______________________________________________________________________

 


______________________________________________________________________
March 1, 2007

 

  1. College Bowlers strike again, earn trip to nationals at USC
  2. Cosgrove, Fatta, Kellys and Klimczak to be honored by SBU with Gaudeta Medals
  3. Modern dance company to perform at QCA March 23
  4. Career Center
  5. Newsmakers
  6. Friday Forum

____________________

College Bowlers strike again, earn trip to nationals at USC

California, here they come.

Dropping only one match all weekend, St. Bonaventure University’s College Bowl team stormed through the playoff bracket to capture its second straight Region II title Sunday at Syracuse University, dominating the University of Rochester in the championship game, 395-175.

The victory qualifies the team of seniors Tim Randel, Jason Schultz and Bill Kenney, graduate student Mark Inman, and sophomore Ben Yeager for the College Bowl National Championship May 4-6 at the University of Southern California.

Randel, Schultz, and Kenney were members of the 2006 SBU College Bowl team that won the regionals and finished 11th at the national tournament in Hartford, Conn.

College Bowl is a fast-paced, quick-recall game in the style of “Jeopardy!” involving questions on a wide range of topics, including sports, movies, art, literature, history, biology, chemistry, economics, current events and politics.

Accompanying the team to California will be faculty mentors Dr. Lauren De La Vars (English) and Dr. David Matz (Classics).

“We clearly had the dominant team this year,” Matz said. “We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do at the national tournament in May.”

Last year’s regional triumph and experience at the nationals provided a natural boost for the team, Matz said.

“From the boys’ perspective, I just think they looked a lot more confident this year. There’s always a risk of being overconfident, but I’d have been disappointed if we didn’t win. After Saturday’s matches, I really thought we were the favorite,” Matz said.

Randel led the way for the Bonnies, ranking highest among all individual players in the double-elimination championship round with an average of nearly 67 points scored per match. Kenney (21.67 points) and Schultz (16.67) finished in the top eight.

In the eight-match round-robin tournament held Saturday, Randel was the second-highest scoring player among all 41 participants from the nine colleges; Schultz was eighth,.and Kenney 14th.

St. Bonaventure qualified for Sunday’s championship round by going 7-1 in round-robin play Saturday, losing only to Syracuse, 315-265. The Bonnies avenged the loss in Sunday’s first match of the title round, beating the Orange, 245-185.

SBU then beat the University of Rochester in the winners’ bracket finals, 350-175, to advance to the finals, where they again defeated Rochester, which came out of the losers’ bracket by beating RIT. Other schools competing at the Region II tourney were Brockport, Canisius, Marist, University at Buffalo, and Geneseo.

St. Bonaventure will face winners from 14 others regions, plus one wild-card, at the nationals in Los Angeles. Other regional champs SBU will face are Illinois, Northwestern, Florida, Baylor, Washington, Williams College, Missouri, Minnesota, Seton Hall, New Mexico, Ohio State, Southern Virginia, Maryland-Baltimore County and Southern Cal.

College Bowl is supported at St. Bonaventure by the School of Arts and Sciences.

Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________

Cosgrove, Fatta, Kellys and Klimczak to be honored by SBU with Gaudete Medals

St. Bonaventure University will honor five big-hearted Western New Yorkers, one posthumously, with Gaudete Medals at the annual awards dinner March 22 in Buffalo.

Honorees for 2007 include Edward C. Cosgrove, former Erie County district attorney; Angelo Fatta, Ph.D., president of BuffLink, Inc.; Jill and Jim Kelly, founders of Hunter’s Hope; and the late Sr. Karen Klimczak, S.S.J., founder of Bissonette House.

St. Bonaventure’s Gaudete (gow-DAY-tay) Medals honor business and community leaders who exemplify the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi through their joy, hope, positive outlook on life, sincerely compassionate spirit and desire to serve humankind. Recipients of the Gaudete, which means “Rejoice!” in Latin, have inspired, encouraged and enlightened others through their personal and professional lives.

The awards dinner is Thursday, March 22, at Buffalo’s Statler Towers, beginning with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m. The awards ceremony and dinner begin at 7 p.m. Co-chairs of the event are John Berger, a member of SBU’s class of 1988, and his wife, Suzanne.

“We are so proud to honor all of these remarkable people with our Gaudete Medal,” said University president Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., S.T.D. “They are shining examples of joyful service, making visible and sustained contributions that change the lives of others around them. I only wish that Sr. Karen could be there to accept this honor. I know her spirit will fill the room.”

Edward Cosgrove, well-known Western New York attorney, is one of the originators of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo’s Retirement Fund for the Religious Drive. Since 1988, the drive has raised more than $19 million for the elderly and infirmed sisters and priests. Cosgrove initiated the drive luncheon and has been its sponsor for the last 19 years.

Cosgrove has been chair of the Board of Trustees of Christ the King Seminary and D’Youville College. The Buffalo News named him Outstanding Citizen of Buffalo as district attorney of Erie County in 1977.

Cosgrove and his wife, Dorothea, a former high school teacher who was a member of the Diocesan School Board for 14 years, are the parents of four children and live in Orchard Park.

Dr. Angelo M. Fatta was president and CEO of ACTS Testing Labs with 10 offices in six countries. After the sale of his company in 1998, he served as president of BuffLink, Inc., a private, nonprofit corporation founded in 2001 by private sector and university leaders to catalyze Buffalo Niagara’s life sciences economy. BuffLink’s other activities include supporting life sciences companies and related projects, participating in marketing of the region, and the development of life sciences venture capital.

Fatta is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, which is in the midst of a $30 million endowment campaign. He is past chair of the Board of Directors of Cradle Beach Camp, a former trustee of Canisius College, a past director of the Western and Central New York Automobile Association of America, and the Shaw Festival.

Fatta and his wife, Carol, are founders of The Fatta Foundation, a charitable foundation supporting the welfare and development of children in Western New York. He is manager of Fatta Enterprises, LLC, a private investment group. He and his wife have two children and a son-in-law.

Jill and Jim Kelly’s lives changed forever when their son, Hunter, at the age of 6 months, was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Krabbe Disease. Doctors did not expect Hunter to live past the age of 2 but through love, support, and courage, Hunter surpassed expectations and celebrated 8 years of life. He passed away in August 2005.

In 1997, the Kellys — Jim, the NFL Hall of Famer and Buffalo Bills’ legend, and Jill — started their own foundation, Hunter’s Hope, in their basement. To date, the foundation has awarded more than $14 million to leukodystrophy and other neurological disease-related research. Jill Kelly said she attributes all of her strength, all of her son’s successes and everything that life throws at her to her faith in God.

As CEO of Hunter's Hope, Jill helps leukodystrophy children and their families by raising awareness and research funds for these devastating diseases. Jill and Jim have shared Hunter's story and the hope of Hunter's Hope all over the world. They have appeared nationally on many TV shows, including “Oprah,” “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show,” The Discovery Channel, ESPN and Fox Sports.

Jim and Jill have also told Hunter’s story in many national publications, including USA Today, McCall’s, Reader’s Digest and People. Jill is a co-host for a weekly TCT television show called “A Different View.”

Sr. Karen Klimczak, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Buffalo, dedicated her life to manifesting the healing presence of Jesus, whatever situation she was in.

Born into a family of two sisters and nine brothers, Sr. Karen graduated from St. Michael School in Lackawanna, and Immaculata Academy in Hamburg. She earned a bachelor’s in education from Westfield (Pa.) State College and a master’s in pastoral study from Loyola University in Chicago. She professed final vows with the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph in 1967 and transferred to the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1979.

Sr. Karen ministered in the field of Catholic education for almost 20 years; her last teaching assignment was at Mount St. Joseph Academy in Buffalo.

She began Hope House, a ministry to recently released prisoners, in 1985. Soon moved to Grider Street in Buffalo, Hope House gave many men, of all faiths, a second chance at life. Sr. Karen renamed the ministry Bissonette House in honor of Rev. Joseph Bissonette, a strong proponent of nonviolence who was murdered at that house in 1987.

Tragically, Sr. Karen also became a victim of violence at the house, on April 14, 2006, Good Friday. Her sister, Sr. Jean Klimczak, S.S.J., will accept the medal on her behalf.

Corporate tables are $7,500 for diamond, $5,000 for platinum, $2,500 for gold, $2,000 for silver, and $1,500 for bronze; individual tickets are $150. Proceeds will be allocated to the University’s scholarship fund.

To be a part of the celebration, contact Patty Thibodeau at St. Bonaventure, (716) 375-2334 or pthib@sbu.edu. Reservations are due by March 10.

 

Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________

Modern dance company to perform at QCA March 23

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y., March 1, 2007 — Modern dance giant Philadanco will perform at St. Bonaventure Unversity’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Friday, March 23.

The 7:30 p.m. program in the Rigas Family Theatre features four dances by four contemporary choreographers: Echoes: A Celebration of Alvin Ailey by Milton Myers; Enemy Behind the Gates by Christopher L. Huggins; Pulse by Daniel Ezralow; and (No More) Exotica by Ronald K. Brown. All are set to contemporary American music.

The dancers of the Philadelphia Dance Company, or Philadanco, have been hailed as a “miracle of skill and energy” (Dance Magazine) whose “blazing physicality and commitment light up the stage” (The Village Voice).

Led by founder Joan Myers Brown, who is also a dance faculty member at Howard University, Philadanco emphasizes joyous and adventurous works with universal appeal, inspired by African American themes.

An extraordinary institution, Philadanco is actually four distinct groups: the professional performing company; a 40-week Instruction and Training Program; a six-week Summer Training program and D/2 (Danco2), its apprentice group.

For more than 30 years, Philadanco has thrilled audiences and trained young dancers, appearing throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, United Kingdom and the Caribbean and with major orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

The company has been featured at major venues across the country with stops that include Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and the American Dance Festival. In 1997, Philadanco was one of 31 national organizations to receive a Philip Morris New Work Fund Award.

“It is such an honor to host this incredible company, especially as its legendary executive artistic director Joan Myers Brown was recently named a 2006 winner of the prestigious Dance Magazine Award,” said Joseph LoSchiavo, executive director of the Quick Center.

In Echoes: A Celebration of Alvin Ailey, set to propulsive music by John Adams, the company pays tribute to its artistic forebears with direct quotations from Ailey dances in fast-moving stage crosses and gatherings of dancers.

Dancers spill and slide backwards across the stage in Pulse, giving the illusion of “bodies being governed through movement and space by a molecular charge.”

Exotica is an excerpt from the full evening work Lessons, which features thrilling sections of gospel and drum-powered African-inflected movement.

In Christopher Huggins' Enemy Behind the Gates, featuring a driving percussive score by Steve Reich, dancers start march-like, then break out into swirls and scissor-legged extensions, their momentum gradually increasing in rhythm to the music. Teeming with entrances and exits, the performance builds to a frenzy for a bring-the-house-down finale.
The performance is sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. Call the QCA at 716-375-2494 for tickets and information.

The QCA will extend its gallery hours, opening one hour before the concert and remaining open through intermission. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.

The galleries at the Quick Center are free and open to the public year round. For general information, call 716-375-2494, visit www.sbu.edu or e-mail Quick@sbu.edu.

Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________

Newsmakers

Dr. Carl J. Case, professor of management science, and Darwin L. King, professor of accounting, presented their paper "Undergraduate Internet Use Policies and Their Influence on Student Behavior" at the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences 14th Annual Conference held in Las Vegas Feb. 22-24, 2007.

The Franciscan Heritage Program of St. Bonaventure University presented "Two Medieval Visions of The Journey into God: Bonaventure's Itinerarium, Chapter VII and Dante's Paradiso, Canto xxxiii" by Dr. John Mulryan, Board of Trustees Professor, Feb. 22, 2007, at The Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy. Mulryan is a Board of Trustees Professor in the Department of English at SBU. He is widely published in renaissance and medieval literature, especially on John Milton and the medieval mythological tradition. He is past president of the Milton Society of America and editor of the journal Cithara: Essays in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, and author of Through a Glass Darkly: Milton's Reinvention of the Mythological Tradition. He has recently published a translation of Natale Conti's Mythologiae and is currently working on "The Hidden Presence of Dante's Commedia in Milton's Paradise Lost."

Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________

 

Career Center News

Be sure to sign up to attend An Evening of Business Etiquette. Also, remember to advance register your resume for Careerfest '07! Check out details concerning workshops, on-campus recruiting and more. For more information visit Recruiting, visit our Web site.

Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________

Join us for this week's FRIDAY FORUM!

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

Date: Friday, March 2, 2007
Speaker: Dr. Anne Foerst
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: "The Intellectual Journey in Jamaica: Bonaventure and crab grass in Kingston"


Click here to return to the top of the page

_____________________