BY CIAN HAMELL-KELLEHER
Photo Credit: Stonehill College
A panel of four Stonehill College alumni; David Simas ’92, Meghan Kilcoyne ‘10, Pamerson Ifill ’92, and Bill Driscoll ’68 gathered last Wednesday evening to discuss how their time at Stonehill shaped their lives beyond the campus.
The four remember their time as students fondly, especially in the classroom.
Simas, a managing director at Emerson Collective and former deputy assistant to President Barack Obama beamed when recalling his Constitutional Law course, mainly the professor.
“He presented information as if it were the first time he read it,” said Simas.
Simas’ enthusiasm for education, furthered in his time at Stonehill, led him to run for Taunton School Board at just 21 years old, with a desire to improve education.
His love for education and making change drove him to work in politics where Simas served the American people in the White House under President Obama.
Kilcoyne also said a class at Stonehill shaped her professional career - Women’s History.
A State Representative for the 12th Worcester District, Kilcoyne understands firsthand the struggles of being a woman in politics.
As only 32.7 percent of state legislature positions are held by women, Kilcoyne understood her journey would be an uphill battle.
“I wanted to quit,” said Kilcoyne, talking about her sleepless nights when running in 2020.
She said she was able to get into a groove, thanks in part to a lesson she learned at Stonehill: Building relationships is more important than stressing over test scores.
With the difficulties of COVID-19, Kilcoyne realized that people would want a representative that they know they could trust, not just another face on a picket sign.
Kilcoyne began campaigning door-to-door and built relationships with the people she would now represent, reminiscent of the time she sang Christmas Carols through the courts at Stonehill.
Like Kilcoyne, it was the relationships with other students that Ifill remembers best, recalling the many times his presence was requested in the off chance of an altercation at the local bar on Stonehill’s campus, Brother Mikes’.
“I never went,” said Ifill with a smile.
Ifill, a retired boxing champion, and current deputy commissioner of Pre-Trial Services in Massachusetts, hails from Barbados, where he faced a childhood of hardship and violence, something he doesn’t shy away from.
“Bloom where you’re planted, not where you want to grow,” Ifill said.
His success as a boxer in Barbados brought him to the United States, a path that would lead to Ifill to Stonehill College and eventually his position as the first black male Deputy Commissioner in Massachusetts Pre-Trial Services’ 183-year history.
Ifill’s life of resilience drew him to work in the courts, wanting nothing more than to make a change in the world.
“Get out of your comfort zone and try to learn about people who are different than you, that’s the only way the system will change,” Ifill said.
Like Ifill, Driscoll’s story is one of resilience.
Driscoll, a former TOPGUN instructor and one of the highest decorated living Naval Flight Officers, was a three-year varsity baseball player and editor of the Summit during his time at Stonehill.
After graduating, Driscoll went on to serve in the United States Navy and during a combat mission in 1972 was shot down over Vietnamese waters but was saved before being captured.
His story garnered national attention and he was doing five to six television shows a week almost immediately after he was saved.
Driscoll was given Memorial Day weekend off from his press tour and decided to stop by Stonehill for the first time since graduating in 1968.
As memories of his student years rushed to the front of his mind at the time, he stopped at the shrine on Holy Cross Way to stop and think about his past few months, and how fortunate he was.
It was from then on that he said he vowed to help anyone who needed it.
Today, he has been working with Columbia University to discuss the efforts of combat on a person.
Even after 170 combat missions in the Vietnam War, Driscoll said he never forgot what he learned in his time on campus.
“The values you learn at Stonehill will never leave you,” Driscoll said.
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