The Lombard sisters — one law-school student, one med-school student and one undergrad — returned home to Western Springs, IL, for eStudy this spring.
The trio of Lombard sisters came home to Western Spring, IL, this after college campuses shut down earlier this spring. “We haven’t all lived together or studied together for almost 10 years, so it’s been really memorable,” says Lauren, the family’s “baby” and a 2017 graduate of Fenwick.
Elizabeth, the eldest, adds, “In many ways, in sharing homework space, fighting for Wi-Fi capacity and complaining about exams and tough assignments together, it truly reminded all of us of our Fenwick days.”
Elizabeth Lombard ’11 (University of Notre Dame ’15 – Double Major: Accountancy and English) was a Friar cheerleader and earned a varsity letter at Notre Dame as Senior Football Manager. She worked for two years as a certified public accountant at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Chicago), then returned to ND. Earlier this month, she graduated with an accelerated joint degree: a Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) in law and Master of Business Administration. Elizabeth soon will head to New York City to take a job in the corporate practice division of law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Here are her and her sisters’ “quarantine” stories:
I just completed my third degree at the University of Notre Dame. My last semester certainly did not go as planned with the onset of eLearning. However, I felt lucky to have my family by my side throughout all of the chaos, to tackle this challenge together. We have not all been together, living in our family home in Western Springs, since I graduated Fenwick in 2011.
This semester I was enrolled in Trust and Estates Law, Intercollegiate Athletics Law, an Intercollegiate Athletics Externship, a Venture Capital and IPO Law Seminar, and a Law and the Entrepreneur Seminar. Most of my professors decided to still hold live, discussion-based Zoom meetings in lieu of our in-person classes. I loved these live Zoom meetings, as it made me feel like I was still in the classroom (minus being able to stare at the Golden Dome through the windows).
In addition to complications with moving the actual classroom learning online, I also faced graduation celebration planning complications. This year, I served as the 3L Class Representative for my law-school class on our Student Bar Association (similar to a Student Council). A vital part of my job was planning ‘3L Week’ celebrations, for the week prior to graduation — including a Chicago Cubs game, a winery tour and a massive banquet with our entire class. Obviously, when school was canceled, these opportunities to celebrate our achievements as a class were eliminated. I decided that we still needed to celebrate in some capacity digitally. I created a virtual ‘banquet’ for my class — complete with a digital congratulatory video from our professors and administration and a ‘Class Slideshow,’ with a slide for each student showing their favorite law-school photo, moment, class, as well as a senior superlative. It was very rewarding for me to put this together and know that my classmates felt loved and celebrated. Additionally, I coordinated a “Professor Send-Off” where five beloved professors gave our class some words of wisdom and congratulations. Notre Dame has rescheduled our official graduation for May 2021.
Fenwick has prepared me and my sisters well for our various career paths. I would particularly like to thank Ms. Logas for inspiring my interest in the law from her AP Government class; Mrs. Macaluso for inspiring my passion for writing and analysis in AP Literature; and Blackfriars Guild (BFG) for giving me confidence in my public speaking abilities. My time at Fenwick cultivated in me a hunger for learning and diligent work ethic, without which I would not have been able to excel during the demanding JD/MBA program. I look forward to joining Fenwick’s network of attorneys and continuing to grow my Fenwick family in the future.
Rachel
Lombard ’13
Notre Dame ’17
Rachel Lombard completed a degree in Science Business at the University of Notre Dame in 2017. A few weeks ago, she began her fourth year of medical school at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago (Class of ’21). She is the recipient of the Medical Student Council’s Tom C. Reeves Memorial Award, which recognizes a third-year med student who exhibits outstanding leadership, volunteerism and character.
Before the pandemic hit, I had spent my entire third year of medical school completing clinical rotations in the different fields of medicine such as OBGYN, Pediatrics, Surgery, Internal Medicine and Psychiatry. While on my Surgical Rotation, the attending physician I worked with was also a Fenwick graduate and we bonded over our time at Fenwick. We both agreed that Mr. Farran was one of the best teachers we ever had and inspired both of us to pursue a career in medicine. It is really amazing how the Fenwick connections can always be found. Clinical rotations have by far been the best part of medical school, so far, because I finally got to work with actual patients and really feel like a part of the medical team.
I was just about to start my final rotation of my third year in Family Medicine when the pandemic intensified. My medical school, along with almost all other medical schools in the United States, decided to pull all medical students from in-person clinical rotations to help do our part in minimizing the spread of the virus and conserve the already very limited amount of personal protective equipment. Like so many others, my life drastically changed overnight. I went from learning medicine from real-life patient encounters to learning from virtual online patient cases. Additionally, I had online lectures over Zoom from our clinical professors. Some of my clinical professors had just come off treating patients in the COVID unit and would teach us about their experiences firsthand fighting the virus, which was quite interesting.
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