April 18, 2017

PC Centennial News, Spring 2017

Harkins Hall cake

100 years in cake

Providence College commissioned Oakleaf Cakes Bake Shop in Boston to construct an edible replica of Harkins Hall for the centennial celebration during St. Dominic Weekend in October.

The 800-serving cake, including buttercream filling, used the following ingredients:

  • 852 Eggs
  • 77.5 lbs Butter
  • 158 lbs Sugar
  • 84 lbs Flour

Overheard at centennial events

Enjoy these excerpts from speakers who helped PC mark its centennial.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Faith, while deeply personal, is never private. Our interior convictions … have social, public implications. Our religion is not confined to the sanctuary of the parish or the bimah of the synagogue, but spills out to the public square.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York; keynote address, Theological Exchange Between Catholics and Jews; Nov. 3, 2016

Rev. James Martin, S.J.

“Thomas Jefferson preferred his own version of Jesus. Like many of us, he felt uncomfortable with certain parts of Jesus’ life. … He wanted a Jesus he could tame, but you can’t tame Jesus. You can’t put him in a box. Humanity and divinity are both part of the story. Omit one or the other, scissor out the uncomfortable parts, and it’s not Jesus we’re talking about anymore, it’s our own creation.”

Rev. James Martin, S.J., editor at large, America magazine; Centennial Presidential Speaker Series; Nov. 15, 2016

Doris Kearns Goodwin

President Lyndon B. Johnson was “a great storyteller … except more than half of the stories weren’t true.” Johnson gave two accounts of the death of his great-grandfather, at the Alamo and at the Battle of San Jacinto, but the man died peacefully in his sleep. “Sometimes a false statement can reveal more about the character and longing of a person than the flat-out truth.”

— Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and author; keynote address, Liberal Arts Honors Program Symposium: “Truth and the Liberal Arts;” Oct. 21, 2016

 


History lives on

A new centennial exhibit that is permanently located in the Harkins Hall second-floor rotunda has a special alumni link. Architect Gerald J. Sullivan ’86 designed the wooden display cases that house the exhibit’s four panels. Each panel represents 25 years in the College’s history. The back cover of this magazine reflects a portion of one of the panels. Read the story behind the exhibit.


Providence’s Promise

The event that best reflected PC’s spirit and history this centennial year may well have been the Celebration of the Century during St. Dominic Weekend in October. The evening featured the premiere of The Promise of Providence, a 45-minute film commemorating the College’s first 100 years. Co-produced by former NBC Today show correspondent Mike Leonard ’70 & ’00Hon. and PC parent Mary Kay Wall, the film conveys the transformational impact of PC. Wall reminded the audience that, as the late national alumni chaplain, Rev. John S. Peterson, O.P. ’57, said in the film, the College’s history is “all part of God’s divine Providence.”