October 22, 2024
The Last Word: The Open-Hearted College
By Edward A. Iannuccilli, M.D. ’61
Fortunate to be a frequent visitor to campus, I have found something almost indefinable with my return. My grandson, Andrew Snape ’23, was a student, and my friend, professor Yingsheng Wan, Ph.D., asked me to meet with his biology class. I loved those visits. The thrills of returning as an alum, a grandparent, and a teacher were unexpected and pleasant surprises because of the many defining moments.
What were those moments? Here is something I wrote for our Golden Reunion:
I recently returned to Harkins Hall for a meeting, my first time in the building in almost 50 years. Nostalgia unexpectedly washed over me. I paused at the entrance, looked around at the granite that once seemed intimidating, looked up from the rotunda to the balcony, and down to the stairs that once led to the auditorium where I went for the 20-minute Mass between classes. It was the same auditorium used for a class rally, for the Pyramid Players, the Brothers Four, mixers, the class roast, the Veridames Society meetings, and once even basketball. The smell of aged wood, granite floors, and the clacking sounds as students and faculty walked through rekindled memories of my student years. Disoriented for a moment, I looked at my watch, thinking that I might be late for class. I walked each floor, ending on the fourth. What happened to the art museum? Where was the tuition office? What happened to the library? I could smell those musty books in stacks that once held me captive. Harkins was a trove of wonderful surprises. The memories linger.
Now, some years later, I was recaptured. The open gate to the main campus was welcoming. I stopped at the friendly security guard. “How can I help?”
“My grandson is here. I’m giving a class.”
“Right there. Park right there.”
I walked to the iconic Harkins Hall, the campus’s first building, and looked more carefully at its embracing curve, replicated in the new business school across campus. Now that I had more time, or so it seemed, I appreciated the statues of saints Mary, Albertus Magnus, Catherine of Siena, Thomas Aquinas, and Dominic, and the symbols that surrounded them on the facade of the neo-Gothic building.
The Providence campus can be addicting. I was stunned, and pleased, by its beauty and expanse; from something that was once the necessary, nearly inconspicuous place for my education to something that is now a beautiful haven for everyone’s edification; a haven that included me, that made me want to return, to be a part of it again, to be a student, a learner. I’m guessing that’s what an open-hearted college does. It wants you to be an integral part. And Providence’s welcoming warmth did that.
Pleasant smells — freshly cut grass, sweet, fragrant flowers, the earthy smell of bricks. Sentimental smells — chemicals from the old labs, gas from a Bunsen burner. Now there are new labs in the spanking new and handsome Albertus Magnus building. I wanted to be a first-year student. Where was my beanie?
I walked to St. Dominic Chapel. Welcoming incense? I stopped in and smelled spirituality. A walk further on to another side of campus, where a silent cemetery, its gravestones in acknowledging rows, was resting on a mount for our Dominicans, the gods who taught us.
I found the Ginkgo tree that was once an assignment. I fought to stay out of the imposing Phillips Memorial Library. I might have gone missing in action.
I joined my grandson in the student union. Just a spit away was a sparkling track and field venue adjacent to a gleaming athletic facility with statues of coaches Mullaney and Gavitt at the entrance.
In Slavin Center, the aroma of brewing coffee filled the social hub where students were fueled with caffeine and conversation. Dunkin’ of course. And the scent of paper and leather-bound books from the bookstore across the way. There was a beer garden on the other side. And a cafeteria where the food looked good despite what I heard from the grandson. Baked goods, fresh pastries, chocolate chip cookies. We never saw that stuff.
The place was buzzing with energy. The energy was transferable. There was a constant hum of activity; students with diverse backgrounds and interests flashing to class, chatting between lectures in a microcosm world. What was that coed scribbling in her book? How could that guy toss a Frisbee that far?
A walk back on a college campus is a reflective experience, filled with memories of classes, professors, friends, sports, and the excitement of college life. The atmosphere is energetic, with students hurrying to and from classes, chatting in between, or sprawled out on the lawn studying.
Here, on this campus, albeit more modest in my day, there was a message that molded me. Was it here that I found life and all its possibilities? Maybe, though I wasn’t quite sure then, because I didn’t feel it. But I came away with something. I know it and feel it now.
These days I was gripped, again. I cut a slice of the new campus cake, mixed it with the old, and took it home.
Ed Iannuccilli ’61, pictured on the opposite page with his grandson, Andrew Snape ’23, is a retired gastroenterologist and clinical professor emeritus at the Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School. He has published articles on medicine, writes a column about his childhood on Substack, and is the author of six books, including Growing Up Italian and What Happened to Sunday Dinner and Other Stories. He is a member of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame and the Rhode Island Italian American Hall of Fame.
