Chapter II - The Story of a Few Men

    
"The St. Bonaventure Railroad began in the first year of Herbert Hoover's presidency and the School of Business was begun in the last year of that presidency, 1932. Probably as a result of the Great Crash and the Depression, there arose a demand for more education in the business area and so today's School of Business was begun with the establishment of a Department of Commerce and from its inception (which was not applauded by all) had a unique character. St. Bonaventure was primarily a seminary, secondarily a traditional school of the arts, and tended to pay lip service only to other areas. The faculty was overwhelmingly clerical. The business group was unique then in two ways, the majority of its faculty were laymen and, like science, it did not fit into Bonaventure's two priority groups. Indeed, it its second year, it met with competition from the Department of Political Science and Sociology which suddenly listed courses in Economics.

  
"The members of the School of Business faculty have always worked well together with very few exceptions and so to single out some for recognition is not easy but the history of the school is basically the story of a few men. Father Fidelis O'Rourke, Austin L. Finan, S. John Guson and James L. Hayes in the early period of formation and growth. Austin Finan, John Guson and William Long in the next period which was one of consolidation and stabilization while the University's enrollment was declining. Joseph M. Pastore, in the third period, who stimulated a weary group into upgrading its program at a time when increasing enrollment demanded such action. John G. Watson and John P. McAllister who met the challenge and the demands of a soaring enrollment with innovative programs without dropping standards even though the School is now responsible for more than fifty percent of St. Bonaventure's undergraduates."

Excerpted from: "The School of Business Administration, St Bonaventure University, The First Half-Century"
by Prof. Austin L. Finan

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