Tanya Woodard ’92 Urges Future Educators to Lead with Justice, Joy, and Purpose

Thirteen students were inducted into the Pi Lambda Theta Honor Society, which recognizes outstanding students who plan to pursue careers in education, and Distinction in the Field candidates were celebrated for their academic excellence (see below for lists). Woodard, principal of Boston’s James W. Hennigan K–8 School, received the 2025 Emmanuel College Distinguished Alumna Award and delivered an address that blended her personal experience with a call to action for the graduating class.

“Education is not passive,” Woodard said. “It’s how we disrupt systems of oppression. It’s how we remind our students—and ourselves—that they matter. That we matter.”

Drawing on more than three decades as an educator and administrator in Boston classrooms, she spoke with urgency about the stakes of teaching. She recalled her first job, leading a class of first graders in Jamaica Plain just months after graduating from Emmanuel. “I walked into that classroom with everything I had,” she said. “And what I didn’t have, I was determined to learn.”

Woodard, a lifelong Boston resident and graduate of the city’s public school system, came of age during the turbulence of court-ordered busing and racial tension in the 1970s and ’80s. Her own experiences as a student of color shaped a philosophy of teaching rooted in justice, identity, and visibility. “There were times I felt invisible,” she admitted. “But there were also moments—moments that saved me—when a teacher saw something in me before I could see it myself.”

She urged the graduates to be that presence for their own students. “You can be that person,” she said. “You must be that person.”

Leading with Purpose

Woodard challenged them to view classrooms as spaces where justice and joy coexist. “You are not here because the path is easy,” she said. “You are here because it’s worth it. Build classrooms where joy is revolutionary, where justice isn’t just taught but lived—where every student, regardless of race, income, language, or ability, feels seen.”

In her closing remarks, Woodard returned to the importance of purpose: “Keep your ‘why’ at the heart of your work. It will guide you when the load feels heavy—because some days, it will.”

For the Class of 2025, the message was clear: Teaching is more than a profession—it’s a commitment to equity, to students, and to a better future.

Distinction in the Field Candidates

Addison Durant: Math A Curriculum Intervention for Algebra II: Students' Participation in Proof
El Francis: History Music and National Identity in Wartime Vietnam
Alyssa Martino: History "Doublethink" in Practice: George Orwell's Complex Utopian Identity
Chatham McCloskey: English Effective Strategies for Resilient Teaching Under Imposing Threats of ICE Raids
Katherine Passick: History The Legacy of Mass Sterilization in Puerto Rico on Women and Nationhood

Pi Lambda Theta Honor Society Inductees

Emily Ahfield 
Juliana Buonopane
Danielle Chin
Sabrina Dasilva
Amanda Donohue
Samantha Hayes
Mia Hurley
Alyssa Martino
Chatham McCloskey
Katherine Passick
Sophia Scali
Treshna Spence
Amelia Stratemeyer