To the Reader: 

If all goes well, you will be reading this in the final week of January. The tree is down. The decorations are stored away. The gifts have been exchanged. And you've even begun facing down the holiday credit card bills.

Due to the intricacies of magazine production, however, I am writing this as the Christmas season begins. You would never know it, though, to look outside at the steps of Hogan. The temperature is hovering just under 70 degrees, and as I punch at the keyboard, students in T-shirts and gym trunks are dribbling a basketball up to the courts. Classes ended today and while there is some grumbling about last-minute term papers and the need to ace next week's macro final, the campus mood this moment seems more suited to spring weekend than to caroling and tree-lighting celebrations on the steps of O'Kane.

But this is Worcester, and we can anticipate snowfall and freezing temperatures presently.

This issue is devoted to business and industry, topics Holy Cross alumni appear to know well. At the start of our research, one statistic indicated the size of the story we were tackling: Holy Cross is ranked 12th in the nation among colleges and universities (based on graduation class size) in graduates who have gone on to become CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

While this standing is a source of pride to the College, it's also one to give a magazine editor pause. Where to begin? Which alums to profile? We proceeded from the natural starting point - the classroom. It was an unsettling experience for this former English major to sit in lecture halls where the chalkboards are regularly covered with numbers and graphs rather than words. But the teaching styles were familiar even when the subject matter was not. There was warmth, animation, and even humor in those rooms as economics and accounting professors translated formulas, theories and concepts into real-world models.

Concerning alumni in business, we've tried to give you a brief and anecdotal sampling of the many disparate fields in which Holy Cross graduates have succeeded. We've checked in with the "Economic Czar" of New York City, observed the inner workings of a family business, and learned how to start a stock exchange in Poland.

Perhaps the most striking moment out of all these various stories was reading a comment made by Stanley Kulas '74. In speaking of his friend and mentor, Professor John D. O'Connell, Kulas said, "He taught accounting and moral fortitude." The remark is certainly a tribute to one of the College's fine educators, but it speaks, as well, to the mission of this particular school. It underlines one of the qualities that makes Holy Cross not only unique but essential.

No matter how lofty the position attained by our alums, they started out in those same classrooms and lecture halls I visited, often listening to the same teachers I watched in action just last month. Which is why, as study week gets underway and Dinand suddenly becomes the preferred location on the Hill, it is both interesting and encouraging to watch packs of frantic undergrads race to the library: You can't help but wonder what their particular success stories will one day be.