Reverend Gina Finocchiaro ’97 is the Protestant chaplain, international student coordinator, All-School Meeting (ASM) coordinator, and a Paul Revere House Counselor at Andover. Finocchiaro, known to most students as Rev. G. or Rev. Gina, rejoined the Andover community in 2020 as an interim Protestant chaplain and enjoys the variety in the roles she plays on campus and the memories they bring back.
One of the things that’s very cool about my assortment of roles is that every day is different for me. For instance, Tuesdays are chapel days for me, where all the chaplains come into the office because, as chaplains, it’s a part of our identities and the work that we do. We have staff meetings on Tuesdays. I usually spend Wednesdays and Thursdays in CaMD, [Community and Multicultural Development], at my international office. Fridays depend on what’s going on. There’s ASM in the morning, and sometimes, we have full team meetings after ASM to talk about students. So, for my week, I don’t always wake up and know what’s going to happen that day, which is one of the things I love about my job.
I offer worship on Sunday nights for the Protestant community. But as the only chaplain who lives on campus, I also get to be a representative of the chapel at things like the Wellness Collaborative, where I meet around a table with folks from [Rebecca M.] Sykes [Wellness Center], the Dean of Students office, CaMD, and others. I also sit on the IDEA committee, which is basically the diversity committee on campus. I’m often the chaplain who reaches out to students going through something, who don’t have a faith identity that’s represented on campus, or who maybe aren’t known to one of the particular chaplains. Also, when there’s a crisis locally or in the world, I collaborate with my other colleagues in the chaplain to say, “What should we do all together?” Sometimes, I do individual outreach to students. So, again, it’s all over the place.
Take your downtime when you can get it. Plan well. My normal workday doesn’t look like lots of other people’s because I don’t teach. I have learned that my day might start really early or end really late, but I might have three hours off in the middle of the day. So, I have to grab my time when I can get it, and be creative about that. Also, I have to be organized to know what’s brewing and what’s coming up next, so it definitely requires a certain amount of pacing and compartmentalization. Again, I love and I find energy in that. I think some of it is finding things that give you passion and that you can gain energy from, energy inputs, and not just energy outputs.
I have a number of them, but I really like the butternut risotto. One of the hacks that I have learned is to start with a plate full of greens. I’ll usually start with spinach on the bottom, add the risotto on top of the spinach, and then sort of mix it, which wilts the spinach a little bit.
I have different spots on campus that I go to for different things. I have a spot on campus, which is a secret, for when I need to be up in my feelings or take care of things that are hard. I try to go there when there’s nobody else around so that I can have space and quiet. Sometimes, I like to be in an empty chapel and throw my voice around. After sign-in, when there’s nobody in the building, I sing a little bit and find my rhythm.
Because I’m an alum, I definitely remember my years from being a student here. There are really cool moments where for me, it’s what I call walking through a wrinkle in time. Every now and then, I have this experience where I walk somewhere, it’s like moving through a time warp, and suddenly I’m like, “What year is it? How old am I? Am I 15, or am I an adult? What’s happening right now?” Those are these moments where everything suddenly comes together, and I get this amazing glimpse of looking backward in time and looking forward in time. I also really love being a house counselor in Paul Revere. It’s really, really cool to watch a student who, as a ninth grader, was trying to figure it out, and then come back as a tenth grader or as a prefect, and to be able to have seen their journey in those couple of years and how much they have come into their own voice. It’s like how they’ve figured it out, found their groove, tried new things, and come through hard times.
The school was different in lots of ways than it is now. There are also pieces of it that, of course, are constant. But, I think what’s true for everybody who’s working in teaching at a high school is that it keeps your own high school experience close to you in some ways… But, it also means that I get a chance to think about, be grateful for, or appreciate things from when I was a student here, and my experience here that I could never have done as a student at the time or if I were someplace else. For me, there were profoundly important adults during my years here that sustained me, and walked with me through really hard times, both when I was in high school and afterwards. And those adults, in some cases, became bonus family members to me, and I would not be who I am today without those relationships. They have shaped me and formed me in ways that were tremendous, and I hope that I now get to walk in their legacy and continue to carry forth. Certainly, when I am struggling as a faculty member about how to connect with a student, or how to endure some difficult things, I sort of call upon my memory of them to pull me through.
I was here during an era when students were awesome at doing pranks. I was here when there was a student prank to remove all of the spoons from [Paresky] Commons. I was here when there was a time when they took all of the desks and chairs out of [Samuel Phillips Hall] and moved them to the lawn outside of the building. That was my era, so it’s cool to be part of that legacy. I was not involved in any of those pranks, as I was way too nervous as a student to do anything terrible.
Try new things, try things that you love. I was really intimidated by Andover when I first came as a student… I arrived at Andover as a student who loved musical theater. But, I was quickly overwhelmed by how amazing everybody else was from my perception. I felt really inadequate, and there was no way I could even audition because I would never get in as I thought everybody else was much better at it than I was. It took me until my Upper year to try out for the select choir, which at the time was the Cantata chorus, which traveled… for March break with the orchestra and [went] to amazing places. There was this amazing orchestra conductor, Mr. Thomas, who had a larger-than-life reputation, and I was terrified of him. But, halfway through my Upper year… they had an opening because there were a couple of people who couldn’t travel due to pre-season. So, they held late auditions in the middle of my Upper year… I had no idea what I was doing, and it was just [Mr. Thomas and I] in the choir room. And when I finished… he looked at me, and he said, “Where have you been for two and a half years?” I was terrified in the corner, and he said, “Shame on you. You could have come with us to Italy last year.” And I was like, “Wait, does that mean I got in?” He said, “Yes, go pack your suitcase and never be intimidated,” and that stayed with me. There’s that old adage of how “you miss every shot that you don’t take.” I think it’s really easy to be in awe and amazed at how talented your classmates are, and to think smaller of yourself. So, that’s my best piece of advice to try it. Just try it. You’ll grow through the disappointment, or you might surprise yourself.
My stress relief used to be making handmade pasta. When I’m in a super good headspace, I dream about gelato flavors. Composing them, and thinking about combinations of fruit and other flavors.
