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Rebecca Herhold
It was during a political protest in Georgia that Becky Herhold got her first glimpse of Boston College. A teacher at her Catholic high school led a group to Fort Benning, Georgia, to support School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch). The organization is dedicated to closing the U.S. government’s School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which SOA Watch charges has trained soldiers in tactics such as torture and assassination. Among the crowd of protesters, Herhold noticed a group from Boston College. She tucked away a positive impression. Just a year later, Herhold was one of the BC student protesters at Fort Benning. As soon as the San Jose, California, native arrived on campus, she was eager to get involved. During her freshman year, she signed up for a volunteer trip to Jamaica, where she helped run a day camp in a rural community and visited social service organizations in Kingston. The summer after her sophomore year, Herhold led a trip to the Dominican Republic. That same summer, Herhold took off for Guatemala, courtesy of a Boston College Advanced Study Grant offered to first- and second-year students who want to acquire research skills that will help them progress in their fields of study. She studied Spanish in the morning and worked in a child care center in the afternoon. After graduation, she plans to return to the same Guatemalan community for six weeks, helping with a children’s education project and a mental health initiative for women in remote communities. Herhold, a history major and member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society, also spent a semester studying gender issues and social change at Mexico’s Center for Global Education. This year, in recognition of her outstanding commitment to social justice and human rights, Herhold received Boston College’s Congressman John Joseph Moakley Award for International Service. Mark O’Connor, director of the College of Arts and Sciences honors program, describes a confident, socially aware student, a sometimes unconventional but always serious thinker. “Hers is not the kind of mind that only says smart things in conventional ways,” O’Connor says. “She can find unusual ways to see issues.” Herhold grew up in a social-minded family. Her grandfather, a minister, marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. Her mother participated in 1960s-era protests, and has the button collection to prove it. To Herhold, fighting for change is not optional. “The situations of people are so dramatic and so desperate. If I feel tired, the feeling is so minuscule in the face of what needs to be changed,” she says. Photo: Rebecca Herhold on the Dustbowl. |
