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Challenge Yourself! Jennifer Raymond Dresden ’02 speaks to Cum Laude assembly
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welve seniors were inducted into the national Cum Laude Honor Society this spring at a ceremony that featured Jennifer Raymond Dresden ’02 as the guest speaker. Seniors inducted included Bianca Chiappelloni, Amanda Crowell, Margaret Ellison, Jane Gerstner, Tara Hammonds, Christina Huchro, Marissa Licursi, Sarah McDonald, Stephanie Mellert, Jane Mikus, Audrey Moukattaf and Colleen O’Neill. Jennifer inspired the Upper School assembly with her story of confronting personal challenges. She urged students to seize the challenges they will be presented with in life, knowing their grounding in the Goals and Criteria will see them through. At Sacred Heart, Jennifer was a student-athlete and was recognized as a Presidential Scholar in her senior year. Community service at Sacred Heart grew into an interest in peace and conflict studies, which she focused on for her master’s degree at St. Andrews University in Scotland, after graduation from Harvard University. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in government at Georgetown University. At the cum laude ceremony, she spoke about where her research has led her—not so much in global destination, but to the source of her inner strength, which she found in the Goals and Criteria. Here is an excerpt: “My first night in Sierra Leone was, hands down, the most frightening night of my life. I was by myself in a country that I had never been to before. All I could think about that night was what an idiot I was for thinking that I could manage living in such a difficult place. “That was a Monday. “Over the course of the week, I started to figure out how to manage—where to find a taxi, where to find groceries, how to
contact the people I needed to speak with for my research. “When Sunday came around, I went to Mass in one of the neighborhood churches which, coincidentally, was named Sacred Heart. Here again, I learned two things. First, I learned that Mass in West Africa takes at least two hours. Second, and more importantly, I learned what it is like to worship in a church of 200 people who know, with absolute certainty, that their lives are completely dependent on God’s grace. The faith in that church was so powerful and so open that you could almost touch it. All I could do was marvel at it. “That first week in Sierra Leone, I was just trying to figure out how to do my research, and I did. God used that space to show me an entirely different kind of faith. I could never have experienced that if I had not taken on the challenge of going there in the first place. “These are the gifts that living your life as a ‘child of the Sacred Heart’ offer you. “These are the challenges that being a ‘child of the Sacred Heart’ present to you. “This is a gift given to you, but it also calls you to take up the challenge of living out the Goals and Criteria. I hope you do so, both while you are here, and wherever life takes you in the future.”
Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich • cshgreenwich.org
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