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Hockey legend William “Scotty” Bowman, the winningest coach in the history of North American pro sports, will visit St. Bonaventure University on Wednesday, Feb. 7.

The most successful coach in National Hockey League history, Bowman won nine Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens (1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979), Pittsburgh Penguins (1992) and Detroit Red Wings (1997, 1998 and 2002).

Bowman, who also coached the Buffalo Sabres on four separate occasions between 1979 and 1986, will be part of a forum on pro sports and the media along with Joel Darling, the head of Canada’s nationally renowned network telecasts of NHL hockey. Darling is executive producer of CBC-TV’s “Hockey Night in Canada” and son of former Sabres’ play-by-play man and Hockey Hall of Famer Ted Darling.

They will be joined at 12:30 p.m. by Paul Wieland, lecturer in the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication, a professional associate of both men during Wieland’s 25 years in the NHL. The presentation is open to the public and will be held in Dresser Auditorium of the Murphy Professional Building.

The discussion will center on Bowman's years as a professional coach, his dealings with the media, and the role that television plays in the success of pro sports. Bowman, who also served as the Sabres’ general manager from 1979 to 1987, won NHL Coach of the Year honors in 1977 and 1996. In the 1976-1977 season, he won a record 60 games with Montreal, and in 1996 he won 62 with the Red Wings, breaking his own record for regular-season wins.

Bowman is the only coach in the major North American professional sports leagues (Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA and NHL) to win championships with three different professional teams. He began his NHL coaching career in 1966 at age 34 with the St. Louis Blues, taking the team to three straight Stanley Cup Finals.

Bowman recently returned from Quebec City, where he participated in coaching young prospects for pro hockey careers in a special exhibition game.

Darling is a graduate of Ryerson Institute in Toronto, and worked as a producer of Sabres’ telecasts before joining “Hockey Night in Canada.” He was in charge of CBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, and was named the executive producer of HNIC in 2000.

St. Bonaventure University will host Native American activist Lakota Harden at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 14, in the Murphy Professional Building’s Dresser Auditorium.

Harden will begin her presentation by showing “Follow Me Home” (1997), a film about four Los Angeles muralists who set out to decorate the White House as a form of political protest, with images drawn from their own experiences as multicultural Americans. The film also doubles as an allegory of ethnicity and cultural identity. Harden will lead post-screening discussion.

As a daughter of seven generations of Lakota leaders, Harden has dedicated her life to liberation and justice. She first became an accomplished speaker as a representative of the early American Indian Movement’s “We Will Remember” Survival School. She has continued her activism over the years, working with the International Indian Treaty Council, Women of All Red Nations and the Black Hills Alliance.

Harden’s most recent efforts include South Dakota’s Indigenous Women’s Network, focusing on women’s health and traditional cultural teachings, and OYATE, an organization that ensures that the lives and histories of Native peoples are portrayed honestly through literature. She also regularly travels to South Dakota to participate in efforts to keep alive pre-colonial traditional ceremonies. She currently hosts a weekly radio program that features interviews, current events and perspectives of the Native American community.

Harden’s visit is sponsored by the Diversity Action Committee and a grant from the Dr. James Martine Faculty Development Endowment for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning in Clare College (Martine Grant).

C. Kevin Brayer, executive director of St. Bonaventure University's Buffalo Center, is a newly-elected faculty member of the Saturn Club of Buffalo.

Brayer oversees the day-to-day operations of St. Bonaventure's weekend graduate programs. The graduate programs in Business, Leadership, Integrated Marketing Communications and Education services more than 260 graduate students at the Hamburg location.

He serves as an academic adviser to Buffalo/Niagara Sales Marketing Executives, American Marketing Association and Phi Sigma Epsilon. He also served as the founding marketing committee member of the Ronald McDonald House Annual Run that has raised more than $150,000 since its inception in 2002.

Brayer was involved in the initial organization and marketing of First Night Buffalo. He has been adviser to the American Advertising Federation, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Delta Mu Delta organizations. He has been the past president of the St. Bonaventure Bon Ami Society, the Bank of Buffalo employees club and vice president of Collegiate Affairs for the W.N.Y. American Marketing Association.

He has received the following academic awards: Who's Who in the East, Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity-MacDonough Award, Syracuse University's Burton Blatt Scholarship and the Direct Mail Marketing Association Foundation Scholarship. He holds a bachelor degree in marketing from Canisius College, an MBA from the University of Richmond and is a doctoral candidate at Syracuse University.

Brayer has been a Saturn Club member since 1977, a member of the House Committee since 1993 and also serves on the Membership Committee. He has also served on the Saturn Club's marketing committee. He is a member of the Antique Automobile Association, Buick Club of America.

Laurence Elman knew from the moment he stepped into the Friedsam Memorial Library that it was the filming spot he had been looking for all along. “I’ve been looking for this place for over a year,” Elman said.

Elman shot parts of the St. Bonaventure University library for his new documentary exploring the 10 Biblical plagues of Egypt. “The Science of the Ten Plagues” examines possibilities and explanations for the plagues seen in the Book of Exodus.

Elman is the co-founder and creative director of Drive Thru Pictures, an award-winning media and consulting firm based in London. The firm is most well known for its work with the BBC on “Changemakers,” a program exploring how people in more than 27 different countries made a difference in their respective communities. Elman has also worked with The Rolling Stones and the Sundance Channel.

The film crew traveled to Buffalo to interview Joe Nickell, who works out of the Center for Inquiry, for the upcoming documentary. Nickell has written numerous books based on finding natural causes for events that are labeled supernatural.

Elman was looking for a library near Buffalo so the crew would not have to travel far. His staff explored the Web sites of numerous universities, looking for a perfect location with readily available books and references.

“We were looking for a location that fit what we’re exploring and investigating,” Elman said. “(Friedsam) was the most beautiful and perfect one.”

The library contains rare books about the Book of Exodus and Egypt dating back from the 16th century. Nickell examined the books and was interviewed shortly after. Ornate wooden bookshelves and tables piled with books provided a creative and studious setting for part of the documentary.

The documentary has taken more than a year and a half to complete, in part because no scientific evidence or solid explanations exist concerning the plagues. Elman also worked on two other films in the process. But if Elman could start production over again, he said he would begin at Friedsam.

Warner Brothers is sponsoring the film as support to the upcoming blockbuster “The Reaping” starring Hilary Swank. Elman’s film will assist in examining the concepts, stories and reasoning behind the Biblical plagues described in the film. It is possible that Elman’s documentary may become a short feature shown on television or part of extra material on the DVD release of “The Reaping.”

In the motion picture, Swank plays Katherine Winter, a former Christian missionary who now acts as a myth debunker disproving religious phenomena. Winter arrives at a small town in Louisiana suffering from what appears to be the Biblical plagues. She must attempt to decipher the scientific reasoning behind the outbreak while rediscovering her own faith.

St. Bonaventure’s ongoing initiative to take Dining Services from “worst to first” in the Princeton Review got a boost from students during the “Rally for Change” on Thursday, Jan. 18, in Hickey Dining Hall.

The main focus of the event was to improve St. Bonaventure’s food standings in the Princeton Review. The goal was to give the student body a chance to retake the survey with the hope that all the enhancements done to the campus recently will entice potential students and their parents to consider St. Bonaventure as their University of choice.

Support from the Bonaventure community was evident, including student workers, graduate and undergraduate student ambassadors, Tech Services personnel who were present to help man the numerous wireless computers used to take the survey and The Buzz, WSBU-FM, who provided music throughout the evening.

The Admissions team corresponded with the staff at the Princeton Review to establish the survey link. Women’s Basketball Head Coach Jim Crowley, accompanied by the Bona Wolf, rallied the spirits of the crowd with a pep talk to encourage everyone to attend that evening’s home game.

A carnival feast was served to students at the rally that included carved top round of beef, fresh baked ham, Philly cheesesteak, loaded nachos, pizza, calzones, three-foot subs, sno cones, cotton candy, soft pretzels, candy apples and all the fixings for a wonderful meal. A total of 876 students attended the dinner, which was held from 4 to 8 p.m. This was a 12 percent increase over prior weeks.

The students had great things to say about the event with many comments of “it was one of the best community days on campus.”

Anthony Criscone, director of Dining Services, and Brenda McGee Snow, vice president for Business and Finance, were instrumental in making the event a success.

Welcome back students! For information on Teacher Recruitment Days, FREE GRE, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT practice tests, and on-campus recruiting, visit our Web site.

Date: Friday, Feb. 2, 2007
Speaker: Breea Willingham
Time: Lunch starts at noon, Forum goes from 12:35 to 1:30 p.m., including Q&A
Place: University Club - Above Hickey; please sign in and pay $3 at the front desk before proceeding upstairs.
Title: "Shadow of a Father"
Abstract: Willingham explores the relationships between fathers in prison and their children and whether maintaining those relationships do more harm than good. She also explores the overall impact of incarceration on families.

Dr. Zennia D. Hancock, assistant professor of modern languages, had two papers presented at the Modern Language Association’s Annual Convention in Philadelphia in December 2006. Her paper “It is She Who Wears the Crown: Female Authority in a Medieval Spanish Text” was part of a panel that aimed to theorize female authority in medieval literature. The second paper, titled “Don Quixote in the Cave, Students on the Mountain: A Curricular Innovation at a Franciscan University,” was part of a panel on new pedagogical approaches to Golden Age Spanish Literature.

Constance Pierce, artist and assistant professor in visual and performing arts, has recently had a selection of her sketchbooks chosen for an exhibition titled “Artists’ Sketchbooks and Journals,” which will open at The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., April 18. The sketchbooks she will display were created during the years that she was a research fellow and resident artist at Yale Divinity School in New Haven. The sketchbooks, done mainly in ink and watercolor, record studies of masterworks from The Yale Center for British Art, productions at the Yale Repertory Theater, images from lectures on Dante, and the ebb and flow of the local populace on the campus of Yale and the nearby coffeehouses. The exhibition will run through Aug. 5, 2007.