Kevin Brayer, executive director of the Buffalo Center, has been asked to serve on the Catholic Charities Corporate Committee for 2017. Brayer said, "It is an honor to be asked to serve on this prestigious committee for such a worthwhile charity. Also, to be able to work with several members of the Corporate Committee that I taught at St. Bonaventure is a tribute to the Franciscan spirit of helping the less fortunate in Western New York."

Faculty, students and alumni shared their experience with unified sports at the 79th Annual New York State Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Conference in Verona, N.Y. The presentation at NYSAHPERD was titled “Unifed Sports: Competitive Sports and Leadership Skills for an Inclusive Future.” Special Olympics Unified Sports is an initiative that brings people with and without intellectual disabilities together on the same team to compete. Presenters included faculty members Dr. Paula Scraba, associate professor of physical education and Allison Barnes, adjunct instructor of physical education, and physical education majors/Physical Activities Club leadership students Abigail Lagoner, Abbey Marchewka and Kerry McCarthy, along with Nate Johnson, state director of Unified Sports. This year, St. Bonaventure and Special Olympics New York representatives invited a coaches panel from various school districts to co-present with them. Jessica Byerwalters from Amsterdam High School and Marc Vitticore from Fairport High School were joined by SBU physical education alumni Colleen Quinn, ’08, who was part of the original organization of Special Olympics sports on campus and Quinlan Shoen, ’15, one of the first student directors of unified sports events at the university. The coaches panel at the conference illustrated how inclusive sports build community, improve skills for positive social interaction and create acceptance in the sporting arena.

Dr. Megan Walsh, associate professor of English, has organized a panel at the biennial Society of Early Americanists Conference in Tulsa, Okla. Titled "Categories of the Archive," the panel brings together scholars whose work interrogates collection and curation practices at U.S. historical libraries.

Dr. Chris Stanley, professor of theology, has been invited to present seminar papers at the next two annual meetings of the Society of New Testament Studies. This is a notable honor, as a high-level group of New Testament scholars will spend two hours discussing each of his papers. For the 2017 meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, he will be writing on "Paul and Asklepios: The Greco-Roman Quest for Healing and the Mission of Paul." For the 2018 meeting in Athens, Greece, his topic will be "Paul the Cosmopolitan? A Postcolonial Analysis." Stanley also chaired a session at the recent Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature on "Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies in Africa" and led a meeting of the steering committee for the Postcolonial Studies and Biblical Studies section. Stanley has also been invited to give the keynote address for the annual fund-raising dinner of the SSJ Sister Karen Klimczak Center for Nonviolence in Buffalo in April 2017. The title of his presentation is "Words of Life or Words of Death? Violence and Nonviolence in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures." Previous speakers at the event include Arun Gandhi and Sr. Simone Campbell. The Klimczak Center was formed in 2007 to carry on the peace-making and community-building work of Sr. Karen Klimczak, who lost her life in 2006 at the hands of one of the parolees whom she had been helping in her ministry.

Dr. Margaret Jones-Carey, director of the educational leadership program, presented on infusing disciplinary literacy in undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs at the American Reading Forum Conference. This was her third time presenting at this annual conference.

Dr. Willy K. Rotich, associate professor of physical education, published an article in the journal Strategies on Nov. 4, 2016, titled "Leveraging the Habit-forming Aspects of Technology to Increase Levels of Physical Activity." The article highlighted potential uses of habit-forming technology (like video games) in ways that could promote physical activity and in the process make these technologies an ally rather than obstacle in combating inactivity. Dr. Rotich also presented at a conference in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 9-13. His presentation was titled "The Expanding English Premier League Soccer Fan base: Reverse drain of sports benefits in the wake of globalization," discussing the globalization that has led to an increased fan base for the English Premier League Soccer, especially in the developing world.