Tamica Mora graduated from Ave Maria University in Spring 2014 as one of seven Accounting majors in her class. She received a four-year athletic scholarship and was captain of the women’s Basketball team her junior and senior years. In her senior year, she started in 33 of 36 games and averaged 12.1 points per game. Tamica won the 2013-2014 Female Athlete of the Year Award her senior year. “I attribute my current and all future successes,” she reflected, “to AMU, my family, and friends. Being a student-athlete has shaped me to be the best version of myself.”

When asked about her time at Ave Maria, Tamica replied: “AMU is unlike any university out there. It is a place where I grew in academics, athletics, and in my faith. It is so unique, and I wouldn’t trade my time at AMU for anything in the world. It has made me who I am, and I left that place with so many wonderful memories and lifelong relationships.”

Tamica recently accepted a job as a Staff Accountant, joining the Finance Team at Infilaw Corporation in Naples, FL. “My main focus right now,” she said, “is to do the best job I can with the role I am given on the team.” As Staff Accountant, Tamica will offer payroll support, general ledger reconciliations, month-end closing and bank reconciliations.

Tamica said that the courses she took in business and accounting prepared her for her professional work. “They pushed me to work harder,” she said. Not only did the academic challenge drive her to become a better student, but it also prepared her, she remarked, for whatever her professional work has in store.

Tamica mentioned one professor in particular that had an impact on her during her time at Ave Maria University. Assistant Professor of Business Dorothy Thompson, she said, “goes above and beyond her job description. She is always there for help and she is so passionate about what she does. Her passion lies in seeing her students succeed beyond the classroom and she does all that she can to make sure that we set ourselves up for success. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for her.”

Tamica is originally from Clermont, Florida. When asked about what the future holds, she replied: “My hopes and plans for the future are simple: Whatever God has planned for me.”

Eileen Gallagher graduated cum laude from Ave Maria University in 2013 with a major in Politics and a minor in Family and Society. She was Vice President of the Student Government Association her sophomore year, a resident assistant for two years, and Conference Director for the student-run genuine.feminine annual conference from 2011-2013. She won the Class of 2013 John Paul II Culture Award and was a nominee for the President’s Award.

“I can’t think of certain classes that helped me more than others,” Eileen explained. “I can’t say that there are particular classes that shaped me the most, but I can say that my classes at Ave shaped me. I think my whole experience at Ave for four years really prepared me to face the challenges ahead. It had to do with having to balance classes on top of all my student involvement. The intensity of classes helped in that way, because they forced me to set aside the necessary time in each area of my life to achieve both excellence and balance.”

Eileen is currently a member of the Teach for America program. Through Teach for America, Eileen has been hired to teach 6th grade ESL (English as a Second Language) at a low-income school in the Providence Public School District. She is completing a two-year master’s program at Rhode Island College, focusing on education policy with regards to ESL students. Her work with students of recent immigrants has inspired the focus of her postgraduate studies.

One of Eileen’s favorite aspects of teaching is that it is incredibly demanding on her time, energy and creativity. “You never get bored,” she said. “And you never feel like you’re done getting better. Every time you get better at one thing, there are a million more things to get better at.”

Reflecting on how her Ave Maria education has influenced her professional work, Eileen brought up the core curriculum: “The core curriculum, the whole approach Ave has toward learning and the liberal arts, has helped me in thinking about education in the public sector. The education system now is so focused on test scores, on data, on student outcomes. My education at Ave has given me criteria to judge that by and to see that it’s not the most effective type of education, since it fails to consider the whole person.”

Eileen better understands the demographics of the students she now works with because of the Family and Society course she took with Dr. Catherine Pakaluk. Dr. Seana Sugrue’s Public Policy class prepared Eileen to think about the education policies that shape where she’s currently working. These two, together with Dr. John Colman, are the professors who influenced Eileen’s ideas of American culture and the philosophy of education. They prepared her, she said, both for her professional and for her postgraduate work.

When asked about the future, Eileen replied: “I definitely want to stay in the education field, but I am undecided as to my next steps. I think that education is a really powerful tool that can form people, shape culture, the country, and the world. But I think our education policy and education system right now is not focused on the whole person and on what’s important when forming people. I just want to be able to have a role in trying to change the focus of the education system towards what is more important.”

Mary Hardy graduated summa cum laude from Ave Maria University in 2013 with a B.A. in Literature. Her honors include: earning the Leadership Scholarship, the Dean of Faculty Scholarship, and making the Dean’s List for eight successive semesters.
Mary is currently enrolled in a one-year Masters Program in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She wrote her Master’s thesis on the seventeenth-century English and Scottish, both Catholic and Protestant, reception of Francis De Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life.

“AMU’s intensive writing requirements,” Mary said, “and the liberal arts core were great preparations for my graduate studies. All the practice and instruction in writing helped prepare me for the standards expected in graduate-level courses. The liberal arts core helped me engage the interdisciplinary aspects of my masters. AMU’s extensive core equipped me with the tools and confidence I needed to succeed in my graduate classes in history of art, cultural history, and literature. I was able to excel in disciplines that weren’t requirements of my major in literature.”

For her work at Edinburgh, Mary earned the Global Master’s Scholarship and the Scotland Saltire Scholarship. She has published an article, “Beyond the Cloister WallsExternal link” (Open House, Sept. 2014) which summarizes a portion of the research she did on De Sales while at Edinburgh.

In January 2015, Mary will be commencing a three-year History Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Her upcoming project is based on the Scottish Catholic Archives, which have just passed into Aberdeen’s custodianship. Mary will be studying the character of 17th century Scottish Catholicism and its influence in the early American colonies by way of devotional literature and practice. Professors Colin Barr and Peter Davidson of Aberdeen will be supervising her project.

Mary will be attending the University of Aberdeen on an Elphinstone Doctoral Fellowship, a new initiative of the University to support specific research projects via full tuition waivers for the entirety of the PhD. Additionally, she has been chosen as an H.B. Earhart Fellow by the (American) Earhart Foundation.

Mary picked out Junior Poet, also known as Early Modern Poets, as a course at Ave Maria that was particularly formative in her education: “In this class, each student chose a Renaissance poet and studied a selection of his/her verse. The focused nature of the class is similar to the intensity of graduate studies, in which one’s studies and interests become more and more refined.”

She recalled Ave Maria’s literature professor, Dr. Michael Raiger, with the words: “His enthusiasm while teaching, seminar discussions, and his unique essay prompts inspired in me a lasting love of literature.”

When asked about her plans for the future, Mary replied: “I hope to continue studying, researching, writing, and inspiring others to do the same.”

Sophia Mick graduated from Ave Maria University in 2017 with a major in Business Administration. She taught ballroom dancing and worked as a barista before coming to AMU. As a student, she worked with the phone center and worked her way up to being the Program Manager, a position she still holds with the University.

“I have always been business oriented, which is why I decided to major in Business Admin,” she said. “The classes I took were able to prepare me more for life in an office and how to interact with external partners in a way that will promote success and ethical dealings.”

Sophia began studying at AMU in 2014. As she described it: “My sister, Caitria, a freshman at Ave, called me and said, ‘You have to come to Ave—it will awaken a love for your faith!’” It turned out her sister was right, as Sophia’s time at AMU caused a rebirth in her relationship with Christ. “When I first came to Ave,” she said, “I did not know anything about my faith. I was a Christmas/Easter Catholic. My parents always went to Mass every Sunday, but I started working and fell away from everything, though I still called myself Catholic.  Being able to come to Ave where you are just so immersed in the Catholic faith and everyone else is so on fire with it, was just incredible.  I have learned everything under the sun from the professors at Ave. I began knowing very little about the Catholic Church and then took classes with professors like Father Bob Garrity, who are so approachable you can ask them anything. That first fall semester truly changed my life.”

Her professional career also started at AMU when she needed a Summer job. “I knew I needed to stay for the summer to take summer classes,” she said. “I sent Rebecca Alves, in the Office of Advancement, several emails, begging her to give me an interview. She interviewed me and they hired me as a student caller for the Phone Center. Then, in the fall semester, I received a promotion as the team leader of the callers, so it was a natural transition. In February, I began speaking with my supervisors regarding a possible position after graduation. Closer to graduation, I received an email that I was in consideration as a candidate for the Program Manager position to work with the Phone Center.”

Now, Sophia is living happily in Naples and hopes to live in the AMU community for a long time. “I want to get married and raise kids here,” she said. “I think that Ave is the most beautiful community that I’ve ever experienced. I am spoiled, living in a beautifully manicured town and it is all centralized around the Church, too. I tried and tried to get this job so that I could specifically stay here in Ave.”

Now graduated, she couldn’t be more grateful for her experience at AMU, offering this piece of advice to current students: “Even though Ave is small, stick it out, because you will fall in love with this place. You completely will. If you’re here for the right reasons, because God put you here, you’ll graduate and you’ll be sad to leave. Though this is a little town far away from everything, you’ll find out it is like heaven on earth.”