St. Bonaventure University has been awarded a $10,000 Anna C. Manley Charitable Trust grant to support the creation of a Technology and Research Collaboration Center on campus.

The university received news of the grant from Ron Sutton, senior vice president at Key Bank. Sutton oversees the F.T. and Anna C. Manley Trust, which awarded the $10,000 grant.

The proposal was authored by Dr. Michael Hoffman, associate provost and chief information officer; Brian Kellogg, chair of SBU’s cybersecurity department; and Dr. Megan Walsh, acting dean of the School of Arts & Sciences when the grant proposal was submitted.

The center will be equipped with state-of-the-art computer technology for student research, furniture designed to create a collaborative academic workspace, and hands-on equipment for collaborative work amongst students and with faculty, Hoffman said.

“I want to thank the Manley Trust and Ron Sutton for their continued support of St. Bonaventure,” Hoffman said. “The proposal to renovate an existing Walsh Science Center classroom will help to provide our computer science and cybersecurity programs with a space that matches the ambitions of our students and their research ideas.”

Faculty, staff, and students will contribute to the final design of the room, which will be called the Manley Technology Research and Collaboration Center. The center is expected to be completed by the spring semester and will include:

• 2 TVs for screen-sharing in group work
• 6 computers for the TVs and group work breakout spaces
• 2 round tables and 2 rectangular tables for group work
• 3 white boards on lab walls
• 3 smaller, portable whiteboards

The new center will also benefit the community, Walsh said.

The university has hosted programming contests for local high school students and has sponsored “Girls Day,” an event for students in grades 6-8 that features a series of workshops presented by women working in tech fields.

“The center will not only fill a critical need in our faculty-student learning environment, but also benefit the middle and high school students in our community as they take their first steps toward careers in technology,” Walsh said.

Established in 1989, the Manley Trust provides grants to charitable causes, organizations and educational institutions in Cattaraugus and Allegany counties.

St. Bonaventure has received a number of Manley grants over the last few years, including ones for a Psychology Collaboration/Research Center, School of Education Collaboration Center, video conferencing center, SBU’s Veterans Center, equipment for the university’s Health and Human Performance Lab, a new technology for the digital media center in the library, and a physical space at Friedsam Library for its Faculty Resource Center.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.