conduits, and the like. Interior work resulted in some new configurations within various academic buildings. The largest project– a major facelift in front of the student center– transformed a space at the heart of campus, and is now reshaping the experience of the community... more on that in a forthcoming post.

Today, most of those summer construction workers are elsewhere, and the equipment and materials of their trade have been removed. The College is in session; the heavy and unmistakable manual labor of the past few months is largely replaced by the quieter, subtler intellectual toil of the semester. On this Labor Day, I find myself grateful for the efforts of the laborers whose work done to maintain, beautify, and transform the campus where I reside is now having a noticeable impact. I've overheard many students, faculty, and staff commenting about how wonderful Holy Cross looks these days. I hope that today we all give some thought to, and perhaps offer some prayers for, those whose labors enable and sustain so much of what we do, and strive for fruitful, beneficial effects in our own work.

Summer construction

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester MA