“What do you need? How can I help?”
These are the first two questions David Crowley always asks when anybody related to Collegium approaches him. Then he goes about doing everything within his power to make those things happen, always with a smile on his face and clear readiness to do more, to imagine more for Collegium. For these reasons, he is a superb candidate to receive the Thomas M. Landy Award for Service to Collegium.
David has been a steady and inspirational mentor multiple times for the colloquy, under varied circumstances. When people were skeptical that an online colloquy was possible in summer 2021, David accepted the challenge to use the emerging tools of Zoom and Padlet to create a sense of community in his small group and beyond that was on a par with the close relationships hundreds of Collegium alums had enjoyed for a couple of decades. As Collegium leadership changed and asked more of mentors, David has risen to the challenge, offering moving talks to the whole body of Collegium participants about his own vocational story and offering specific strategies he has employed at Assumption University, his home institution, for bringing home the lessons and ethos of Collegium. In the past two years, David has served as a mentor to new mentors, all of whom treasure his expertise and his encouragement to let their own unique gifts unfurl.
In addition to his superb work as a trusted and invitational small group mentor, David has ably and imaginatively served the whole Collegium organization for years, and in varied ways. As a multiple term board member and chair, he led initiatives to include materials especially relevant to STEM faculty. We have a trove of brief videos used by alums all over the country for infusing sacramental wonder into STEM courses. A STEM conversation is a permanent part of the multi-disciplinary conversations at the annual colloquy, and the reader has morphed to include readings of special relevance to STEM faculty. David’s advocacy for wonder and sacramentality has informed the selection of speakers who provide the 2-3 time yearly “Collegium booster shots” offered online the past three years. Because those are recorded and housed on the collegium.org website, their impact is ongoing.
Small things are never truly small. In recent years, Collegium has moved from using expensive campus evening hospitality for the nightly socials to buying the drinks and snacks and doing set-up/takedown ourselves. Not only has this saved the organization hundreds of dollars, but has increased participation, since the venues are part of the housing. From Minnesota to Portland to Worcester, David has been the first to volunteer his services to all parts of the social enterprise, and is a large part of the reason the past three cohorts have developed lasting ties.
Finally, David has been a trusted advisor and encourager to Collegium leadership, not to mention catalyst for getting us a presence on LinkedIn and Instagram. His comments are inevitably astute, kind, and offered in the service of “what does Collegium need?”