A Bolder Bonaventure campaign priorities

From academics to athletics and campus life to community engagement, a St. Bonaventure education is second to none. It's why nearly all SBU graduates (an eye-popping 97 percent of our alumni) say that if they were to find themselves back in high school tomorrow, St. Bonaventure would be their first and only choice of schools. Your support of A Bolder Bonaventure will help ensure we're a first choice for generations to come.

Dennis R. DePerro School of Health Professions

The Dennis R. DePerro School of Health Professions is a vibrant hub on campus, offering in-demand graduate and undergraduate programs in state-of-the-art facilities in a completely refurbished Francis Hall.

While the school’s early success is exciting, more support is needed to fully realize a broader health care learning environment.

Your contribution to A Bolder Bonaventure will help the education and training of skilled and compassionate health care professionals who are mindful of Franciscan traditions as they serve their communities.

Throughout the centuries, Franciscan men and women have strived to bring peace and healing into the world. St. Francis encouraged his followers to live in fraternitas, or in fraternity, more than 800 years ago. Today, this caring for others is the cornerstone of Franciscan health care.

At St. Bonaventure, we prepare our students through a broad context of intellectual expansion, academic excellence and engaged service. They learn the value of a person and the value of a relationship — and from there they seek to heal the person rather than just cure the illness.

Our Franciscan identity calls us to commit ourselves to the promotion of health care for all people and for social justice throughout our health care system.

Through your gift to A Bolder Bonaventure, our graduates will carry with them the knowledge and skills to apply the teachings of St. Francis, and they will be well equipped to address the world’s health and wellness issues with vigor and integrity.

Division I Athletics

Our student-athletes are among Bona's best and brightest students. We must provide facilities that mirror their desire to compete and win.

The world of the NCAA Division I is ultra-competitive, and while our teams are highly regarded, we are not keeping pace with our Atlantic 10 peers. It is time to transform St. Bonaventure’s athletics facilities.

To learn more about the Athletics pillar of the campaign, click here.

Enjoy the WSBU 88.3 FM "The Buzz" interview with AD Joe Manhertz, who talks about Athletics & the Bolder Bonaventure campaign

Our innovative plan to ensure a strongly competitive Division I experience for every student-athlete begins with the creation of the Athletics Performance Center.

This focal point will hold the men’s and women’s basketball staff offices, a basketball practice court, and a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning area that will be utilized by every student-athlete and will become a magnet for recruiting future Bonnies.

Following completion of the landmark Athletics Performance Center, renovations will be made within the Reilly Center, including an expanded sports medicine suite as well as the creation of dedicated locker rooms for every team.

Installation of an all-weather practice field, covered with an air-supported “bubble” on the east side of campus, will ensure year-round practice space for our teams. Handler Park at McGraw Jennings Field will be updated with new turf and enhanced seating. Additionally, seating for up to 1,000 spectators, a press box for ESPN+ broadcasts and a storage facility will be added to our multi-purpose field.

This is an ambitious plan — and the first step to making it happen is your support. Please join us in unfurling a bolder future for generations of student-athletes.

Jandoli School of Communication

Our story is steeped in success. For more than 70 years, the Jandoli School of Communication has distinguished itself as a world-class program.

Jandoli School alumni include instantly recognizable and highly regarded communications professionals, such as Dan Barry of the New York Times, ESPN's Adrian "Woj" Wojnarowski, and three-time New York Sportswriter of the Year Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post.

The school's home in the Murphy Professional Building is long overdue for a makeover to ensure that this enviable record of success continues.

Enjoy the WSBU 88.3 FM "The Buzz" interview with Dean Aaron Chimbel, who talks about the Jandoli School & the Bolder Bonaventure campaign.

A small but mighty school with an impeccable reputation, it's time to provide the Jandoli School the facilities to ensure that its future is as bright as its past.

Modern facilities and enhanced technology are crucial for our students to be able to collaborate, innovate and create media we cannot yet even imagine.

Your gift to A Bolder Bonaventure will be the catalyst to a stunning renovation of Murphy Professional Building and will help shape our story for the future.

Your investment will lay the foundation to:

Transform the Jandoli School through enhanced technology and renovated facilities, an agency-like classroom, team rooms, a newsroom of the future, and a state-of-the-art broadcast production suite.
Expand programming to immerse students in interdisciplinary learning.
Create new scholarships for study abroad, internships, and conference opportunities.
Foster faculty development and establish endowed chair and visiting professorship opportunities.

Academic Mission and Student Experience

Every initiative at St. Bonaventure is designed to offer students an intellectual journey that explores a larger context for their personal, professional and civic lives.

With your support, we can revitalize the campus, expand academic programs, increase enrollment, and build a healthy endowment. The collective power of our contributions will ensure that St. Bonaventure remains an extraordinary place to live and learn.

Enjoy the WSBU 88.3 FM "The Buzz" interview with Dean Hilmey, who talks about the Academic Mission and Student Experience of the Bolder Bonaventure campaign.

A St. Bonaventure education is wrapped around a liberal arts core. We believe it is important to equip students with not only the skills and knowledge to ensure success in their chosen field, but to provide them as well with an understanding and appreciation of how that pursuit impacts the world around them.

It's a values-based education steeped in the Franciscan tradition of inclusion, compassion, wisdom and integrity.

A Bolder Bonaventure aims to bolster these Franciscan and liberal arts traditions by undertaking a comprehensive refurbishing and retooling of Plassmann Hall, the building that for decades has served as the hub of instruction in the liberal arts.

Plassmann will become a showcase of education and collaboration — a vibrant destination point on campus. Plans include:

Redesigning classrooms away from small, tight spaces with rows of individual desks to open spaces, with tables and furnishings that encourage discussion and collaboration.
Relocating and co-locating academic departments and faculty offices to the building's upper floors to facilitate better student-faculty interaction and to break down silos that hinder comingling.
Creation of several large multipurpose spaces equipped with modern audio and video technology that can be used for instruction during the day and for hosting evening lectures and seminars.
Construction of digital classrooms with state-of-the-art equipment to facilitate virtual instruction and presentations.
Creation of spaces that better accommodate unique programs, such as a mock trial area for the Center for Law & Society, and homes for the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies and the Native American and Indigenous Studies program.
Reconfiguring of hallways to offer better opportunities for students to gather.
Expansion of the Student Success Center to create a vibrant, welcoming area.
New windows that will modernize the outward appearance of Plassmann and bring in more natural light.
A new heating and ventilation system to allow for year-round comfort and control.
New HVAC, paint, carpeting and office furniture, along with equipment and furniture in the classrooms, of offer a "refresh" for the Plassmann Annex, home of the School of Education.

In addition, plans are in motion to renovate the basement of De La Roche Hall and the psychology research space on the first floor of the building.

Plassmann with students

Franciscan Mission and Ministries

Saint Bonaventure, our patron, taught that “there is no knowledge without love.” In this spirit, we educate the whole of our students, their hearts as well as their minds.

Alumni recount time and again how they knew St. Bonaventure was the school for them the moment they first set foot on campus as prospective students. They sense something different about this place, a recognition that we are an academic and spiritual community that affirms the dignity of every individual and forges bonds of mutual acceptance and understanding.

We offer a transformative experience, inspiring students to embrace a lifetime commitment to service and citizenship. As we say, once a Bonnie, always a Bonnie.

Enjoy the WSBU 88.3 FM "The Buzz" interview with Fr. Stephen Mimnaugh, O.F.M., interim university chaplain, and Alice Miller Nation, director of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern, who talk about service programs and mission integration.

Our Franciscan charism calls us to inspire the soul.

Through the campaign's success to date, we have already renovated the University Chapel, renewing the main worship space to create a welcoming and hospitable environment that speaks to our generation and church.

Your support is needed to enhance faith through liturgical programs, sacraments, worship experiences, and spiritual development.

Franciscan Center for Social Concern (FCSC)

Enhance the FCSC Endowment to ensure that Catholic Social Teaching is fully integrated into the campus community.
Support programs like the Warming House, Bona Buddies, and service trips so our students can learn wisdom as well as knowledge.

Enhance the Community Endowment for Mt. Irenaeus

Establish the Mountain Companion Ministry to invite lay people to live and minister with the friars.
Welcome additional friars to live within the core community.
Maintain Holy Peace Chapel, House of Peace, and other hermitages and structures.

Center for Mission and Identity

Create an Endowment to establish the new Center for Franciscan Mission and Identity that will unify, forward, and coordinate mission integration across the campus.
Ensure that the Franciscan charism flourishes at St. Bonaventure University to become the national epicenter of Franciscanism.
Provide training for mission to our faculty and staff and empower them to integrate and utilize our Franciscan mission in their work.

The Bonaventure Fund

The Bonaventure Fund offers the opportunity for everyone to participate in A BOLDER BONAVENTURE at all giving levels.

Unrestricted annual contributions give the university the resources it needs to fund the many programs and initiatives that make the St. Bonaventure experience so unique, such as the Franciscan Health Care Program, the Career and Professional Readiness Center, Warming House and study abroad programs.

It is costly to maintain these and other programs, provide robust financial aid packages to our students, preserve a student to faculty ratio of 12:1, offer more than 50 undergraduate majors and 22 graduate programs, attract a world-class faculty, and maintain a 500-acre physical plant.

Annual gifts to The Bonaventure Fund help to support these and the many other reasons why a St. Bonaventure education consistently ranks among the Top Tier of Northern Regional Universities in the respected U.S. News & World Report College Rankings.

Doubly grateful

“I was fortunate to work for Ford Motor Company as a product designer during the summer. I'm so grateful to Bona's User Interface Design elective, where I learned that design is a part of computer science and something I can pursue long term.”

Emma Stoeckle, December '22

Computer science and cybersecurity double major now with Ford Motor Company
Support a Bolder Bonaventure

Connect with one of our Advancement Officers to learn how you can help build A Bolder Bonaventure.

St. Bonaventure University