Holy Cross Professors Awarded for Outstanding Scholarship and Student Advising

WORCESTER, Mass. – Each year, the College awards a faculty member a Mary Louise Marfuggi Award, which is made possible by a generous gift from Richard A. Marfuggi, M.D. ‘72, in honor of his mother. This year the Marfuggi family has extended this honor into two separate awards. Thomas Cecil, professor of mathematics at the College of the Holy Cross, is the 2008-09 recipient of the Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, which is given to a faculty member with an exemplary record of scholarship and outstanding achievement in the creation of an original work in the arts and sciences; and Victoria Swigert, professor of sociology, is the 2008-09 recipient of the Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Award for Academic Advisement, a new award that honors faculty who have demonstrated effective academic advisement and mentorship of students that was extraordinary in quality and sustained at least three years.

Cecil, who will hold the Anthony and Renee Marlon Professorship for a three-year term, effective July 1, 2009, co-authored a 76-page paper in the Annals of Mathematics, the leading journal in mathematics worldwide, and published three other research papers as well as two review articles this year.

A 1968 Holy Cross graduate, he received his Ph.D. at Brown University and briefly taught at Vassar College before returning to his alma mater in 1978. He has nearly 20 years of uninterrupted external funding, and the research supported by these grants has resulted in four books and numerous articles. Cecil has served as department chair and on every major committee and council at the College. Cecil resides in Worcester.

Swigert, who was appointed assistant dean of the College in 1990, was selected as the first winner of the Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Award for Academic Advisement for her extraordinary work with and dedication to students over the past 18 years. She has seen five classes make their way from their first through fourth year: the classes of 1994, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2008.

A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1975, Swigert received her Ph.D. from the University at Albany in New York. The author of seven books and numerous articles, her research and teaching interests are in deviance theory and criminology. She lives in Worcester.