Class of 1973
The course of JoAnn (Locascio ’73) Green’s life changed in Egan Hall one day, when a woman approached her and a group of fellow students doing work-study. The woman asked if anyone would be interested in working at a mental health program downtown. JoAnn jumped at the chance and was hired as an assistant at Jefferson County Mental Health, where she soon discovered her life’s calling.
“I fell in love with mental health,” she remembers.
As a sociology major, she had always wanted to help people, and this experience inspired her to do that through a career in mental health. After watching what the therapists did, she pursued the path she is still on to this day as a mental-health therapist in Cleveland, Ohio.
Not only did her time at the then-College of Steubenville influence her career choice, but JoAnn says it also strengthened her spirituality in lifelong ways.
As a student, she attended weekly prayer meetings and Masses that helped her stay grounded during the turbulent Vietnam War era. She also was deeply impressed by the faith and wisdom of Professor George Gable, Professor John Korzi, and others.
And her mentor, Father David Tickerhoof, TOR, holds a special place in her heart.
“That man means the world to me,” she says. When her parents were divorcing, Father David supported her and her mom. When she got married a few years after graduating, Father David celebrated the wedding Mass. A year later, when her husband, Thom, tragically died in a glider accident, Father David was the first one at her house.
“He was such a comfort and such a guide,” she says.
As a young widow, JoAnn moved from her hometown of Weirton, West Virginia, to Columbus, Ohio, to pursue a master’s in social work. A few years later, she met and married her husband, Rob, and moved to Cleveland, where she became director of Shaker Heights Youth Center. Eventually, she opened a private practice, where she now counsels people of all ages, from children to the elderly.
JoAnn says the spiritual formation she received at “Steubie U” enables her to help her clients learn to love themselves and to feel God’s presence in their lives.
“You stay on the path to the Lord,” she says, “and you can get through anything.”
Maura Roan McKeegan is the author of Saved by the Lamb: Moses and Jesus and other Catholic children’s books.
