2025 Commencement

Joanne McFadden McBride ’83

Joanne McFadden McBride ’63 earned a bachelor’s degree in design and English from Chestnut Hill College and was honored when selected by the College to appear in the 1963-64 edition of Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. She is a graduate of the Realtor Institute (GRI) ’89 and continually pursues education in the area of real estate.

As a result of her professional skills, hard work and a passion for helping people buy and sell their homes, Joanne has been the recipient of many awards that include the coveted PREA award as one of the Top Realtors in the county. The Pennsylvania Association of Realtors has awarded her life membership in the PAR Excellence Club for outstanding achievement and contribution to the community. She also enjoys the distinction of being one of the Top 100 Realtors in the BHHS network.

Joanne served on the Chestnut Hill College Board of Directors from 2015 to 2024 and was a member of the Development Committee and the Membership & Governance Committee. In April of 2025, Joanne was inducted into the Libris Society. With gratitude for her time at Chestnut Hill College, Joanne makes it a point to tell someone about CHC every day of her life.

Sister Mary Helen Kashuba, SSJ, D.M.L.

Sister Mary Helen Kashuba, SSJ, DML is Professor of French and Russian. She completed her studies for Russian at Fordham University, and her doctorate in French at Middlebury College. She received a Fulbright Grant for study in France, and two grants to study Russian in the former Soviet Union. She has spent 62 years teaching at Chestnut Hill College, where she is also Chair of the Department of Foreign Language and Literature. Sister Mary Helen participates regularly in local, regional, and national Foreign Language Associations, where she has also held major offices. She is Past President of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), past Board member of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL) and The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In addition, she currently fills leadership roles in the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association (PSMLA) and the Modern Language Association of Philadelphia and Vicinity (MLAPV). Sister Mary Helen presents frequently at professional meetings of these and other associations.

Sister Mary Helen’s scholarly work includes articles on Camus and Tolstoy published by the Modern Language Association in their “Approaches to Teaching” series, on pedagogy and literature in the NECTFL Review, and a translation in Teilhard Studies. She has also authored chapters on French and Russian literature and on the Sisters of St. Joseph. She has written a history of Chestnut Hill College, Tradition and Risk (1999), and has continued to research the legacy of the College. Tradition and Risk, II, her newest publication was released in March of this year. She has also published many book reviews in The French Review and the NECTFL Review. Among her scholarly interests are the origins and history of the Sisters of St. Joseph and Chestnut Hill College, advocacy for Foreign Languages, and French and Russian language and culture.

Among Sister Mary Helen’s awards are the reception of Commandeur in the Palmes Académiques from the French Government, the Nelson Brooks Award for Leadership in the Profession, and several awards for excellence in teaching, including the Lindback Award, the Dorothy Ludwig Award from the AATF, and the PSMLA Educator of the Year. Although active in Foreign Language leadership, research, and scholarship, her main focus has always been her students. She considers herself above all a teacher, and tries to inspire a love of learning and a pride of accomplishment in her students.

David Contosta, Ph.D.

David Contosta, Ph.D. is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department here at Chestnut Hill College. Earlier, he served as director of the college’s American Studies Program and of the Interdepartmental Honors Program. He is the author of 25 books that include publications of national and international interest. Among these are “Henry Adams and the American Experiment,” “America in the Twentieth Century,” “The Private Life of James Bond,” “Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin” “America’s Needless Wars: Cautionary Tales of US Involvement in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Iraq,” and a forthcoming title, “A Republic If You Can Keep It: The American Presidential Experiment.”

Dr. Contosta has also published several books about people and places in the local area. Among these are “A Philadelphia Family: The Houstons and Woodwards of Chestnut Hill,” “Suburb in the City: Chestnut Hill Philadelphia,” “Metropolitan Paradise: Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley” (co-authored with Carol Franklin), and histories of both Villanova University and Saint Joseph’s University. A first novel, entitled “Happenstance,” is also set largely in this region and will appear later this year. Several years ago, he published a memoir entitled “An American Childhood,” about his growing up in a small Ohio town.

Dr. Contosta has produced, written, and/or appeared in several documentary films, has been interviewed many times on both radio and television, and has given numerous book signings and other in-person talks in Philadelphia and surrounding communities, as well as before professional organizations. In addition, he has lectured at Nanjing University in China and at Pyeongtaek University in South Korea and has been a Visiting Research Professor at Cambridge University in England, as well as a Fulbright Scholar to France.

Dr. Contosta received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, The Chestnut Hill Award from the Chestnut Hill Community Association, and a Commendation for Extraordinary Achievements from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Dr. Contosta had been a member of the Chestnut Hill College faculty for fifty-one years.

John Lukacs, Ph.D.

John Lukacs was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied history at the University of Budapest. During the Second World War, when German troops occupied Hungary, Lukacs was forced to serve in a Hungarian labor battalion for Jews. He survived the siege of Budapest. After the war, Lukacs worked as the Secretary of the Hungarian-American Society.

In July 1946, Lukacs came to the United States. He found employment as a part-time assistant lecturer at Columbia University in New York City. He then relocated to Philadelphia, where in 1947 he began work as a history professor at Chestnut Hill College. Lukacs was a professor of history at Chestnut Hill College until 1994 and chaired the history department from 1947 to 1974. He served as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Princeton University, La Salle University, Regent College in British Columbia, the University of Budapest, and Hanover College. He was a president of the American Catholic Historical Association and a member of both the Royal Historical Society and the American Philosophical Society.

Dr. Lukacs wrote voluminously about World War II. Among these titles is The Duel: The Eighty Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler (2001). In it, as well as in other writings, John asserted that Churchill had quite literally saved Western Civilization. Other notable works include History of the Cold War, The End of the Twentieth Century, Budapest 1900, Philadelphia: Patricians and Philistines, Churchill: Visionary, Statement, Historian, George Kenna and A Sketch of the History of Chestnut Hill College, 1924-1974, which he wrote to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the college.

For years, Dr. Lukacs represented the excellence of our college to the outside world. He died at age 95 in May 2019 in his library at home surrounded his family and by some 20,000 books. Attending his funeral was the Hungarian Ambassador to the United States. Long newspaper obituaries appeared in many languages around the world praising him at his passing. In his native Budapest, there is now a John Lukacs Institute at Ludovika University, established in January 2024 in honor of his centenary.