1. Smile and dial for the Bonathon
2. 'Dateline NBC' correspondent to keynote Woman of Promise event
3. Honor a friend, mentor, student or co-worker
4. SBU welcomes lecturer to speak on women's status in Islam
5. Career Center
6. Friday Forum
7. Newsmakers

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Smile and dial for the Bonathon

While most students at St. Bonaventure spend their evenings studying or relaxing with friends after a long day of classes, a group of students has been given the mission to “smile and dial” for the Bonathon.

The Bonathon, a student driven calling program, is the Annual Fund’s most effective way to secure gifts and pledges from alumni, parents and friends of the University. “Our alumni have a strong affinity for St. Bonaventure … and look forward to the student phone calls each year,” said Annual Fund Manager Karen Heitzinger.

For Lauren Scorse, a sophomore in the School of Education and Bonathon caller, the feeling is mutual. She enjoys calling former students who are eager to share their Bonaventure experiences.

“Just knowing the person on the other end of the phone is a fellow Bonnie makes us have something in common, a connection that really enlightens me,” she said.

Call sessions for the Bonathon take place Sunday through Thursday in the fall and spring and Scorse has been making phone calls to alumni, parents and friends all over the country, gaining support for the University. She says “each night of calling is different and some calls are more challenging than others.” Scorse and other students have made numerous calls to people who decline.

Although rejections happen, student callers are not discouraged. Last semester, Scorse raised more than $60,000 toward the $400,000 Bonathon goal. Many alumni are eager to pledge. During one call, she asked a former student if he would like to give more. He agreed, willing to do anything for the University that made him who is today.

To keep the callers motivated, supervisors will play a nightly game such as Black Jack or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with the callers. Eligibility to play the game is based on the pledge amount raised. Callers also earn “Bona bucks” for raising the most money for the night. Bona bucks are then used to purchase gifts donated by local businesses and range in value from three to $40 dollars.

Funds raised through the Bonathon provide financial aid, scholarships, improved learning resources, faculty development and new technology for current and future students.

As a major in elementary special education with a concentration in math science technology, Scorse has benefited from the transformation of classroom enhancements made possible through donations to the Bonathon.

She feels that “the Bonathon really makes a difference. The money affects everyone on campus. I feel it’s a great way for people to give back.”

By Kaitlyn Munro, ’10

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'Dateline NBC' correspondent to keynote Woman of Promise event

St. Bonaventure University’s Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication has named senior Emily Ciraolo as the recipient of the 2008 Dr. Mary A. Hamilton Woman of Promise Award.

The awards presentation will be held at 4 p.m. March 18, in Dresser Auditorium of the John J. Murphy Professional Building. Victoria Corderi, NBC News correspondent for “Dateline NBC,” will serve as the keynote speaker.

Corderi, a magna cum laude St. Bonaventure journalism graduate, came to NBC News from WABC-TV in New York, where she was an anchor and reporter. Before that, she was with CBS News (1985-1992) where she served as a correspondent for the newsmagazines “48 Hours” and “Street Stories.” During her first three years at the network, she covered Central America for the “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather,” and during her last year she served as a news anchor for the “CBS Morning News.”

For her work at “48 Hours,” Corderi won three national news Emmys and a George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Journalism. She also received the Las Primeras Award for being one of the first Hispanic network anchors, and she has been named to Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans. In 1997, she received an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative journalism for a report on contaminated mattresses.

She began her television career in 1982 as a reporter for WPLG-TV in Miami, where she covered politics and federal agencies. Before that, Corderi was a reporter with the Miami News, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper.

The Dr. Mary A. Hamilton Woman of Promise Award is presented to the senior who excels in and out of the classroom and sets a good example for her peers. The recipient is a student who possesses the skills necessary to not only succeed but also thrive in her postgraduate career.

Ciraolo, daughter of Margaret and Phillip Ciraolo of Grand Island, N.Y., attended high school at Holy Angels Academy in Buffalo.

She will be completing her undergraduate degree this May in three years as a journalism and mass communication major and marketing minor. Ciraolo plans to pursue her master’s degree at St. Bonaventure as part of the Integrated Marketing Communications program while working as a graduate assistant in the University’s Office of Marketing and Communications.

Throughout her time at St. Bonaventure, Ciraolo has maintained a 3.9 GPA, landing her on the dean’s list, academic excellence list and the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll. She is a member of Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society. She was awarded scholarships from both the Women’s Press Club of New York State and the Public Relations Society of America Greater Buffalo/Niagara Chapter for the 2007-08 academic year.

Since her freshman year, Ciraolo has interned in National Fuel Gas Co.’s corporate communications department where she worked on several public relations, community relations and marketing initiatives. Her interning experience totals more than 1,000 hours. She has worked as a staff writer for The Bona Venture, the campus newspaper, and The Communicator, the journalism’s school biannual newsletter, as a public relations specialist for BonaResponds, a volunteer organization on campus, and as an editorial writer for Marketing Technology Solutions for a health-related Web site. She has also interned in the University’s Office of Marketing and Communications.

Ciraolo works extensively with BonaResponds and has traveled on four disaster-relief trips — two to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, one to Enterprise, Ala., after a tornado and one to Ohio after severe flooding. She plans to continue her work with BonaResponds throughout graduate school. Ciraolo also holds three positions in the Student Government Association as the secretary of management, head of the Constitutional Review Board and Class of 2009 secretary. She is a member of American Advertising Federation and Public Relations Society. Ciraolo was a member of the women’s swimming and diving team and served on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee for two years. This past year, Ciraolo helped coordinate the Bona Buddies annual holiday party, the Festival of Trees. In doing so, she secured more than $3,000 in donations.

In her community, Ciraolo has been an active member of Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) since her sophomore year of high school. She has served as the head junior counselor for the last five years at HOBY’s annual three-day leadership conference for high school sophomores in the Western New York region. Ciraolo holds HOBY close to her heart and credits it for inspiring her to volunteer and make a difference in the world.

Ciraolo chose St. Bonaventure because of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “You couldn’t convince me there were more caring or knowledgeable faculty anywhere else,” she said. “When it came time to apply, I only sent in one application.”

Ciraolo is grateful for her experiences at St. Bonaventure and says the journalism school — the students, faculty and staff — have become a second family to her. “I can’t imagine where I would be without their support,” she said.

The Woman of Promise Award is named after Dr. Mary Hamilton, a '59 aluman who returned to the Russell J. Jandoli School in 1982 as a faculty member and eventually served as chair of the journalism department. An expert in media law and women's contributions to the media, Hamilton held reporting and editing positions in New York City, Washington, D.C., and York, Pa., before she came to St. Bonaventure. Now retired, Hamilton lives in Eldred, Pa.

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Honor a friend, mentor, student or co-worker

SBU welcomes lecturer to speak on women's status in Islam

In honor of Women’s History Month, the St. Bonaventure University Women’s Studies program, partnered with the Diversity Action Committee, is sponsoring a presentation titled “Women’s Status in Islam.”

The 7 p.m. presentation will be given on Thursday, March 13, by Dr. Doaa Adel Kandil, a Cleveland State University lecturer and scholar-in-residence whose areas of expertise include Middle Eastern history, women in Islam, feminism in Egypt, Islamic culture and civilization and Egyptian history.

The presentation will be held in Dresser Auditorium of the John J. Murphy Professional Building. It is free and open to the public.

Kandil’s lecture will discuss the advent of Islam as a turning point in women’s history. “Islam had honored women and highly elevated their status; nevertheless, it is always unfairly accused of repressing them,” Kandil said.

The presentation will examine women’s place, rights and status in Islam in order to what Kandil hopes will “challenge those wide-held misconceptions about Muslim women and construct a new outlook toward them,” she said.

Kandil is a Fulbright Scholar, part of a highly regarded international association that supports the field of international educational and cultural exchange, and also works to promote policies that foster U.S. leadership and engagement in the world.

An Egyptian native, Kandil is a graduate of Helwan University, located in Cairo, Egypt, where she also taught for 14 years prior to relocating to Cleveland in 2007.

Career Center

Detailed information on upcoming March 2008 events, such as SBU’s on-campus career fair, Career Fest ’08, advanced registration for Career Fest, job fair and networking workshops, and Teacher Recruitment Days, is available at the Career Center’s Events’ page.

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Join us for this week's Devereux Lunch/ FRIDAY FORUM!

All SBU faculty, staff and
administrators are welcome to Friday Forums.

Date: Friday, March 14, 2008
Speaker: Dr. Doaa Kandil
Time: 12:20 to 1:30 p.m.
Place: Doyle Dining Room
Topic: The third annual Mary Devereux luncheon will be held, sponsored by Sr. Margaret Carney, University president, and the Women’s Studies Program. Dr.Kandil, a Fulbright scholar from Egypt, will give a PowerPoint presentation about “The Roots of Feminism in Egypt.” She received her Ph.D. in modern Egyptian history from Helwan University and won that university’s award for best doctoral thesis in 2006. For the 2007-8 academic year she is a lecturer and scholar-in-residence at Cleveland State University.
Cost: Free, courtesy of the Office of the President

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Newsmakers

Dr. Danette Brickman, assistant professor and pre-law adviser in the Department of Political Science, was a discussant for the Research Methods Workshop at the American Political Science Association’s Teaching and Learning Conference in San Jose, Calif.

Dr. Zennia D. Hancock, assistant professor of modern languages, was one of more than 600 international applicants awarded a Kathryn Wasserman Davis Fellowship for Peace. These merit-based fellowships are part of a $1 million gift from philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, and they are intended to address the current need for more effective language proficiency in the so-called “critical languages.” The fellowship covers the full cost of a nine-week language immersion program at the Middlebury College Arabic Language School this summer. Hancock will complete the Advanced Level course.

Darwin L. King, professor of accounting, and Dr. Carl J. Case, professor of management science, presented their paper “The Importance of Internal Controls: Yesterday and Today” at the 15th annual meeting of the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences (ASBBS) held in Las Vegas Feb. 21-24, 2008. The paper earned a “Best Paper of a Track Chair Award.” It will be published in the 2008 ASBBS E-Journal.

Patricia Kota, chief executive officer of the Coastal Medical Access Project in Brunswick, Ga., spoke to students in Dr. Kimberly Young’s professional leadership class Friday, March 7, 2008, at the Buffalo Center in Hamburg. Kota is a 1999 graduate of St. Bonaventure’s MPL program. The MPL program is an accelerated 16-month program designed to create effective leaders. Accredited by the Association of Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the MPL program focuses on skill development to prepare graduates for leadership positions in corporations, government, healthcare, nonprofit or community organizations. Coastal Medical Access Project (CMAP) helps build healthier communities focusing primarily in Camden, Glynn and McIntosh counties in Coastal Georgia through programs that increase access to healthcare for uninsured or underinsured individuals.

Dr. John Mulryan, Board of Trustees Professor of English, gave a lecture at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Feb. 29, 2008, titled “Venus and Cupid in Renaissance Art and Mythography.” Some 130 people attended the lecture, which was sponsored by the English Department and the College of Liberal Arts.

Dr. Paula Scraba, associate professor of physical education, presented a Lenten themed Build With Living Stones Program: Meditative Reflections of the Images for the Integrity of Creation for faculty and staff at Oldenburg (Ind.) Franciscan Preparatory Academy on Feb. 25, 2008. The program incorporated a Franciscan view of the environment (Brother Sun and Sister Moon) using images for “The Canticle of the Creatures” — traditional vs. contemporary with music from Troubadour of the Great King by John Michael Talbot and Night Tree (Transparent) by Nicole, from Brule, Native American Rock Opera. The second part of the program integrated the economy and global reality from a Franciscan perspective through a comparison to the images of The Economic Way of the Cross with music by L’Infinitamente Piccols.

On Friday, March 1, 2008, Scraba was a presenter at The Eastern District Association of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Conference in Newport, R.I. The theme for the conference was Navigate, Collaborate and Celebrate. Scraba’s presentation, “Using Action Research with Student Teachers,” is a model of the data-based pre-service field block program being used in the Department of Physical Education at St. Bonaventure.

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