The Spire

Kate Santini ’27

News Editor

A Holy Cross tradition since 1954, the Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture Committee annually invites a guest speaker who is recognized for their remarkable dedication to public service. This year, Holy Cross was proud to welcome 4-star admiral Michelle J. Howard to speak. Throughout her 35 years in the U.S. Navy,  Howard was a pioneer–defying both gender and racial barriers in the military. In 1999, she became the first African American to command a U.S. Navy ship and in 2014, she became the first woman to be named a 4-star admiral. She went on to become the commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe and Africa and the Allied Joint Forces Command in Naples, Italy. After retiring from the Navy, she was appointed the chair of the Department of Defense’s “naming commission,” a two-year project that renamed townships and memorials commemorating the confederacy.

 At the outset of the talk, Howard identified an important lesson she learned in her youth that she carried with her throughout the duration of her career. Growing up in a time where it was illegal for women to serve as an admiral, Howard was informed by her mother that if she was rejected from serving on the basis of being a woman, she could simply “sue the government.” Even if this prospective lawsuit did not directly impact her, it would transform the landscape for other women. With this suggestion, Howard’s mother instilled within her the value of doing right by her wider community. Reflecting on this, Howard recalls a time when she was called upon by her peers to confront the captain of their ship regarding his biases against women. Initially feeling uneasy at being elected the spokesperson, she questioned how she would be able to lead sailors into combat if she could not talk to her captain. She was surprised with the captain’s willingness to listen to her concerns and learned from this experience that “leaders are not afraid of the truth.” While “it takes courage to stand up [against injustice], it takes more courage to sit down and listen.”

Howard shared various other anecdotes from her life that led her to learn significant lessons. She urged that an effective leader must “pay attention and listen closely” to the needs of others and should be open to negotiation. When she was chosen in 2021 to serve as chair of the “naming commission,” she came to appreciate the value of addressing people’s concerns on a personal level. Traveling throughout the South alongside her fellow commission members, she was able to gain support for the project and receive name recommendations directly from the people. While the project initially stirred controversy, it came to be widely accepted by the majority of people it impacted, ultimately emboldening Howard to later participate in a movement to remove a confederate memorial from the Arlington National Cemetery. From this experience, Howard extracted the lesson that “we can have hard conversations without killing each other.”

In concluding her talk, Howard stated that while the current state of the nation may be troubled, it is nothing we have not seen before. Asked about what gives her hope in the modern world, she responded that “long standing international alliances like NATO” give her hope because they wield the ability to achieve a “remarkable amount of good for the common good.” She adds that institutions like Holy Cross also give her hope. In a seminar held with a more intimate group of students prior to the main lecture, she was impressed by students’ hard-hitting questions and knowledge of world affairs. She shared that we are “fortunate to live in this nation at a time in which the average American respects and trusts the military.” Above all, she believes that the education of the citizenry on the importance of the military is crucial because the survival of the nation is closely tied to the survival of the military.