When Richard “Dick” Senecal was in his sophomore year at Le Moyne College, he ran into a problem. He was unable to scrape together enough money to cover his enrollment for the semester.
“You want to know how much the tuition was? $200, and I didn’t have half of it.”
He laughs about it now, but despite being a modest tuition price in any era, this was difficult for a student of the class of ‘53 from a working-class family just coming out of World War II.
Luckily, after a meeting with Father Fingerhut, who was the school’s treasurer at the time, Dick was offered a lifeline. He could remain enrolled as long as he was good to his word and paid his balance by the end of the academic year. Little did he know, but this selfless act of Jesuit kindness would be a defining moment of his life, and spurred a sense of school pride that would remain strong now 70 plus years later.
Dick, who was a member of the third ever graduating class of Le Moyne College in 1953, used his liberal arts education to teach English and Latin studies at Liverpool High School for over 30 years. But even in his busy career as an educator, a father, competitive athlete in Speed Skating and Slowpitch Softball, and 27 years of service to the Syracuse VA Medical Center, Dick felt it was important to support his alma mater that provided him so much.
He is a longtime and currently active contributor to the institution as a representative of his graduating class, and often attends major Le Moyne events. He has served as a member of the Alumni Association Board, and has been a member of multiple Reunion Committees, including serving as co-chair in 2018. Additionally, in 2008, along with his brother Don ‘57 established a scholarship fund in their name for prospective students pursuing English or Physics Studies.
In honor of his many contributions to the school, Dick was presented with the Ignatian Award for Service to Le Moyne in June of 2023, which he has proudly framed and displayed in his room.
When asked why he feels such a strong sense of loyalty and pride to the school, Senecal says it comes down to the way Le Moyne treats its alumni. From the moment he graduated, he never felt like the relationship with his college was over:
“They have a tremendous loyalty to their alumni, and I was personally befriended by half a dozen Le Moyne professors, two of them former Presidents [of the school]…I exchanged Christmas cards and letters with them.”
One relationship that he looks back on fondly is with the late Father Daniel Mulhauser, whom he shared a strong friendship with:
“He wasn’t [at Le Moyne] when I attended, but later became the alumni chaplain. He’d befriended me. We went to the lacrosse games together. We sat on the bus together down to Philadelphia twice when Le Moyne was playing for the national championship. So that was part of the deal, was what friends they became afterwards.”
Dick, now 93, noted that many of the members of the Le Moyne community from his generation have gone before him, with only two members from his class that he remains in contact with.
However, his ties to the school continue to foster new relationships with active members of not only the alumni network, but also leaders of the institution. He recalled meeting current Le Moyne President LeMura during her time as a provost and vice president for academic affairs, quickly forming a bond that he welcomed and cherishes still today. “[LeMura] and I are on a first name basis. She is very friendly, it’s her style.”
This relationship paved an opportunity to meet someone that he considers one of Le Moyne’s most influential figures:
“At a lacrosse game, I snuck into the press box because I know it’s empty most of the time. But the door opens and in walks Linda LeMura, the President, and she’s got somebody in tow with her. I go to get up because I’m sitting in her chair, and she said “stay down, Dick, because I want you to meet somebody,” and in walks Janette Epps.”
Epps, a Le Moyne alumna and famed NASA astronaut, is among the most accomplished figures in the college’s history. Senecal admires her work deeply, and has even put together a small display of her in his home, sitting alongside his Le Moyne memorabilia and decades worth of memories from his time with the institution. Moments like this remind him of the power of a smaller, close knit community that Le Moyne provides.
As a pioneer of the school, Dick relishes the opportunity to compare his experience of attending Le Moyne when it was in its infancy with the rapid growth of the school into one of the nation’s premier academic and athletic collegiate institutions now seven decades later.
Dick participated on the men’s Speed Skating team during his time, and recounted his experience as a member of the first athletic team to win a trophy at Le Moyne:
“I played in the North American Speed Skating championships at the Dartmouth Winter Carnival. After the day was over, there was dinner in the evening. We didn’t even know we won until that night when the trophy was sitting on the table for us…And most of the Le Moyne community didn’t know we had a [Speed Skating] team.”
Now all these years later, Dick is fascinated seeing how far Le Moyne has come. From being a member of the school’s first trophy win that more or less went unnoticed, to now entering into its first full season of Division I membership with all teams competing for the top prize beginning in the Fall, Le Moyne is truly blossoming into a nationally recognized institution.
Overall, Dick left off by emphasizing how special it is to attend a college like Le Moyne:
“Most of the graduates are pretty aware of the genuineness in their [Le Moyne] diploma. It really counts…and I think maybe the [Syracuse] community is beginning to recognize the value of having another school.”
