2021 Ovatio: Anthony Fauci, MD

Ovatio : Anthony Fauci, MD – January 4, 2021

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Hodie virum praecellentem, sanandi peritissimum, de terra pila ludentium derelictorum[1] egressum culmen investigationis medicinae publicaeque sanitatis ut perveniret, laudamus. Deo et patriae Academia Regis dedicationem erexit,[2] optimam disciplinam apud universitatem Sanctae Crucis, ubi ad percipiendam colendamque virtutem litteris Latinis et Graecis atque scientiis praemedicinis se contulisset.[3] Gradu perfecto medicinae doctoris apud universitatem in urbe commemorante patriam Ulixis,[4] experimenta magna rerum novarum de morbis contagiosis persequebatur, transformans investigationes in salubritatem.[5] Experimentorum peritia consuetudinibus eruditioneque fictis inter vitam totam usus, meritus est Coronam Libertatis, a Praeside Patriae Nostrae tributam. Cum ratio nova morborum, mortifer aestus,[6] apparuit, via laeta patuit,[7] itaque deservivit Concilio Domus Albae Pestilentiam Novam Investiganti. Conclaremus carminibus almae matris tuae.[8] Plaudamus igitur Anthony Fauci, MD.

Today we praise a most distinguished man, having left the land of the Brooklyn Dodgers to arrive at the summit of medical research and public health. Regis High School built up his dedication to God and country, the best preparation for courses at the College of the Holy Cross, where, for the appreciation and cultivation of excellence, he devoted himself to the Latin and Greek classics as well as to the pre-medical sciences. After he completed his M.D. degree at Cornell University, he pursued major innovative experiments on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, turning discovery into health. Using experimental skills and the knowledge and habits formed throughout his entire life, he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When a new kind of disease, a deadly fever, occurred, a fortunate path lay open, and he therefore served zealously on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Let us shout out with “another Hoya and a Choo-Choo-Rah-Rah.” Let us thus applaud Anthony Fauci, M.D.

Stephen Rojcewicz, Jr. AB (Holy Cross), MD (Georgetown), PhD (Maryland), in conjunction with Judith Peller Hallett, AB (Wellesley), MA and PhD (Harvard), Professor of Classics and Distinguished Scholar Emerita, University of Maryland, College Park

With the participation of Luigi De Luca, MA (Maryland), PhD (Pavia), PhD (CUA), the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, formerly of the National Cancer Institute, NIH; Inna Kunz, BA (Michigan), MA (Maryland), Easton High School; Alan P. Vollmann, JD (CUA), previously partner at Holland and Knight, LLP; Mark Weadon, BA (Cornell), MA (Maryland), PhD (Michigan); Benjamin White, BA (Harvard), MD (Columbia).


[1] In Brooklyn the Dodgers were affectionately known as the “Bums.”

[2] Deo et Patriae Pietas Christiana Erexit, “Christian Devotion Built This for God and Country,” is the motto of Regis High School, New York City.

[3] ad percipiendam colendamque virtutem litteris . . . se contulissent, “they applied themselves . . . through literary studies to the appreciation and cultivation of excellence,” Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta 16.

[4] The main campus of Cornell University is located at Ithaca, NY.

[5] The motto of the National Institutes of Health is “Turning Discovery into Health.”

[6] ratio quondam morborum et mortifer aestus, “a certain kind of diseases and a deadly fever,” Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 6.1138.

[7] caelum certe patet, “at least the sky lies open,” Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.186.

[8] “Give another Hoya and a Choo-Choo-Rah-Rah,” is the major song and cheer for school spirit at the College of the Holy Cross.