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Mary Anne Vigliante walks the halls of the Academy of Holy Names in Albany with ease. The rows of lockers snake down the hallway but Vigliante, Head of School for the all-girls Catholic high school, knows each twist and turn. But if you worked at the same school for 52 years, you’d probably say the same.

She points to the set of lockers on her right, decorated with congratulation memos and the logos of the various colleges that this year’s senior class will be heading off to. Just down the hall, Vigliante has her own graduation celebration: her face painted across the front school windows. 

The memento was left over from the girls’ surprise farewell party for Vigliante, who is retiring at the end of the school year. Students made big head cutouts from Vigliante’s old Holy Names yearbook photos (at far r.), like a sports fan does for their favorite player. It’s a fitting send-off for a woman with many fans. Quick with a laugh and a smile that shines, Vigliante’s motherly leadership makes her retirement from Holy Names all the more bittersweet.

From a student herself, class of 1964, to an English teacher, to Head of School, Vigliante has seen the growth of Holy Names over decades. Emily Benson from The Evangelist sat down with Vigliante for this latest edition of Catholic Voices to talk about her time at Holy Names, the changes she’s seen and how it feels to say goodbye. 

TE: Did you grow up in Albany?
MV:  Yes, I’m an Albanian. I have been all my life. We started off on Lark Street, so my first home was on Lark, but at 10 we moved to Fulton Street. I had three siblings, all girls. So I was very well prepared (for Holy Names), and I had a dad who loved girls, so I was lucky to be born into the family.

TE: Was your family religious?
MV:  Oh, yes! My parents are both first-generation Americans, both of their parents were from Italy and emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s, so we were a very Catholic family. 

TE: Did you follow a lot of Italian traditions growing up?
MV:  Oh, yes, there was a lot of it around holiday times, a lot of it around food, and I think a lot of it around the expectations for behavior; for respect, for how we treat other people. I don’t think these expectations are only an Italian tradition, but I have seen them in many Italian families.

TE: How did your faith impact you?
MV:  My faith was integral to my formation as a person. It was part of my life from the very beginning and it began as tradition and a cultural influence. Then, as I got older and built a more theological understanding of my faith, it became a very important foundation for my life.

TE: Were you always sure you wanted to go into teaching?
MV:  Oh no! No, no, I graduated from college not knowing what I wanted to do. When I said before that my parents were wonderful parents, I think one of the most wonderful parts of my childhood was nobody forced me into anything. I think in this day and age parents want their children to know what they want to do so they can support themselves, but my parents weren’t like that. It was you do whatever it is you want to do, and what I wanted to do was study. It never even crossed my mind that I had to, at some point in my life, select a career. So I went to graduate school without a career in mind, and then graduate school became not relevant. And what I mean by that is I didn’t feel like I was making any kind of difference, and I felt I had an obligation to do so. You can’t just keep going to school and ignore the responsibility to make a difference in the world. I gave up my two fellowships — my New York State College Teaching Fellowship and my fellowship to the University of Chicago — and I said I think I’ll go back (to Albany) and see if there’s something more I wanted to do. I loved learning, so school seemed like the right business. I applied to every school in the Capital Region to see if they’d give a person who didn’t have a certification as a teacher a position, and I was offered a job in the Troy city school district. But the day I was offered that job, I was also offered an interview at the Academy of the Holy Names, which was my alma mater, so I took that interview, put that other job on hold, and was offered the job at Holy Names. 

TE: You’re an alum of Holy Names?
MV:  Yes! Class of 1964.

TE: What was it like to come back and start working for your alma mater?
MV:  It seemed natural, I guess. It wasn’t off-putting at all. I was happy I was in a Catholic environment and community, and in a smaller environment than I would have been in a public school. And I felt, as I always felt here, that I had the freedom to effect change. If I saw something that needed to be done, I had the freedom to move ahead to do it. And that’s been characteristic of the school the entire time I’ve been here.

TE: Where did you attend college?
MV:  My undergraduate was at The College of Saint Rose and I was an English Lit major there, and then I went to the University of Chicago (for my master’s), and my concentration there was English Renaissance Literature

TE: That must have been nice to see Chicago.
MV:  It was! I liked Chicago very much. It’s a big city but there’s something about it that has more of a small town feel than New York City, so I liked my time in Chicago. And living on Lake Michigan was an experience. I remember the sidewalks would freeze over in the winter and you would be pushed along by the wind, so you didn’t have to walk at all, it was like skating to your class! But it was beautiful. The architecture of the University of Chicago mimics the architecture of the University of Oxford, England.

TE: Did English Lit have a big place in your heart?
MV:  From very early on in my life I’ve loved to read. I never thought that my major in undergrad was going to be English because it was just something I liked to do and something that came very easily to me, but I didn’t think I was going to study English. I went into college as a math or French major and then had a wonderful experience in my freshman English Lit course, and that defined my career.

TE: What other positions have you held at Holy Names?
MV:  I started as a teacher of English but very quickly became English department chair, I think within the first six months. After that curriculum coordinator, after that assistant principal, after that principal of the high school, after that principal of the middle school and high school, after that principal of pre-K through 12, and then head of school, which was eight years ago.

TE: Sounds like you worked your way through the school!
MV:  I’m a person who’s easily bored. That sounds paradoxical because I’ve been in a place for 52 years, but what I mean by that is I’m always looking for the next challenge. I was always looking for the next thing that needs to be corrected that I thought I could do, and I wanted to do it. So staying in the same place and doing the same thing was never enough for me. I was always the person who took on the extra course preparations, who wanted to teach four different courses because it was more interesting than teaching four sections of the same course.

TE: What was it like to see Holy Names grow and evolve over the years?
MV:  It was kind of wonderful, and I say that because I don’t think anything stays the same. And for different generations of students, there are different needs. You wouldn’t want to be teaching this generation of students in the same way I was taught. It would be irrelevant. So there’s a sense of gratification to know we’ve changed with the times. In fact, the foundress of the Sisters of the Holy Names, Blessed Marie Rose Durocher said that she believed in tomorrow, that education had to address the needs of every generation who come to our schools.

TE: Tell me about the goals you had for Holy Names?
MV:  It’s phenomenally gratifying to see. I think the biggest move forward in the time I’ve been here was the one-to-one program, where we were able to provide computers to every faculty member and every student in the school. That was a big step forward for us. And that was what really prepared us for going remote when COVID hit. If we hadn’t done that several years before it would have been a pretty heavy lift to do all the remote learning we had to do during COVID. In addition to technology… we did work with our advancement and encouraged our alumnae to come back to participate in the life of the school. We’ve also done a lot for advancement, meaning fundraising, and the fundraising aspects of the school have made some wonderful connections with people in the community. Fundraising may not be the most interesting part of school life, but it is important in sustaining the school and providing it with the resources it needs for students to be successful.

TE: What was it like to watch your students grow up over the years?
MV:  It’s phenomenally gratifying to see. Especially when I was principal of pre-K through 12, some of the students who are graduating this year I knew down in the lower grades as really young ones, and so to see them walk across the stage in their white caps and gowns, carrying their red flowers, it’s a beautiful moment. And a very gratifying moment as an educator. I think I speak for all educators when I say that. You just love to see the growth and you feel very humbled to think maybe you had some small part to play in that growth and development of that person. It’s a pretty privileged place to be. 

TE: Can you put into words what is special about Holy Names?
MV:  I think what’s so special about the place, and what’s been so special for me, has been having the opportunity to be with and know so many people whose values transcend the here and now, and who believe in something beyond themselves and believe in values that are greater than they are; who want something better for their children. And I think too it’s the possibility you have here to create or influence the creation of young women who are ready to go out into the world and do something positive. They become, as it says in our mission statement, skillful builders of a better world. And that’s why I stay. I have seen that happen, and I know education can make that happen. To me, there would be few other fields that I could be in where I could see that progression and could influence a soul to do something of major importance in the world. 

TE: Do you have any specific fond memory of Holy Names?
MV:  I think the tradition of graduation here is a beautiful tradition, it’s visually memorable. As I said before, the white caps and gowns, carrying the roses, every girl having her moment center stage, having come to her full confidence in herself, are unbelievably moving and gratifying moments. There are so many specific memories I can’t think of one that stands out among the rest, and isn’t it wonderful to have so many happy memories of the place! Last week, the girls did their “Farewell to Ms. Vigliante” event, and it was such fun. It was so Holy Names, I would say. I don’t know where else you would have that kind of spirit. There definitely was a sense of sisterhood, and there was not a sad moment, not anything but sweetness and joy from those girls, and that’s the thing that makes one keep coming back.

TE: The faculty you work with must have helped make your time here enjoyable, too.
MV:  It’s a wonderful faculty. We manage to attract the people who are interested in transforming lives and whose values transcend the here and now. We have many people here who have longevity at Holy Names: our current division head, or principal, has been here for 30 years, our former athletic director/Spanish teacher has been here for over 40 years, we have a math teacher who has been here for 40 years, and we have a science teacher whose been here for 40 years. So I’m not an anomaly here!

TE: What are your plans for after your own “graduation” from Holy Names?
MV:  There hasn’t been any time in this position to sit back and say what am I going to do with the rest of my life, and so I’m sure I’ll have some ideas once I’m done with the 24/7 position that this is. I’ll have plenty of time to think about it and decide. I know I’m not a person who likes to stop and sit still, so I know I’ll be looking for something that has some purpose to it because that’s the way I am. So we’ll see. First on the agenda is to get my house and property in order, but past that no specific plans. Luckily I’m healthy and I think I’m in full position of my faculties, so hopefully, I have some really wonderful years ahead!

TE: Any parting advice for your students?
MV:  I’d ask them to be true to the best part of themselves, and if they do, they will have happy lives. More than anything I want them to be happy, not just ha-ha happy, but joyful might be a better word. I want them to have joy and I feel like the last two-and-a-half years (have) been somewhat denied them, so they have some catching up to do.

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