Christine Goldman in training for the 2019 Boston Marathon. (Lee Pellegrini)
Chemistry part-time faculty member Christine Goldman, a 13-time Boston Marathon qualifier, is already in the winner’s circle even before the starting gun sounds on Monday in Hopkinton for the race’s 123rd edition.
Goldman was honored on Feb. 1 as one of three recipients of the second annual Martin Richard Foundation Peacemaker Award, an acknowledgement of her leadership and volunteerism on behalf of the non-profit organization named for the youngest victim of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The foundation characterized her as a “role model for sportsmanship, inclusion, kindness, and peace,” and someone who “strives to do the right thing and encourages others to do the same; she personifies the idea that to truly give, we must give of ourselves.”
Additionally, Goldman and her Peacemaker Award co-recipients were lauded for “living the values of sportsmanship, inclusion, kindness and peace in their everyday lives” and serving as “ambassadors of our vision of a united, compassionate community.”
“Being recognized with a Martin Richard Foundation Peacemaker Award encourages me to keep running for Martin, to keep working for inclusion, kindness, sportsmanship, and peace, all the while believing that this is what Martin himself would be doing if he we here with us physically,” says Goldman, who will run in support of the foundation, known as “Team MR8,” on Monday despite suffering a left elbow fracture and an injury to her right wrist in a training run spill.
Goldman, who has consecutively run the Boston Marathon since 2007, first participated as a Team MR8 ambassador in 2015. “I was profoundly affected by the events on an emotional and spiritual level,” she explained in a 2015 Chronicle interview. “Every single day when I run, I pray for the victims and their families, and I pray for peace.”
Her support for the foundation’s goals went beyond running the marathon. In 2015, Bridgewater State University—from which Martin’s parents graduated in 1993—dedicated its institute for social justice in Martin Richard’s name and memory. When Goldman was asked to serve on the institute’s advisory board, she immediately agreed.
“We’re reinvigorating the institute,” says Goldman. “It will be much more focused on social justice issues going forward.”
Goldman, who joined BC in 1999, has designed, developed, and instructed the Honors Chemistry laboratory series since 2001.
Learn how to support Goldman’s Boston Marathon run at the Team MR8 website.
—Phil Gloudemans | University Communications | April 2019