At a lively event at the DCU Club at Polar Park on May 22, 2023, Worcester Education Collaborative honored greater Worcester leaders, Jeanne and John Esler and Fred and Patty Eppinger and their Foundations, with the first ever Ogretta V. McNeil Champion of Education Award in recognition of the impact their stalwart support of the work of education in our community has made on teaching and learning and the lives of children in the Worcester Public Schools. Their commitment to education carries on Ogretta’s legacy and has had a profound impact on the lives of countless students, families, and educators in our city.
Read more about the event here.
Learn more about Ogretta V. McNeil below:
Ogretta V. McNeil was a founding board member of the Worcester Education Collaborative and a beloved leader in our community. A professor at the College of the Holy Cross, Ogretta earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from Clark University in 1959, after graduating magna cum laude from Howard University in 1954. In 1967, she received a Danforth Fellowship, a prestigious scholarship for graduate study that is no longer in existence. At the start of her career, she worked as a psychologist for the Worcester Public Schools from 1968 to 1970. She also worked at several other area colleges and universities: as an assistant professor at Assumption College from 1968-1971, a visiting lecturer at Clark University in 1972 and as a consulting clinical psychologist at Anna Maria College from 1968-1978. She was active in her field, as an Executive Committee member of the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists, president of the New England Psychological Association from 1988 to 1989 and a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
In addition to her work in higher education, Ogretta was also dedicated to the city of Worcester and the surrounding community. She was a trustee at the University of Massachusetts from 1976 to 1981, a trustee for the UMass Memorial Foundation and a trustee at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, from 1977 to 1982. From 1995-2005, Professor McNeil served on the Steering Committee of The Worcester Women’s History Project, founded in 1994 by women to raise awareness of the importance of the first National Woman’s Rights Convention and to highlight the role of Worcester—the site of the first National Woman’s Rights Convention in 1850—in the women’s rights movement.
After her retirement from Holy Cross in 1997, Ogretta served five consecutive two-year terms as an elected member of the Worcester School Committee. She also served as an in-school mentor and tutor at several elementary schools in Worcester, supporting the children not just in learning but with donations of necessities including clothing and food. It has been nearly seven years since Ogretta’s passing and her presence, voice, and wisdom are still missed by many in our city.
In recognition of Ogretta’s work for and demonstrated love for our community’s children, WEC has instituted the Ogretta V. McNeil Champion for Education Award.
