By: Liam W. Cooney | Staff Writer
An exclusive series with the Salve Mosaic Newspaper: Salve Celebrities. Featuring some of the most well-known, charismatic, entertaining, and involved students our campus has to offer, this series aims to spotlight unique students to get their own take on their stardom.
Next up on our Seahawk Celebrities, we have the one and only senior Faith O’Hara!
Quick Facts
Hometown: Newtown, CT
Major/Minor: Elementary and Special Education
Favorite Spot Downtown: The Cluck House. She loves chicken wings!
Favorite On-Campus Spot: The home of the education department, McAuley Hall.
Favorite Food in Miley: Jon’s Eggs Benedict
Favorite Color: Pink
Fun fact: “I am a dual citizen of Ireland, and my siblings and I all live in different time zones.”
One fun-loving and charismatic face on Salve’s campus is none other than Faith O’Hara, class of 2024. I was given rave reviews when I asked fellow students to describe her.
“Radiant, kind, extroverted,” is what Olivia Forbes, ‘24, told me.
Colleen Faucher described the Seahawk Celebrity as “jovial, nurturing and charitable.”
“How did I possibly qualify for this role?” is the first question O’Hara asks me when we sit down for our interview. We’re chatting over cups of coffee in Miley Lounge, and her red coat is still on after a hard day of educating the young minds of America.
“I think a celebrity is a strong word,” she admits. All I can say is that I’ve made many good friends here.” Some of those best friends were made in Moore Hall during her sophomore year. It was the first fall where COVID-19 restrictions began to loosen, and where many would agree the Salve community began to bounce back to what it once was. “That was the year I met my best friends an the ones. I lived in an eight girl suite, and now we’re all taking our grad pictures together in a couple of weeks.”
I asked Faith what she was most looking forward to for the remainder of her Seahawk career, soon ending with graduation a little over one month away, and she immediately thought about those girls. “Hanging out with my friends and going to Salve events as much as I can with the schedule I have… I’m thinking about being away from my everyone soon and it makes me sad,” she told me. “People move, and that’s scary, so seeing my friends as much as I can is what I want to do.” As a current senior myself, I share these same sentiments of soaking up the time while we still can.
Faith is currently in the midst of student teaching at Mellville Elementary School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Judging by her personality, her classroom is surely one of great excitement, with students never knowing what’s to come next. “I love my students!” Ms. O’Hara was quick to exclaim to me when we brought up her classroom.
In 10 years’ time, Faith hopes to have a lifestyle that many others strive for. “I want a steady and comfortable job in a school district I love, doing what I love, and then going home to my beautiful family.”
Faith feels that she owes plenty to her professors and peers in the Salve Regina Education department. “The teaching experiences that Salve has offered me have been a great and transformative experience,” she said. “I’ve met great people, and I’ve gotten very close with teachers and students from other schools during my student teaching.”
In terms of campus involvement, Faith participated in a multitude of activities. She is likely best recognized for her work as an Orientation Leader. “New Student Orientation,” formerly, “Week of Welcome” for Faith’s class of 2024, is an exhausting week for Orientation Leaders and new students alike, ushering new Seahawks into the campus and Newport community. “Being an orientation leader the past three years at Salve was also one of my best memories, I met so many great people and had such a great time being a student leader.”
Faith is also the Public Relations Coordinator for the Student Education Association (SEA), Salve Regina’s education club for all education students. You can follow the account @salvesea on Instagram.
Students like Faith are what make a Salve experience so enjoyable. A fun and outgoing personality and a mother of our campus community, Faith will be sorely missed next fall within not only the Education department, but within Newport as a whole. In the meantime, before she jets off to wherever it is she may be going, feel free to ask her to sit down for some wings. I have a feeling she’ll say yes.
To keep up with and get to know one of Salve’s celebrities, be sure to follow @_faithohara on Instagram, as well as be on the lookout for her upcoming Mosaic articles!
Photos provided by Faith O’Hara and Liam Cooney.
