- SBU announces $8 million in renovations to Hickey Dining Hall, residence halls
- St. Bonaventure graduate completes internship in Washington D.C.
- St. Bonaventure students and staff travel to Ecuador and Jamaica over winter break
- Local teachers to be "Digging for History" at SBU inservice
- Mozart's birthday cake contest winners announced
- Location change for "Rage is Not a 1-Day Thing" performance
- Career Center news...
- Newsmakers...
- Friday Forum
____________________
SBU announces $8 million in renovations to Hickey
Dining Hall, residence facilities 
During a
noon gathering of students today, University president Sr. Margaret
Carney, O.S.F., S.T.D., announced plans to invest $8 million in
renovations to Hickey Dining Hall and student residence facilities
beginning this summer.
The plans call for an addition of approximately 5,000 square feet to house a gourmet coffee shop, renovations to the current Hickey Dining Hall and substantial renovations to residence halls, including Shay-Loughlen, Doyle and Francis halls, and heating and other improvements in Devereux, Robinson and Falconio halls.
The work on Hickey Dining
Hall and Shay-Loughlen is expected to proceed in summer 2006, with the
remaining work following in 2007.
“This summer, our campus will see
a transformation that includes building in support of academics and
renovations in support of student life and community. This is very good
news for those sharing the ‘good journey’ of a Bonaventure education,”
said Sr. Margaret. “It is thrilling to launch a renovation that will have
multiple benefits for the maximum number of our students.”
The University is virtually reinventing food service at Hickey Dining Hall. In response to students’ requests, the plans include an addition to the dining hall to house a gourmet coffeehouse with wireless capability and extended operating hours.
“We are very excited about this new venue and believe that it will provide an alternative in casual gathering space for students that they don’t currently have,” said Nigel-Ray Garcia, president of the Student Government Association. “We are thrilled that our University is going to provide a comfortable and accessible meeting place for students to relax, meet and reflect on our days as Bonaventure students.”
The renovations to Hickey Dining Hall will include a complete overhaul of the facility. The main dining room will receive an entire cosmetic redesign, including new flooring, ceiling and wall finishes, lighting, new tables and chairs, and new stations for food preparation and serving.
This will allow Dining Services to change and expand its menu in response to changing tastes and requests from students.
In addition to the physical renovations, the University is planning a new approach to food service, commented vice president for Business and Finance Brenda McGee Snow.
“We have heard the students’ criticisms of food service loud and clear and they call for dramatic changes,” she said. Next week we will begin an intense study with Porter Worldwide Consulting to assist us in transitioning to a food service operation consistent with the quality and appeal that our students deserve and desire.”
Included in the review is an anticipated redesign of the meal plans to provide greater flexibility to students.
All of the proposed changes are in response to student input collected through surveys and focus groups, and student leaders and others who previously served on the University’s Master Planning Committee. Additional student input will be sought in reaction to the proposed plan prior to making final decisions.
The plans for renovations to the residence halls will include a total renovation of one building to a suite configuration, with the other receiving significant upgrades. Improvements are also planned to Doyle, Francis, Robinson and Falconio halls in summer 2007. Detailed plans are still being developed and students will be asked to provide input to the proposed changes.
Renovations are slated to
begin as soon as classes end, with an ambitious schedule mapped out that
calls for completing the work on Hickey and Shay-Loughlen during this
construction season.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
St. Bonaventure graduate completes internship in Washington D.C.
St.
Bonaventure University December graduate Rudy Barry recently participated
in The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars internship
program during his senior semester.
Barry took part in The Washington Center’s acclaimed academic program last fall. In total, this years’ program consisted of 407 students representing 137 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.
In its 30th year, The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars has helped more than 34,000 students from more than 1,000 colleges and universities extend their studies, acquire work experience and develop their skills as leaders. Participating students spend a semester immersed in the culture of our nation’s capital.
They explore possible career directions through a substantive internship tailored to match their interests, a high-quality academic course, and the Washington Forum, a series of lectures by national and international speakers. The Washington Center’s internship partners represent virtually every profession – law, medicine, journalism, business, diplomacy, politics, education, social welfare, and the arts, among others.
Barry is a political science major from Bay Village, Ohio, and graduated from St. Bonaventure this past December. Barry said the experience was extremely valuable as a political science major.
“Washington, D.C. is the hub of politics and being in Washington gives you the ability to attend Congressional committee hearings which are free to the public and be able to talk to people who have access to information,” said Barry.
Barry said some of his
favorite experiences during the last semester were the opportunity to meet
a few senators, including Joe Biden from Delaware. Barry interned and is
now employed by Kemp Partners, a strategic consulting firm headed by
former Congressman, Cabinet Secretary and Vice Presidential candidate Jack
Kemp.
The Washington Center internship program is offered through
the Department of Political Science at St. Bonaventure. Dr. James Moor
oversees the program and said that there are plenty of benefits for
students.
“The first part of the program allows students to relate their classroom work to the real world. The other part allows students to set up job connections and I believe almost all our students have gotten jobs coming out of the program,” said Moor.
The Washington Center program is available to all majors.
For more information, contact Dr. James Moor at (716)-379-2268 or at jmoor@sbu.edu.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
St. Bonaventure students and staff travel to Ecuador and Jamaica over winter break
St.
Bonaventure students and staff brought the helpful and giving Bonaventure
spirit to two different countries this past winter break.
Participants from the University traveled to Ecuador on an immersion trip and to Jamaica on a service learning trip. Both trips took place Jan. 3 to Jan. 13.
Students and staff on the trip to Ecuador spent 10 days in Durán, Ecuador, through the Rostro de Cristo Volunteer and Retreat Program of the Catholic Church. The program supports 12 year-long volunteers from the U.S. who, besides hosting retreat groups like St. Bonaventure, live and work in two communities in Durán.
The students and staff stayed in the Rostro de Cristo house in Arbolito, a community of 12,000 people located on the northern outskirts of Durán and among the economically poorest in the area. There, they visited homes and schools, helped children with their homework, played games, painted a classroom, went to Mass and met with local youth groups. They also visited a hospital for people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy). In the spirit of solidarity with their neighbors, students and staff lived on $1 a day for food.
“The trip allowed us the privilege of being side-by-side with the poor in a faith-filled community and to see the face of Christ in the poor and each other,” said Mark Nolan, Ph.D., management science professor, and one of the trip advisers.
“We discovered that, despite their material poverty, the people we met had so much to share with us. Every evening we had an opportunity to reflect on the day and we left with a challenge to live differently with our expanded awareness of how most of the world lives,” he said. Nolan’s wife, Cecilia, was the other trip adviser.
On the trip to Jamaica, nine
students and two advisers spent 10 days in Kingston, Jamaica, and were
hosted by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany. The trip participants stayed
at the Immaculate Conception Hostel in Kingston.
They visited Trench Town and Ferry
Town, two areas of Kingston with a high unemployment rate, a lack of basic
resources and a growing despair among the people.
The students and advisers built a retaining wall to keep out floodwaters, visited homes for orphaned and abused children and for the aged, and worked with children in schools and in the streets. They also threw a party for 120 school-age children, where they played games, made crafts and served food. The spirit of the trip was to focus on working with the poor and marginalized.
Students and staff also had the opportunity to hear several guest speakers throughout the trip. They spoke on various topics of Jamaican life, including the socio-economic situation, the health care system and the education system. These talks gave the trip participants a better understanding of their daily experiences in Jamaica.
“It is the hope of a service learning trip like this that we come to some greater insight through our experiences of others into how our gifts might be offered to the needs of the world,” said Trevor Thompson, director of the Warming House and one of the advisers on the trip.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
Local teachers to be "Digging for History" at SBU inservice
More than
50 teachers and historians will take part in a history inservice session,
“Digging for History,” at The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St.
Bonaventure University from 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. on Friday,
Feb.17.
All Teaching American History teachers have been invited to this event. The theme of the inservice is “local resources” that can be used in the classroom to teach U.S. history. The afternoon will include a workshop on using film to teach American history by St. Bonaventure professor Dr. Philip Payne and Friedsam Memorial Library director Paul Spaeth.
Payne is looking forward to the event. “We are absolutely delighted to have the teachers and historians on campus for what promises to be an excellent program,” he said.
This event is part of St. Bonaventure’s partnership with the Jamestown Public Schools. The program is funded through a Teaching American History Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Warner Page and Barb VanWicklin from the Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES have created the curriculum for the event, which includes sessions such as: The Underground Railroad – Southern Tier Connections, The Women’s Rights Movement in Western New York, The Genesee Valley Canal and many more. Teachers have a choice of attending two sessions.
“Participants will learn a great deal about the local public history and what it has to offer,” said Payne.
The presenters will include representatives from the Seneca Museum, World War II Museum, Cattaraugus County Museum, St. Bonaventure University and local well-known historians including Craig Braack, William Heaney and Payne.
Teachers must RSVP their inservice sessions to Laurie Sledge in administration at BOCES (716)-376-8357.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
Mozart's birthday contest winners announced
As part
of St. Bonaventure’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts weekend
celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday, a cake contest was held Sunday
Jan. 29.
The first prize winner was Lisa Kepler from Weston Mills; N.Y. Second prize went to Donna Peterson, from Donna’s Deserts in Bradford, Pa.. The third prize went to Brenda Kinnicutt, Bolivar, N.Y.
Prizes were awarded for the most delicious (best overall) cake, best decorated (most original) cake, and the audience’s favorite cake. The honorable Jeremiah J. Moriarty II, judge of the New York State Court of Claims, awarded the first prize in the cake contest. Salzburg-born Ludwig Brunner, program consultant for the Quick Center, awarded second prize. The third prize was audience awarded.
In total nine cakes were entered in the contest. All were unique in their Mozart themed designs and varied in size. Some entries were from professional bakers.
“It was a really tough decision for the judges because all of the cakes were very special and delicious,” said Jill Gray, operations manager for the Quick Center. Executive director of the Quick Center, Joseph LoSchiavo, added “I am continually overwhelmed by the wealth of creativity in our community.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
Location change for "Rage is Not a 1-Day Thing" performance
"Rage is Not a 1-Day Thing," Awele Makeba's performance,
will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10 in
the Cutco Theater on the JCC
campus.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
Check out the Career Center’s monthly newsletter,
Directions. For information on on-campus recruiters and
orientations, information sessions, FREE Kaplan practice test sign-up
deadlines, teacher recruitment days and a new program on how to design and
utilize a job search portfolio, visit the Career Center Events Web page.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
Dr. Barry L. Gan, professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Nonviolence, has been named co-editor of “Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research.” “Peace and Change” is sponsored by the Peace History Society (PHS) and the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA). It is published by Blackwell Publishing out of Boston and Oxford.
•••
Sharon
Guck of Western Connecticut State, Greg Snoddy
of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Cathie Saal of St.
Bonaventure University presented “Engaging Athletics with Campus-Wide
Prevention: Learning from CHOICES Grantees” at the APPLE Conference in
Charlottesville, Va., Jan. 21. Each presented the challenges and successes
experienced from proposal development to implementation of their
three-year grants.
•••
Fr.
Robert J. Karris, O.F.M., member of the research faculty of The
Franciscan Institute, has just published Eating Your Way Through Luke’s
Gospel. (Liturgical Press, $9.95.) Professor Mark Allan Powell of Trinity
Lutheran Seminary writes: “Enlightening and entertaining. Karris writes in
a lively style, enticing us with levity and anecdotes to discover the
surprisingly significant role that meals played in the life and work and
teaching of Jesus.”
•••
On Dec. 9, 2005, Rene’ Wroblewski, assistant professor in the School of Education, successfully defended her dissertation at the University at Buffalo. Her dissertation, titled “What Happens After 3:00?: The Social Relationships of Adolescents with Down Syndrome,” consisted of four ethnographic case studies of the interactions of teen-agers with Down syndrome during out-of-school social activities.
Click here to return to the top of the page
_____________________
All SBU faculty, staff and administrators are welcome to all the
Friday Forums.
Date: Friday, Feb. 3,
2006 (this Friday)
Speaker: Jim Mahar and Todd
Palmer
Time: Lunch starts at noon, Forum goes from
12:35 to 1:30 p.m., including Q&A
Place:
University Club - Above Hickey
Title: "A Hurricane
Relief Experience"
Click here to return to the top of the page