Manhattan Magazine Fall 2008 by Manhattan College

Fall 2008 Number 2 Volume 34 Fall08CoversSHIP 2.indd 1

11/4/08 12:00:38 PM

CALENDAR

contents

december

Around the Quad

6 6 7

National Alumni Council Meeting Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Annual Christmas Concert

Gulf Coast Christmas Luncheon, Sarasota, Fla.

january

14 16

Treasure Coast Luncheon, Stuart, Fla. Class of 2008 Yearbook Release Celebration

De La Salle Medal Dinner

february

4 18

Mentor Dinner Treasure Coast Luncheon, Stuart, Fla.

Jaspers of Georgia Annual Brunch

march

4 7 5-9 8 11 13 13 14 17 17

Teacher Recruitment Event National Alumni Council Meeting MAAC Tournament SW Florida Luncheon, Bonita Springs, Fla. Long Island, N.Y., Luncheon Washington, D.C., Luncheon Gulf Coast Luncheon, Sarasota, Fla. St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Naples, Fla. St. Patrick’s Day Parade, New York City Engineering Awareness Day for Women

Accepted Students Day I

april

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Accepted Students Day II Singers’ Spring Concert Feast of St. John Baptist de La Salle Not for Profit/Public Service Job Fair

15-17

De La Salle Week

may

2 4 6 14 17 20

National Alumni Council Meeting Jasper Open Golf Tournament Block M Dinner Spring Honors Convocation Undergraduate Commencement Graduate Commencement

june

5-7 12

Reunion Weekend Athletic Hall of Fame Nominations Due

Brother President gets ready to step down • New communication studios and faculty make their debut • Parking garage nears completion • East Hill Hall opens its doors • De La Salle Dinner medalist named • Commencement

ON CAMPUS A new master’s program in mental health counseling • Movie crew uses campus as set • Lasallian Web site launches • Chem-E-Car cruises to finish line • Student shares his experiences during the Pope’s visit • Model U.N. team takes home award • Lectures • New dean of engineering

SPORTS Jaspers with Olympic dreams • Men’s basketball coach visits Iraq • Celebrating 30 years of women’s basketball • Spring sports roundup

ADVANCEMENT Recent scholarships and gifts • Senior class gift makes a comeback • New annual fund chair

ALUMNI Hall of Fame to induct new members • Jasper golf • Reunion Weekend • Alumnotes • Profiles

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Brother Burchard Kevin O’Neill, F.S.C., former assistant director of admissions, died on March 22, 2008. He was 87. Born in 1920 as James O’Neill, Br. Kevin grew up in New York City and attended schools taught by the Christian Brothers throughout his formative years, including Cathedral Boys High School and De La Salle Institute. He joined the junioriate in Barrytown, N.Y., and graduated in 1939. The novitiate followed when he was invested with the religious habit and given the name Br. Burchard Kevin. He then went on to the scholasticate at De La Salle College in Washington, D.C., and later graduated from The Catholic University with a B.A. in history in 1944. Br. Kevin’s first teaching and community assignment was at an elementary school, St. Patrick’s School, in Newburgh, N.Y. He returned to New York City two years later and began a two-decade career as a teacher and also a principal at area elementary schools, including: Sacred Heart School in Highbridge, Incarnation School in Washington Heights, St. Thomas the Apostle School in Harlem, and St. John’s School in Kingsbridge. It was during his years at St. Thomas the Apostle that Br. Kevin became a director of a Christian Brothers residence in Harlem. In 1967, he joined the staff at Sacred Heart High School in Yonkers, N.Y., and eventually became community director. A series of

heart attacks ultimately forced him to leave his post to recuperate. After he recovered, Brother William Batt ’79, former director of admissions and alumni volunteer, invited him to work in the admissions office at Manhattan College. In 1980, Br. Kevin joined the College community as assistant director of admissions. He loved to drive and enjoyed making trips as a representative for Manhattan at various college nights in the metropolitan area and then upstate New York. He even ventured into the untested territory of the deep South to promote the College. “He was hardworking, conscientious, pleasant and easy to get along with,” Br. Bill says. “He was well-liked in the office by the staff and highly respected as an admissions counselor.” Br. Kevin was also a cheerful addition to the Christian Brothers’ community, as well as a great asset — he was known to voluntarily carry out the duties of a driver, handyman, painter and mechanic. In an obituary, Brother Luke Salm, professor emeritus of religious studies and archivist for the Christian Brothers, wrote: “In the Brothers’ community he proved to be a jovial companion and a man of indefatigable energy. He would offer to drive any Brother anywhere. He enjoyed physical labor of any kind.” He moved to De La Salle Hall in Lincroft, N.J., in 2004, where he died. He is survived by his sisters, nieces and nephews.

OBITUARIES Brother Burchard Kevin O’Neill • Ross Pollack

Ross Pollack

Published by the office of college relations, a division of college advancement, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY 10471 Lydia Gray, Director of College Relations Kristen Cuppek, Editor Rose Spaziani, Assistant Editor

On the cover Brother President Thomas Scanlan

Contributors Patrice Athanasidy Joe Clifford Dorothy Conigliaro Stephen Dombroski Samantha Feigman Mary Ellen Malone Photographers Ben Asen Joshua Cuppek Marty Heitner Chris Taggart Design Charles Hess, chess design

Brother Burchard Kevin O’Neill obits

Tom McCarthy David Miller Jr. Kathy Muskopf Scott Silversten Lonny Unger

Dr. Ross Pollack, director of the specialized resource center and assistant professor in the graduate division of education, died on April 1. He was 49 years old. A beloved figure on campus, Pollack was known for his intelligence, ambition and generosity. When he arrived at Manhattan in 1995 to direct what was then the learning disabilities program, he implemented fresh ideas and revamped the department into the current Specialized Resource Center (SRC) with an emphasis on disability services. “He improved the awareness of disabilities on campus,” says Elena Caminito, assistant director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). Indeed, he sought to address a wide spectrum of physical and learning disabilities. Another one of Pollack’s colleagues, Anne Vaccaro, says he found no disability, however temporary, too small. For example, she remembers how after winter break he found note-takers for students who had skiing accidents and couldn’t write. Outside of his office, around campus, Pollack made more changes. He called for the installation of handicap doors in Miguel and De La Salle Halls, to make it easier for wheelchair-users to navigate buildings on the Quad. “He was charming,” Caminito says. “He had a way of putting people at ease. He diffused situations with his humor.” That humor was never more evident than in the early days of freshman orientation when Pollack would go into classrooms dressed as a yellow M&M. Keeping a straight face, he waited for students to comment on his attire and ask questions. Mary Huvane ’09 was one such student who met Pollack for the first time during orientation. She reflected on this experience at a memorial service in his honor on May 6, 2008 in the Chapel of De La Salle and His Brothers.

“I walked into his office with my parents, apprehensive about the whole college experience,” she said. “As soon as I stepped through his office door, I felt at ease. I just got this feeling in the pit of my stomach that everything was going to be OK because of his caring and welcoming aura that he exuded.” Huvane called her learning disability a “blessing in disguise” for introducing her to Pollack. “Because of Ross, I have learned many lessons that cannot be learned from any page in any textbook … my life is more balanced, and I have the tools to reach my dreams,” she said. Challenging his students to think outside the box was important to Pollack and a quality admired by his colleagues. “No matter what it was, he was always giving back and teaching in the process,” Vaccaro says. To this end, Pollack volunteered for many campus activities, including Relay for Life. Lois Harr, director of campus ministry and social action, remembers how he organized his own group, Team Synergy, the first time the event was held on campus. “He was always such a positive force,” Harr says. “He always encouraged his students to get involved with our volunteer activities.” Pollack earned a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Purchase in 1983 and a doctorate in education from Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1991. In addition to his work at the College, he wrote articles for The Journal News and Reporter Dispatch about education and joined the advisory board of Patchworx, an online community for young people who are ill or have disabilities. Pollack is survived by his wife, Rachel; daughter, Renee; and sister, Janet.

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Br. Thomas Scanlan To Step Down Brother Thomas Scanlan stands on the steps outside of Memorial Hall shortly before his inauguration as the College’s 18th president in 1987.

Twenty-two years after his inauguration as Manhattan College’s 18th president, Brother Thomas J. Scanlan, F.S.C., will step down in June. His tenure, the longest in the College’s history, has left an indelible mark on the state of this institution, and his departure will be noted with an enduring remembrance of all he has accomplished. The College today is a different place than when Br. Thomas took office. New buildings have risen, old ones have been replaced or revitalized, and technological advancements have changed the way communication occurs among Manhattan students, faculty and the outside world. Under his leadership, Manhattan College currently is recognized as one of the premier Catholic institutions of higher education in the nation. “For me, it is Br. Thomas’ total dedication to Manhattan that stands out, his tirelessness no matter what the challenge or the opportunity,” says Dr. James Suarez, dean of the school of business. “He has been a 24/7/365 president.” During Brother’s tenure, the College has become more selective while increasing its enrollment, broadening its geographic reach, transforming its campus from commuter-based to residential, and preserving its commitment to serving first-generation students. Under his watch, Manhattan has strengthened its academics, reputation and financial strength. Although the number of teaching Brothers has declined, he has been steadfast in preserving the Lasallian Catholic heritage of Manhattan and has promoted commitment to this tradition from the faculty and staff through the establishment of the College’s Lasallian Education Committee.

Br. Thomas was inaugurated on Oct. 29, 1987. Prior to his appointment, he was vice chancellor and chief executive officer of Bethlehem University, a private institution sponsored by the Vatican and directed by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. But he is a “Bronx boy” at heart, and his return to Manhattan College after years in the Middle East marked a homecoming of sorts. In 1988, he celebrated his silver jubilee as a Brother of the Christian Schools. The College’s then-publication Viewpoint observed: “It is appropriate to note that just 70 years ago, Brother Jasper (Joseph L. Scanlon), president of Manhattan from 1918-23, inaugurated the memorial drive for the new College and broke ground at the Van Cortlandt site. In a real sense, Brother Thomas Scanlan, in the prime of his religious life, follows in the long line of great presidents, ready and blessed by God and his faith to launch out into the deep and move Manhattan College into the 21st century.” Under his leadership, Manhattan has seen a 120 percent increase in applications and a 100-point increase in SAT scores while achieving accreditations by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). “Brother was relentless in his drive to accredit all the professional schools, and he saw that goal achieved,” Suarez says. “Engineering was long since accredited, but the school of business now enjoys AACSB accreditation and the school of education is also fully accredited by TEAC.” Five-year programs also have been added in education and engineering, and a new major in com-

During the College’s Commencement ceremony in 1998, Brother Thomas Scanlan had the honor of presenting Tim Russert, moderator of Meet the Press, with an honorary degree.

puter engineering has been included in the curriculum. The College has seen many enhancements and expansions of its facilities during his tenure. The construction of the 24/7 state-of-the-art Mary Alice and Thomas O’Malley Library redefined the library system as a first-class resource for study and research. It has been hailed as an inspired architectural achievement that seamlessly joins the old with the new. Under Br. Thomas’ direction, new residence halls also have been built. Horan Hall opened its doors in 1990 and, just a few months ago, East Hill Hall welcomed Jaspers to campus — bringing the total resident population to almost 75 percent. A new multilevel parking garage and upgraded athletic facilities were recently completed. In addition, the financial health of the College has improved dramatically. “Just look around the campus. The improvements over the years are amazing — the library, the parking garage, the new residence hall,” says Dr. Mary Ann O’Donnell, dean of the school of arts. “The library especially

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The End of an Era of Achievement:

10/30/08 2:05:12 PM

Brother’s Legacy In his 22 years as president, Brother Thomas Scanlan has made innumerable contributions to Manhattan College. Whether it has been ensuring that the College has kept pace with and surpassed the ever-growing need for new and innovative programs, understanding that increased enrollment would require additional and enhanced facilities, or simply raising the endowment and financial security, Br. Thomas has accomplished so many goals in all of the various functions at Manhattan. Here is a listing of them.

signals his great contribution in celebrating and preserving the traditional by melding it with the newest, the most up to date.” During the past two decades, the College has raised more than $225 million in two capital campaigns, the Ascend Manhattan and the Sesquicentennial Capital Campaign, and the endowment has increased tenfold. He has strengthened the board and earned its trust, so with its help, all these things were made possible. It is clear from Br. Thomas’ keen understanding of education that he set his goals correctly from the beginning. His first priority was the students. He ensured that they receive the finest education possible, are instilled with the same Lasallian values cherished by alumni, have top-notch accommodations and facilities, and, in keeping with the mission of the College, that first-generation students would continue to be welcome at Manhattan, regardless of their financial circumstances. In addition, equality, for both gender and race, was an important goal for Br. Thomas. “His dedication to diversity and equal opportunity can be seen in the faces of the staff on campus,” O’Donnell says. “He saw to it especially that women had the opportunity to succeed. This place is a far more comfortable place for women — faculty,

staff, students — than it was when I first came here.” Knowing, too, that the faculty must continue the tradition of scholarly learning that exemplified the College from its earliest days, Brother ensured that professors be of the finest caliber. Under his watch, the first faculty chairs were awarded, which attests to the fact that outstanding teachers were, and are, on campus. The success of Manhattan’s faculty can best be measured by its graduates — their wide range of knowledge, adherence to social values, and marks they have made in their chosen professions. To achieve all he has, Br. Thomas has gathered around him men and women of accomplishment who have made their marks professionally and have demonstrated their belief in the kind of values that Manhattan College espouses. A consistently stellar board of trustees has responded to the needs of the College by lending not only their business expertise but also their financial support. Both have been crucial in shaping Manhattan these past 22 years. Thomas O’Malley ’63, chair of the College’s board of trustees, recalls how Br. Thomas visited him at his home 21 years ago and asked if he would be willing to serve on Manhattan’s board. O’Malley was extremely hesitant to accept outside commitments, as he was deeply involved with

his career at the time. But Brother didn’t give up on him. “Br. Tom’s persuasive approach convinced me, and I’ve been working for Manhattan ever since,” he says. “I now have the unique privilege of serving as chairman of Manhattan’s board of trustees, and while I am doing it for my alma mater, perhaps more importantly, I am doing it for a great friend who has taught me many lessons over the years. He is a man for all seasons and one of the most capable executives I have ever met.” He has managed to engage faculty, students, alumni and friends to ensure that the Manhattan community feels a sense of investment in the College’s future. His many achievements and accolades attest to the measure of this man. Finally, Br. Thomas expressed his own feelings about the College and those who have helped achieve his goals when speaking at the President’s Dinner at the St. Regis on Sept. 18. “I am honored and pleased to have played an important role in this transformation of our beloved Manhattan,” he said. “My unique role has given me the perspective to say unequivocally that the success is due to many, many people who love Manhattan, sacrificed for Manhattan, supported Manhattan, and are totally dedicated to Manhattan.”

“For me, it is Br. Thomas’ total dedication to Manhattan that stands out, his tirelessness no matter what the challenge or the opportunity.” 2

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around the quad

Clockwise from top left: Brother President Thomas Scanlan presents the De La Salle medal to 2008 honoree Frederic Salerno ’65, retired vice chairman and chief financial officer of Verizon, at the dinner in January. Br. Thomas with Mary Alice and Thomas O’Malley ’63, chair of the board of trustees, at the President’s Dinner in September. At the dedication of Horan Hall in June 2000, Br. Thomas joins Julie and John Horan ’40 in front of their portrait in the residence’s lobby. During the College’s Sesquicentennial celebration, Br. Thomas, assisted by (from left to right) Rudolph Giuliani ’65, former mayor of New York City, and Eugene McGrath ’63, retired chairman and CEO of Con Edison, rings the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Jan. 23, 2003. Opposite page: As the new president in 1987, Br. Thomas takes some time to talk with students outside of Smith Auditorium.

Academics, Programs and Events • Two successful Middle States Accreditations • Three ABET Accreditations • School of Business and School of Education accreditations • John J. Horan Lecture Series • Addition of Beta Gamma Sigma, Mu Kappa Tau, Beta Alpha Psi and Lambda Nu • Lasallian Education Committee • De La Salle Week • Restructuring academic advising for schools of the College • U.S. News & World Report ranking as top tier college in north region for 16th consecutive year • A 120-percent increase in annual freshmen applications • A 100-point increase in combined SAT scores • Consulter groups created in arts, education and science; communication; and information technology • Mentor Program • Service Learning Program • Learning Disabilities Program • Holocaust Resource Center • Professional Certificate in Autism • Computer Engineering • Five-year Program in Childhood and Special Education • Five-year Program for B.A./M.S. in Engineering • Adult Degree Completion Program • JET established Expanded and Improved Facilities • Two new residence halls: Horan Hall in 1990 and East Hill in 2008 • Mary Alice & Thomas O’Malley Library in 2003 • Broadway Parking Garage • Construction of four bridges linking the College’s facilities • A wireless Internet campus, Jaspernet • New field turf and renovations at Gaelic Park • Galligan Fitness Center • Boat house

Student Life and Athletics • Increased resident population from 40 to 75 percent • Residence life programming • Cable TV/Port per pillow • NCAA Tournament • Initiated men’s and women’s lacrosse teams Human Resources • Diversity in personnel and faculty • Establishment of Diversity Committee • Increased compensation • Tuition Exchange Program • New vice president positions: mission, enrollment management, facilities management Board Memberships • Board of Directors, American Council on Education • Chair, Board of Trustees, N.Y. Commission on Independent Colleges & Universities • Chairman, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference • Provincial Council of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, New York Province • Executive Committee, National Collegiate Athletic Association • Board of Directors, Association of Catholic Colleges & Universities Awards, Honors and Past Memberships • Member, Fellows of the Phi Beta Kappa Society • Beta Gamma Sigma • Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Medal • Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, K.G.C.H.S. • Honorary Doctor of Laws, College of Mount Saint Vincent, 1997 • Good Scout Award, Boy Scouts of America, 1995 • Community Leadership Award, NYC Community Board 8, 1998 • Interfaith Brotherhood Award, Riverdale Jewish Community Council, 2000

Advancement • Completion of two successful Capital Campaigns: Ascend Manhattan and the Sesquicentennial Capital Campaign • Increased endowment tenfold • Increased donors and dollars raised • Financial Services Advisory Council formed • Established Chairman’s Circle and Founder’s Forum • Manhattan Monthly, an electronic newsletter

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The College Debuts New Communication Studio Educating today’s students for tomorrow’s world seems to be an ever-increasing challenge. With the launch of Manhattan College’s “next generation” communication department this fall, that challenge is one being embraced in a practical manner by Dr. Thom Gencarelli. Gencarelli, who joined the College in June 2007 as chair of a department that was still more than a year away from fruition, is keenly aware that what students learn during their time in Riverdale might well be obsolete by the time they make the decisions that will shape the industry. “I can’t predict the future,” Gencarelli says. “There are all types of unforeseen technologies and events that haven’t hit the horizon yet. If we are teaching our students about the industry of today, we’re doing them a disservice because they are going to start working in four years and build careers 10-15 years from now. What we have to do is help them figure out where things are going.” While it may be impossible to determine what the industry of mass communication will look like in 15 years, Manhattan College has taken a giant leap forward and now stands on the cutting-edge of journalistic technology. “We’re in the media capital of the world, so we’re uniquely positioned to send our students out on remarkable internships,” says Dr. Mary Ann O’Donnell, dean of Manhattan’s school of arts. “The facilities are gorgeous. It completes our curriculum at Manhattan. It will be an attractive major, it has a strong faculty, and it positions itself perfectly within the school of arts.” In creating the department’s curriculum, great thought was given to the constant technological changes within the communication industry, which resulted in a strong electronic presence in all courses. When communication students returned to campus in August, they were introduced to a set of brand new communication studios constructed on two levels in Leo Hall. Designed and built by The Systems Group of Hoboken, N.J.,

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the main television studio and postproduction video editing labs occupy space on the second floor. Workstations in the editing labs are networked into the television studio, which allow students to edit preproduced news packages and even the ability to preproduce entire shows. The labs’ computers also have multitrack, digital, nonlinear audio software and the full Adobe Creative Suite of programs, all similar to what is found in any major television studio. One floor below is a multimedia lab, where students can focus on Web design and Web tools. The new television studio can operate in a virtually tapeless environment, although a decision was made not to go to full high definition, as the world has not reached that point yet. Most importantly, the studio is set up to be wide screen and ready for high definition. According to Gencarelli, these new studios are more state-of-the-art than any institution in the New York area. Manhattan has taken advantage of the golden opportunity to build from scratch the studios and communication department, neither of which would be possible by colleges that already have programs in place. Gencarelli joined the College from Montclair State University, where he served as associate professor and deputy chair of the department of broadcasting. At Manhattan, he has been faced with the additional challenge of putting together a communication faculty, as well as seeking an individual who could oversee the new studios. “Miraculous,” says O’Donnell about Gencarelli’s efforts throughout the last year. “Thom just had a good sense of what a studio had to look like. He has brought tremendous energy [to the building of the department and the studio].” One of the new hires for the department is Robert Coleman, former associate dean of media services at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, for the position of coordinator of media technology. His responsibilities include maintenance and day-to-day operations of the new studio and labs.

Left: Alexe Rosario ’10, Melissa Bekisz ’10 and Brendan McHugh ’10 oversee the state-of-the-art television studio from the control room. Top right: In the audio room of the communication studios, Katherine Krauss ’11, Erica Ales ’12 and Michael Flynn ’10 pull up to a microphone and participate in a talk radio program. Bottom right: Cecilio Gomez ’09 and Lindsay Goyette ’09, with Dr. Thom Gencarelli, chair of the communication department, learn how to adjust a camera in the new television studio.

Prof. Rebecca Kern Prof. Rebecca Kern is instructor of communication. She earned her bachelor’s degree in studio art at the University of Maryland; master’s degree in journalism, advertising and public relations at Temple University; and doctorate in mass media and communications at Temple. She also received a graduate certificate in women’s studies from Temple. Her research and scholarly interests include a focus on the ways gender and sexuality intersect with television, journalism and advertising formats.

Dr. Pamela Poe Dr. Pamela Poe is assistant professor of communication. She earned her bachelor’s degree in music education/performance honors at Syracuse University; master’s degrees in church music/ organ and communication/film and video from Westminster Choir College and American University, respectively; and doctorate in mass media and communication at Temple University. Her research and scholarly interests include health communication, public health and crisis communication, and workplace communication.

Dr. Kim Trager Bohley Dr. Kim Trager Bohley is assistant professor of communication. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science at Indiana University; master’s degree in media ecology at New York University; and doctorate in mass communication and American studies at Indiana. Her research and scholarly interests include critical media studies, media ethnography, civic journalism and cultural globalization.

Dr. Mu Lin Dr. Mu Lin is visiting assistant professor of communication. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at Hellongjiang University in China; master’s degree in journalism at Renmin University of China; and doctorate in mass communication at Temple University. His publications include papers such as “A Great Media Wall: China’s Film Policy and its Impacts on U.S. Film Exporters” and “Change or Consistency? China’s Media Market after WTO Entry.”

Robert Coleman Robert Coleman is the coordinator of media technology/communication. He earned his bachelor’s degree in radio television at Southern Illinois University and has completed coursework toward a master’s degree in education at Dowling College. In his previous position, he designed, developed and maintained the communication studios at the College of Mount Saint Vincent.

The faculty includes Dr. Kim Tragher Bohley, assistant professor of communication, who also will take on the role of advisor to The Quadrangle; Dr. Pamela Poe, assistant professor of communication, who is currently the public relations director of the New Jersey Communication Association; Dr. Rebecca Kern, instructor of communication, an expert in advertising who has worked in both New York and Philadelphia; and Dr. Mu Lin, visiting assistant professor of communication, who spent the previous three years at the University of North Florida. Manhattan’s communication department will seek to educate students on the power of language, image and presentation in shaping private, public and corporate opinions. However, at the heart of the program is journalism, a discipline in which the rules seem to change often, but the objective remains constant. “What journalism is about is informing citizens in a demographic society, so that they can participate in the life of that demographic society as engaged, active citizens, working in the political process, working to ensure that their government acts on their behalf, in their interests, speaking their voice,” Gencarelli says. “That’s what journalism is at its core. I’m here to educate people who will go into the journalism industry having that understanding instilled into who they are.” The communication department will eventually consist of four concentrations: broadcasting/telecommunications, journalism, advertising and public relations. Currently, both advertising and public relations fall under corporate communications. Aspects of radio will be taught in the broadcasting courses.

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Dr. Thom Gencarelli Dr. Thom Gencarelli is associate professor of communication and chairperson of the department. He earned his bachelor’s degree in communication arts at New York Institute of Technology; master’s degree in media studies at Queens College of the City University of New York; and doctorate in media ecology at New York University. His research and scholarly interests include media and popular culture theory and criticism with an emphasis on popular music, media education/literacy and media ecology.

Although the major goal will be to train students for careers in the media industries, the communication department remains part of the Lasallian liberal arts tradition, and the curriculum was tailored to fit the College’s heritage. “A strong liberal arts program teaches the students flexibility,” O’Donnell says. “We’re supposed to be educating them to learn to learn. If we make them lifelong learners, they can go out and face anything. It teaches you to move with the business, to move with the industry.” The College decided on the innovative approach of making ethics in mass communication a lower-division core course. Typically, the course is an upper-division elective class in most programs. This was implemented because it fits into Manhattan’s tradition. From the start, students will be presented with ethical dilemmas that might face them as leaders in the field. “The students should know that what they are getting into has a certain set of standards,” O’Donnell says. “Our students are going to be told right from the beginning what is expected of them as future leaders in the industry.” While the future can’t be predicted, Gencarelli’s hope for the years ahead is to see Manhattan recognized as having the top communication department among all Catholic colleges in the metropolitan area. “We are in the news and information capital of the United States, if not the world,” he says. “That is a reason [for students] to come to New York. What I need to ensure happens is we build a strong-enough, attractive-enough program, so we will stand out among our peers.”

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The College’s new parking garage, located near the intersection of Broadway and 242nd Street, officially opened on Monday, Aug. 25 to coincide with the first day of the fall semester. Construction on the garage began on Nov. 12, 2007. The College obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy from the Bronx Building Department in mid-August in order to open the garage prior to the structure’s full completion. Construction on the tower and pedestrian overpass continued into the fall and was expected to be finished by the end of November. Approximately 250 spaces were in use beginning in August, with a total of 658 spaces on five levels, which were available in late October. Plans are also in the works to eventually add a set of tennis courts to the currently empty rooftop, which will provide Jaspers with yet another recreational outlet on campus. The garage helps solve the issue of inadequate campus parking and will not only help students and staff but also will alleviate the neighborhood’s chronic parking problem. Approximately 200 street-parked cars will be relocated to the College’s garage, which will make those street spaces available to area residents. It also features two retail spaces, one that is 5,600 square feet and another that is 6,000 square feet, separated by a wall. The areas could be combined into one space of 11,600 square feet if desired by a future tenant, but no decisions regarding occupants of those spaces have yet been made. The College remains open to renting the space to any appropriate partners.

Thomas Hall Undergoes Renovations During this past summer, renovations began on the Thomas Hall dining facilities. The first phase included enhancing and expanding the dining space in Dante’s Den. Still to come are the kitchen renovations and the redesign of Locke’s Loft, among other aesthetic improvements.

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New Garage Expands College’s Parking

East Hill Opens Its Doors to Students Manhattan College continues to strive toward being There are differences, however. Each lounge in East Hill considered the premier Catholic college in New York, and has a microwave, small refrigerator and stovetop for cominherent in meeting that goal is fulfilling the desires of curmon use, comfortable seating for TV watching and movies, rent and future students. With an increasing demand by and two sets of chairs and tables for working cooperatively. students for a residential college experience, Manhattan In addition, the new residence features two recrehas changed with the times. ational areas with pool and pingpong tables, and a large In fact, the number of students who call the College their screen TV for animated games. As with many new buildhome continues to grow. With the opening of East Hill Hall ings, some detailing continued during the first few months in August, three-quarters of Manhattan’s undergraduates of the semester. are now resident students, a stark contrast to the way Jas“East Hill is an aesthetically pleasing addition to the pers attended the College only a quarter century ago. campus, as it brings more of our community to a central “East Hill Residence Hall marks a paradigm shift for Manlocation,” says Brother Ralph Bucci, director of residence life. hattan College, as we have experienced a market driven “Students seem quite pleased and are happy to be living in inversion of being 25 percent residential just 25 years ago our newest facility. Once landscaping is complete, its presto now being 75 percent residential,” says Brother Thomas ence will be quite dramatic.” Scanlan, president of the College. East Hill’s opening comes just six years after the dedicaThe construction of East Hill came in response to intion of the O’Malley Library, which continues to serve as the creased demand for on-campus housing, a trend that is technology center for the entire Manhattan College comconsistent with college campuses across the United States. munity. Still, there is always more work to be done to ensure Ground was broken on the new residence hall in Decemfuture students consider Manhattan a place they’ll want to ber 2006, and the state-of-the-art structure overlooking Van call home. Cortlandt Park provides a safe home for some 550 students. “Quality residence facilities join our wonderful 24/7 That brings residential housing for East Hill and its twin, O’Malley Library learning center, as the College works on Horan Hall, to 1,270. major improvements to food service and to recreation opThe new building’s design nearly mirrors that of Horan portunities and begins planning for a future student comHall. Even though East Hill has one floor less than Horan, mons building to address resident needs for gathering and both buildings are the same height because the new activities,” Br. Thomas says. residence was built on higher ground.

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10/30/08 2:05:49 PM

Syska Hennessy Chairman Will Receive 2009 De La Salle Medal

John V. Magliano ’66

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John V. Magliano ’66, chairman of Syska Hennessy Group, Inc. and Manhattan College trustee, will receive the 2009 De La Salle Medal at Manhattan’s annual dinner on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at The Waldorf=Astoria. Richard Anderson, president of New York Building Congress, Thomas Farrell ’83, senior managing director of Tishman Speyer, and Richard Tomasetti ’63, founding principal of Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., will serve as dinner co-chairmen. “I am both humbled and thankful at the thought of being the honoree at the Manhattan College De La Salle Dinner,” Magliano says. “Humbled because there are others who deserve this honor more than I do and thankful because I was fortunate to be able to make good use of the gift of a superb education that the College gave me in the four years I spent here.” The De La Salle Medal Dinner, which began in 1977, remains the top fundraising event for the College and has honored executives and corporations who exemplify the principles of excellence, corporate leadership and service to society. Former honorees include: Robert Reynolds, former vice chairman and chief operating officer, Fidelity Investments; Sy Sternberg, president and chief executive officer, New York Life Insurance Company; Rudolph W. Giuliani ’65, former mayor of the City of New York; and Eugene McGrath ’63, former chairman and

chief executive officer, Con Edison. Magliano, a licensed professional engineer in 12 states, joined Syska Hennessy Group, one of the country’s leading consulting, engineering, technology and construction firms, in 1970, after graduating from the College with a degree in electrical engineering and serving a four-year tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force. During his 38 years with the firm, he has served as principal-incharge of many of its high-profile clients and projects, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the United Nations and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A firm advocate of mentoring and team advancement, Magliano is one of the founding members of the ACE Mentor Program, a nonprofit group that provides mentoring for high school students in the fields of architecture, construction and engineering. He also established Syska’s unique Engineer in Training program, an intensive program for new engineers just out of college, among other initiatives. Proceeds from the black-tie dinner provide discretionary resources for the College and are applied to a wide variety of needs. For more information about this event and how you or your company can participate, please call Susan Bronson, director of corporate and foundation relations, at (718) 8627837 or e-mail her at susan.bronson@ manhattan.edu.

around the quad

“I am both humbled and thankful at the thought of being the honoree at the Manhattan College De La Salle Dinner ... thankful because I was fortunate to be able to make good use of the gift of a superb education that the College gave me in the four years I spent here.”

Class of 2008 Graduates to Success Four years after setting foot on Manhattan’s campus, the class of 2008 observed the pinnacle of its college career, a weeklong celebration of academic events that began with the Spring Honors Convocation and ended in the 166th Manhattan College Commencement ceremony. At the Spring Honors Convocation, the Chapel of De La Salle and His Brothers was packed with 250 of Manhattan’s most ambitious students. Seniors recognized for their high grades were inducted into 31 honor societies, followed by the distribution of 48 medals and prizes by faculty members who commended students for their intellect, leadership and community service. Dr. Andrew Skotnicki, associate professor of religious studies, addressed the audience. He congratulated students for their achievements and reminded them that not only their successes but also their mistakes teach important lessons. “These lessons that are learned when we do not succeed teach us the final elements of our creed: to celebrate honors like those you receive tonight with humility and gratitude, and to make a commitment to give everyone the second chance that you undoubtedly were given along the way,” he said. After his speech, the ceremony continued with the presentation of seniors in national, international and academic honor societies. Faculty moderators read students names in areas of achievement, such as accounting, communication and radiological technology. Later on, the deans from all five of Manhattan’s schools awarded medals to outstanding students. Three days later, these students and many more gathered at the Commencement ceremony on May 18, where close to 700 students received bachelor’s degrees in all 40 majors in the schools of art, science, engineering, education and business. The day began with a Baccalaureate Mass in the morning that was well-attended by students and their families. Brunch awaited them under tents on the Quad, before they headed to Draddy Gymnasium for the graduation ceremony. This year’s honoree, William Baker, president emeritus of Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters at the ceremony by Brother President Thomas Scanlan. Baker addressed the audience about making a positive impact on society. “In business and in life, you don’t have to be the boss to make things happen,” he said. “Helping others to succeed is a very high calling. In public broadcasting, our big stars have been folks like Bill Moyers,

Charlie Rose, Big Bird. Helping them do their wonderful work has certainly been a very high calling for me.” Baker spoke from experience, as his career has spanned four decades in the broadcast industry. His résumé includes 10 years at Westinghouse Television, where he worked as president and chairman of cable and programming companies. In 1987, he joined EBC, which has prospered under his leadership. He created new program standards, such as Charlie Rose, City Arts and Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, and developed Thirteen’s first cable channel, MetroArts/Thirteen. He has won six Emmys for his work as a television producer and was inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame in 2004. In addition to Baker, class valedictorian Nicholas Marricco ’08, who received a bachelor’s degree from the school of arts, addressed his peers. He encouraged them to have faith in their own power to achieve their dreams. “We have spent these past several years, on the one hand, gaining an education,” he said. “Today, we stand equipped with the tools that allow us to enjoy lives more enriched with culture and with wisdom. They are the tools that will help us achieve success in all of our endeavors.” This message and more made the Commencement ceremony a day to remember. After final congratulatory remarks from Br. Thomas, the proud graduates processed out into the day, ready for the twists and turns of the career paths that lay ahead of them. Photos and video for the 2008 Commencement ceremony are available on the College’s Web site at www.manhattan.edu/commencement. Spring Commencement photos also can be downloaded at this link.

Left: Honorary degree recipient William Baker, president emeritus of Educational Broadcasting Corporation, is hooded at the 166th Commencement ceremony on May 18 by Renato Berzolla, a member of the College’s board of trustees. Thomas O’Malley ’63 (left), chair of the board of trustees, and fellow trustee Brother Frank Byrne (right) look on from the stage. Top right: Brother President Thomas Scanlan presents Andrew Elbrecht ’08 with the Joseph J. Gunn Alumni Senior Medal, which is awarded to a graduating senior for outstanding leadership, academic achievement and service, at the Spring Honors Convocation. Bottom right: New graduates applaud each other’s accomplishments during Commencement.

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In a Class of Their Own: Manhattan Students Celebrate Spring Commencement More than 200 students in the graduate schools of education and engineering and the Undergraduate Adult Degree Completion Program gathered for the 166th Spring (Graduate) Commencement ceremony on May 21. Their family and friends filled the Chapel of De La Salle and His Brothers to celebrate their hard work and dedication to career advancement. At the ceremony, graduates were congratulated by honorary degree recipient Dr. George Magovern ’45, M.D., professor of surgery in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Drexel University School of Medicine and Allegheny General Hospital. Brother President Thomas Scanlan presented him with a Doctor of Science from Manhattan College. “Life’s milestones can come to us rather unannounced and can be less prepossessing than those associated with Hallmark cards,” Magovern said. “It is those moments that evolve out of our tenacity, our experience and our drive to truly define us. Our graduates today demonstrate that the best way to put

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finding time to manage their your future in good hands is to academic, professional and perput it in your own.” sonal lives. For decades, Magovern’s “Today is a day to appreciate career has been defined by a number of important moments. our struggles and acknowledge our successes,” Kalichman said. They include performing the “It was former New York City first heart valve replacement Mayor Ed Koch who said, ‘The in Pittsburgh in 1961 and later fireworks begin today. Each developing a sutureless heart diploma is a lighted match. valve to reduce the time needEach one of you is a fuse.’ Let us ed for heart valve replacement, all use the knowledge and exand collaborating in the develperience we have gained to go opment of a high-volume, lowforth and effect change on our pressure endotracheal tube world for the better.” called the Lanz Device during During the second half the 1970s. of the ceremony, students He pioneered clinical use of small centrifugal pumps as left/ proudly walked to the front of the chapel to accept their right ventricular assist devices diplomas. Some graduates in 1980, followed by performing the nation’s first cardiomyo- received medals and prizes for plasty procedure, in which back academic merit in education and chemical and environmenmuscle is wrapped around the tal engineering. heart and trained to beat for it. Afterward, students and The ceremony also featured their guests celebrated at a remarks from Vanessa Kalichreception in Thomas Hall. man ’08, the graduate valedictorian who earned a Master of Engineering in environmental engineering. She spoke of balancing her graduate studies with her full-time job in consulting engineering at Malcolm Pirnie, and lauded her peers for

Top: Brother President Thomas Scanlan and honorary degree recipient Dr. George Magovern ’45, M.D., display his Doctor of Science. Above: Michelle Gutierrez ’08 earns a Master of Science in chemical engineering at the 166th Spring (Graduate) Commencement ceremony.

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For Manhattan students looking for more options in counseling, the wait is over. As of this fall, the graduate division of the College’s school of education expanded its program to include a Master of Science in mental health counseling. This degree trains students to counsel clients in various medical, research, mental health and independent practice settings. Such training may lead to work in hospital outpatient and psychiatric clinics, local community agencies or private offices. “We at Manhattan College decided there was a need here because of the number of agencies and community organizations that we serve,” says Dr. Corine Fitzpatrick, director of Manhattan’s graduate programs in counseling, a licensed psychologist and mental health counselor. The program began in response to a New York state law passed on Dec. 9, 2002 that licenses people who receive degrees in mental health counseling from certified programs. At the time, New York was one of five states nationwide that did not offer such a license. Fitzpatrick created syllabi for Manhattan’s 60-credit mental health counseling program, which aims to develop students’ abilities to engage in good assessment and intervention in a medical-care setting. Courses include Foundations in Evaluation, Assessment and Diagnosis; Introduction to Mental Health Counseling; and Marriage and Family Counseling, among others. In addition, the program requires two semesters of internship, during which students are supervised by a mental health counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist or social worker. Upon graduation from the program, students do not automatically receive a license. They still have to log 3,000 hours at a job that entails supervised mental health counseling work before taking

the New York state licensing exam. This initiation process is similar to how doctors, nurses and psychologists are licensed. Students also may take the National Counselor Examination to become a nationally certified counselor. For students such as Leslie Doyle ’09, the opportunity to have a license in mental health counseling was the reason she prolonged her studies at Manhattan College. Doyle, who already had completed the coursework for a master’s degree in school counseling, transferred into the mental health counseling program and is in the midst of completing her remaining credits toward this specialty. “You become knowledgeable in all areas,” says Doyle, about why she is in the program. “You can work with more clients. It trains you to be more versatile over the lifespan of your clients.” To Doyle, the enhanced training will enable her to offer better service to clients. This fall, she began her two-semester internship in substance abuse at St. John’s Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y. Besides Doyle, there are about nine other current students who transferred into the program, as well as nearly 14 new students who entered in the fall. These students may prepare to deal with family issues, drug and alcohol abuse and more, but whatever they decide, their training in mental health counseling will place them on the front line of helping people to live healthy lives.

As of this fall, the graduate division of the College’s school of education expanded its program to include a Master of Science in mental health counseling. manhattan.edu

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On Campus

Manhattan Debuts Mental Health Counseling Program

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Indie Movie Films on Campus Outside room 207 in Miguel Hall, on the edge of Manhattan’s Quad, a Hollywood-esque transformation has occurred. A cluster of canvas director chairs sits before a small TV screen by the classroom door. Crew members with walkie-talkies move in and out of the doorway with easels, painted canvases and chairs. Inside the classroom, extras wield paintbrushes, and drawings hang on the walls. Back in the hallway, a tangle of bundled camera stands, overstuffed duffel bags, empty water bottles and metal boxes extends nearly to the end of the aisle. Someone yells “Picture’s up!” An image pops up on the screen, and a wiry woman in the middle chair, headphones plugged in and wearing a green tank top, leans forward and intently watches the screen. Less than a minute later, another yell, this time “Cut!” ends the collective hush. There would be many more takes of this scene and others to happen in De La Salle Hall, under the archway to the Quad, and in the third floor locker room of Alumni Hall. On this 90-degree August day, a 60-member crew and nearly 100 extras filmed nines scenes of The Greatest, an independent movie that stars Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon, and marks the directorial debut of Shana Feste, the woman in the green tank top. “My inspiration for this film comes from the characterdriven dramas of the 1970s like Kramer vs. Kramer that I grew up with,” says Feste, who started to write the film’s screenplay while in graduate school at the American Film Institute.

And so it was that Manhattan’s campus was made to look like a high school where the film’s two young stars, Bennett (Aaron Johnson) and Rose (Carey Mulligan) cross paths on the Quad’s cobblestones during senior year and fall in love. The film’s plot takes a tragic turn when Bennett dies in a car accident. When Rose finds out she’s pregnant, Bennett’s grieving parents, played by Brosnan and Sarandon, open their home to her. Neither of the film’s two big names worked at the Manhattan shoot. Despite the plot’s dark arc, Feste insists that it is really a story about family ties and hope. She says the title could have multiple meanings, such as the greatest love or greatest emotion. “It’s my homage to Ordinary People,” she says. The 14-hour Manhattan shoot, which began at 6 a.m., was the 24th of 25 days of filming for the cast and crew. Feste chose to film at the College after a location scout came to see the campus. Most of the scenes on other days were filmed in Nyack and at nearby Lehman College. Feste admits that 25 days of filming means long days and a tight schedule, but she wants to enter The Greatest in the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which has a September deadline. “We have an amazing young cast,” she says. “Hopefully people will respond to the story of a family that comes back together and has hope.”

There would be many more takes of this scene and others to happen in De La Salle Hall, under the archway to the Quad, and in the third floor locker room of Alumni Hall. 12

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on campus

Aaron Johnson, who plays the character Bennett (second from the right in a vest), shoots a scene for The Greatest on campus near the archway.

Lasallian Web Site Launches As an institution founded in the Lasallian tradition, Manhattan College’s faculty, staff, administrators and students continue to identify and be inspired by its mission. To further that mission and to better educate current and future members of the Manhattan community, the College recently launched a Lasallian community section on its Web site. Located in the “About” section on the home page, the site provides information about Lasallian events on campus and beyond, links to the global and U.S. Lasallian community, of which Manhattan College is part, and information about the College’s current Christian Brothers. The work of the Lasallian Education Committee, including information about the Distinguished Lasallian Educator, Staff and Administrator Awards also is highlighted. “The Lasallian link on the Manhattan College Web page is intended to facilitate access to Lasallian information at the institutional, district, national and international levels,” says Dr. Karen Nicholson, associate professor of education and chair of the Lasallian Education Committee. “The goal is for all interested parties to have an opportunity to be well informed about what it means to be Lasallian and how being Lasallian is being lived on campus.” Manhattan is one of seven Lasallian colleges and universities in the United States, and the Lasallian global community consists of 58 institutions of higher learning. New visitors and longtime members of the College community are invited to further explore Manhattan’s Lasallian heritage on the new Web pages, and the site will continue to grow with additional and updated information in the coming months.

The Manhattan College Chem-E-Car team with the champion car after winning the race: (from left to right) Frank Ricci ’10, Karen Tschinkel ’11, Nick Ruffini ’09, Nick Ryan ’09, Matthew Johs ’10, Dan Domato ’09, Mary Minnucci ’11, Annmarie Foglio ’11, Brian Barkwill ’10, Shannon O’Brien ’10, Jake Blumert ’10 and Tim Vanvliet ’09.

Manhattan’s Chem-ECar Goes the Distance Manhattan College tied for first place with Carnegie Mellon University at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Regional Chem-E-Car Competition, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished in its nine years of competition. AIChE schedules regional meetings for the various chemical engineering departments across the United States in the spring, and this year the College, for the first time, played host to the competition for the mid-Atlantic region. To compete, a small shoebox-sized car must be powered completely by a chemical reaction and carry a certain amount of water weight (0500 grams) a set distance (50-100 feet). The team rigged the car from a basic remotecontrolled toy car. The Jaspers replaced the front axle and mounted a Tupperware container on top to hold the battery and stopping mechanism, which consists of an electric circuit, magnesium ribbon and some hydrochloric acid, and allows the car to stop close to the marker. “The race is not about speed but rather accuracy, and the car that stops closest to the mark wins the competition,” says Frank Ricci ’10, a chemical engineering major and one of the

Manhattan Chem-E-Car team managers. “The trick is the car must go and stop solely due to chemical means.” What also complicates matters is that none of the teams know what amount of weight their cars must carry or what distance they must carry it. It isn’t specified until one hour before the competition begins. Therefore, the Chem-E-Car teams need to do intensive testing and calibrating months before the competition in order to prepare for all possible combinations of weights and distances allowed. “The distance was 65 feet, and I believe the water weight was 50 grams,” Ricci says. “We stopped at about 64 feet and 7 inches, which is only five inches from the line.” Now the team gets to compete at the national conference in Philadelphia on Nov. 16, and have a shot at a $2,000 first-place prize. “Our department embodies a commitment to greatness, and I am proud to have been able to leave a small mark in our distinguished history,” Ricci says. “In the national competition, we are looking to remind the engineering community what our school is all about.”

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on campus

In the Holy Presence David Miller Jr. ’11 Reflects on the Pope’s Visit in April The distinguished Manhattan College delegation with Dr. Pamela Chasek (first row, far right), associate professor of government and director of the international studies program, at the Model United Nations Conference in New York City.

Pope Benedict XVI blesses a crowd outside the entrance of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., in April.

The sight of one man’s bright smile complementing his white cassock, red loafers and gold ring that glistened in the late afternoon sun lit up a crowd with boisterous shouts of elation. As the pontiff approached, I greeted him from atop a folding chair, hollered, “Salve Papa!” and snapped a digital photograph as he passed. To the surprise of the gathered, Pope Benedict XVI advanced toward the crowd, lifted his hands in the form of a greeting and proceeded to extend his hands in blessing to the jubilant observers. This was the sight each person in the crowd and thousands more had anticipated for nearly two years since the announcement of the visit by the head of the Roman Catholic Church to the United States in April. Back in February, Lois Harr, director of campus ministry and social action, announced during the College’s Sunday Mass that the Archdiocese of New York was looking for stu-

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dent volunteers to staff sites that Pope Benedict XVI would visit in the New York City area. Our contact information was passed on to the Archdiocese, and the U.S. Secret Service ran background checks and training sessions, where volunteers were briefed on their duties. Manhattan students were asked to assist at the youth and seminary rally at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., by staffing the secured parking lots at Yonkers Raceway and the papal Mass to take place at Yankee Stadium in the College’s home borough. While serving with the College’s deacon, the Rev. Robert Bubel, at Sunday Mass and weekly Eucharistic Adoration, we spoke frequently about our expectations of the forthcoming visit. To his surprise and delight, he was asked to be the deacon of Eucharist for the papal Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to celebrate the religious and clergy of the area. Following this special announcement, he was offered VIP tickets from the dean of St. Joseph’s Seminary for his family and friends to attend the arrival ceremony. He graciously offered his tickets to me, as he was eager to have college students share in the unique experience. Arriving at Yonkers Raceway by chartered bus from the termination of the No. 1 subway train, I had accepted the invitation to volunteer and was deployed to the VIP lot with college students from across the city to organize attendees and help them onto shuttle buses going to the seminary. Thousands of youth would emerge on these premises to gain access to the rally while singing, chanting and meeting others from across the United States. Looking down from a hill, I witnessed a wave of shining youthful faces that had broken onto the hot pavement and settled into a fleet of yellow school buses destined for the religious event. I would soon join the excited youth for my chance to see history being made. Six hours of standing in the heat of the parking lot in a conspicuous red parker while directing the confused masses made the 15-minute bus ride to the seminary a welcome break for my feet. Flashing our yellow VIP tickets, two friends from Fordham University and I were directed off the bus, through metal detectors, to a fenced-off section of grass surrounded by the circular driveway that leads to the main doors of St. Joseph’s. To our right were a dozen video cameras manned by national media and paparazzi ready to snap a photo worthy of the front page of America’s newspapers. The lockdown of the seminary grounds began a few hours

earlier, as the pope mobile was readied for his holiness before our eyes. The former Cardinal Ratzinger pulled up in a black limousine, briefly waved and quickly entered the chapel to greet disabled children. Within an hour, he had reemerged ready to greet those gathered on the front lawn. All the hours in the hot sun had immediately paid off the moment the pope came out of the chapel’s doors. My Latin salutation caught his attention, and he responded with a glance in my direction, accompanied by a gentle smile that made me feel as though I was the only one standing there to receive his blessing. With little time to think after his holy presence had touched my heart, I grabbed my camera to document the occasion even though I knew I would remember this experience my entire life. Pope Benedict XVI’s presence had captured the iconic and contemporary holiness that permeates the good works of the Catholic Church. This was characterized by the feelings of goodwill and participation in our international faith community, which is invigorated with every country the pontiff visits. In the sweltering mid-afternoon heat, before the pope’s arrival, the secret service allowed volunteers through the barricades to distribute water to the waiting faithful outside the chapel. Although it would have been easy to take water for themselves, all in the crowd made sure the elderly nuns and young children received it first. Such displays of generosity show the character of the waiting faithful, especially during a week in which many media services paid tribute to the contributions of the Catholic Church in the United States. When asked for a reaction by a writer from the National Catholic Reporter about the April visit and my experiences, I pointed to the positive effect of evangelizing the youth and all Catholics in the United States. Pope Benedict XVI has enlightened the world by presenting the Church as a tangible sign of God’s love through the exhortations of intellect and reason proposed by St. Aquinas and characteristic of this academic and spiritual leader. The visit renewed my resolve to follow God’s will. It helped to further shed light on the beauty and wisdom of the Church, which is found in God’s holy men and women and the role of Catholic institutions, such as Manhattan College, as a means for their good works.

Manhattan College Stands Out at Model U.N. Conference A delegation of 14 students from Manhattan College represented the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela at the National Model United Nations Conference in April. Standing in for Venezuela on seven different committees, the team received its first ever award for Outstanding Position Papers, as well as an Honorable Mention award for overall performance. Led by head delegate Deirdre Mertens ’10, the College’s Model UN team negotiated numerous resolutions on diverse topics, such as illegal trade in weapons, financing for development, the urban penalty, energy use and strengthening the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. Colleen McGourty ’08 and Elise Rae ’09, who represented Venezuela on the Pan-American Health Organization, received an award for the most active delegation in their committee. More than 2,200 students from nearly 50 countries and almost 200 colleges and universities participated in the conference.

David Miller Jr. ’11 is a double major in biology and philosophy.

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on campus

Consumer Ethics 101: Fair Trade and Sustainability

The Players Put On Another Smash The Manhattan College Players staged the Broadway hit Urinetown, The Musical in the spring. In this scene, Mr. Cladwell, with the staff of Urine Good Company, sings Don’t Be the Bunny to his daughter, Hope, about how to be on top in the business world. From left to right: Sarah Boyle ’09, Julia Bednarczyk ’11, Glynnis O’Shea ’09, Michelle Carano ’10, Becky Carroll ’11, Kate Murphy ’11, Angela Raiti ’09 and Brendon Budness ’09 (center).

Voices from Around the World The Manhattan College Singers and the Orchestra performed works by Franz Schubert, Henry Purcell and Andre Thomas at the spring concert in April in the Chapel of De La Salle and His Brothers. Concluding De La Salle Week, the concert’s theme was music from around the Lasallian world.

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Walk down the average supermarket aisle and try to find a food product without a do-gooder label; there are organic versions of just about everything, soy is a household staple akin to dairy, and Starbucks touts its fair trade coffee beans. But are all products created equal? This question and more were addressed by a panel discussion on fair trade and sustainability in April. Sponsored by JustPeace and the office of campus ministry and social action, the panel featured program manager Paula Lukats from JustFood, and sales and marketing associate Niki Lagos and intern Melissa Dentch of Divine Chocolate. The panelists discussed different aspects of a common theme: ethical consumerism, which means making informed decisions about our food choices. Lukats emphasized the importance of eating local produce to support small farmers. An ethical consumer also understands the production of food (were pesticides sprayed on fruit or hormones injected into animals?) and the treatment of the workers who handle it (do they earn a fair wage or are their rights harmed by sweatshop-like conditions?). To this end, Lagos spoke of how Divine Chocolate operates an ethical business by selling only fair trade chocolate and giving cocoa farmers a company share, which involves them in its decision-making process. Dentch added to the discussion with her research on fair trade in Kenya. For the past year, Manhattan students, such as JustPeace member Katie Meyer ’08, have raised awareness about fair trade practices. The movement seeks to ease global poverty by encouraging companies to pay a fair price for products exported by developing countries, as well as improve work conditions for farmers. “As consumers, we have the ability to demand ethical practices in the food industry, and the best place to do so is on a college campus” Meyer says.

Darfur refugees Abu Asal Abu Asal and Mohammed Abdelrahman tell their stories as part of the national speaking tour Voices from Darfur, which came to Manhattan College this past April.

Voices from Darfur Tells Refugees’ Stories Refugees Abu Asal Abu Asal and Mohammed Abdelrahman told their intense and emotional stories this past April as part of Voices from Darfur, a national speaking tour about the genocide that has ravaged the Darfur region of Sudan since 2003. The lecture was sponsored by the Holocaust Resource Center, campus ministry and social action, JustPeace, the peace studies program and the international studies program at Manhattan College. The presentation began with a video of interviews with Darfur refugees. It is estimated that there are 200-400,000 people dead and at least two million refugees as a result of the clash between armed African rebels and Sudan’s Arab-dominated government, which funds the brutal Janjaweed militia. Since fighting broke out among these warring factions, a humanitarian crisis has engulfed Darfur as civilians have been murdered, homes destroyed, women and girls raped and food depleted. Asal, who has been detained and beaten by the Sudanese government, emphasized the importance of education and community. About the genocide, he said, “So little has been done to stop it … We might speak different languages, look different, have different beliefs, but we are still one big human family and that unites us.” Abdelrahman then traced Darfur’s history and explained the complexities of its present situation. For example, he spoke of China’s complicated and often controversial relationship with the Sudanese government. According to the Save Darfur Coalition Web site, China is Sudan’s closest economic, military and political partner, yet it has done little to end the genocide in Darfur. Critics of this relationship, including Abdelrahman, contend that the money China uses to buy oil from Sudan funds the military and, in turn, that money buys arms for the Janjaweed. Queens Councilman Eric Gioia, who is a Darfur activist, also shared his views. He said some U.S. tax dollars go toward pension funds that aid companies that support the Sudanese government; one particular company under scrutiny is PetroChina. He encouraged attendees to write local election officials on the situation and look over their own personal investments. For more information about the genocide in Darfur, visit the Save Darfur Coalition Web site at www.savedarfur.org.

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Nearly a quarter century separates the Manhattan graduations of James Patterson ’69 and Michael Ledwidge ’92, but it was the College that literally brought together the two acclaimed writers. Searching for ways to become a published author, Ledwidge, at the urging of his wife, placed a phone call to Dr. Mary Ann O’Donnell, his one-time advisor and the College’s dean of arts. She had a few suggestions and proposed what seemed to Ledwidge like a long shot: a phone call to Patterson, one of the best-selling authors of all time who also was then the chairman of the advertising company J. Walter Thompson, North America. Ledwidge, a Bronx native, mustered the courage to place the call that would change his

Co-authors James Patterson ’69 and Michael Ledwidge ’92 signed books during a visit to the campus in September to highlight the official launch of the College’s communication department.

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life. An assistant encouraged him to drop off a manuscript, and after a few weeks, he arrived home to a ringing telephone with Patterson on the other end. A literary duo was born. Patterson and Ledwidge returned to Manhattan College on Tuesday, Sept. 9 to highlight the official launch of the College’s “next generation” communication department. The department’s chair, Dr. Thom Gencarelli, began the evening with a short address, introduced the new faculty and displayed pictures of the recently completed state-of-the-art facilities in Leo Hall. “The communication department’s greatest mandate and its greatest challenge are to teach its students to negotiate these changes while preparing them for professional careers in an ever-changing industry,” he said. During his talk to the audience gathered in Smith Auditorium, Patterson stressed the need for children to embrace reading at an early age, thus, developing the reading habit as they grow older.

“I continue to believe that the best way to get kids reading is to give them books that they are going to love,” he said. “Reading is a hard skill to pick up. So many kids get turned off of books. The habit I would love to see in all grade schools is a 30-minute read period every day. If schools did that; what a great thing for this country.” After Patterson spoke briefly, the two authors answered questions for the next 30 minutes before sitting down for a book signing to conclude the evening. The line, which originally snaked outside the doors of Smith Auditorium, dwindled slowly as the pair took the time to talk with everyone seeking autographs. One of the most acclaimed novelists of his time with more than 150 million books sold worldwide, Patterson holds the record with 39 titles on the New York Times’ best-sellers list. He has written 19 consecutive titles that reached No. 1 on the New York Times’ bestsellers list and is the only author to occupy the No. 1 slot on the adult fiction and children’s chapter book lists simultaneously. Patterson has created the two top bestselling detective series of the past decade. His Alex Cross series, which features Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls, is the top-selling U.S. detective series in the past 12 years. His popular Women’s Murder Club series includes 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree and 4th of July. In 2007, he teamed with Ledwidge to launch his third best-selling series, Step on a Crack, about fictional New York City Police Detective Michael Bennett. Ledwidge is the author of The Narrowback, Bad Connection and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. He also co-authored with Patterson The Quickie, which was published by Little, Brown in 2007. As of mid-October, The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, co-authored by the pair, had spent 11 weeks on the New York Times’ best-sellers list for children’s chapter books. At the same time, Patterson’s You’ve Been Warned and Double Cross was featured on the best-seller list for paperback mass-market fiction books.

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Best-Selling Authors Return to Campus

Ukrainian Fulbright Fellow Discusses Journalism Ukraine native Vitaliy Zhuhay, Fulbright fellow and senior lecturer in the journalism department at Uzhgorod National University, spoke on The Contemporary State of Ukraine: Politics, Education and Journalism this past April. After a brief history of Ukraine, Zhuhay delivered a detailed summary of its system of education and discussed the overall present-day situation for Ukrainian journalists. Zhuhay explained that Ukrainian students who choose to study journalism typically take a full five years to complete their degree, yet equally as important as a degree is proving oneself in the workplace. “Usually it is not required to have a special education to be hired to work for the media except to prove your talent, level of knowledge and competency,” he said. In reference to the current situation for Ukrainian journalists, Zhuhay said, “[They] still do not enjoy the rights and freedoms their colleagues in other states are entitled to.”

He listed several threats to freedom of speech and press in Ukraine, including the absence of strong opportunities for the media to become profitable and economically independent, as well as court trials and self-censorship within the local press because these journalists are still afraid of punishment if they criticize the local government. Based on research completed during his stay at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Zhuhay said the level of freedom of the U.S. press is higher than its Ukrainian counterpart, however, the American media is not without its own challenges. For example, he discussed how after Sept. 11, American journalists faced new requirements on covering terrorist activity, and consequently self-censorship arose. During his summer-long stay at the College’s own communication department, Zhuhay continued his research of the United States’ system of higher education, particularly in respect to journalism.

Way of the Cross Tours Manhattan’s Campus The touring exhibit Way of the Cross: The Passion of the Christ in Art, which features 14 oil paintings on wood panel, was displayed in the O’Malley Library in April. The artist Randall Good, whose paintings depict the Stations of the Cross, also came to campus to sign copies of his art book of the same title. At 11x14 inches apiece, the paintings may be small, but their earthy colors and detailed compositions evoke a range of emotions from pain and fear to hope and love. In Station XII: Jesus Dies on the Cross, for example, Good paints Jesus pinned to the cross against a volatile red sky. The white mantle around his torso symbolizes purity. A distressed Mary Magdalene in a rust-colored robe clutches at his feet. To his right, his loving mother, Mary, arms flung out in a gesture of grief, gazes at her dying son. In contrast, Good uses shades of pink, green and golden orange for Station XIV: Jesus is Placed in the Tomb. These colors symbolize spring and foreshadow Jesus’ resurrection, which imbues the painting with the hope of rebirth. From Manhattan, the exhibit moved on to Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Times Square. With its eloquent imagery and raw emotion, Good’s work gives fresh meaning to Christ’s timeless story.

Station XII: Jesus Dies on the Cross

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Faculty/Staff Accomplishments Dr. Nada Marie Assaf-Anid, professor of chemical engineering, and Henry Baez ’07, a graduate chemical engineering student, recently published the article “Novel and Conventional Approaches to Sterilization” in the August issue of the magazine Chemical Engineering. AssafAnid also has been invited to serve on the editorial advisory board of the journal Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy, previously known as Environmental Progress. The journal is expanding its scope into new aspects of the environment, such as sustainability and sustainable energy. Dr. Thelma Baxter, assistant professor of education, published the article “Writing is Everyone’s Business” in the April/May 2008 issue of Momentum: The Official Journal of the National Catholic Educational Association. Dr. Joan Cammarata, professor of Spanish, organized and chaired two sessions in April at the 2008 Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Convention in Buffalo, N.Y. The sessions included Fashioning Feminine Identity in Early Modern Spain and Cervantes Don Quixote: The Discourse of Culture and History. In the Cervantes session, she paid homage to the renowned Cervantes scholar, Tom Lathrop, on the occasion of the presentation, festschrift, “Aqui se imprimen libros”: Cervantine Studies in Honor of Tom Lathrop. In a special session sponsored by Spain’s Ministry of Culture, Cammarata presented a tribute to Enrique Ruiz-Fornells, emeritus professor at the Universidad de Alabama, in recognition of his illustrious career and contributions as liaison between NeMLA and the Ministry of Culture. Dr. Anirban De, assistant professor of civil engineering, co-chaired a session on Earthquakes and Blasting at the GeoCongress 2008 conference organized by the American Society of Chemical Engineers in New Orleans. He also presented the paper “Centrifuge Modeling of Explosion Craters Formed over Underground Structures,” which was published in the geotechnical special publication Geosustainability and Geohazard Mitigation. Dr. Nicholas DeLillo, professor of mathematics and computer science, will publish a series of monographs “Design, Implementation, and Application of B-Trees Using Java 6.0.” These monographs will appear as separate installments in the Technical Report Series of the Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems of Pace University. He also has been designated as an expert reviewer and has served in that capacity in the recent production of the twovolume set of reference works Core Java, eighth edition, which focuses on the latest version of the programming language, Java SE6. The book was published this year by Sun Microsystems Press and PrenticeHall, Inc. In addition, DeLillo is designated as a reviewer for scholarly papers submitted for publication at SIGCSE ’09, the 40th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education of the Association for

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Computing Machinery. The annual symposium will be held in Chattanooga, Tenn., on March 4-7, 2009. Dr. Kimberly Fairchild, assistant professor of psychology, was quoted in the online edition of CNN for the article “Catcalling: Creepy or a Compliment?” in May. Dr. Jay Friedenberg, associate professor of psychology, and Dr. Bruce Liby, associate professor of physics, have published the article “Perceiving the Center of Three-Body Displays: The Role of Size-Ratio, Symmetry, Elongation and Gravity” in The Open Behavioral Science Journal. Dr. Robert Geraci, assistant professor of religious studies, published the essay “Apocalyptic AI: Religion and the Promise of Artifical Intelligence” in the spring issue of The Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Geraci also presented his research Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar in virtual reality at the Web site Extropia Core on March 15. Extropia is a community of second life residents who share a common desire to build a positive, beautiful and empowering future for all. Lois Harr, director of campus ministry and social action and adjunct instructor of religious studies, published an article in the June issue of Crossroads, the national newsletter of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association. The article details integrating her work as a campus minister with being a certified fair trade ambassador for Catholic Relief Services. Dr. Jonathan Hartman, assistant professor of marketing, and Dr. Yassir Samra, assistant professor of management, have co-authored the following papers: “Impact of Personal Values and Innovativeness on Hedonic and Utilitarian Aspects of Web-Use: An Empirical Study among United States Teenagers” in the March 2008 issue of the International Journal of Management, and “Where Does an Entrepreneur Have the Best Shot? The Effects of Market Stage and Concentration Ratio on New Venture Entry in the Healthcare Sector” in the Business Journal for Entrepreneuers. Samra’s article “Effect of Improvisation on Product Cycle Time and Product Success” also appeared in the March 2008 issue of the International Journal of Management. Dr. Samira Hassa, assistant professor of modern foreign languages, has published the book From the Medina to the Ville Nouvelle: Ethnolinguistics Study of Language of the Urban Space of Fes (Morocco). Dr. Jeff Horn, associate professor of history, has published The Industrial Revolution. Dr. Natalia Imperatori-Lee, assistant professor of religious studies, attended the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Religious Education Con-

Dr. Reza Jazar, associate professor of mechanical engineering, recently published Vehicle Dynamics: Theory and Application. The book is appropriate for senior undergraduate and first-year graduate students in mechanical engineering. Its contents are presented at a theoreticalpractical level. It explains vehicle dynamics concepts in detail, concentrating on their practical use, and also has more than 500 diagrams and 500 detailed examples with fully worked solutions, which expose readers to a balanced and broad understanding of this topic. Dr. John Jeris, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the New York Water Environment Association (NYWEA) during its 80th annual meeting. His citation reads, in part, “He demonstrated throughout his professional career an exemplary commitment to improving the quality of the waters of the state of New York and providing many years of leadership to the NYWEA.” Jeris also was honored for his dedication to the NYWEA for 50 years. Dr. Rostislav Konoplich, visiting assistant professor of physics, recently delivered the following talks: A Simple Cell Based Calibration for Missing Transverse Energy Trigger at the fourth Hadronic Calibration Workshop in Tucson, Ariz.; A New Approach for Reconstructing SUSY Particle Masses at the SUSY meeting in Cern, Switzerland; and Applications of Cascade Mass Reconstruction Method and Missing Transverse Energy Calibration at the ATLAS-CERN New York University meeting in New York City. Konoplich also has co-published a collection of tests in Russian for high schools: Tests for High Schools, Physics, K-12 and Tests for Monitoring of Students’ Performance, Physics, K-11. The books are used in nearly 50,000 high schools. Dr. Shawn Ladda, associate professor of physical education and human performance, has been voted president-elect of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS). Founded in 1899, NAGWS’s mission is to develop and deliver equitable and quality sport opportunities for all girls and women through relevant research, advocacy, leadership development, educational strategies and programming in a manner that promotes social justice and change. NAGWS is one of six national associations of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Dr. William Merriman, dean of the school of education, and Brother Augustine Nicoletti, assistant professor of education, recently edited Understanding and Teaching Today’s Students, which was released in

March at the National Catholic Educational Association Annual Convention in Indianapolis. They also made a presentation, Working with the Latino Millennial Student, during the convention. In addition, the two received a Gold Hermes Creative Award for their article “Teaching Millennial Generation Students,” which appeared in the April/May 2007 issue of Momentum. The Hermes Awards recognize excellence in communications, advertising, marketing, public relations, design, video and Web technology. Dr. Zella Moore, assistant professor of psychology, has published The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance: The MindfulnessAcceptance-Commitment (MAC) Approach to Performance Enhancement: A Step-by-Step Guide. Dr. Mohammad Naraghi, professor of mechanical engineering, presented the paper “A CFD-RTE Model for Thermal Analysis of Regeneratively Cooled Rocket Engines” at the 44th AIAA Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Conn., on July 21-23. He also chaired three sessions in modeling of liquid propulsion systems during the conference.

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gress. She was part of the panel Soy Catequista: Dignidad, Vocación y Misión del Catequista (I am a Catechist: The Dignity Vocation and Mission of the Catechist). Her presentations focused on the importance of catechists in scripture and throughout the Christian tradition, particularly in relation to Latino/a Catholics.

Dr. Robert Sharp, professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Donald J. O’Connor Endowed Faculty, was the co-author of two research papers presented at the 80th New York Water Environmental Annual Meeting. “Biodegradability of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen in the Stamford WPCA Effluent” was co-authored by Jose Porro ’08, graduate research assistant, and Jeanette Brown, adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering. The second paper “Impact of Chloramine Disinfection on the Leaching and Corrosion of Lead and Copper” was presented by graduate research assistant Brent Gaylord ’08 as part of the University Forum. It detailed research funded by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and Hazen and Sawyer engineers. Gaylord won first prize in the student paper competition. Sharp also delivered the lecture Meeting the Nation’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Needs in the 21st Century. The lecture detailed the United States’ impending shortage of civil and environmental engineering professionals, which has drawn the attention of the National Science Foundation, Bureau of Labor and Statistics and National Academies of Science and Engineering. Dr. Patricia Sheridan, assistant professor of business law, published the article “Determining Domicile of Nursing Home Residents” in the fall 2008 issue of the North East Journal of Legal Studies. She also participated in a panel discussion, Surefire Techniques that Work in Teaching Business Law Topics, at the annual meeting of the North East Academy of Legal Studies in Business, held in May in Cooperstown, N.Y. Dr. Andrew Skotnicki, associate professor of religious studies, has published the book Criminal Justice and the Catholic Church.

Brother Patrick Dowd celebrates his 70th; Brother Francis Bowers, former dean and provost and associate professor emeritus of English, celebrates his 65th; and Brother Kenneth Fitzgerald, associate professor emeritus of mathematics and computer science, and Brother Kevin Hargadon, associate professor emeritus of psychology, celebrate their 60th anniversaries as Christian Brothers.

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“What attracted me to Manhattan College was . . . the professional service-centric values the College wishes to instill in the engineering students.”

School of Engineering Welcomes New Dean Manhattan College’s school of engineering has a new leader. Dr. Tim Ward was named dean of the school this past summer and began his tenure in Riverdale on Aug. 18. Ward previously served as professor of civil engineering and chair of the department of civil engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He earned his bachelor’s degree in geological engineering at the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno; his master’s degree in geological engineering at the University of Nevada; and a doctorate in civil engineering at Colorado State University. “Manhattan College has a long history of being an outstanding place for undergraduate engineering education,” Ward says. “A number of National Academy of Engineering members have come through the programs at Manhattan, so there are a lot of very positive things associated with not only the school of engineering but also Manhattan College in general.” Ward did not teach any classes during the fall semester, as he acclimated himself to his new role, but will instruct on some level in subsequent semesters. He is a fully tenured professor of civil engineering in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the College, and in the past has taught a variety of courses, from introduction to engineering through graduate level specialty classes. “What attracted me to Manhattan College was the strong commitment to undergraduate education, a high quality graduate program at

the master’s level, the collegiality of the faculty, staff and students, and the professional servicecentric values the College wishes to instill in the engineering students,” he says. At UNM, Ward also had been associate director of WERC: A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development (previously known as the Waste-Management, Education and Research Consortium), and assistant vice president for research. He began his academic career in the civil engineering department at Colorado State and has held positions at the Research Institute of Colorado, the University of New Castle (England), New Mexico State University (NMSU) and the University of Nebraska. Ward is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a licensed professional engineer. His professional memberships include ASCE Environmental & Water Resources Institute; Watershed Management Technical Committee; Soil and Water Conservation Society; American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the National Society of Professional Engineers. During his career, he conducted several funded research projects totaling nearly $10 million while at UNM and NMSU and has written more than 200 publications, papers and reports. His research interests include hydraulics, waste management, watershed management, rainfall simulation studies, and erosion and sediment transport.

Dr. Tim Ward

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Jaspers Go for Gold at Every four years, the athletes of the world congregate for the greatest competition on the planet, the Olympic Games. Throughout the years, Manhattan College has been fortunate to be well-represented at the games by its student-athletes and alumni. In 2008, that tradition continued as four Jaspers qualified and two traveled to Beijing for the XXIX Olympiad. Track and field standout Aliann Pompey ’99 and Jaspers’ assistant track and field coach Joe Ryan ’81 represented Guyana, while fellow alumni Jake Freeman ’04 qualified for the United States and Milan Jotanovic ’09 for his home country Serbia. “It is a tribute to the Manhattan College track and field program and coach Dan Mecca to have current and former student-athletes reach the pinnacle of sport,” Ryan says. “For the size of this institution, it is incredible to have multiple athletes qualify for the Olympics.” Pompey, a native of Guyana who moved to the United States as a teenager, embarked on her third consecutive Olympics. She competed in Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004. Despite slightly missing a spot in the 400-meter finals, Pompey delivered a memorable Olympic experience for her home country when she set a

injury of his right quadriceps just always been a dream of mine to national record and clocked in at weeks prior to the games. become an Olympic champion.” 50.93. She finished 11th overall. In total, 16 Manhattan College Jotanovic also qualified for his Ryan has served as Pompey’s first Olympic Games, as he tossed alumni have competed in the sprint coach since her arrival to Olympic Games, including seven the shot put 19.89 meters during Riverdale and was appointed as in the last four Olympiads. Lindy the Serbian Cup in Senta, Serbia Guyana’s head track and field Remigino ’53 and Lou Jones ’54 — a Manhattan College record. coach as a tribute to his hard are the only Jaspers to earn medThe toss broke his previous mark work and dedication with one of the nation’s most decorated athletes. It was the first time a Manhattan alumnus coached in the Olympic Games. “It is very special to achieve my lifelong ambition to be part of the Olympics; it was a dream come true,” Ryan says. “For me, the highlight of the games was to see an alumna [Pompey] take on the world’s best.” Freeman solidified his position on the American team in early July with a third-place finish in hammer throw at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. A native of East Greenwich, R.I., he registered a 73.59-meter toss to become the first Jasper since Tom Murphy ’58 (Rome 1960) to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team. Jake Freeman ’04 (center) with Kevin McMahon (left), the silver medalist, and A.G. Kruger (right), the gold medalist, after the medal ceremony Despite his lengthy throw, Freeat the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. man was unable to compete in Beijing due to high standards set als. Remigino won two gold medof 19.72 meters, which was set forth by the International Olymals for the United States in Helsinwhile competing in the 2007 pic Committee for this event. NCAA East Regional Championki in 1952 for the 100-meter dash “All in all, this was a great ships in Gainesville, Fla. Although and 4x100-meter relay. Jones also experience,” Freeman says. “I won gold for the United States in this mark qualified for the Olymplan to work hard over the next Melbourne in 1956 for the 4x400pic standard, Jotanovic was held four years in preparation for the meter relay. out of competition due to an 2012 Olympics in London. It has

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Beijing Olympics

Eighty-Nine Jaspers Named to MAAC Academic Honor Roll The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) recently released its 2007-08 Academic Honor Roll, and 89 Manhattan College student-athletes have been honored by the conference for their performance on the field and in the classroom. Manhattan had the fourth-most studentathletes selected to the team. Marist led the conference with 150 Academic Honor Roll selections. Athletes from 16 Manhattan teams were named to the squad, led by the women’s track and field team with 16 representatives. Eleven women’s soccer players were chosen,

while the women’s lacrosse team had 10 selections. The track and field squad also had the most selections on the men’s side, with nine team members earning a place on the Academic Honor Roll. To be eligible for the MAAC Academic Honor Roll, student-athletes must have a grade point average of 3.20 or higher and be in at least their second year of athletic eligibility. Athletes from all 10 MAAC schools and seven associate members were honored, and all 24 conference sports were represented.

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Men’s basketball coach Barry Rohrssen

who works for ESPN, as well as some other men’s basketball Division I coaches. The group assembled in coach Barry Rohrssen embarked on his longest Washington, D.C., to make appearances at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Naroad trip of the season tional Naval Medical Center. Rohrssen and his this past August, when colleagues drew smiles from these recovering he joined a group of heroes through conversation and jokes. Division I head coaches “It was an amazing, life-changing experifor a tour of the Persian ence,” he says. “To see those who have been Gulf region as part of so severely wounded, all with such positive Operation Hardwood V, an initiative sponsored by the United States Organization (USO) attitudes, and not a single complaint about their sacrifice or loss, was very inspirational.” and Armed Forces Entertainment (AFE). The After the incredible experience in Washteam of coaches made visits to military hospiington, D.C., the coaches boarded a 12-hour tals in the nation’s capital to boost the spirits nonstop flight to the Persian Gulf to continue of wounded soldiers, before they traveled the mission. From Kuwait to Baghdad, they halfway around the world to bring a taste of home to military personnel stationed abroad. visited numerous military bases, enjoyed the “It was an honor to partake in such a worth- company of thousands of soldiers and used the game of basketball to boost moral. The while mission,” Rohrssen says. “One of the ultimate goal was to provide the troops with only things stronger than my love for our city some relief from their daily jobs. is my love for our country. It was with great “Basketball is a global game,” Rohrssen says. pride to visit and spend time with both the men and women who so bravely defend and “Athletics is such a common denominator. To see the smile on a soldier’s face, the interest protect our nation.” and love for the game, and to be able to proIn this mission, Rohrssen was joined by vide that distraction was rewarding.” former Jasper head coach Fran Fraschilla,

As part of the mission, the tour sponsored an eight-team basketball tournament in which each coach adopted a squad. Rohrssen’s team named itself Defend and Serve. In turn, throughout the tour, the coaches were treated like fellow troops and gained a firsthand experience of military lifestyle. “We flew in C-130 planes to and from the Army bases,” Rohrssen says. “You enter the rear of the plane into the belly, and there are four benches. When we go to the airport here, they hand you a boarding pass and frequent flyer miles. There, they handed us body armor and a helmet.” The tour, originally created to be a goodwill trip for military personnel, concluded by teaching lifelong lessons to this Manhattan College ambassador — lessons that he can pass along to his student-athletes. “To witness firsthand the commitment, dedication and honor of our troops was exemplary,” Rohrssen says. “It should be a model for all of our youth to follow.” To read more about Rohrssen’s experiences, visit GoJaspers.com to view his Operation Hardwood blog.

College Celebrates 30 Years of Women’s Basketball The women’s basketball 2003. The 2002-03 squad tied program celebrates its 30th anthe school record with 20 wins niversary during the 2008-09 aca- and, led by Rosalee Mason ’04, demic year. Since their inaugural claimed Manhattan’s most recent season, the Lady Jaspers have MAAC Championship and NCAA achieved many accomplishments. Tournament berth. The program began in 1978Throughout the years, tal79 behind the leadership of its ented student-athletes have first captain and co-founder, Lisa come through the women’s Toscano ’79. Manhattan posted basketball program, including its first winning season in 1980-81 Manhattan College Athletic Hall and, in 1981-82, joined the Metro of Fame member Sheila Tighe Atlantic Athletic Conference ’84. She stands as the team’s only (MAAC), in which the squad has 2,000-point scorer — topping the achieved significant success. all-time chart with 2,412 career In 1987, Manhattan earned the points. Named MAAC Player of first of its four MAAC Championthe Year in back-to-back seasons ships with a 79-64 win over Holy (1982-1983 and 1983-1984), she Cross. With that victory, the Lady stands as one of two Lady Jaspers Jaspers secured the program’s in history to receive this prestifirst NCAA Tournament berth. gious accolade. The team’s 20 wins during that Gina Somma ’96 earned MAAC season still stand as a record. Player of the Year after leading Manhattan returned to the NCAA Manhattan to the MAAC ChampiTournament as a MAAC chamonship during her senior season. pion again in 1990, 1996 and Also, Mason was a First Team

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All-MAAC selection three straight years (2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04) and is Manhattan’s alltime leader in rebounds (1,217). She ranks second all-time in scoring with 1,875 career points. Tighe, Somma and Mason were named to the MAAC 25th Anniversary All-Time Team in 2006. A total of 10 women’s basketball players and one coach are members of the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame. In addition, at least one Lady Jasper has been selected to the MAAC All-Academic Team every

season since the conference began to choose a squad. A celebration is scheduled for the last home game on Feb. 28, 2009. For more information, visit www.GoJaspers.com. The College’s first women’s varsity basketball team, 1978-79: top row, from left to right, manager Mary Crotty ’82, Marianne Reilly ’82, Kitty Darcy ’82, Liz Mundy ’81, Lisa Toscano ’79, Trish McGrail ’82 and assistant coach Barbara Riccardi; bottom row, Erin Flanagan ’82, Colette McCarrick ’82, coach Michele Blatt, Maura Newcomb ’82 and Kathy McDermott ’82.

Under the direction of second-year head coach Scott Blumberg, the women’s tennis team got off to a positive start in late September and notched its first MAAC victory over league rival Rider. The Lady Jaspers cruised to a 7-0 win behind the dominant play of junior standout Lindsey Keeler who won in straight sets. Keeler completed the 2007-08 campaign with a team-high eight wins while competing in the top singles spot. Junior teammate Casey Conklin reached the five-win plateau after seeing the majority of action in the No. 2 singles spot. In the classroom, the pair also excelled, and both were selected to the MAAC All-Academic Team. It marked the second consecutive year they earned this prestigious honor.

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Women’s Tennis

Barry Rohrssen Brings Basketball and Smiles to U.S. Troops in Persian Gulf

Alicia Psillos ’08

Eric Nieto ’08

Baseball The baseball team earned a share of its first MAAC Regular Season Championship and advanced to the conference tournament for the sixth consecutive season — marking another landmark year for the Jaspers. Various milestones were reached throughout the 2008 campaign, including senior Eric Nieto’s surge to the top of Manhattan’s career hits chart (219). In addition, sophomore outfielder Kevin Nieto became the single season and career triples leader, while head coach Kevin Leighton nabbed his 100th coaching victory. Manhattan finished the year with a 31-20-1 overall record, which marked the third consecutive 30-win season under the guidance of Leighton. Jasper standouts senior Dom Lombardi and Kevin Nieto were selected to the 2008 All-MAAC First Team, while freshmen Chad Salem, Mark Onorati and Dan Forman were named to the Second Team. Kevin Nieto had a breakout campaign and finished the year as the MAAC batting leader with a .386 average. Lombardi was solid behind the plate, as well as on the offensive end. He led the conference in base percentage (.498), posted a .353 batting average, drove in 38 RBIs and scored 48 runs. Salem finished fourth in the league with 51 RBIs and led the team with 10 home runs during his inaugural campaign with the Jaspers. Onorati was a threat on all ends of the ballpark, as he connected on 63 hits, including seven home runs, scored 54 runs, which was second best in the MAAC, and harbored a team-high .990 fielding percentage during 50 starts in the outfield. On the mound, Forman was superb, as he posted eight wins on the season and harbored a 7-1 league mark. He finished the year second in the MAAC in wins and strikeouts. In addition to their success on the diamond, the Jaspers also excelled in the classroom. Six student-athletes were named to the MAAC All-Academic Team: senior Marc Giordano and sophomores Tom Costigan, Mike Gazzola, Tom Moran, Brian Pendergast and Andrew Sutherland.

Women’s Lacrosse Despite finishing just shy of its fifth consecutive MAAC Tournament berth, the women’s lacrosse team enjoyed a successful season and finished the year with seven victories. Senior Alicia Psillos had another tremendous season for the Lady Jaspers and led the team with 42 goals and 29 assists for 71 points. She became the program’s all-time assist leader, while also moving into the second spot on the Lady Jaspers’ scoring list. For her efforts, Psillos was named to the AllMAAC First Team. Sophomore Keri Morrison joined Psillos as an All-MAAC First Team selection, after she finished the year with 10 goals, six assists, 62 ground balls and 27 caused turnovers. Freshman standout Tara Convery was selected to the All-MAAC Second Team following a breakout rookie campaign. She exploded for 27 goals, dished out two assists and collected 43 ground balls while starting all 14 games at the midfield. Complementing their success on the playing field, the Lady Jaspers also excelled in the classroom. Ten members of the squad, the third highest in the conference, were named to the 2008 MAAC Women’s Lacrosse All-Academic Team: seniors Jillian McGowan and Emilia Ward; juniors Christina McCarthy, Hiedi Sheffer and Julianne Wilson; and sophomores Caralyn Hickey, Helen Kerrisk, Kaitlyn Moore, Elizabeth Pfeiffer and Sarah Lutz. Although they will lose six valuable seniors to graduation — Psillos, Victoria Latino, McGowan, Kaitlin McGorry, Katelin Mryglot and Ward — the Lady Jaspers will return several talented underclassmen that will ensure a promising future for the program.

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Coming off its fourth MAAC Championship in 2007, the men’s tennis team boasted a youthful roster whose season prematurely came to an end in the opening round of the conference championships. Sophomore standout Mihai Nichifor proved to be the cornerstone of the squad and posted a 9-3 overall match record in the top singles spot. He finished the season strong and won his final six matches, including a victory in the top singles match of the MAAC Tournament against Marist. In doubles action, Nichifor and senior Filip Szymik proved to be a solid combination. The duo boasted a 3-2 MAAC record in the top doubles match. Individually, Szymik registered a 4-2 conference mark, while fellow senior Peter Czink finished 3-0 prior to suffering a season-ending injury. At the conclusion of the 2007-08 campaign, Nichifor, Szymik and freshman Jeff Conklin were honored by the conference for their superb efforts in the classroom. The trio was selected to the 2008 MAAC All-Academic Team.

Mihai Nichifor ’10

Outdoor Track and Field Year after year, the College’s outdoor track and field team has been sending multiple athletes to the NCAAs. And year after year, both the women’s and men’s teams seem to dominate the MAAC. In 2008, history repeated itself, as the Jaspers sent 14 athletes to the NCAA Regionals in Tallahassee, Fla., and both teams won the MAAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships by whopping margins. Qualifying for the NCAA Regionals were eight women and six men. On the women’s side, sophomore Diane Torsell qualified in three events — the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the 4x100-meter relay. Fresh-

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Softball

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The softball team nearly tripled its win total from a year ago under the direction of head coach Meaghan Asselta. The Lady Jaspers got off to a strong start in 2008 and won two of their first three contests, including an opening day 4-3 victory at West Point. They enjoyed key league victories over Siena, Rider, Saint Peter’s, Iona, Fairfield and Marist and finished the season one victory shy of making the MAAC Championship Tournament. Danielle Just was selected to the 2008 All-MAAC First Team following a stellar junior campaign. Just led the Lady Jaspers in home Kristina Walraven ’11 runs and RBIs, while posting a solid .971 fielding percentage. Kristina Walraven highlighted the talented freshman class and led the squad with a .319 batting average, 43 hits and 11 steals, after starting all 43 games of the season. Fellow freshmen Ashley Rampino and Melissa Donnelly also emerged as top performers and future standouts for the softball program. Early in the season, Rampino was selected MAAC Pitcher of the Week for her considerable efforts, while Donnelly was named MAAC Rookie of the Week for her all-around performance on the mound and at the plate. The duo ranked as the team’s top aces in their first year of play. Overall, the future looks bright for the softball program, as the team returns 17 of its 18 letterwinners for the 2009 season.

men Siri Fagerlund and Jackie Hargrove and sophomore Malin Marmbrandt qualified in two events each: Fagerlund in the 100-meter hurdles and the 4x100 relay; Hargrove in the 400-meter dash and the 4x100 relay; and Marmbrandt in the long and triple jump events. In addition, sophomore Alexandra MacDougall qualified in the pole vault, freshman Marina Vojinovic qualified in the shot put, junior Sarah Rogers qualified for the 3,000-meter steeplechase and freshman Katelyn Savage qualified for the 4x100 relay. On the men’s side, junior Kosta Randjic qualified in both the javelin throw and the

triple jump, while senior Paul Peulich and sophomore Seid Mujanovic qualified in the hammer throw. Also qualifying were senior Dexter Jules in the triple jump, senior Chris Sole in the high jump and junior Milos Vuckovic in the 3,000 steeplechase. At this year’s MAAC Championships, the Jaspers dominated on all three days of the meet. In the end, the women won with 310.33 points (a whopping 145.50 points over second place Rider) and the men led with 270 points (159 points ahead of second place Saint Peter’s). It was the 11th consecutive win for the men’s team, and the women’s team

Men’s Lacrosse

Men’s Golf

The men’s lacrosse team closed out the 2008 regular season with back-to-back double overtime victories over Saint Joseph’s and Virginia Military Institute (VMI) to earn its fifth bid in the MAAC Men’s Lacrosse Championships this decade. The Jaspers compiled a 5-3 conference mark complements of the superb play of its four senior co-captains Brian Wynne, Mike Wilcox, Corey Dolik and Shawn Gorinson. Wynne led the Jaspers offensive charge and finished the regular season with a team-high 27 points, including 12 goals and 15 assists. Gorinson complemented Wynne at the midfield and finished second with 39 groundballs after starting 11 of 14 contests. Dolik, a two-time MAAC Defensive Player of the Year, anchored the Jaspers’ defensive unit, which boasted a solid 7.79 goals against average that ranked third overall in the conference. He led the Jaspers in groundballs and stood fifth in the MAAC for this category. Defenseman Wilcox stood alongside Dolik for all 14 regular-season contests in 2008. On March 29, Wilcox helped propel the Jaspers to its first MAAC victory of the season, after he notched what proved to be the game-winning goal with just 3:25 remaining in Manhattan’s win over Marist at Gaelic Park. The victory sparked the Jaspers’ late-season surge, as they capped off the regular season by winning four of the final five contests against league rivals Mount St. Mary’s, Wagner, Saint Joseph’s and VMI to secure a berth in the MAAC Championships. Despite the surge, Manhattan dropped in its opening round contest to eventual tournament champion Canisius. In addition, sophomore midfielder Salvatore Spatarella stepped up for Manhattan as the team’s top scorer and posted 16 goals during the regular season. John Geagan, a junior goalkeeper, was a rock between the pipes and recorded 128 saves and finished second in the conference with a .601 save percentage.

under head coach Walter Olsewski, the men’s golf team was the master of the dual matches this season, as it went 6-0. The Jasper linksmen had their sixth dual match win of the season and topped Saint Peter’s 3 ½ to 1 ½. Earlier wins included an exciting victory over Yeshiva on April 15, when the Jaspers took home a 4-3 win that came when sophomore Nick LaBanca won a captain’s choice. Another early dual match victory came in the spring season opener against Saint Peter’s. In that match, the team shot a total score of 308, just a stroke off the record for a dual match set versus Boston University earlier this decade. The Jaspers were led by freshman Thomas Romano, who shot a 2-over 73 on the 6,445yard Rock Spring Country Club course in West Orange, N.J. Other scorers included senior Sean Oroho, who shot a 77, LaBanca, who shot a 78, and freshmen Louis Perry and Matt Baney, who each shot 80. Senior Tom Camisa also finished with 84. While the golf team finished eighth at the MAAC Tournament, seniors Oroho, Chris Vieau and Scott Burton, junior Steven Rentz and sophomore Anthony DeMartino were awarded MAAC All-Academic Team honors. Manhattan had the most members of any men’s team in the conference to make the All-Academic Team.

has only failed to win the meet twice in the past 11 years. Manhattan coach Dan Mecca was named MAAC Men’s Coach of the Year, while Vuckovic was named the meet’s Men’s Most Outstanding Track Performer and Randjic was named Men’s Most Outstanding Field Performer. At the meet, on the women’s side, Rogers set a record by 11 seconds in the 3,000 steeplechase, and Torsell grabbed gold in both the women’s 100 and 200. Fagerlund took first in the 100 hurdles, while Hargrove garnered gold in the 400. MacDougall

grabbed gold in the women’s pole vault, and Marmbrandt completed a double gold performance by winning the triple jump and the long jump. In the shot put, Vojinovic topped the field, and the Lady Jaspers grabbed gold in the 4x100-meter relay, with the team of Fagerlund, Hargrove, Savage and Torsell. On the men’s side at the MAACs, Randjic garnered three gold medals — in the long jump, triple jump and javelin throw — while Vuckovic grabbed two golds — one in the 3,000 steeplechase and the other in the 800-meter dash. Sophomore Justin Chiaravelle gained gold in the 100 hurdles, and

sports

Men’s Tennis

Thomas Romano ’11

junior Kelton Cumberbatch took first in the 400-meter hurdles. Cumberbatch ran the lead leg for the Jaspers and won the 4x100 relay, joining freshmen Nick Estis and Aedan McDonough and sophomore Jamie Spataro on that team. Sole won the jump again, while senior Nikolay Tkachenko took first in the pole vault. In the shot put, senior Rich Reuter was golden with a first-place mark, and Mujanovic was first in the hammer throw — leading a 1-2-3 finish for the Jaspers.

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Robert G. McGrath ’52

Scholarship endowment always has been a priority at Manhattan, since the early days when the Christian Brothers’ mission was to offer excellence in education to gifted young people regardless of their financial circumstances. These young people included children of immigrants who otherwise might not have had such opportunities. Many generations of our graduates, who have attained prominence in every field, attest to the enduring value of that mission. Scholarships established in memory of a loved one are doubly meaningful. There is no better way to pay homage to a revered family member or friend than to memorialize his/her name in perpetuity. For the recipient, a scholarship award is possibly the greatest gift a young person can receive — an opportunity to develop talents that might not have been possible without this financial aid. Four recently established memorial scholarships allow the College to offer grants to a number of talented and deserving young students.

Raymond M. Maliszewski ’56

Brian Francis McCarthy ’67

Francis P. Corr ’54

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The Robert G. McGrath ’52 Scholarship in Engineering was created by McGrath’s family to honor the memory of a man they describe as the kind of person who always did things the right way. He was the first in his family to attend college, and they believe that he received a superior education at Manhattan. His family would like the scholarship to help someone who not only has financial need but also shows similar character traits. After he received a degree in electrical engineering in 1952, McGrath entered the Oak Ridge National Reactor School in Tennessee. Newly married, he and his wife, Luella, moved to Pittsburgh, where he received his M.S. in engineering and began a fruitful career at Westinghouse Electric, from which he retired after more than 30 years. In one of his last roles at Westinghouse, he led the application team of the Westinghouse Commercial Nuclear Fuel Division in receiving the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Upon retirement, McGrath formed his own consulting firm, Quality Quest. During his lifetime, he was an avid advocate of citizen partici-

pation in local government. He and Luella remained active in local politics, and the two regularly attended township council meetings. He died in 2007 and is survived by his wife of more than 50 years; children Jean, Thomas and Richard; and his three sisters, Alice, JoAnne and Mary. The family notified the College of their intention to establish the scholarship earlier this year. It will provide tuition assistance to financially needy engineering students, with preference given to those who participate in communitybased activities. The Raymond M. Maliszewski ’56 Scholarship for Engineering was established by his wife, Jean, in memory of her late husband. Maliszewski was born in Yonkers, N.Y., and attended Cardinal Hayes High School before he enrolled in the electrical engineering program at Manhattan. During his high school and college years, he was a musician and bandleader of a group called Ray Malis and the Moon Mists. Upon graduation, Maliszewski began his long career with American Electric Power (AEP) and eventually moved with the

company to its new location in Columbus, Ohio. There, he was actively engaged in many aspects of the electric industry, both nationally and globally. He received a master’s degree from New York University and attended the Sloan School Senior Executive Program at MIT. He also retained his interest in music and was an avid supporter of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony. He retired as senior vice president for system planning in 1998 and remained active in sports and travel until his death from cancer in 2007. The AEP Orange Transmission Station in Lewis Center, Ohio, was renamed the Raymond M. Maliszewski Transmission Station. Jean remembers her husband lovingly, from their early days as young sweethearts, and had been by his side through his long and fruitful career. They were together for 51 years and are blessed with four children and four grandchildren. The Francis P. Corr ’54 – John Schmidt ’29 Scholarship for Engineering was established by Mary Cay Corr in remembrance of her husband, Dr. Francis (Pat) Patrick Corr, and her father, John

The Class of 2008 Rallies Around Class Gift Project Edward Schmidt Sr. The scholarship will be awarded to upper-level engineering students and, in keeping with Manhattan’s traditions, is earmarked for first-generation college students in need of financial assistance. Both Corr and Schmidt were first-generation family members to graduate from college. Corr received a degree in electrical engineering from Manhattan and went on to Yale for a master’s degree and doctorate. He was able to attend the College thanks to a four-year scholarship and another grant from the state of New York. A Schlumberger Fellow at Yale, he rose through the ranks at IBM to head its systems network architecture division. Schmidt, a native of the Bronx who used to walk from Bainbridge Avenue across the parks to Manhattan College, took his talents from civil engineering into real estate management during the Depression. He was the president and CEO of several realty corporations and holding companies. These two men, husband and father, were the inspiration for Mary to establish scholarships in their memory. She is a resident of Chapel Hill, N.C., and worked for UNC-TV. There, she founded, designed and implemented the statewide K-12 education department and trained educational TV specialists using media training modules developed for North Carolina teachers. The recipient of many educational awards, Mary has traveled and lived in France and Switzerland, and has visited many countries. The Brian Francis McCarthy ’67 Memorial Scholarship was given by Gerald P. McCarthy ’65 and his wife, Lucile, in memory of his brother, who was killed in action in Vietnam.

It is awarded annually to a student enrolled in the school of arts. In making the gift, McCarthy wrote: “We are so happy to be able to help provide a Lasallian education to young people who need financial assistance. This is in the great tradition of St. John Baptist de La Salle. May this small token of our appreciation bless Manhattan College and enable it to maintain its outstanding educational tradition.” In describing his brother, McCarthy says: “Brian had an opportunity to attend college … He worked hard in school learning to speak Russian. He enlisted in the Army after graduation. Brian was a man of great integrity, honor and bravery.” He hopes that this scholarship will help young people who are similarly interested in learning and in doing good works. In addition, McCarthy’s philanthropy extends to many worthy causes. He has been protecting Virginia’s environment for more than 25 years. What started out as an ecological disaster back in 1977, developed into a stroke of good luck when Allied Chemical was fined more than $13 million for years of dumping its toxic waste into Virginia’s James River. When a portion of the assessment was allocated to clean up the river, the Virginia Environmental Endowment was created. Its great success is owed in no small measure to McCarthy, who has served as its executive director since the beginning. Throughout the years, the foundation has been instrumental in preserving the natural splendor and environmental health of the beautiful state he calls his own. He and Lucile, an attorney, live in Richmond. Their daughter, Marcia, is also an attorney and son, Jeffrey ’92, is a Manhattan graduate.

advancement

New Scholarships Keep Lasallian Tradition Alive

Kudos to the class of 2008 for its collective support of a revitalized idea: the senior class gift. Thirty-three percent of the senior class made a gift to the College that signifies much more than the class-dedicated clock and plaque, which soon will be mounted on a lobby wall in East Hill, the new residence hall. By their generosity, Manhattan’s newest alumni expressed that their past four years were valued and appreciated. The class of 2008 exceeded expectations regarding the two goals: participation and fundraising. Class officers — president Kiera Maguire ’08, vice president Teresa Moran ’08 and secretary Genevieve O’Reilly ’08 — embraced the project and supported the effort from day one. Their collaboration with administration formed a plan that was multifaceted and addressed the needs of students. A reasonable giving structure was established, and a comprehensive communication plan was put into place. A combination of mailings, e-mails, online giving through the College’s Web site, ads in the The Quadrangle, an incentive T-shirt, and a presence at the senior barbecue gave all the seniors an opportunity to be as generous as possible. And generous they were with almost $5,000 raised for the project. In recognition of their generosity, everyone who made a gift is included in the 2008 Honor Roll of Donors. In addition, depending on the level of participation, several seniors were invited to the Benefactors Reception at the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York City on Sept. 30. This important thank you to benefactors is also an exciting networking opportunity for our younger alumni. Building upon this success, the collaboration between the advancement office and the new senior class will be renewed and enhanced for next year. The office looks forward to working with members of the class of 2009 to help them make their senior gift meaningful to the College and their legacy.

Correction Please note the following corrections to the 2008 Honor Roll of Donors. Patrick G. Boyle ’75, trustee, should have been listed in the Chairman’s Circle ($25,000 +) and not in the Founder’s Forum ($10,000-$24,999). Also, Joseph P. Ferrick ’57 should have been listed in the Jasper Oval ($100-$499). We apologize for these errors.

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10/30/08 1:58:16 PM

New Leadership for the

Fund for Manhattan

Bill Chandler ’70

For Jerry Caccappolo ’63, June 30 marked the end of his tenure as chair of the College’s annual giving program, the Fund for Manhattan. The College is grateful for his three years of service in this crucial role. Caccappolo’s leadership and personal example helped the fund grow not only in dollars but also in donors. A loyal Jasper, he has generously supported the fund, Manhattan events and his family foundation’s scholarship with his time and talent. His presence at important College events helped reinforce among alumni that every gift strengthens this institution, its mission and its students. Caccappolo, who is committed to remaining a faithful donor and volunteer in the years ahead, acknowledges the fundraising efforts of the College’s development office. “What the development team has in place sets the stage for continued fundraising success,” he says. “Their many years of collective fundraising experience and their focus have already resulted in increased giving and participation.” As words of thanks are extended to Caccappolo, the College also welcomes its new chair Bill Chandler ’70, managing director of Spectrum Consulting Partners LLC, who is known among the Manhattan community and his fellow alumni as a generous partner and volunteer. Committed to continue building upon the fund’s success, Chandler says: “Our annual gifts to Manhattan make a positive difference by providing resources that allow the College to maintain its high educational standards while lessening the pressure for increased tuition. No one alum can do it all, but, combined, our contributions make a significant difference, which preserves the opportunity of a Manhattan College education for future generations of Jaspers. My goal over the next three years is to increase our combined annual giving by increasing the number of our alumni that participate in this vital cause.” An active leader throughout the years, Chandler also underwrites the popular and successful annual alumni event Day at the Races at the Saratoga Springs Racetrack in upstate New York, while he also generously supports the Fund for Manhattan. In addition to Chandler and Caccappolo, nearly 7,000 alumni, parents and friends of Manhattan College made gifts totaling nearly $2.5 million in the last fiscal year. These unrestricted dollars directly enhance student academic and cocurricular programs, help maintain a quality campus, and keep tuition as low as possible.

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Former Turner Construction CEO Passes Away Al McNeill, a recipient of the Manhattan College De La Salle Medal in 1991, passed away on March 11. As chairman and CEO of Turner Construction Company (TCC) from 1989 to 1996, he led the completion of numerous projects, such as the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and the North Pavilion of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. McNeill joined the company in 1958, after he graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in civil engineering. In the years that followed his retirement from TCC in 1996, McNeill still supported the company and most recently served as a consultant for projects that include the Lincoln Financial Field and Yankee Stadium. He also served as president and CEO of American International Contractors, Inc. from 1997 to 2002, and filled many other important positions for industry-related associations. McNeill is survived by his wife, Dorothy; 10 children; 21 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

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10/30/08 1:58:18 PM

The Alumni Society continues to expand and involve more alumni each year. The success of our cultural, spiritual, social and athletic events is due to the growing support of Jaspers across the country. I am particularly thankful to the chapters and area leaders who enthusiastically volunteer their time and talent in planning, coordinating and, at times, hosting the myriad of Manhattan alumni events each year. At the Spring Honors Convocation in May, the Manhattan College community acknowledged the superior academic achievements of a significant number of graduating seniors. I was delighted to award the Joseph J. Gunn Alumni Senior Medal to Andrew Elbrecht ’08. Andrew, who served as president of the student government, exemplified outstanding leadership, academic achievement and service qualities that are the ultimate goals of the Lasallian Catholic education. Andrew begins his teaching career at Pearl River High School in New York. Jaspers of all decades gathered at the College during June 6-8 for the annual Reunion Weekend. It was a special time for alumni to renew friendships, reminisce and make new friends. Special recognition was bestowed upon the 25th and 50th anniversary classes. It was a wonderful opportunity to greet friends of more than 50 years, many known from classes, teams, clubs and fraternities. From the class of 1958, a group of Sigma Beta Kappa fraternity members — John Gormally, Mike Kakos, Bob Klocke, Ed McLaughlin and Ted Muellers — had a grand time. It was through this fraternity that their friendships grew. In their conversations, they recalled the salient role of their moderator, Brother Andrew

O’Connor. He touched their lives spiritually, intellectually and socially in a meaningful way. He was remembered as a person of great wisdom, wit and charm. The role of the Christian Brothers was exemplary and made our years at Manhattan unique. I hope more and more alums will plan to make next year’s reunion extra successful, especially those classes with years ending in 4 or 9 that will celebrate special anniversaries. Summer activities flourished. Jaspers cheered the Yankees to victory in the last year at the old stadium. Bill Harkins ’67, vice president of the Alumni Society, ably coordinated a well-attended luncheon for the Jersey Shore Jaspers at the Spring Lake Manor. A sold-out performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Boscobel in Garrison, N.Y., was a cultural delight. The Day at the Races at both Saratoga and Monmouth proved to be their usual successes, especially for the winners. Golf outings in Westchester and Long Island were instrumental in supporting scholarships. A spiritual highlight for alumni is the annual men’s retreat in late September at the Passionist Spiritual Center overlooking the Hudson River in Riverdale. The retreat committee provided stimulating and thoughtful speakers on the theme of gratitude. Brother Bill Batt ’79 continues to be a significant asset to the Alumni Society. He worked with the Western New York State Chapter, which serves the Buffalo and Rochester areas, to coordinate a fun-filled tailgate party before a Buffalo Bills football game in September. In October, Ken Kelly ’54 spearheaded the annual Career Fair. This major event proves to be more and more

alumni

Message from the President of the Alumni Society successful each year. It not only brings more than 100 companies to the College but also results in jobs for many soon-to-be graduates and young alums. Later in the month at Manhattan’s Open House for prospective students, the Alumni Society sponsored its annual Mass and brunch for some 240 alumni and their high school sons, daughters and grandchildren. The Athletic Hall of Fame induction dinner will be held in Smith Auditorium on Dec. 6. Congratulations to the eight 2008 inductees: Peter Beyer ’60, track; Jason Hoover ’97, basketball; Patrick McGrath ’95, track and field; Dean Noll ’50 (posthumously), track; Louis Ostolozaga ’81, track and field; Diné Potter ’97, track; Thomas Walraven ’76, baseball; and Carrie Wujcik-Drum ’96, softball. Special recognition awards will be given to the 1935 Penn Relays mile championship team and the 1993 women’s softball team. In addition, the prayer and bereavement group led by Phil Colon ’62 and Mike McEneney ’53 welcomes your special intentions and invites you to share the communal power of prayer. As always, alumni interested in becoming more involved may contact Ellen Kiernan, director of alumni relations, at (718) 862-7977 or e-mail ellen.kiernan@manhattan.edu. In closing, I urge you to contact a Jasper and support alma mater by attending more alumni events.

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Eight new honorees, along with two teams, will be added to the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday, Dec. 6. They are: Peter Beyer ’60, track; Jason Hoover ’97, basketball; Patrick McGrath ’95, track and field; Dean Noll ’50 (posthumously), track; Louis Ostolozaga ’81, track and field; Dine Potter ’97, track; Thomas Walraven ’76, baseball; Carrie Wujcik-Drum ’96, softball; the 1935 Penn Relays mile championship team and 1993 women’s softball team. Peter Beyer ’60 was only the second Jasper to break 25 minutes at Van Cortlandt Park on the five-mile course; marking his place in the cross country and distance runner logs for his era. Beyer made breaking records a regular part of his college career while playing a pivotal role in nine Metropolitan IC4A Championships (three cross country and six indoor/outdoor). Named Elite Cross Country Runner in the East in 1958 and 1959, he also led the Jaspers to a fourth-place finish in the IC4A Cross Country Championships. Jason Hoover ’97 was part of the Jasper basketball resurgence of the 1990s. A powerhouse even as a freshman, Hoover started 23 games and averaged 8.6 points and 10 rebounds per game to become MAAC Rookie of the Year. As a sophomore, he was key to the Jaspers earning an at-large NCAA bid and then beating Oklahoma in the first round. He completed his Manhattan career with 1,250 points, 865 rebounds and a 52.0 percent field goal rate from the floor. These stats, plus the energy he brought to the floor every game, put Hoover on the list of the Top Players in the Jaspers’ first 100 Seasons. Patrick McGrath ’95 represented Ireland in the Sydney Olympics in 2000. A three-time All-American, McGrath was a threat with both the hammer and 35-pound weight. He was All-East eight times, four in each category. McGrath is listed No. 3 on the Manhattan College list for Hammer and Weight and has

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national and international championships to his credit. He constantly competed against himself and regularly topped his personal best throws. Dean Noll ’50 was part of the George Eastment Jasper Renaissance and raced to victory both in relays and individual competition. By the time he completed his Manhattan career, he had 51 medals in his possession, ranked sixth nationally in the 440-yard race and held a Jasper record for the one-mile relay with a time of 3:16. Noll helped put Manhattan on the national track map by contributing to many victories, including all the major relays in the 1947 indoor season. Louis Ostolozaga ’81 was a two-time AllAmerican and two-time All-East as a long distance runner for Manhattan. He made breaking the 25-minute barrier at Van Cortlandt Park look easy as he placed four times under that mark, including a Manhattan College record and Met Championship victory time of 24:24. Ostolozaga set five Manhattan College records in all, including two NYC Marathon records with his best time of 2:14. A three-time Met Champion, he was undefeated in indoor dual meet races in his sophomore, junior and senior years.

and 32 hits. During his first year at Manhattan, his .349 batting average was one of the highest for freshmen in the country. In 1974, he was named to the Met Conference AllStar squad as an outfielder. By his senior year, when he was named to the All-Metropolitan League, Walraven led the Jaspers in hitting, runs, hits, triples, homeruns and RBIs. He took those skills with him and brought victory after victory to his team while coaching at Pine Bush High School for more than 25 years. Carrie Wujcik-Drum ’96 kicked off her Jasper career with 30 wins in a season that saw the softball team take 34 victories and made it the winningest women’s team in Manhattan history. Even with an injury that cut her sophomore season short, Drum pitched 78 complete games, had 55 victories and an ERA of 2.32. She struck out more than 300 and also contributed on the field at first base when she was not pitching. 1935 Penn Relays Mile Championship Team In 1935, the Jaspers were not considered a threat in the mile relay. Coach Pete Waters found a winning combination in Matt Carey ’37, Bill Averill ’35, Bill Morrissey ’35 and Jack Wolff ’38. These team members contributed regularly to Jasper victories during their track careers. At the Penn Relays, they posted the second fastest time (3 minutes, 16.3 seconds) to date.

Diné Potter ’97 is the first female Jasper to compete in the Olympic Games. She represented Antigua and Barbuda at the 1996 Olympics 1993 Women’s Softball Team and competed in the 4x100-meter and 4x400The 1993 women’s softball team finished its meter relays. While competing in Atlanta, Potyear with the most wins in Jasper history for ter and her team set a new record for Antigua any team at that time with a record of 34-16. and Barbuda. At Manhattan, she set nine JasThey also had the highest GPA of any team per records and still holds a piece of the 4x400 in the country at that time (3.24). Coached by relay (3:39.64) and 4x200-meter relay (1:38.25) Paul Mazzei, the roster included Lara Catamore than a decade after graduation. Named lano ’95, Bethany DeBrosse ’96, Suzanne Del All-East five times between 1994 and 1997, she Vecchio ’95, Jennifer Drum ’95, Holly Farmer won six Metropolitan Championship titles. ’94, Lindsay Hill ’97, Lisa Lockwood ’94, Colleen Mannion ’97, Jill Picaso ’96, Genevieve Savino Thomas Walraven ’76 was a solid baseball ’98, Carrie Wujcik ’96 and Danielle Yearick ’94. player while on the Jasper squad, as his senior stats show: a .356 batting average, 19 runs

alumni

2008 Hall of Fame To Induct Eight Individuals and Two Teams

Lenny Camporeale ’76, who works at the Stuyvesant Fuel Service Corporation, and his colleague Jim Slattery watch as Fr. George Hill, campus minister, putts at the Jasper Open at the Knollwood Country Club in Elmsford, N.Y., in May.

Jasper Open Nearly 150 golfers participated in this year’s 20th annual Jasper Open Golf Tournament held on May 5, 2008 at the Knollwood Country Club in Elmsford, N.Y. It was a picture-perfect day for the outing, which brought together alumni, family, business partners and friends who helped to raise close to $50,000 for the College’s annual fund and athletic programs. The winning foursome of the scramble format consisted of John Eager ’69, Tom Houston, Mark Kurland and Greg Sullivan, who shot a 61 on the historic course. The 2009 Jasper Open will be held on Monday, May 4, again at the Knollwood Country Club. Not a golfer? Join us for a reception after the round of golf. For more information on how to participate, contact Tom McCarthy ’06, assistant director of alumni relations, by phone at (718) 862-7454 or e-mail at thomas.mccarthy@manhattan.edu.

Construction Industry Golf Tournament Alumni, friends and business associates gathered at the Lake Isle Country Club in Eastchester, N.Y., on Aug. 4 for the annual Construction Industry Golf Tournament. The outing, which benefits the Joseph E. Van Etten ’57 civil engineering scholarship fund, attracted more than 150 representatives from companies in the engineering, construction and law industries. This year marked the 11th anniversary of the tournament, which was established by Van Etten to bring together professionals with affiliations to Manhattan College. Van Etten, along with a strong committee led by Milo Riverso ’81 of STV Construction Inc. and Michael McHugh ’80 of Moretrench American Corp., helped the outing achieve great success in only a short amount of time. In just two years of the scholarship’s existence, it has reached its full endowment as a result of generous giving and support. Future outings will continue to contribute to the scholarship’s success and allow for other opportunities to assist the school of engineering in serving its students. To receive information about next year’s Construction Industry Golf Tournament, please call Thomas McCarthy, assistant director of alumni relations, at (718) 862-7454 or e-mail thomas.mccarthy@manhattan.edu.

Ray Finnegan ’70 and Tom Groark ’71 of Ferreira Construction and Gerry Brady ’77 and Tom Welby ’71 of Welby, Brady & Greenblatt, LLP hit the greens at the Construction Industry Golf Tournament in August.

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alumni Top row: Jaspers from all the classes, donning their souvenir aprons, enjoyed a clambake on the Quad at Reunion Weekend. A couple reminisces over a yearbook at the golden anniversary brunch and awards ceremony on Saturday. Joseph Napoletano ’06, Candice Coyne ’07, Meghan Daly ’07 and Elizabeth Ambron ’07 gathered at the young alumni celebration on Friday night. Second row: Golden jubilarians John McAllister ’58, Joseph Staszak ’58, Hugh Boylan ’58, Peter Curran ’58, Thomas Concannon ’58 and Robert Mulvey ’58 received special medals to commemorate their 50th anniversary as Jasper graduates. Lisa Angelastro ’83, Richard Szumski ’83 and Catherine Sheridan-Lawlor ’83 mingled at the class of 1983 reception and dinner dance.

Networking to Success at Annual Career Fair

Reunion Weekend 2008 More than 400 Jaspers descended upon campus for Reunion Weekend 2008, held June 6-8. Manhattan College welcomed home alumni from classes spanning the past 65 years to celebrate the 139th alumni event. The weekend featured some new additions, including trips to the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden and Arthur Avenue, as well as some old favorites. Friday night kicked off the festivities with a pub-style gathering in Thomas Hall for alumni marking an anniversary year. While members of the class of 1983, celebrating their silver anniversary, danced until the wee hours of the morning at the dinner dance in Smith Auditorium following an awards reception in their honor. At the same time, the newly added young alumni party, which brought together alums from the past 10 years, drew 120 partygoers to the Bar at Gaelic Park. Saturday was chock-full of new events for Jaspers and

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their families. Alums had the options to visit the Bronx Zoo, walk down Arthur Avenue for a tasting tour, and sip some wine at a tasting on campus. There was even a cabaret performance by the Manhattan College Players, which featured highlights from past productions. The class of 1958, as usual, enjoyed its golden anniversary brunch and awards ceremony, where Brother President Thomas Scanlan presented each jubilarian with a special commemorative medal. “It was déjà vu all over again,” Tom Bradley ’58 says. “Visiting with the ‘older’ gang, reliving war stories … it will always be remembered.” One of the highlights of the fun-filled weekend was the Saturday evening clambake on the Quad, with approximately 300 people in attendance, which followed the traditional Eucharistic Mass. In addition, Jaspers were offered one last chance to get together before departing the Col-

lege during a breakfast at the New York Botanical Garden Café on Sunday morning — a highly attended finale of the weekend. Many thanks to the committee members from each anniversary class, including John McAllister, Joseph Staszak, Hugh Boylan, Tom Connolly, Bill Noval, Michael Kakos and John Scholfield from the class of 1958, as well as Angela (Magistro) Palmer and Cathleen (Corbett) Shamieh from the class of 1983, for helping to bring alumni back to campus. Please save the date for next year’s reunion, June 5-7, 2009. The weekend will feature many of these same events with some surprises for the classes ending in 4 and 9. If you would like to join your class committee, please call the alumni relations office at (718) 862-7977 or e-mail alumni@ manhattan.edu.

The College’s annual career fair welcomed 121 companies and organizations to campus in October. Nearly 750 students and alumni visited Draddy Gymnasium to network with an assortment of potential employers, including Northwestern Mutual, NYC Fire Department and Entergy. On average, at least one Jasper represented each company’s table. A committee of volunteers led by career fair chairperson Ken Kelly ’54 spent the summer and early fall placing calls to recruit alumni to represent their companies at the career fair, especially in the fields of business and arts. Joe Dillon ’62 also provided invaluable support in planning this year’s event. If you’re interested in attending the next career fair as a company representative, contact Jessica Caron, career fair coordinator, at (718) 862-7399 or e-mail jessica.caron@ manhattan.edu.

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In Memoriam Manhattan College records with sorrow the deaths of the following alumni: 1932: Nicholas A. Rambone, 6/25/08 1935: S. Thomas Coppola, 6/27/08 1936: Joseph A. Hayes, 4/28/08 Anthony E. Lucchese, 2/20/08 1937: Francis P. Egan, 3/8/08 1939: Arthur A. DeSantis, 10/4/07 1940: Joseph M. Morris, 5/6/07 George F. Nix, 2/28/08 James J. Vaughan, 9/14/08 1941: Thomas C. Garland, 9/20/08 Lt. Col. Robert J. Grady, 1/12/08 John E. Wilder, 8/4/08 1942: John C. Donahue Jr., 10/4/08 1943: Joseph J. Kiernan, 4/27/07 1946: Sam Ferraro, 7/12/08 1947: Ralph E. Cioffari, 7/31/08 Kyran N. Egan, 1/13/08 Thomas J. Fitzgerald, 2/23/07 James A. Moran Jr., 4/13/08 Victor J. Morone, 3/15/08 1948: John V. Boyle, 6/1/08 Joachim Kaufhold, 1/15/08 Peter P. Mazzella, 6/22/08 Louis V. Pisacano, 5/29/07 1949: Edward G. Colbert, M.D., 7/20/08 William J. Daly, 6/2/08

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Gregory A. Hagopian, 5/4/08 Vincent M. Hoffman, 7/5/07 Michael J. Tracey, 11/29/07 1950: Joseph F. Browne, 1/4/08 Lawrence J. Butler Sr., 5/18/08 Robert T. Holzman, 2/22/08 Eugene McMillan, 5/25/08 James F. Navins, 12/10/07 Br. Kevin O’Neill, 3/22/08 Gerald F. Precourt, 12/13/07 1951: John F. Fitzpatrick, 7/20/08 Richard C. Pierce, 5/16/08 Harold J. Sands, 7/14/08 James J. Wilson, 12/3/07 1952: Stanley J. Cunningham, 5/27/08 Edward T. Fluhr, 4/22/08 James E. Laheney, 3/14/08 Thomas F. McCrann Jr., 7/7/08 Edward R. Tufano, 12/16/07 1953: Ralph L. Boehm, 7/25/08 Br. Timothy J. Ford, 1/27/08 Warren Haring Sr., 2/23/08 Herbert F. McCaffrey, 4/27/08 Brendan O. McParland, 5/22/08 1954: John T. Leonard, 7/5/07 John C. Luber, 5/6/08 1955: John P. Relihan, 5/31/08 1956: Br. Michael Dougherty, 10/1/08 Frank A. Dunn, 4/24/08 John T. Hynes, 3/19/07 James P. McGuire, 7/5/08

1957: Br. Daniel F. Casey, 7/30/08 Harold E. Delaney Jr., 5/20/08 Frederick G. Hill, 5/31/08 Richard C. Merkle, 4/2/08 1958: John Caulfield Jr., 11/27/07 1959: James J. Corrigan, 6/16/08 Joseph D’Angelo, 11/2/07 Cesare Gentile, 7/19/08 John M. Keenan, 3/10/08 Thomas V. Sheehan, 4/23/08 Paul J. Zarzeczny, 3/12/08 1960: William J. Frost, 4/17/08 1961: Peter J. Feddor, 4/15/08 Thomas F. Ginty, 7/2/08 Thomas G. Kanganis, 1/29/08 1962: George R. Johannes, 6/26/08 Edward H. Raff, 12/5/07 Brian M. Sweeney, 5/12/08 1964: James J. Maune, 10/18/07 Vincent D. McCarthy, 4/17/08 1965: Robert W. Leddy, 3/11/08 1966: Thomas P. Cekay, 3/14/08 Donald C. Geraghty, 6/12/08 1967: Patrick J. Burns, 4/2/08 William J. McCann, 2/12/08 1968: Rev. John A. Sullivan, 4/28/08 1969: John J. Cariddi, 9/18/08

John W. Dobbins, 3/19/08 Frank L. Moscati, 2/1/08 1970: Robert Corr, 5/8/08 Michael S. Gebren, 7/26/08 Philip J. Murphy, 12/10/07 1971: Kevin W. Manning, 1/31/08 Philip Mason, 8/3/08 Sr. Roberta McInerney, 2/21/08 1972: Br. John Martin O’Brien, 9/18/08 1973: William J. Specht Jr., 9/16/08 1974: Thomas P. Bechet, 4/18/08 John J. Connors, 8/4/08 James C. Dooley, 11/26/07 1975: William Krajci, 7/30/08 1977: Martin Dobkin, 12/6/07 1978: Delia Marie Greaux, 11/5/07 1980: Clement J. Krug, 12/29/07 1985: James C. Thomas, 3/14/08 1986: Richard J. Davis, 5/18/08 1987: Douglas Mathews, 5/19/08 1997: Stephen M. Ciasulli, 5/17/08 1999: Ronald C. Mortensen Jr., 4/13/07 2002: Bettye Pointer, 2/5/07

1953: James O’Connor, an assistant professor of English at Delaware Valley College, has completed his Ph.D. in mass media and communication from Temple University. 1998: Police officer Kimberly Elphick earned her master’s degree in administrative science/law enforcement administration, and a certificate in cyberforensics, from Farleigh Dickinson University on May 20, 2008. 2003: In May 2008, Gavin Cosgrove received his Bachelor of Laws from the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law in Canada. James Ross was awarded a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Vermont in May 2008. 2006: Jennifer Levinsky earned an M.S. in career development counseling from the College of New Rochelle on May 22, 2008.

Marriages

1997: Kelly (Oberle) Tweed & Joe Tweed ’09, 6/21/08 2001: Monica Cabarcas & Darin Lee Cave, 12/23/07 Kelly (Ahern) Zarkewicz & Andrew Zarkewicz ’02, 4/19/08 2002: Amy (Kirkby) Lando & Stephen Lando, 9/13/03 2004: Lisa (Mahoney) Villetto & Matthew Villetto, 7/11/08 2006: Jennifer Levinsky & Patrick McCauley, 9/7/08

alumni

Advanced Degrees

New Rochelle Dedicates Street to Lou Jones ’54 A street sign in honor of the late Olympic medalist Lou Jones III ’54 was unveiled on Aug. 12 at the New Rochelle City Hall rotunda. New Rochelle Mayor Noam Branson presided over the ceremony that dedicated Winyah Terrace, where the athlete grew up, as Lou Jones Terrace. His children, Carla, Louis IV and Steven attended the ceremony. Jones, who passed away in February 2006, won a gold medal in the 4x400-meter relay at the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956. He also was a two-time worldrecord holder in the 400-meter dash. He enrolled in Manhattan College in 1950, where he had a brilliant athletic career on the College’s track and field team. Following graduation, he entered the Army and continued his successful track career. After he retired from track and field, Jones earned a master’s degree in education from Teacher’s College of Columbia University. He held various positions at public and private schools in New York City and Westchester County, N.Y., and eventually became dean of students and assistant principal of New Rochelle High School.

births

1985: Sue & John Tinacci daughter Ella Marie, 4/12/08 1992: Joy (Cappelli) Spiegel & Philip Spiegel ’93 son Charles Robert, 6/19/08 1994: Mary-Theresa (Redding) Delaney & Sean Delaney son Liam Everett, 2/8/08 1996: Wendy (Schweigardt) O’Brien & Joseph O’Brien son Ian Jameson, 5/14/08 Angela Kiang & Jayson Kiang son Andrew Chaning, 2/29/08

Lou Jones ’54 (right) breaks the record in the 400-meter dash at the Pan American Games in Mexico in 1955.

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1949: Bill Parrott is president of Try God Inc., a company group that recently launched its Web site TryGodTurnBackToMe.com. Village of Monroe, N.Y., resident Andrew Barone was named Orange County Citizen of the Year for exemplary service to his community. 1954: Vernon Dixon, Ph.D., a former member of Manhattan’s board of trustees and recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters awarded by the College, is now professor emeritus of economics at Haverford College. He’s enjoying his recent retirement in Kennett Square, Pa. Nicholas Bartilucci, a 50-year veteran of the civil and environmental engineering fields, celebrated his 40th anniversary as commissioner of the Jericho Water District on Long Island, N.Y. He is the former president and current chairman of the board of Dvirka and Bartilucci Consulting Engineers, as well as chairman of the Board of Water Commissioners of the Jericho Water District. An active member of various professional societies and organizations, he also serves as a consulter to the environmental engineering department at Manhattan College. 1955: Robert Citarell is retired and enjoys spending time with his wife, June, and five grandchildren. He keeps busy with community activities and summer sailing. 1956: Joseph Cammalleri lives in Honolulu and recently published his second book, Guthrie Oklahoma: Always a Railroad Town. 1958: As president and chief executive of U.S. Information Systems (USIS), Joseph Lagana has worked to revitalize Nyack, N.Y. His 21-year-old company USIS provides communications equipment and services to companies in the tristate area. John Clegg’s eldest grandchild, Caitlin, graduated summa cum laude from St. Louis University. 1961: Fred Corrado was appointed to the board of directors of Security Capital Assurance Ltd., a financial guaranty insurer. New York State Fire Administrator James Burns is the founding chair of ARA Life Safety Council, part of ARA Safety Inc., a producer of powerful, environmentally friendly fire suppression, prevention and emergency systems technology. Charles Thornton and Richard Tomasetti ’63, founding principals of the international engineering company, Thornton Tomasetti, Inc., were awarded the Concrete Industry Foundation’s Humanitarian Fellow Award. The pair has spent much of their careers giving back to the community through teaching and philanthropy. They jointly created the Thornton Tomasetti Chair in Engineering at Manhattan College. 1963: Duke University professor Henry Petroski, Ph.D., P.E., who received an honorary Doctor of Pedagogy at the College’s Commencement ceremony in 2003, was recently named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, its highest accolade to honor those who have achieved eminence in a branch of engineering. 1964: Gerald Buckley and his wife, Sheila, welcomed their eighth grandchild, Catherine Marie, this past May. 1965: Gama International honored Joseph Tucciarone, C.F.P., with its 2008 Cy Pick Award for his outstanding record of service as a volunteer leader for the association.

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In December 2008, Richard Cacchione will complete his Ph.D. in Peruvian and Latin American literature at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru. He will defend his thesis in early 2009. He has published a book of his poetry in Spanish, La Flor de la Alameda, and also founded and serves as director of the Instituto Bibliografico del Peru. 1966: Robert Hill is a professional engineer and corporate executive who oversees multibillion dollar projects locally and abroad. Leonard Schnappauf is superintendent of schools and principal of Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, N.J. 1967: Stephen Laruccia, Ph.D., director of principal gifts at Manhattan College, will be listed in the 2009 edition of Who’s Who in America. William Murphy Jr., has been named to the Mount Saint Mary College board of trustees. 1969: Supply chain industry veteran Greg Cronin was appointed executive vice president of Seegrid Corporation’s senior management team for the newly launched Industrial Mobile Robotics (IMR) company. Seegrid is the premier provider of vision-guided mobile robots for the material handling industry. 1970: Bronx resident John Welton, who has battled polio his entire life, has been helping terminally ill people since the 1980s. He works as a physician’s assistant in the in-patient palliative care unit of Montefiore Medical Center, where he cares for people who are dying and have chronic pain. Frank Sparandero received an honorary Doctor of Science from DeSales University. Frank O’Hagan was appointed vice president and investment officer of Ridgewood Savings Bank. Michael Turri was hired as a project manager by RobsonWoese Inc., a consulting engineering firm in Amherst, N.Y. 1971: Brig. Gen. Arthur Lichte, a four-star general in the United States Air Force, spoke at the commissioning ceremony of 12 cadets, two of whom were Manhattan students, on May 24, 2008. Thomas Strini recently delivered introductory remarks for Sen. Barack Obama at one of the presidential candidate’s public appearances attended by 8,000 supporters. 1972: Victor Lopiano was named president of PPL Corp.’s nuclear development company. Mark Bruckmann was re-elected trustee of Pelham Manor, N.Y. 1973: James Elefante retired this past June after serving 26 years as a school principal in Londonderry, Mass. Transportation engineer Tom Harknett, P.E., was promoted to senior principal at Stantec, a firm that provides professional design and consulting services in planning, engineering, architecture, surveying, economics and project management. Randal Simonetti is the president and CEO of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for Upstate New York, which serves more than 12,000 clients and their families. He also is the founder and CEO of Ignition Consulting Ltd., a full service management, marketing and public relations consulting firm.

1975: Jim Lauria works as vice president of sales and marketing for Amiad Filtration Systems, a company that manufactures clean technology water filtration systems for agricultural, industrial and municipal applications. Patrick McGrath, a Rensselaer County court judge, announced that he will run for New York State Supreme Court Justice, 3rd Judicial District, in the November 2008 election. The new company Health Alliance Planning has appointed David Scarpino to chief financial officer. Thomas Zugibe, Esq., district attorney of Rockland County, N.Y., was the guest speaker at Manhattan College’s government department dinner. 1976: Chaplain (Col.) Gregory D’Emma is an ordained priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J. William Tramontano, Ph.D., a distinguished educator and researcher in the biological sciences, was appointed to provost and vice president for academic affairs at Brooklyn College. John Bricker, Esq., joined Reed Smith as a partner in the real estate group of its business and finance department. Reed Smith is one of the 15 largest law firms in the world with more than 1,600 lawyers in 23 offices across the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. 1977: James Kosch has joined the law firm LeClairRyan. In his new position, he will work to develop the firm’s environmental law and tort defense practices. Frank Scheller is senior vice president of Greenman-Pedersen Inc. (GPI) and branch manager of GPI’s Montebello, N.Y., office. He has 30 years of diverse experience in the design and construction of public and private sector projects. Michael Lonergan was appointed deputy superintendent of schools for Longwood CSD in Middle Island, N.Y. He and his wife, Julia, have four sons: Eric, Michael, Ryan and Sean. They live in East Setauket, N.Y. 1978: Rich Grainger was named to the MetLife Hall of Fame. He is a 26-year veteran of the company and currently serves as regional director for clients in New England and the New York metropolitan area. 1979: Cesare DeRose Sr., vice president and manager of capital cost and construction group at DMJM Harris, received the Thomas C. Kavanagh Service Award presented by the Metropolitan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award is given to a civil engineer who has contributed significantly to his profession through public service. Thomas Scarangello, managing principal, was named chairman of the board of directors of Thornton Tomasetti, an international building engineering and technology firm. A licensed engineer in 26 states, he has been with the company for nearly 30 years and has steered many awardwinning projects. 1980: John Medica, the former senior vice president for Dell and former senior director for Apple, was elected to the board of directors for National Instruments. Chris Sweeney has been appointed to represent the global sustainability initiative for U.S. companies within Henkel’s worldwide program of excellence in site services. Henkel produces high-profile consumer productions, including Dial soap and Purex laundry detergent. 1981: Anthony Enea, Esq., was appointed to Hudson Valley Bank’s Business Development Board by James Landy ’76, the bank’s president and CEO.

alumni

ALUMNOTES

From left to right: 2008 Father of the Year honoree John Spicer ’71, 2008 Distinguished Leadership Award recipient George J. Delaney ’57, and Gala Chair and past Father of the Year honoree Matthew McCrosson ’72 at the Father of the Year gala awards dinner to benefit the ADA on June 12.

Jasper Alums Honored at Fathers of the Year Gala Jasper alums and respected businessmen John Spicer ’71 and George Delaney ’57 were honored by the Westchester chapter of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) at its gala awards dinner for Fathers of the Year on June 12 at the Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook, N.Y. Spicer was named a 2008 Father of the Year Honoree and Delaney received the Distinguished Leadership Award. Spicer, a businessman in the health care sector, is president and CEO of The Sound Shore Health System. He heads the Sound Shore Medical Center, Mount Vernon Hospital, Helen and Michael Schaffer Extended Care Center and Jaycee Lynn Cappelli Diabetes Center. Through his work, he has partnered with many health care institutions to offer better services and has tripled the number of Sound Shore’s doctors to make an impressive team of more than 600 staff members. Delaney, who as president of Summit Resources works with CEOs to consult on and solve corporate problems, has long been an active member of Westchester’s Father’s Day Council for the ADA. Prior to his current position, he served as a vice president for Con Edison’s Westchester County operations for nearly two decades, during which he led 2,000 employees and managed $143 million in annual budgets and close to $1 billion in sales revenues. He has long supported his local business community through work as chairman of the Westchester County Association, president of the Westchester Business Partnership, and director of Mercy and Marymount Colleges. Delaney’s dedication to business and community service has been recognized with many honors, including a previous Westchester Leadership Award from the ADA in 1983.

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1982: James Cudahy has joined Sabinsa Corporation as president of the company, which manufactures and supplies herbal extracts, cosmeceuticals, minerals and specialty fine chemicals. Edward Broderick was promoted to executive vice president of Gilbane Development Company, a full-service construction and real estate development company. The board of directors of Iron Mountain Inc. elected Bob Brennan president and chief executive officer of the company, which is a global leader in information protection and storage services. 1983: On July 1, 2008, Rev. Gerard Tully, CSP, was appointed pastor and superior of St. Philip Neri, his community parish in Portland, Ore. 1984: Nicholas Nigro has published several books, including 101 Best Businesses for Pet Lovers, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book, second edition, and No Job? No Prob! Direct Marketing Association named John Horan as senior vice president and chief financial officer as of April 14, 2008. He previously served as vice president and chief financial officer for Ablest, Inc., where he initiated strategic analysis that generated a successful management-led sale of the company. 1985: Brian Roberts was appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer of Warner/Chappell Music, one of the largest music publishers in the world and the award-winning publishing arm of Warner Music Group Corp. 1986: Construction firm Cauldwell Wingate Company, LLC, has named John Kennedy as vice president, core and shell services. 1988: Caroline Molloy currently works for Monday Properties, a real estate investment firm. She has 20 years of experience in financial reporting and management of commercial office buildings in the tristate area, where she manages 230 Park and 237 Park Avenue, two high-end properties in New York City. Aura Andina Zelaya has moved from Stamford, Conn., to Miami, Fla., where she will pursue another degree at a local university. Marco Lala, a former partner at Massey Knakal Realty, has been hired as an associate vice president of investments in the New York City office of Marcus & Millichap, the nation’s largest real estate investment services firm. 1989: Liliana DeAvila-Selibi is an assistant prosecutor in Bergen County and chief of the sex crimes and child abuse unit. 1990: Rev. Mark Vaillancourt is the new principal at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers, N.Y. Anthony Vaccaro is the commissioner of public works in the town of New Castle, N.Y. His wife, Alicia Rohde Vaccaro, is an engineer with URS Corporation in Paramus, N.J. 1992: Borton-Lawson, a Pennsylvania-based architecture and engineering firm, has hired William McFarland as a senior electrical engineer in its facilities engineering division. Jeff McCarthy is a top salesman at McGeorge’s RV Center in Ashland, Va. 1993: Radio personality Bob Stei has joined Clear Channel Modern Rock

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WRFF-Philadelpha (Radio 104.5) for weekends. Chris Velenovsky passed the New York State Bar Examination. Vincent Dionisio has been hired as a science supervisor for grades 6-12 at Mahwah High School in New Jersey. 1994: In August, Sister Kathleen Fitz Simons of the Congregation of Notre Dame was appointed to assistant superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn. 1996: Jayson Kiang works as chairman of the mathematics department at Longwood High School in Middle Island, N.Y. 1997: Electrical engineer Leonardo Gonzalez was promoted to associate at RTKL Associates Inc., where he works in the firm’s Baltimore MEP engineering studio. Kelly Oberle Tweed was appointed director of admissions of Immaculate Heart Academy in the Township of Washington, N.J., in July 2008. 1998: Joshua Marler recently became national sales manager at Desert Wind Winery in Prosser, Wash., which produces 25,000 cases of wine annually. 1999: Michael Gentile has been promoted to director of academic marketing at Random House, Inc., the world’s largest English language general trade-book publisher. 2001: Monica Cabarcas, who has been a teacher for seven years, was recently hired as a literacy specialist at Albemarle County Schools in Virginia. She will complete her M.A. in reading education from the University of Virginia in May 2009. 2002: Jennifer Frankola passed the New York State Bar Examination and currently works as an associate at a private civil rights law firm that focuses on special education and autism law. She was a Project Equity Fellow at CUNY Law School, where she studied public interest and civil rights law. Prior to law school, she completed the New York City Teaching Fellowship and received her M.A. from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Fred Kleinbardt works as a senior staff therapist in St. Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center’s radiation therapy department. He also is employed as chief therapist at Vantage Radiation Oncology Services, a private radiation therapy center in Brooklyn, N.Y. 2005: Raymond Pirozzolo, a third-year student working toward a doctoral degree in optometry at the State University of New York College of Optometry, was elected secretary of the American Optometric Student Association at an event in St. Louis, Mo. Tara Berardi and Sean Murray ’98 announced their engagement. 2006: Our Lady of Mount Virgin School in Middlesex, N.J., has appointed Ann Major as its new principal. Carolyn Slattery is the new principal of St. Margaret’s Elementary School in Pearl River, N.Y. 2007: Shannon McCourt has moved to Madrid, Spain, to teach English as a second language.

Ed ’80 and Donna Cavanagh ’83 cheer on the Nittany Lions in the stands at a Penn State University football game.

alumni

ALUMNOTES

Jasper Entrepreneurs Score with Web site When Donna ’83 and Ed Cavanagh ’80 decided to launch their own Web site, they took a gamble. Neither of them had any experience with running a business, yet little could deter these ambitious entrepreneurs who met on Manhattan’s campus. In just two years, the husband and wife duo, who also are business partners, created PossessionPoints.com, a Web site that analyzes football stats. Their idea first came about while watching a Philadelphia Eagles playoff game in January 2007. The Eagles were down late and faced 4th-and-15 with the choice of punting or going for the first down. The team punted, which was the wrong move because it never got the ball back and lost to the New Orleans Saints. Ed, being the systems engineer that he is, started to wonder if there was a mathematical way for teams to know if they should go for plays or not. “I wanted to find some parameters to characterize the winning teams,” he says. To do this, Ed gathered statistical data from every game through the 2006 season and plotted the results on graphs to see if he found any patterns. “It was a lot of trial and error, making lots of graphs and correlating different parameters,” he says. “Is it a good time to take a risk or not? It’s kind of what this whole stat is about.” And so the Web site was born. Clicking on PossessionPoints.com leads to pages of stats analyzed according to

joys watching football games, worked Ed’s system and organized by team. as a marketing intern for the company Charts coded in red, yellow and green during the summer. break down PossessionPoints for the “You can’t just cheaply put up a Web 2006-2008 seasons. As described on site and expect people to come to the site, PossessionPoints “quantify you,” says Donna, who noted that they how a team’s offense plays a role in had to pay ad expenses, legal costs the success of its team’s defense on and startup fees. “You’re still putting both a physical and emotional level.” up the same money as if you’re putWhile anyone can navigate the site, ting up a store.” special information is available only to To promote the site, Donna uses subscribers, including access to articles, Facebook and Twitter to draw an fantasy football player ratings and audience. She also recently began to pages based on PossessionPoints that show trend lines for each team’s week- work with a public relations and marketing professional. ly performance, an indicator of how “Our stats are very unique,” Donna the teams will perform in the future. says. “We don’t challenge NFL analysis, Although the Web site is a boon for but many times we’re different from male players, coaches and fans in the NFL analysis. We use just math and 24- to 58-year-old age range, Donna stay away from subjective, emotional believes women are an untapped auinformation.” dience upon which to build. In little more than a year, the Web “I believe our audience will grow with women,” she says. “I’m starting to site is profitable, but Donna and Ed agree that they have some way to go hear from women who do watch and to make it more lucrative. To reach this love football.” point, they have decided to expand To keep the Web site going, Ed and with venture capital funding from priDonna split up tasks. He built the site vate equity investors that are part of a and works out the data analysis function, while Donna handles running the green technology fund. This arrangement makes sense because the pair business and writing for the site. As a has greened the business, so it does freelance writer for most of her career, not waste paper. her skills come in handy, combined “We’re very excited,” Donna says. with her degree in marketing from Manhattan and Ed’s degree in electri- “We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel after all the business cal engineering from the College, as well as an M.B.A. from St. Joseph’s Col- startup stuff. We can see it’s paying off. lege. Their daughter Coleen, a junior in It was well worth the risk.” the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, where the couple en-

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Pam McLeod ’00 zip-lines through the rainforest canopy at Hacienda Pozo Azul in the Sarapiquí region of Costa Rica in October 2007.

Ever since she was little, Pam McLeod ’00 had an interest in environmentalism, even before she really understood what that meant. McLeod majored in environmental engineering at Manhattan College and, after graduation, attended Stanford University, where she earned her master’s degree and, in 2006, a doctorate in environmental engineering. She spent the next year and a half doing her postdoctoral work in the same lab at Stanford. At which point, McLeod decided to take her training in a different direction, not toward academia. Around the same time, another environmental engineering student from Stanford, Matthew Davie, and two students from the Stanford Graduate School of Business were starting up a new Web site, Whole Travel. “I had actually taught a class with Matthew, and we worked really well together,” McLeod says. “He lured me in with a trip to Costa Rica for a conference, and I just really enjoyed talking with all the hotel owners and thinking about sustainable travel. I just got hooked.” Whole Travel is an online resource for sustainable travel, which preserves the environment while respecting and benefiting local communities. The site started off mostly as a travel agency, from which users could actually book trips to green hotels and socially responsible resorts and tour operators. McLeod began her career there as a sustainability specialist and determined how sustainable the places the site featured really were and what that meant for the traveler. She developed and implemented an evaluation system called Whole Ranking that looks at each hotel’s or resort’s environmental practices, as well as their economic practices, social and cultural support, and customer interaction in their sustainability programs. Whole Travel sends the travel providers a questionnaire, which has a series of questions in all four of the above categories. They, in turn, fill out the self-assessment, and based on that, she audits and ranks them. “It’s very objective and uses a mathematical algorithm to figure out the score, between one and five,” she says. “They have to get a minimum level to be on the Web site at all.”

This is where the environmental engineering background came in pretty handy, especially with developing the Whole Ranking system. “It’s not directly environmental engineering, but it uses a lot of the basic skills that you learn along the way,” she says. Just as many startups evolve, Whole Travel recently relaunched to become a portal site, where visitors can learn about sustainable hotels, but, when ready to book a trip, they click through to that hotel’s Web site. It is an ad-based revenue model, so the company doesn’t earn money from commissions or fees, but, rather, it does so from ads. Whole Travel also introduced a nonprofit organization, Whole Travel Foundation, whose mission is to improve sustainability in travel and tourism worldwide. The foundation administers Whole Ranking and supports hotels and communities in their efforts to become more sustainable. “What we’re doing right now is taking the sustainability unit and breaking it away from the for-profit and creating a nonprofit Whole Travel Foundation,” she says. “So we’ll still use this Whole Ranking system as a diagnostic tool to see what the state of the world is in travel and tourism sustainability and then also use it to help individual hotels improve their sustainability practices.” As the company has grown, so has McLeod’s role. She recently became the executive director of the foundation and is in charge of fundraising and programs but will retain an advisory role for the for-profit. One of her primary responsibilities will be to help individual hotels improve their sustainability. But there are a lot of goals for this new endeavor, including: assessing how environmentally and socially responsible hotels and tour operators are; providing resources and education to enhance their programs; creating an online support community; and engaging in and supporting sustainable development and education projects to expand the sustainable tourism infrastructure and influence policy decisions. “We’re also thinking about engaging the public through our Web site and then connecting people to create a community around the issue of sustainability in travel and tourism,” she says. “We would connect different hotel owners in different countries through a forum and also connect them with other nonprofits on the ground in their locales that they could work with in terms of projects, and potentially working with the hotel chains to green their businesses, as well.” Once the nonprofit really gets going, McLeod says she and the staff will do more site visits to substantiate the travel providers’ sustainability and also to work on some of the foundation’s projects. And while she never really thought of environmentalism as a factor in the tourism sector, it’s become a way of traveling for her now and a future hope, especially when it comes to developing countries. “It’s a really great way to hopefully preserve the environment that’s theirs, use tourism as a kind of teaching tool and give more value to the ecosystem and the habitats that they’re in,” McLeod says.

A Jasper of Principles For a Jasper committed to social justice and to actively participating in campus ministry and social action projects, old habits can sometimes die hard. For Michael Brady ’05, a triple major in English, government and urban affairs, with a minor in religious studies, they never die at all. Education, activism and charity are still important facets of his life, both personally and professionally. Brady recently became presiding principal and CEO of his father’s growing government relations firm, Brady and Company. Although he’s barely out of college, he approached his new role with an innovative vision and plans for change. In addition to lobbying and government relations, which it focused on in the past, the company now handles nonprofit development and real estate. And, like its namesake, Brady and Company is dedicated to ethical and social justice issues. “Instead of just one division, we opened three divisions, and the whole caveat with Brady and Company now is that we do what I like to call principle-based lobbying in that we practice good behavior and good judgment and expect our clients to do the same,” Brady says. “So that ranges anywhere from environmental standards to human rights and a whole variety of different standards that both clients and the

was the first thing he did. The company, among other things, has helped religious orders obtain strong financial footing and explore innovative options of expansion in order to maintain a sustained mission and growth. For example, its work with the Archdiocese of Onisha in Nigeria has led to providing plans to fund Nigerian priests and seminarian and college students. Next came the addition of a real estate division. One of the goals for this division is to open three affordable mixed-use buildings by 2009 in New York state. This gives the company a taste of the field but also maintains its mission of being a principlebased lobbying firm. “The principle-based approach is relatively innovative in terms of lobbying and consultant work because a lot of other firms will just take on whatever clients they want, whereas I feel that if I’m going to bring on a client to the firm, then the client has to bring a certain set of principles and ideals that are democratic and practice good behavior and judgment,” he says. The company has clients ranging from big to small, including the country of Honduras, for which it helped with its Central American Free Trade Agreement negotiations. One of its most exciting clients right now is Barack

“…the client has to bring a certain set of principles and ideals that are democratic and practice good behavior and judgment.” firm itself have to meet before we can do business with people.” Brady and Company now works with nonprofit organizations, something close to his heart. In fact, while implementing a principle-based system, opening a nonprofit division

Obama, for whom he and his staff are handling the fundraising piece of the campaign. Brady and Company also helps out with strategic planning for political campaigns in general to make sure that they go fairly smoothly. In the past, the firm has worked

on Carl McCall’s New York gubernatorial and Hillary Clinton’s senate campaigns. The company is expanding and the client base has broadened. There’s an office in Albany, another in Honduras, and one soon to come in New York City. The company has 15 full-time associates and two additional partners. Yet, he likes that it is still small enough for him to maintain constant contact with any of the clients and staff. After graduation, Brady, a Joseph J. Gunn Alumni Senior Medalist, headed to New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service Michael Brady ’05 (right) with to begin his three-year fellowship retired New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. with the prestigious Clark Foundation. Before he could complete ment those in real life, whether his degree, his father became ill, it’s providing student scholarand Brady returned to Albany in ship money to attend Catholic 2008 to take on some responsihigh school, or giving a school bilities at Brady and Company. It in Honduras the seed money to wasn’t long after that the board open a new building, or just takapproached Brady, then a princiing on a principle-based client pal, to run the company. With his and providing it the services that father’s approval, he took over it needs,” he says. “Manhattan the top spot. trained me for that.” Although a little anxious at Even with a company to run, first, he seems to have stepped Brady still finds time to give back. smoothly into his new role. He tries to visit Honduras at least And Brady has had some help once a year to help in Chamalealong the way. Of course, his facon, where he participated in a ther has been a tremendous resource. The board of directors has Manhattan service-learning trip. been great in terms of giving him He spends time at St. Augustine Parochial School in the Bronx, advice and helping him reshape where as a student he tutored, the firm. But he also drew on his helped build a garden and wrote Manhattan College experience. grants, and is now one of the “When I first came on, it was a company’s pro-bono clients. lot of on-the-job learning, but I Also in June, he helped build a had the skills there,” he says. “I chicken coop to provide fresh knew what to do and how to oreggs to New York City people in ganize people, and how to make need. Brady also funds a couple sure that I delegated properly, and that training really started off of scholarships. “I think education is a great at Manhattan.” thing and to save schools and to Brady also credits the College build schools and to give people for preparing him to take on his the tools that they need to get social justice initiatives. by and to succeed is overall my “At Manhattan, I was committed to a lot of social justice causes, own personal mission,” he says. “That’s really my passion.” and now I can actually imple-

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Saving the Planet, One Trip at a Time

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Dr. Stefan Jaronski ’69 gets attached to his experimental sugar beets.

Beeting the Odds: USDA Scientist Pursues Natural Pest Controls For many, maggots, fungi and beetles are better left untouched, but Stefan Jaronski ’69 is not like most people. As a research entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory (NPARL), he spends his days seeking ways to combat predatory insects with microbial pesticides or natural disease-inducing agents, such as fungi instead of chemicals. Much sought-after for his expertise, his work takes him to the farthest corners of the earth, from his home base of Sidney, Mont., to destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe. On a recent two-week trip to Azores, an archipelago of islands in the Atlantic Ocean that is part of Portugal, Jaronski worked with the plant protection service to control the Japanese beetle, which has wrecked havoc on vineyards and even decimated the wine industry on one island. He condensed the basic process of cooking fungi into a four-day crash course, during which he says eight participants learned to grow fungi on grains. “It was very much like a TV cooking show, but you can’t eat the results,” he says. The grains are heated and cooked and put into ventilated plastic bags used to grow mushroom spawn. Once grown, the fungi spores are carefully removed and dispersed on farmland, where they germinate on the insect and slip through its cuticle to invade the body. Within five days, the insect usually dies. Back in Montana, where Jaronski has converted a mobile home into a lab to test new technology, he focuses his research on two insects that damage crops: the sugar beet root maggot and grasshoppers. Such a dual specialization is unique among USDA scientists, who usually study only one insect. His sugar beet research has yielded two fungi that are effective against the maggots, namely Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae. They only affect insects and do not infect humans, mammals, birds or fish. He also has commercialized a fungus to manage grasshopper populations, which means that a company has adopted his method. Since his school days, Jaronski has thrived on running experiments. While at Manhattan College, he took a marine biology class in the Caribbean during the summer after his sophomore year. As a junior, he applied for and received an international science foundation grant, for which he again returned to the Caribbean in the following summer to study sponges. “Combining Catholicism with biology and wanting to do something

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useful with my science came out of my Manhattan College experience,” Jaronski says. After graduating from Manhattan with a bachelor’s degree in biology, he earned a master’s degree and doctorate in entomology from Cornell University. He completed two postdoctoral appointments in microbial control of insects before leaving academia for private industry, where he would spend the next 17 years working to commercialize microbes to control insects. First, he spent nine years at Abbott Labs in Chicago and, in 1992, accepted a job at Mycotech, a small biotechnology company that he likens to being the “Mount Everest of my career.” “At Mycotech, multitasking in science was essential,” he says. “Putting in 70 hours per week was not unusual.” And it was well worth it. Jaronski says the company was one of the first to commercialize a fungus to control insects in food crops. By 1999, Mycotech was failing, and Jaronski applied for his current position. His old company soon went out of business, and he moved on to a new role at NPARL. Nowadays, he applies the multitasking skills that he developed in private industry to balance his work at home and abroad. When he does go abroad, he helps to remedy pest control issues in places as diverse as South Africa and Tiblisi, Georgia. Most of these jobs arise from word of mouth within the scientific community, which seeks Jaronski’s knowledge of insect pathology. While all this world travel is exciting, he admits that exotic locales can pose unexpected challenges, besides the usual language barriers and foreign customs. “In Georgia, for example, we didn’t have a reliable electric supply,” he says. “They shut off the power for part of the day.” And there are times when he says he has spent a whole day searching for material that could easily be found in a hardware store in the United States. But Jaronski seems to thrive on new challenges. He even has an upcoming project in Uzbekistan, where he plans to mount a program similar to the one he did in Azores, where he will return for a follow-up trip next May. In the meantime, he mulls over his next move. USDA scientists work on five-year cycles, for which they submit a research plan that structures their work for that time period. As the latest cycle comes to an end, Jaronski has been outlining his future research goals. “I’m already thinking about life after sugar beets, and that’s using these fungi against insects that attack oil seed crops,” he says.

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