Bonaventure Magazine: Summer 2015 Page 37

B O N A V E N T U R E

Class Notes

Lynne Herman, '08,

'09, and her sixth grade
class at Walker Upper
Elementary School in
Charlottesville, Va.,
learned the true power
of a Bonnie this year at
Walker's "Dream Big
and Make it Happen"
college and career night.

"Dream Big and Make

it Happen" was the cul-
mination of a six-week
research project under-
taken as part of Walker's
initiative as an AVID (Ad-
vancement Via Individ-

Virginia sixth-graders
catch Bonnie Fever

ual Determination) school. AVID
is an organization dedicated to
closing the achievement gap by
preparing all students for col-
lege and post-secondary op-
portunities, and this project
worked toward this goal by
asking each class to choose a
college or university to re-
search and then decorate
their classroom door with in-
formation about it to be pre-
sented at the event.

"Naturally, my students

wanted to study UVA or JMU: universities in
our backyard. I encouraged them to look beyond
Virginia, however, and introduced them to SBU,"
said Herman. "They saw my passion for the
school and it sparked their interest."

The students wrote letters to professors,

alumni, and the undergraduate and alumni of-
fices requesting brochures and information about
St. Bonaventure as well as any gear that they
could wear to show their spirit on the night of
the event.

"The project that was assigned asked the stu-

dents to decorate the classroom door with re-
search from the university, but they were eager to
go above and beyond. They ended up decorating
the entire classroom, door, and adjacent hall-
ways," Herman recalled with pride.

The students received abundant information

about the school from alumni, faculty and staff, as
well as flags, banners, T-shirts and sunglasses. With all of
this at their disposal, it's no surprise that Herman's ambi-
tious students went all out for the night of the event.

"They wore face paint and their own Bonaventure T-

shirts, and they made pom-poms and cheered outside my
classroom for two hours," said Herman. "They gave many
families, students, and staff a tour of St. Bonaventure Uni-
versity inside and outside of my classroom and proudly told
them all about my amazing alma mater."

The event turned out to be a competition, of which Her-

man's class was the overall winner, but the biggest reward
for Herman was seeing her students, some of whom had
never even considered attending college after high school,
write in their thank-you notes to the Bonaventure commu-
nity: "I hope to be a Bonnie one day!"

Alumna Lynne Herm

an (left) and her sixth

-graders celebrate SB

Alumnae meet in China

Anne Ruisi, '81 (left), and
Lauren Reidy Scheib, '82,
were brought together in
Beijing, China, by
Bonaventure magazine.
Scheib, a veteran journal-
ist from Rochester, N.Y.,
who is an editor with
China Daily online
(www.chinadaily.com.cn)
posted an update about
her position in the
Bonaventure magazine

last summer. She made a note that "any Bonnie visiting Bei-
jing" would be welcome to look her up. Ruisi, also a vet-
eran journalist and now chief operating officer of an
international trade association (www.testpublishers.org),
was planning her third annual trip to Beijing, so she took
Scheib up on her offer! "We had an excellent night out in
Beijing," said Scheib. "Anne can order up Chinese food like
a native and she was polite enough to overlook my inept
chopstick skills!"

Alumna brings students to campus

Alumna Jaclyn Haskell, '13, was thrilled to be on campus in De-
cember 2014 to show "her school" to her Jamestown elemen-
tary school students. The third-graders toured "La Ofrenda: Day
of the Dead" exhibition at the Quick Arts Center and partici-
pated in hands-on cultural activities at the center and Friedsam
Library. The students from Samuel G. Love Elementary School
were among hundreds of area students who visited the exhibi-
tion during the fall semester.