Holy Cross Welcomes 32nd President; Fr. Boroughs Arrives on Campus

Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J., assumed office as the 32nd president of Holy Cross on Monday, Jan. 9.

Fr. Boroughs was elected by the College’s Board of Trustees in May of last year to succeed Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J.  Fr. McFarland, who retired after a highly successful 12-year presidency, will begin a sabbatical at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California.

Immediately before coming to Holy Cross, Fr. Boroughs served as vice president for mission and ministry at Georgetown University.  In addition to overseeing a division of the university as well as directing ministry on campus and at Georgetown University Hospital, Fr. Boroughs was responsible for numerous programs for faculty, staff, students, and alumni which advanced Catholic and Jesuit identity.   During his eight-year tenure at Georgetown (2003-2011), he raised funds to develop and endow the Calcagnini Contemplative Center currently under construction, to renovate the historic Dahlgren Chapel, and to endow positions and programs for the Office of Mission and Ministry.

Fr. Boroughs, 62, was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and raised in Seattle.  He earned his B.A. from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., in 1973, and received a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology (Chicago) in 1978.  He holds a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley (1987) and received a Ph.D. in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley , Calif.) in 1989.

He entered the Jesuit order in 1967, was ordained a priest in 1978, and made his final vows as a Jesuit in 1986.

Prior to coming to Georgetown, Fr. Boroughs served as the rector of the Jesuit Community at Seattle University where he was also a faculty member in the School of Theology and Ministry. Previously, he taught religious studies at Gonzaga University (1989-91), served as the assistant novice director for the Oregon Province of Jesuits (1980-82), and was a parish priest at St. Leo Church in Tacoma, Wash. (1978-80).  A former member of the Board of Trustees at the University of San Francisco, he also served as a member of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees (2008-2011).

“From my first days as a member of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees, the distinctive mission of Holy Cross—along with the themes of academic rigor in a liberal arts environment, the commitment to teaching and learning, and social justice, meaning and value—have resonated with me,” Fr. Boroughs said. “It is an honor and a great privilege to join the Holy Cross community as its president.”