Dr. Tina Holland, Baton Rouge Chapter

Dr. Tina Holland has Our Lady of the Lake College — a Franciscan educational institution originally founded as a nursing school — poised for tremendous growth.

Dr. Tina Holland

Holland arrived in Louisiana in 2014 after 24 years at Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, Ind., where she served as executive vice president and provost. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who served three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, she has positioned OLLC to meet the various needs of the local community. She is also an avid Boston Red Sox fan and active member of the Society of American Baseball Research. Holland spoke with Legatus magazine staff writer Brian Fraga.

How is Our Lady of the Lake College meeting the needs of the local community?

We certainly can provide workforce development in the area of liberally educated leaders and business people, so we said let’s get a business degree up and running because our local businesses said we need well-formed, not just credentialed, business leaders. We have also become the provider of education for the permanent diaconate program for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, and we are getting ready to propose to the diocese a program for lay formation. Where there is a local need, if it is within reason, within our mission, then we’re going to try to do that.

How has your tenure at OLLC impacted your faith life?

It has definitely been a new chapter in my faith journey. I came from 24 years of serving the educational ministry of the Brothers of Holy Cross, and I had never really thought I would work any place but a Brothers’ college or university. Going to a Franciscan ministry and serving the educational ministry of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady has been another opportunity for me to grow in my faith, to see how the Catholic faith can be lived out in a different tradition.

How did your Naval Academy and Marine Corps background prepare you for life?

The most important thing it did was prepare me to be a wife and mother. That may sound funny, but in our current culture, there are a lot of forces out there that can make marriages vulnerable. What my experience at Annapolis did was help me to feel confident that there are indeed very clear right and wrongs, that right and wrong are not relative, that there are indeed certain absolutes that could mean the life and death of somebody — and could also mean the survival of your relationship with your spouse or the way in which you raise up your children. The Marine Corps took it one step further and taught me as a leader you’re first and foremost a servant.

Where does your love of baseball come from?

I grew up hearing stories from my Japanese grandfather who said when he was younger, “If you knew your baseball, you were considered a true American because that’s America’s game.” We were raised to be patriotic Americans in my family, and I said, “Well, I’m going to know my baseball.”

I started becoming a student of the game, and then I found that I loved the quantitative aspect of it. I also loved the beauty and symmetry of the game, and I was fascinated by the geometry of the game.

Bart Giamatti [former Major League Baseball commissioner] said successes overall are achieved 90 feet at a time. That has been, to me personally, a way of improving my quality of life, of providing a good education and formation for our children, and then later on as a leader in higher education. I find myself thinking that way as we work to achieve the strategic plans of the college.

Has Legatus benefited your spiritual life?

Oh yes. When you have those meetings and the speakers come, I’ve found that it requires me to think about my faith in the various contexts the speakers are coming from, and it also helps me to appreciate how people, particularly the speakers, are doing God’s work, how they are sharing the message of the Gospel and how they are participating in the New Evangelization.