SETON HALL
A MAN FOR OTHERS
MONSIGNOR JOSEPH REILLY TAKES ON THE SETON HALL PRESIDENCY, GUIDED BY FAITH
SETON HALL
Winter
Seton Hall magazine is published by the Division of University Relations.
President
Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D.
Vice President for University Relations
Matthew Borowick ’89/M.B.A. ’94
Assistant Vice President, Strategic Communications and Brand
Pegeen Hopkins, M.S.J.
Art Director
Ann Antoshak
Copy Editors
Kim de Bourbon
Zachary Cooney ’20
News & Notes Editors
Sophia Fredriksson
Aaron Smith
Send your comments and suggestions by mail to: Seton Hall magazine, Division of University Relations, 519 South Orange Avenue, South Orange, NJ 07079; by email to shuwriter@shu. edu; or by phone at 973-378-9834.
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Cover: Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D. Photo by Michael Paras.
Facing page: Seton Hall’s South Orange campus. Photo by Earl Richardson. www.shu.edu
20 A Man for Others
Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., begins his tenure as Seton Hall’s 22nd president.
26 The Humanities Go to the Office
New interdisciplinary programs combine the humanities with professional and technical coursework to better prepare students for their careers.
Possibilities
Seton Hall seniors Brooke and Madison Loza expand their online business for sustainability-focused products.
14
Roaming the Hall
A collaboration between faculty and alumni brings much-needed attention to the leadership perspective of Gen Z.
16 Profile
Keldrick Averhart, M.H.A. ’23 uses lessons learned at Seton Hall in his work as a U.S. Navy corpsman.
Former Seton Hall professor Dan Huchital and Erin (Sharp) Williams ’02 have stayed connected in chemistry for 25 years.
Th e Joe Reilly Trifecta
Seton Hall celebrated the investiture of Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., on November 4, 2024. This essay was adapted from his investiture address.
As I formally begin my service as president, there is something I want to tell you about myself and an experience I would like to share with you. For more than seven months, I have been waiting to tell you what I treasure the most:
I love Jesus Christ. I love being a priest. I love Seton Hall.
Call it the Joe Reilly Trifecta.
When I use the word “love” in this context, it is a formative, foundational and creative love. It is a love rooted in faith that transforms and powers my life every day. These three expressions help define who I am and how I intend to serve the University.
I love Jesus Christ. I was baptized unto Him and His Church on August 15, 1965, a little over two weeks after entering the world. I’m the son of Peg and Ed, brother of Jimmy, Eddie and Thomas. But in my heart, I am His: Jesus the Lord and the love of my life.
My deep desire as I begin my services is that — as your priest-president — I will work wholeheartedly to make a gift of myself to this community after the model of Christ. More and more each day, I love Jesus Christ.
I love being a priest. I have had the desire to be a priest ever since I can remember. When I was younger, I felt God inviting me to receive this gift and to make it
my own. Over the past 33 years, my trust in God’s grace has only grown. I have learned to trust that He and His People will sustain me as a priest.
I pray that my tenure as president will be an extension of that priestly call to animate the love of Christ. More and more each day, I love being a priest.
I love Seton Hall. Over half my life has been spent here. It is a place of encounter, education, enrichment, empathy and equity. But Seton Hall is not simply a place. It is a community of people, grounded in fundamental beliefs about God, the human person, the world and the underlying truths that sustain us all.
Because all of us love Seton Hall, I ask you to keep me focused on who we are: a Catholic University that is mission-centered, student-focused, collaborative and respectful — a community where each person’s gifts are welcomed. More and more each day, I love Seton Hall.
A Reflection
I would like to share an experience I have had again and again. The first time it happened was more than a year ago. I was walking across campus and climbed the steps to Presidents Hall.
And then it happened. I grabbed the handle of the outer glass doors … and there I was! I saw myself reflected on the glass. Black suit. White collar. Pirate pin. Balding head. Right in front of my face… was my face!
In that reflection, I saw myself as I am and as I’ve become:
A person with gifts and talents, strengths and weaknesses, ups and downs.
A priest who is now president, who hopes to serve effectively in this role.
A pilgrim who is on my way in the journey of life and the journey of faith.
And a Pirate, who is part of a community of people who love this place, are grateful for this place and want the best for this place.
That reflection has become a lens through which I see myself; I accept myself; I challenge myself; and give myself over to God’s plan for my life.
And then it happened. I grabbed the handle of the outer glass doors … and there I was! I saw myself reflected on the glass. Black suit. White collar. Pirate pin. Balding head. Right in front of my face… was my face!”
Perhaps this could be the lens through which we invite our whole community to do likewise. All of us are invited to see ourselves before God with our beauty and gifts that are awesome to behold. Then we are invited to accept ourselves with all our likes and dislikes.
Thanks to Seton Hall, we are also invited to challenge ourselves — to do better and achieve more, to refine and grow our gifts and talents. Finally, to discover why God brought us onto this planet.
Of course, it is to make something of ourselves. But not merely for ourselves — for others! To make the world a better place — kinder, healthier, holier, more peaceful and compassionate. To make a gift of ourselves, in God’s name, with God’s help, for God’s glory.
My hope as I serve as president is that we can discover the truth of God’s plan for our lives, and have the strength and courage to live it each day. n
In Brief
l Gregory Wiedman, a chemistry department professor, received a patent for antimicrobial peptides designed to combat an invasive fungus linked to diseases such as fungal meningitis.
l Jason Hemann, assistant professor in the mathematics and computer science department, was awarded a competitive research and development grant from the National Science Foundation for a project to create a software program to teach programming languages to inexperienced users.
l Jim Kimble, professor of communication, was invited to serve as the Roosevelt Visiting Professor at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies in Middelburg, Netherlands, in the spring.
l The School of Diplomacy and International Relations announced that Professor Benjamin Goldfrank is a collaborator on an international research project on democratic governance, funded through a grant from the Trans-Atlantic Platform, in coordination with the National Science Foundation.
l Seton Hall was ranked in the top 17 percent nationwide in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 Best Bachelor of Science in Nursing Programs.
l The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses elected Phyllis Hansell, professor and former dean in the College of Nursing, to serve a two-year term as a Jonas Scholar Mentor.
l The New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants named Danielle DiMeglio, the director of graduate accounting programs and instructor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation, a 2024 Ovation Award winner in the Exceptional Educators category.
l Kishon C. Hickman Sr., program director of the Law Enforcement Executive Leadership master’s program, received the Richard B. Lewis Award at the 2024 Criminal Justice Educators Association of New York State conference. The award honors exceptional leadership and commitment to advancing criminal justice education.
l The Center for Diaconal Formation at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology was ranked first for enrollment in permanent diaconate formation programs nationwide for the 2023-24 academic year, according to a report published by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
l Lorene Cobb, director of clinical education in the Department of Physical Therapy, received a 2024 Interprofessional Innovation grant from the Association of Schools Advancing Health Professions for a research project dealing with integrating telehealth with virtual simulation.
l Nancy Innella, associate professor in the College of Nursing, received a 2024 Nurse Recognition Award from the New Jersey League for Nursing for “excellence in the education of nurses.”
Invested in Service
Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., was invested as Seton Hall’s 22nd president on November 4 with a ceremony formally conferring to him the authority and symbols of the office.
At the investiture, Monsignor Reilly shared a “trifecta” of loves that have formed the foundation of his life: a love for Jesus Christ, his vocation as a priest, and an enduring passion for Seton Hall.
The ceremony concluded weeks of events held to bring
together students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends in celebrating the beginning of Monsignor Reilly’s term on July 1. The day included a Mass, the investiture ceremony and a reception attended by hundreds.
“My deep desire as I begin my service as a priestpresident is [to be able to], like Jesus Christ, make a gift of myself in service to the community,” he said.
Monsignor Reilly’s appointment marks the return of a priest to the Seton Hall presidency, as well as the return of a former student to University leadership.
SHU IN THE NEWS
“Legacy media is dying ... I don’t think it’s dead yet, but it’s going to accelerate pretty quickly, and people are going to turn to alternative news sources, they’re losing trust in traditional news. I’m seeing that across the political spectrum.”
Jess Rauchberg, College of Human Development Culture and Media, The Hollywood Reporter, on news media usage in the 2024 election cycle.
“All of this impacted how much Black buyers had to pay and their capacity to build wealth at the same rate as their white counterparts.”
Richard Winchester, School of Law, Paul Caron’s Tax Prof Blog, on Federal Housing Administration policies and historical racial disparities in housing costs in the Pontchartrain Park area of New Orleans.
“In the post-pandemic era with a lot of our students having spent a number of years in a fully virtual environment, it’s even more important that we create those uncomfortable experiential social contexts where they have to navigate in new situations.”
Mary Kate Naatus, Continuing Education and Professional Studies, Steve Adubato’s Lessons in Leadership, on the need to teach emerging leaders in significantly different ways.
“Mother Teresa’s wholeness, or being ‘all His,’ and her total dedication to Jesus and the poor, sustained her throughout her life and during the dark night of the soul.”
Ines Angeli Murzaku, Catholic Studies Program, National Catholic Register/New Advent, on the mission and work of Mother Teresa in relation to her Eucharistic life.
“With AI rapidly evolving, it’s crucial to integrate it sensibly and purposefully into our curriculum and daily lives. We are dedicated to ensuring our students are well-prepared to succeed in an AI-driven future.”
Renee Cicchino, Teaching, Learning and Technology Center, NJEdge.net, on taking a collaborative approach to integrating artificial intelligence in education.
“I see women’s sports continuing on this upward trend that it has been on. There are more opportunities for female athletes, and it’s long overdue ... with training and nutrition, female athletes are bigger, stronger and faster, and that is only going to continue.”
B.J. Schecter, Center for Sports Media, USA TODAY, discussing the ascendancy of women’s sports and growing opportunities for female athletes.
“I wanted to tell especially parents, but also many others, that we should not feel guilty about our excessive screen time, but instead be angry about what the tech industry did to us.”
Gaia Bernstein, Seton Hall Law, TED YouTube Channel, discussing the tech industry’s addictive designs that manipulate user behavior for profit.
“Over the centuries, the Red Mass has offered attorneys and judges the chance to ask God’s continued blessings upon the work we perform for our clients, the public and one another.”
Kevin Walsh, School of Law trustee, ROI-NJ, discussing the 40th Annual Red Mas s at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark.
SYMPOSIUM FOCUSES ON UNIVERSITY RENEWAL
Adiscussion of the challenges faced by Catholic universities was raised at an academic symposium held October 29 featuring Michael Naughton, author and professor of Catholic studies.
Naughton, a teacher for more than 40 years, is the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where he holds the Koch Chair in Catholic Studies. His lecture on “The Story of Catholic Education: Renewing Our Universities” focused on how personal and institutional histories can be used to affect the future mission and culture of higher education.
Naughton’s most recent book is What We Hold in Trust: Rediscovering the Purpose of Catholic Higher Education, one of 12 books and monographs and more than 70 articles he has written or co-authored.
Nobel Laureate Addresses World Leaders Forum on Ethnic Violence
Nadia Murad returned to campus this fall to meet with students and speak at the World Leaders Forum, sharing her experiences as a prisoner of the Islamic State in her native Iraq and her work advocating for survivors of ethnic violence.
Hosted by the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, the World Leaders Forum gives students and the campus community an opportunity to discuss critical global concerns with distinguished visitors. Murad, recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize as a human rights activist, received an honorary doctoral degree in 2019 when she delivered the keynote address at the University’s Forum on Modern Slavery.
Her memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, is the account of genocidal ISIS attacks against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and her three-month imprisonment, which included physical and sexual abuse.
She escaped to a refugee camp after three months in captivity before moving to Germany, and is now a frequent speaker on the topic of sexual violence and slavery as tools of modern war. Joy
Yagid
Milan Stanic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOTHER SETON
The campus community celebrated the 250th birthday of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton this summer with a traditional birthday cake and cupcakes served at the Bishop Dougherty University Center, along with a special Mass.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was born in New York on August 28, 1774. In addition to being the University’s namesake and the first American-born saint, she was a daughter, a sister, a stepdaughter, a wife, a mother of five, a widow, a feminist, an entrepreneur, a convert to Catholicism, the founder of the Sisters of Charity, and a pioneer in Catholic education.
Her spirit lives on in the Seton family motto that the University has adopted: Hazard Zet Forward — No matter the risk, move forward.
SETON HALL COVERS THE WORLD WITH FULBRIGHT CONNECTIONS
Three recent graduates and three faculty members have been awarded Fulbright honors as Seton Hall focuses on the importance of this international educational exchange program with the appointment of a fellowship director and the invitation to an Italian Fulbright scholar to deliver lectures on artificial intelligence and innovation.
Founded in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the federal government’s flagship international educational exchange program, providing awards to about 8,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals each year from the United States and 160 countries.
English Teaching Assistantships
Two Seton Hall senior graduates have received awards to help teach English abroad.
Jasmine De Leon ’24, a double major in diplomacy and international relations and Catholic studies, will work in Taiwan, while Hamzah Khan ’24, a major in diplomacy and international relations, will work in Spain.
In addition, Caitlin Lacey ’23, a communications and philosophy major, has been designated an alternate for an English teaching assistantship in Spain, and will get the chance to do that if additional funding becomes available.
U.S. Scholar Awards to Faculty
Three Seton Hall professors have been named Fulbright U.S. Scholars for projects in Europe, with awards made by the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Tracy A. Kaye, J.D., professor of law, has been in Vienna undertaking a project on the global minimum tax actions undertaken by the European Union and the United States. She is the University’s Eric Byrne Research Fellow and director of the Dean Acheson Legal Scholar Program and IRS Chief Counsel Externship Program at the Seton Hall Law School, and this is her third Fulbright award.
Ines Angeli Murzaku, Ph.D., professor of religion, will undertake a project in the spring 2025 semester on the role of transitional justice to build peace in Romania after communism, and on understanding the experiences of minority religions there.
She is director of the Catholic Studies Program and founding chair of the Department of Catholic Studies.
Karen Boroff, Ph.D., professor of management, will be in Spain for the 2025 spring semester using her experience in human resources, labor relations and negotiations at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, helping leaders there understand change management. She is dean emerita of the Stillman School of Business, having served 35 years at Seton Hall.
Fellowships Director
As Seton Hall students and faculty continue to be awarded Fulbright honors, the University has appointed Jim Kimble, professor of communication, its first director of Faculty Prestigious Fellowships.
In this role, Kimble is supporting faculty who apply for Fulbright programs and other national and international awards and honors.
“We want the best for Seton Hall University,” said Kimble. “We exist in a competitive environment and have lots of esteemed peers who are competing for prestige.”
A former Fulbright scholar himself, Kimble has served as the founding director of Seton Hall’s undergraduate external awards program. After the success of this program, he became liaison for faculty Fulbright projects.
Fulbright Scholar Delivers 5-Part Lecture Series
A Fulbright scholar from Italy who is an expert in technology, innovation and organizational transformation visited campus this fall to deliver a five-part lecture series on artificial intelligence and digital innovation.
The visit from Professor Giovanni Schiuma of LUM University was a collaboration of the Stillman School of Business and the Division of Continuing Education and Professional Development. The partnership highlighted the University’s growing global research profile and approaches to blending technology and humanistic values.
Provost and Senior Executive Vice President Katia Passerini, Ph.D., called the program “a pivotal opportunity to enhance our global reputation, building on the University’s strong connections with Italy and the Vatican.”
Top Chalamet Look-Alike
ASeton Hall student won the top prize in a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in Manhattan this fall, a social-media pop-up event that attracted several hundred people to Washington Square Park and featured a surprise appearance by the actor himself.
Miles Mitchell, a 21-year-old Staten Island resident, dressed in a purple suit and hat and tossed candy to the crowd in recognition of Chalamet’s recent star turn in Wonka, a remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He took home a $50 prize and trophy.
Mitchell later told the New York Post that he thought the October 27 event would be “a fun, interactive thing.”
“I dress up, it’s at Washington Square Park, so there’s always, like, crazy stuff that goes on there,” he said. Police were in the process of breaking up the unpermitted gathering just as Chalamet showed up amid the people competing to look the most like him.
Asked about the chaos at the event, Mitchell noted to The Post that “it was really hectic, but I guess it wasn’t surprising since so many people were there.”
“I’m excited and I’m also overwhelmed,” he told The Associated Press. “There were so many good look-alikes. It was really a toss-up.”
Seton Hall Joins Hispanic Association
Seton Hall has joined the ranks of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), taking another step on the path to becoming a federally recognized Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI).
“Membership in HACU adds a new dimension to our legacy of opening doors for deserving students,” said Provost and Senior Executive Vice President Katia Passerini, Ph.D. The HACU provides scholarships and internships for Hispanic students, advocates for them, and helps universities find ways to improve their campus experience.
The University is working toward achieving federal HSI status, which requires an enrollment of at least
25 percent Hispanic undergraduate students, including a significant proportion who qualify as low-income.
The HSI initiative recognizes shifting demographic trends, with a rising number of underrepresented diverse students pursuing higher education. According to Hunt Institute data, more than 30 percent of the nation’s elementary and high school students will be Hispanic by the year 2030, and the University hopes to recruit, retain and graduate a larger proportion of these students.
Achieving HSI status will make the University eligible for federal funds that will serve the University’s mission of serving underrepresented and low-income students.
Julia Smerling
Field House Renewed
The Seton Hall student experience was enhanced at the start of the fall 2024 semester with the opening of a renovated field house within the Richie Regan Recreation and Athletic Center.
The renovations included resurfacing the floor with a versatile surface suitable for all the sports played there: basketball, volleyball, soccer and the emerging sport of pickleball. A new two-lane track was added around the court, and a mesh curtain system installed to make multiple concurrent events possible. The
space is also able to continue hosting spin classes and cornhole play.
The renovation was part of Seton Hall Athletics’ 10-year plan to upgrade the Richie Regan Recreation and Athletic Center, which included the opening of a 12,000-square-foot fitness center in 2014 that is used by students every day.
The project will culminate with the completion of the Basketball Performance Center, expected to be finished in January.
Joy Yagid
ECO-CONSCIOUS ENTERPRISE
Seton Hall seniors Brooke and Madison Loza launched an online marketplace for sustainabilityfocused products that’s expanded to include a storefront location.
Photo by John O’Boyle
Imagine being able to put an entire year’s worth of trash into a single canning jar, or into a glass container that can hold about a dozen pickle spears.
When twin sisters Brooke and Madison Loza saw on YouTube that a woman had accomplished this, they were amazed at the feat and its incredibly low environmental impact.
“It blew my mind,” says Madison, who was in high school at the time and says she’d never really thought about how much waste people produce. “Our family, two adults and four children, were going through four or five trash bags a week.”
The sisters were motivated to take action for the health of the planet. Brooke launched an Instagram account to raise awareness about the negative impacts of waste, such as the increased greenhouse gas emissions from trash decomposing in landfills and exposure to chemicals that seep from plastic waste into the soil, groundwater and waterways. Madison helped create some of the content, which evolved to include practical tips for how to pursue a low-waste lifestyle.
“We realized pretty quickly that many people want to live in more sustainable, eco-friendly ways. There was a lot of interest in the types of products I was demonstrating online,” Brooke says, giving examples such as laundry detergent sheets that come in a biodegradable cardboard box instead of a plastic jug and a compostable phone case (“More than 1 billion [plastic] phone cases are thrown out each year!” she wrote on her @the.eco.twin account).
Recognizing the demand, Brooke and Madison decided to embark on another eco-conscious venture: starting their own business. The sisters felt strongly that they could fill a need they were seeing in the market for easily accessible eco-friendly products.
Together, they opened One Stop Eco Shop, a retail store that sells sustainability-focused home and body products, groceries and composting services. First it was an online-only store, and they used the basement of their family’s home in Brick, New Jersey, as their shipping and receiving headquarters.
As the online store was growing, they focused on sourcing and selling items cleared to meet their
environmental impact standards regarding ingredients and raw materials, production processes, packaging, distribution, use, potential reuse and disposal options.
During this phase of business development, Brooke and Madison — now seniors studying nursing at Seton Hall — connected with the University’s Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Based in the Stillman School of Business, the center is directed by Susan Scherreik, whom Brooke calls “an amazing mentor.” Scherreik helped them navigate their roles as entrepreneurs and encouraged them to enter business startup competitions. The One Stop Eco Shop co-owners won prize money in three competitions, including the 2023 Pirates Pitch Competition at Seton Hall. The seed funding supported expansion into a physical store located on Fischer Boulevard in Toms River.
Brooke and Madison work there on the weekends and hired an employee to run the shop on weekdays. Unique to the physical store are product refill stations, which don’t rely on single-use plastic containers, as well as access to a composting service in partnership with Un-Waste.
No strangers to trying new things, Brooke and Madison are focused now on creating and selling their own line of products under the One Stop Eco Shop brand. Madison makes many products herself — bar soaps, lip balms and reusable paper towels, for example — and they partner with product manufacturers who share their eco-conscious values. Their goal is to grow their wholesale operation so that consumers can find their products in more places.
They believe this is the right time for them to take risks as business owners.
“We have so much more time to grow,” Brooke says, referring to their youth as a benefit. “People doubted us. But we think, why wait to start a business until you’re in your 50s and have a stable career? Would we have the energy, the money or the time? Waiting feels like an even bigger risk.”
And they’ll be glad to wait on you at One Stop Eco Shop. n
Lori (Varga) Riley, M.A. ‘06, is a freelance writer living in New Jersey.
LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE GEN Z LENS
A faculty-alumni research collaboration sheds much-needed light on the leadership perspective of this important group.
Atopic frequently in the headlines is the rise of Generation Z into adulthood and its impacts on the workforce. Forbes reports “How Gen Z Is Shaping Sustainability in the Manufacturing Industry,” while BuzzFeed gives its take on “Why Gen Z’s Lack of Essential Skills Could Backfire Soon.”
There’s no shortage of opinions, but a research team from Seton Hall continues to go directly to members of this age group to ask what they think.
From its start in the University’s Stillman School of Business in 2021, The Future of Leadership Survey has been querying 18- to 25-year-olds and will soon issue its fifth annual call for participation. Developed by Ruchin Kansal, professor of practice, and Karen Boroff, professor and dean emeritus, the survey aims to hear directly from up-and-coming professionals about what they value in work and what competencies they seek of those leaders they will follow, and what they need to grow as leaders themselves.
“No one else is doing that,” Kansal says. “The key is that we’re asking them what they think about leaders and leadership development, and how their beliefs shape their own roles in their career journeys.”
The survey has received more than 11,000 responses since its launch.
Creating Knowledge That Informs Action
Boroff has been at the forefront of understanding why this information is needed and how it applies, having served as dean of the Stillman School for 10 years and on the faculty for 35.
“We are doing this to create new knowledge — information that organizations can use to their real advantage in terms of how they lead their workforce and the effect on their bottom line,” Boroff says.
“Organizations are effective when the leadership is effective,” says Kansal, who has been a C-suite executive, business strategist and management consultant for more than two decades.
“But all the research so far has been done from the perspective of people who have been working a long time, and leadership effectiveness means something different for them,” he continues. “They are concerned mainly with financial acumen and results. Yes, those entering the workforce are looking for that, but they are also looking for trust, development and career growth, for the ability to lead in crisis and failure.”
Contributing to Organizational Performance
Anthony Caputo ’11 is an organizational psychologist who joined the survey team in 2024 — 13 years after his own graduation from Seton Hall as an honors psychology
major and following several semesters as an adjunct professor. Caputo is chief people officer and chief operating officer at Remesh, a market research company.
“As someone who has been focused on enhancing organizational performance, I can confidently say that it’s the clarity of this survey’s findings that sets it apart from other leadership research,” Caputo says. “This isn’t about ‘how to motivate your Gen Z workforce.’ It is ‘how do you be an engaging leader of people who grew up in a world that’s fundamentally different than yours.’ It’s ‘how to show up in today’s world and carry yourself in front of a group of people.’ That’s different.”
The 2024 survey identified trust as the top indicator Gen Z associates with leadership.
“What are the variables that affect trust? How can leaders build trust? This is what we’re now exploring,” says Kansal. The 2025 survey will include new questions
about trust, and the results will be published in the business school’s In the Lead magazine.
They are looking at how to tie trust to business results, Boroff says. “If I trust you, am I more productive or not? If I trust you, will I be more reliable at work? Will I play nicer in the sandbox? What are the behavioral outcomes of trust that will affect an organization’s bottom line.”
Through a partnership with Atheneum, a research services company, the survey is now distributed globally. Seton Hall students and alumni also are invited to respond.
“Our focus will continue to be the emerging workforce age group,” Kansal says. “Soon we’ll be reaching out to Generation Alpha.” n
Lori
(Varga) Riley, M.A. ‘06, is a freelance writer living in New Jersey.
Photo by Earl Richardson
New research focuses in on the opinions held by members of Gen Z.
ANCHORS AWEIGH
The lessons Keldrick Averhart, M.H.A. ’23 learned at Seton Hall are enhancing his work as a U.S. Navy corpsman in locations around the globe.
by
In 2021, a devastating earthquake shook Haiti, killing more than 2,000 people and injuring more than 12,000 others. Navy corpsman Keldrick Averhart was sent there as part of a U.S. military deployment to help the disaster relief effort.
“Health care is already hard enough, especially post-COVID, when we have so many logistical issues,” Averhart says. “But now try to do that in Haiti, which is a couple thousand miles away. It’s hard to get resources there on time, in the place they need to be, across three to four different platforms to ship across three different branches of military services. During the Joint Task Force Haiti mission, I knew I wanted to contribute more to my team and the community by providing innovative solutions to unique problems. The only way I knew how to do that was to expand my education.”
That’s why Averhart, who completed Seton Hall’s Master of Healthcare Administration (M.H.A.) degree online while deployed as a behavioral health tech in the U.S. Navy, says he’s grateful for courses like Emergency Management for Health Professionals, which have prepared him for complex situations.
When a ship isn’t capable of caring for a particular patient, for example, a decision must be made. “Do we send them to Puerto Rico? Do we send them to America?”
Averhart says. “And if one of our Marines or sailors gets injured while taking care of people, where do we send them? We have contingency plan on top of contingency plan on top of contingency plan.”
From the time Averhart was small, he was fascinated with hospitals — the doctors, nurses, people who cleaned. “I look at it like a human body,” he says. “That organization grows, develops and helps improve the community. I always wanted to be part of that.”
Averhart’s dual interest in patient care and the business side of healing made healthcare administration a natural fit when thinking about the next steps for his career; he was drawn to what Seton Hall’s M.H.A. program offered. “It wasn’t a cookie-cutter [option] where I could just do the bare minimum, get my degree and say, ‘Hey, I’m done,’” he says. “I’d have to go through a
rigorous program to get my degree.” And its hybrid blend of in-person and online learning accommodated his Navy career.
“Seton Hall’s M.H.A. program appeals to healthcare professionals like Keldrick who value its blend of leadership training and real-world applications,” says Anne M. Hewitt, professor emerita. She noted that Seton Hall has one of only a handful of accredited M.H.A. programs in the U.S. to offer a course on emergency management, a critical subject for administrators and C-level executives across the healthcare landscape.
To successfully balance his studies and military life, Averhart planned a month ahead, setting priorities with his Navy chain of command and Seton Hall professors. His job entailed both administrative work and visiting ships or clinics to see patients with mental health diagnoses ranging from anxiety and chronic depression to post-traumatic stress disorder. During an especially hectic week, he might also swoop in to help at surgical sites, seeing patients with gunshot wounds, mangled limbs, broken legs. “I’m out there mending those inside of a surgery unit,” he says.
Since he began the M.H.A. program in fall 2020, Averhart has had postings in Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Germany. “I finished my degree while stationed in Guam,” he says.
Averhart completed his degree in August 2023 and received his diploma in May. He hopes to become a commissioned Navy healthcare administration officer, and while in Guam he’d like to teach healthcare administration as a professor.
“Keldrick epitomizes Seton Hall’s tradition of servant leadership,” says Nalin Johri, director of the M.H.A. program. “His professionalism and sense of caring will help propel his future career as a healthcare leader.” n
Kristen Licciardi is a senior manager of marketing and communications at Seton Hall. Kimberly Olson is a freelance writer based in New York City.
Photo
Lauren Radack
CHEMICAL BONDS
How a Seton Hall professor and a student have stuck together for 25 years.
When chemistry professor Dan Huchital saw Erin (Sharp) Williams’ application for admission to Seton Hall in 1998, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind she should be offered a scholarship. The awards committee agreed, and he called to tell her the good news: a four-year full ride including tuition, room and board, some cash for books and a summer research internship.
Williams, still in her senior year of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, knew she wanted to leave Florida and experience another part of the country, and the close, family-like feeling she felt when she visited Seton Hall lingered.
“I hung up the phone. I screamed, went downstairs to my parents, and told them the news,” she says.
Chemistry was a small program at Seton Hall then, but even though Williams’ class had only 10 students, she never had Huchital as a professor. He became her de facto adviser, though, helping her prepare for a solid career. And she couldn’t have had a more worthy role model.
Huchital majored in chemistry at City College, then moved cross-country to Stanford for graduate studies, where he received his doctorate in April 1965. He worked with Henry Taube, a renowned scientist who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1983. When it was time to apply for a tenured position, there were only three available for an inorganic chemist like Huchital, and since he and his wife had family in New Jersey and New York, they chose Seton Hall.
Huchital taught at Seton Hall for 35 years, from 1966 to 2001.
In the middle of Williams’ studies at Seton Hall, Huchital was due for a sabbatical, and he chose to spend it at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Although he taught for two more semesters at Seton Hall after that, he announced his retirement in 2001.
When FAU learned that Huchital was back in the state, it wasn’t long before they asked if he would be interested in a full-time position, giving him another opportunity to
teach. “I was 62,” he says. “I said, I’ll do it for two years, maybe three. Get to 65 and then retire. It turned out to be 22 years.”
As it happened, he was settling into Williams’ neck of the woods. “Any time I would come back to Florida, he was right up the road,” she says. “I would tell everybody, I’ve got to go see Dr. Huchital.”
Then in the summer of 2022, Huchital, 82, decided the next semester would be his last. “I love teaching. I love to be in the classroom, but all the extra administrative stuff just got to be too much.”
FAU opened his position — and Huchital told them he knew the right person for the job: Erin Williams.
After graduating from Seton Hall in 2002, Williams earned a doctorate at Ohio State University, then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, located on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she worked closely with a graduate student. “After that interaction, I said, wow, I think I am short-changing myself on my love of teaching.”
When Williams got a second life-changing call from Huchital in 2022, she was teaching at her old high school in Fort Lauderdale, where her love of chemistry had begun.
“Dan called me and said he had great news. He was going to retire. I said, we already did that at Seton Hall. Is this one for real? He said, it’s for real … and you should think about applying for the job.”
In June, Williams started her second year as an instructor at FAU, the result of a special friendship forged through Seton Hall connections. Both she and Huchital are thankful for everything Seton Hall has given them; they are loyal material supporters of the community, paying it forward so that other students and faculty can forge the same kinds of bonds that have kept them together for 25 years. n
Ruth Zamoyta is Seton Hall’s director of advancement and campaign communications.
Photo by Alex
A Man for Others
Monsignor Joseph Reilly steps into the role of Seton Hall’s 22nd president — guided by faith and an open heart.
Photograph by Michael Paras
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As the first priest-president in 14 years, he intends to bring renewed strategic vision and Catholic spirituality to the role.
Stepping down from the podium at the November 4 ceremonies marking his investiture as the University’s 22nd president, Monsignor Joseph Reilly S.T.L., Ph.D., moved closer to the audience to share three aspects of his life that have made him who he is: a deep love for Jesus Christ, his vocation as a priest and an enduring passion for Seton Hall.
“Half of my life has been spent here,” he said, referencing his arrival as a Seton Hall Prep student in 1979. “It was here, in this place, where I discovered the passion and purpose of my life as a priest. But Seton Hall is not simply a place of three campuses.
“It is a community of people, with fundamental beliefs about God, the human person, the world and the values that underlie all of those things that are founded in faith. This is what sustains each one of us in our lives here at Seton Hall.”
As the first priest-president in 14 years, he intends to bring renewed strategic vision and Catholic spirituality to the role.
The job of a university president, perhaps especially at a Catholic institution, has evolved into a labyrinth of roles and responsibilities, but he looks to bring as simplified an approach as possible, always focusing on the teachings of Jesus and the graces of God.
A GUIDING FAITH
Monsignor Reilly asks the Holy Spirit, always, for guidance, he says, noting that it “helps us in our weakness” and that God always supplies what is needed
in any situation. People also need to lean into their weaknesses and shortcomings, he says, and rely on the Spirit to lift and sustain them.
He has been inspired by Saint Maximilian Kolbe since prep school, when he read A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe the “Saint of Auschwitz” by Patricia Treece (1982, Harper & Row). Imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II, Father Kolbe stepped forward to take the place of a younger man with a family who was about to be sent to the gas chamber, thereby sacrificing his own life.
When asked by the German camp commandant who he was and why he would stand in the condemned man’s place, Kolbe said, “I’m a Catholic priest.”
This struck the teenage Joe Reilly as the essence and fundamental statement of the priestly vocation, that the Catholic priest should be “a man for others.”
And yet, knowing that living as a minister of the Gospel and servant in the community comes at a cost, Monsignor Reilly notes that “prayer, prayer, prayer to Saint Therese” is a constant in his life. Therese of Lisieux, a doctor of the Church, is recognized for having said “My vocation is love,” and commonly known as the Little Flower.
“Over and over, I have received inspiration from Saint Therese,” he says. “She loves priests and supports priests as a friend in heaven.”
‘GOD ANTICIPATES’
Since his ordination for the Archdiocese of Newark in 1991, Monsignor Reilly has walked a path that has led him and those he has served, he prays, to the ever greater fulfillment of Seton Hall’s mission.
He was selected as a Missionary of Mercy — much to his surprise — by Pope Francis and installed to the role in Rome during the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2015. The assignment is one of accompaniment and spreading the mercy of God to Catholic communities around the globe.
The appointment, which has been extended for a second term, brought him to two gatherings in Rome and to parish missions and churches throughout the United States and “put me in ministerial situations to minister in the Lord’s name.”
“It has benefited me as a person and a priest, manifested the depth of God’s mercy in my life, and has transformed the way I experience and see the priesthood,” he says.
The surprise of the appointment was important to him. “God anticipated what I would need in the future, in my ministry,” he notes. “I did not know then why I was chosen or what I would gain from the experience.”
Now he sees how it was part of his formation for the role of Seton Hall’s president. “God anticipates,” he says.
LEADING WITH AN ‘OPEN DOOR’ AND AN ‘OPEN HEART’
According to Monsignor Reilly, higher education is “a collaborative effort.”
“Trust people around you; my role is to trust and encourage,” he says.
Members of the faculty and administrative staff who have worked closely with him cite his strong work ethic; mission-driven approach; pastoral care and concern for others; approachability and, universally, acknowledge his humor.
When he became rector/dean of Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology in 2012, he pledged to bring “transparency” and “community” to the job, with a policy to have an “open door” and an “open heart.”
He immediately announced he would accompany the team on a seminary staff retreat, an unexpected and greatly appreciated move that demonstrated his sincere desire to be with the staff in prayer.
“He invites people into prayer,” says Dianne Traflet, J.D., S.T.D., associate dean of the seminary and a longtime co-worker. “He leads and speaks from the heart as well as intellect. Prayer is a means of demonstrating the transparency and fostering the spirit of community he seeks.
“He loves people and thoroughly enjoys true conversations — conversations as adventure,” she says. “He is a natural encourager and leads to a great degree by encouragement.”
Mary Meehan ’72/M.A. ’74/Ph.D. ’01 served as Seton Hall’s interim president from 2017 to 19, having been an administrator and executive vice president of the University before being appointed president of Alverno College in Milwaukee. She knew young Joe Reilly before he was ordained, and then during his tenure as rector when she was interim president.
“I met Monsignor Reilly in 1983 when he was a freshman at Seton Hall, and I was a member of the formation team at Saint Andrew’s College Seminary,” she says. “Among so many gifted and committed young men, he stood out and left a lasting impression on me. It was clear to the formation team that Joe Reilly was someone to watch in the coming years. He was smart, determined and passionate about his beliefs. Thoughtful and reserved most of the time, he was not shy in expressing his ideas about those things that were most precious to him.
“I am thrilled to know the University will now have the benefit of his unswerving commitment to our Catholic mission in his new role,” Meehan says. “I look forward to more great things to come under his leadership.” n
Greg Tobin, M.A. ’06, is the author of The Good Pope and Conclave
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Guiding Principles
Monsignor Reilly shares “three realities” that have guided his thinking and actions, from his college seminary days to today:
PERSON — Develop selfknowledge in order to “accept and answer God’s call.” He says, “One’s personhood is the ultimate gift of a gracious God.”
PASSION — “I discovered that the passion of my life is Jesus Christ,” he says, “who He is for me and in me, my Lord and brother.”
PLACE — God chose to enter the world in a historic time and place, a critical truth of the plan for our salvation, he says, noting that Seton Hall “is a critical place of encounter with God, where we hear His call.”
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by Earl Richardson
THE HUMANITIES GO TO THE OFFICE
A new set of interdisciplinary programs marries the humanities with professional and technical coursework to better prepare Seton Hall students for their careers.
They might at first appear to be an odd pairing for such an ambitious initiative.
Elizabeth McCrea is an associate professor of management in Seton Hall’s Stillman School of Business. Abe Zakhem is a professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences. A few years back, they started to think about how they might create a new minor that would meld the study of humanities with the study of business, two disciplines that traditionally have been considered distinctly separate endeavors. And that was precisely the point.
McCrea and Zakhem were convinced — tradition be damned — that business students could benefit from studying the humanities just as much as humanities students could benefit from studying business. With the help of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, they set out to compile just such an interdisciplinary curriculum. The result is Seton Hall’s new minor in Business Humanities, an 18-credit program that debuted in the fall.
For McCrea, the notion that business and the humanities are inexorably intertwined represents a commonsense
reality. “Today,” she says, “problems are really difficult, complex, pervasive. Unless you’ve got empathy and imagination, unless you’re very inclusive and culturally astute, it’s going to be difficult to enact change, difficult to grow a business. With the humanities, if you are delving into the human condition, you can devise solutions that are more likely to be successful, because you’ve got the human aspect incorporated into the solution.”
Zakhem believes the humanities have long been an integral part of the professional world. “The humanities and those who work in the humanities have always and continue to have a lot to say about business and medicine and other things we take to be professions,” he says. “We ask all kinds of questions about business, about values, aesthetics. We have all sorts of interesting things to say about business.”
The introduction of the Business Humanities minor, open to students of any major, is part of Seton Hall’s broader effort to incorporate the humanities into a wide array of disciplines. Since 2019, the University has offered a minor in Medical Humanities, designed to help aspiring doctors, nurses, physical therapists and scientists take a
more holistic approach by honing their ability to listen closely, communicate compassionately, and consider socioeconomic and cultural differences when interacting with patients. Students are taught to understand the different ways that people experience life, sickness and death, so they may deliver more compassionate and effective health care.
Earlier this year, the College of Arts and Sciences hired Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc, a bioethicist specializing in moral and social philosophy, to lead the Medical Humanities program. Tarasenko-Struc, who earned his doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University, says part of his mission is helping students overcome the misperception that medicine is a purely technical or scientific field. “In our view,” he says, “what’s left out by that conception of medicine is the interpersonal or social dimension of clinical practice. That requires empathy, imagination — a whole different skill set — and that’s what we try to instill. How we do that is by offering students a range of courses in different fields across the humanities and social sciences.”
about the “moral texture” of clinical practice. “What unites the students in the program,” Tarasenko-Struc says, “is a shared sense of the importance of the holistic and humanistic aspects of patient care.”
The lessons are particularly meaningful for undergraduates, he says. “Students at this stage are very open-minded. The same is true of early medical students. As you get initiated into the field of medicine, and start learning the norms, it becomes a bit harder to remain as open minded and to really take a critical look into the practices they’re engaging in.”
“All the tech companies want students who can write well.”
As an example, he cites healthcare workers — faced with assessing the needs of patients with a disability — who may have not learned to consider the patient’s perspective. “When you actually ask people with disabilities,” Tarasenko-Struc says, “in many cases they’ll say, ‘I’m doing pretty well. I don’t resent the fact that I’m disabled. In fact, if I could take a pill to make my disability go away, I wouldn’t do it. It’s part of my identity.’ That kind of engagement with narrative is really important for somebody who’s taking care of patients with disabilities.”
The 18-credit Medical Humanities program brings together fields in the humanities, social sciences and the arts, offering courses such as Modern Society and Human Happiness, Illness and Literature, Christian Values and Health Issues, and Biomedical Ethics, taught by Tarasenko-Struc, who aims to get students thinking
Jonathan Farina, a professor of English and the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, has played a leading role in Seton Hall’s push to integrate the humanities into curricula campus-wide. He prefers the term “applied humanities,” emphasizing the importance of narrative storytelling across professions, whether that means pitching an idea to Amazon, listening to patients talk about their symptoms, or describing the importance of a scientific research project for a grant proposal.
“All the tech companies want students who can write well,” he says. “I want programs to have courses that teach the subjects that students are going to encounter in the real world, so that when they have a job interview, they can talk about how their history minor enables them to be more thoughtful and effective at their specific profession.”
Seton Hall’s new minor in Business Humanities will produce students better equipped to enter the workforce, Farina says. While the liberal arts have taken for granted that students can figure out how to apply history, literature, philosophy and other humanities studies to their profession, the courses in the integrated programs will teach students how to make those applications and, yes, to discuss them at their job interviews.
The same applies to the highly valued technical skills and roles. In another Seton Hall interdisciplinary program leading to an undergraduate certificate in Digital
Humanities and Data Studies, students learn skills from website design to data mining and geospatial analysis. While some courses focus on computing and statistics, the program also offers courses such as Contemporary U.S. Public Policy, Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology and City in American Literature.
Professors Zakhem and McCrea received their first NEH grant for the Business Humanities program in 2019, then a second one three years later. In their second grant proposal, Zakhem and McCrea emphasized the importance of a cross-discipline education. The grants, totaling $185,000, were used in part for a symposium on business humanities held on campus in October 2023. And now the applied humanities program looks to expand even further. Tarasenko-Struc says the Medical Humanities minor might add a narrative medicine course that would teach the sort of empathetic skills that premed students will need to be effective doctors, nurses
or physical therapists. He also envisions an advanced clinical ethics course that would have students working alongside members of care teams as they make bedside visits and discussing ethical issues the care teams encounter.
Farina also would like to expand the Digital Humanities and Data Studies Certificate into a minor in STEM Humanities that would prepare students “to translate technical concerns, risks and opportunities into language that boards and executives and consumers not only understand, but also find compelling.”
In the Business Humanities program, McCrea is creating a new course in Sustainability Consulting that she hopes to teach in the fall of 2025. And she and Zakhem are already at work planning another symposium on Business Humanities, to be held on campus in October. n
Christopher Hann is a freelance writer and editor in New Jersey.
Big Ambitions — and Results
In 2022, Seton Hall’s men’s golf team won the BIG EAST title — the first time in 22 years — and set a school mark for scoring average. The coach at the time, Clay White, was overseeing a program on the rise when he moved on to the University of Pennsylvania that same year.
That’s when JT Harper ’15 took over.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s going to continue to build the program, and he’s going to be 10 times the coach I was there,” White says of Harper, his former player and assistant.
Early results are promising. This year the Pirates again captured the BIG EAST championship, with the play of individual stalwarts Wenliang Xie, Wanxi Sun and Jack Bosworth driving to a winning score of 8-over 872, five shots better than runner-up Butler University.
“We had two really good events leading into the BIG EAST championship, and we gained a lot of momentum,” Harper says. “We were able to do it because the entire group believed that we were the best team. All of the guys believed to their core that if we do what we’re supposed to do that we have every right to hold that trophy at the end.”
Golf has been a lifelong pursuit for Harper. As a kid in California, “with the level of golf in my area growing up, it was pretty inevitable that I picked up a club and tried to get good at it.” A major influence was his father, RJ Harper, who was director of golf at Pebble Beach before passing away in 2017.
Harper stuck with the sport and carved out a solid career at Seton Hall, with the team’s victory in the Navy Fall Classic his senior season being a highlight. Harper recalls “the brotherhood that was built between the guys. Going to battle for each other was pretty special.”
He began his coaching journey in his final fall semester, when he served as an undergrad assistant, coaching players who had been teammates.
“I kind of put it in the back of my mind how much I loved coaching,” Harper says, “and thought maybe one day down the road I’d get back into it.” He worked as an instructor at Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, New Jersey, and acted as the director of junior golf operations before reaching out to White again.
In August 2022, after assisting with the Pirates’ BIG EAST title earlier that year, he got the call to take over the program.
“JT understands the swing, and he teaches and understands the swing much better than I do,” White says. “I can’t hit a flop shot, but I know when to hit a flop shot, when not to hit a flop shot. Where he can actually say, ‘Hey, no, you need to get more weight on your front foot. You need to feel like you’re sliding the blade under’ and talk them through the technique. Who he is as a person is why he’s going to be a great coach — he has a lot of that knowledge that it took me 10, 15 years to get.”
Harper also appreciates the holistic approach to coaching, especially during pressure-packed tournaments. “When we’re on the course in those situations, it’s more about keeping the guys focused on the task at hand and not letting their minds drift to thinking about holding a trophy. Just keeping them in the present.”
As for the future? No BIG EAST golf team has ever made it through a regional and into the national championship, where the top 30 teams compete. “I’ve spoken to the guys,” Harper says, “and they’ve bought into wanting us to be the first BIG EAST school to do that.”
Harper’s history says he’s the man to lead the Pirates there. n
Shawn Fury is an author based in New York City.
Photo courtesy of Seton Hall Athletics
Golf coach JT Harper, right, advises freshman Will Hennessee.
The Artful Spiker
Standing 5-foot-11, Seton Hall women’s volleyball outside hitter Perri Lucas ’24 doesn’t quite measure up vertically to many of the taller players on other Division I teams. So Lucas uses an explosive athletic ability, leaping up for highlight-reel spikes that show off her myriad talents.
Early in her career with the Pirates, Lucas learned that it wasn’t simply about power at the net — she needed to diversify her skills if she wanted to succeed.
“I got blocked a ton as a freshman, and it was frustrating, so I had to learn different shots,” says Lucas, a graduate student competing in her fifth season for the Pirates. “I can’t just bang the ball when someone’s 6 foot 3 inches and also jumping high blocking against me. I’ve had to learn to be more crafty with my offense. I learned how to hit around blocks and how to use the block and not be scared of a block in front of me. And then also I’ve had to learn how to speed up my offense.”
That work paid off for the Chicago native as she finished second in kills for the Pirates in both 2022 and 2023. “She’s so strong for how she’s only 5 foot 11 inches,” says Seton Hall coach Shannon Thompson. “For her to be able to hit the ball really hard and jump high, it’s such a nice tangible thing to have. And … the yo-yo game, as we call it, of moving the defense forward and backwards. She’s really done a good job of developing that volleyball IQ because her athleticism is through the roof.”
A biology major who also minored in chemistry and Africana Studies, Lucas plans on attending medical school and becoming a dermatologist. Her class load would be a full-time job for most students, and the life of a Division I athlete doesn’t leave a whole lot of free time.
But Lucas has managed to juggle the academics and athletics. “I was studying on buses, I was studying in the hotel, I was just always studying. I was never really not
doing anything. And it was hard, but once you get in the flow of it and know that, OK, I’m going to study my note cards at this time and then look at the PowerPoint at this time and then take a nap at this time and then wake up and then do something else, it got easier.”
Lucas credits her dermatologist back home with inspiring her career choice. She had eczema since childhood and struggled with acne as well, “and I feel like especially once I got acne, my dermatologist really helped clear that up and get my confidence back. And so I wanted to be able to do that for other people.”
“I think I’ve grown into my leadership,” she says. “I’ve always been a lead-by-example type of person because I’m more of a naturally quiet person. But I feel like this year I’ve been using my voice a lot more, and especially with the younger girls, just telling them that it’s OK to make mistakes. You have to grow with it and just get comfortable.”
“She’s a very fun-loving person,” Thompson says. “She’s pretty quiet, but she does a good job of getting to know her teammates. She has a good heart and wants what’s best for everybody.”
Lucas fondly remembers a sophomore victory over Connecticut at home on Senior Night, calling it “probably one of the happiest moments I’ve felt playing volleyball.” Other memorable matches include collecting her careerbest 23 kills in a triumph over Butler University in 2023 as well as the team’s grueling five-set victory over rival DePaul that same season, a match that saw Lucas slam 13 kills. “An exhilarating feeling,” she says of that win.
It’s the same feeling that Lucas and her powerful and crafty hitting have provided Pirates fans for five seasons. n
Shawn Fury is an author based in New York City.
alumni
70s
Kenneth F. Kobularcik ’72 has published a fifth book in his Going for a Walk with Papa children’s series. His latest book, Going for a Walk With Papa: The Pool Story, was published in February. Kobularcik was also certified and approved as an “Honored Listee” by The Marquis Who’s Who Publications Board in 2024. Homer L. Hartage ’75 published his book Family and Professional Guardianship in May. This guidebook helps readers navigate the complex world of legal guardianship, offering insights on how to balance safeguarding vulnerable individuals while managing their legacies, preserving their dignity, and securing their autonomy. Patrick G. Longhi ’75 celebrated 30 years as a program chair and ethics lecturer at Continuing Education Seminars for Georgia lawyers. The Daily Report featured an article honoring his 30th anniversary, and his October 2023 seminar was published online and is available for purchase. Additionally, Longhi’s article, “Fundamental Ethics in Law and Society,” was published by the Georgia Bar Journal and distributed to its 55,000 members.
80s
Eric Yang ’87 of Columbus Saint Peter Church was honored as the Catholic Man of the Year in 2023 by the Catholic Men’s Luncheon Club in his Columbus, Ohio, diocese.
90s
Jennifer (Baker) Kamienski ’94 was honored as one of the 2024 PRNEWS “Top Women in the Industry” as someone who has advanced in the field of public relations and communications. Ilyse S. Dolgenas Mc Keon, J.D. ’95 was named one of 12 new partners at the international law firm Withers across its teams and regional offices, effective July 1, 2024. Sunny M. Sparano ’97, a shareholder in Marshall Dennehey’s Roseland, N.J., office, was elected to the
firm’s board of directors in December 2023. Elaine A. Rocha, J.D. ’98 was named chair of Seton Hall Law School’s Board of Visitors in 2024. Margaret (Paul) Price, M.P.A. ’98 celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary on Sept. 24 with Christopher Price. The couple was married in the University’s Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 24, 1999.
00s
Eric Crespo ’02 was named the 2023-24 Hudson County, N.J., Superintendent of the Year. Robert M. Kane Jr. ’04/M.S.P.A. ’04 joined Deloitte Tax LLP’s Washington national tax office as a managing director in 2024. Thomas G. Cimochowski ’06 was elected as partner at CohnReznick, a global tax and accounting firm. Hank J. Conant ’06 was appointed to creative lead at Hale Advisors, a consulting agency for life science companies. Timothy D. Cedrone ’06/J.D. ’09 joined Lafayette College as general counsel on June 17. Ryan M. Jennings ’07/J.D. ’10 was appointed to the board of directors of the Transportation Management Association of Chester County, Pa., and to Unruh Turner Burke & Frees’ zoning and land use and municipal departments. He also was appointed chair of the Chester County Bar Association’s Young Lawyers’ Division for 2024. Ronald E. Brandt, M.A.E. ’08/Ph.D. ’18 earned a master’s degree in Jewish history from Touro University in 2024.
10s
Anton R. Heldmann ’12 was promoted to associate vice president of equity research at Stifel Financial Corp. in 2024. Joel Plainfield, J.D. ’13 was named partner at the national law firm Saul Ewing LLP, serving as outside general counsel to clients, advising company executives, boards and members and managing corporate governance issues. Omid Irani ’15/J.D. ’18 was elected chairman of the Iranian American Bar
Association Foundation in January, and reelected to the executive board. In April he was sworn in as president-elect of the Bergen County Bar Association’s Young Lawyers’ Division. Jennifer L. Collins ’16 was named associate director of digital communications at the Senate Republican Office of the New Jersey Legislature. Matthew S. Lamb ’18 is an associate producer at NBC Sports. He was in Paris this summer covering the 2024 Olympics, working with a team that covered men’s and women’s gymnastics.
20s
Timothy Knapp ’23 joined the Archer & Greiner law firm’s summer associates program in 2024. Ahmed Shehata ’23 was nominated by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to serve on the State Board of Education in June. Steven T. Higgins ’24 has begun his career as a wealth management adviser at Rockline Wealth Management.
In Memoriam
Father Edward J. Ciuba ’51
Jules Spada ’52
Robert Charles Riehl ’61
Lieutenant Richard L. White ’62
Patrick A. Guzzo ’63
Louise A. Nunnink ’63
Robert T. Coppoletta ’65
John Kennedy Sr. ’65
Dennis E. Apelt ’66
William McNiece ’66
Arthur T. Smith ’66
Carmen F. Disimoni, M.A.E. ’69
Richard E. Dooley ’69
Sister Marie A. Moltz ’74
John L. Whalen Jr. ’74
Raymond Czarnecki ’75
Akiko H. Okada ’75
Scott P. Albergate ’77
Stephen P. McEvily, J.D. ’88
Christopher P. Albano ’98
Broadcasting from Home
PROFILE
When Siobhan McGirl ’17, a South Jersey native, was hired as a reporter for NBC10 Philadelphia last January, she was coming back to work in the area where it all began for her.
Her career started with a newstudies program at KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia, just across the Delaware River from her home in Washington Township, New Jersey, when she was a student at Gloucester Catholic High School. That experience sparked her desire for a career as a journalist, which she pursued with vigor upon enrolling at Seton Hall.
While working toward her degree in broadcast journalism, McGirl completed five internships —four of them in the New York City market — and was a news anchor for both Pirate TV and WSOU radio before she graduated. Through her involvement with student organizations, being a resident assistant and volunteering in a mentorship program, she developed as an empathetic and understanding person, she says.
From her first full-time job at WDBJ7 in Roanoke, Virginia, where she won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting, to working at NBC Connecticut for four years, McGirl believes in her role as a community news reporter.
“With the nature of this job, sometimes you are reporting on people’s darkest moments … there are also days where we get to cover people’s most joyous moments,” she says.
One of the happiest stories she has covered dealt with sisters who got to meet the man who received their father’s heart in an organ donation. McGirl was part of the news team that was invited to document the occasion and became part of the moment when the sisters were able to hear their father’s heartbeat again.
She says many of the stories she has covered have opened her mind to think about topics in a different way and teach her something new, and she takes pride to now work as a broadcast journalist in her hometown.
“Now being home and getting to go to different community events … and learn about the issues and challenges they’re facing and about the triumphs they see, it’s a feeling like no other.”
She also offers guidance for the next generation of broadcast journalists, as they prepare for success.
“Learn everything. There are so many different opportunities at Seton Hall to learn the skills needed to become a multiskilled journalist.” |
ZACHARY
COONEY
Photo courtesy of Siobhan McGirl
Pirate Babies
1. Rebecca (Townsend) Schultz ’13 and Bradley Schultz welcomed a girl, Chloe Schultz, on March 13, 2024.
2. Jen Sasso (Liesch) ’13 / D.P.T ’16 and Roberto Sasso welcomed their son, Jordan Sasso.
3. Maddie King ’17 and Dylan Burns welcomed a girl, Elaina Madison Burns.
4. Chelsea (DeFelice) Doughty ’14/M.S. ’18 and Brian Doughty welcomed twins, Vienna Paige and Scarlett Jean Doughty, on May 1, 2023.
5. Julia (Kauffman) Van Ness ’18 and Stephen Van Ness welcomed a boy, Theodore Charles, on March 22, 2024.
1. Stephanie (Rigor) Garcia ’11 married Benjamin Garcia at the Immaculate Conception Chapel on June 11, 2022.
2. Kathleen E. (Cericola) Drake ’16/ M.S.P.A. ’16 was married on June 8, 2024.
Pirate Pride
1. Kevin Scimecca ’16 and his mother, Terese Reilly Scimecca ’80, at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.
2. Gail F. Fuchs-Seely ’69, her husband and granddaughters at a Seton Hall men’s basketball game.
3. JoAnn (Borysewicz) Denton ’77 with her husband G. Byron Denton ’77 and Barton “Bart” Harlow ’77 at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
4. Donna M. Cusano-Sutherland ’83 celebrated more than 40 years of friendship down the shore this year with classmates and fellow Pirates Vivian Floria DiStaso ’83 and Judy Watkins ’83.
5. Melissa (Caroselli) Ficuciello ’84/M.B.A. ’92 on an anniversary trip to Porto, Portugal, in April.
6. Christine Mercado-Spies ’02 and four fellow alumni from the Class of 2002 at the Hôtel de Glace in Quebec, Canada, during a trip in March.
7. Maritza A. Ahmed, M.P.A. ’03 at the Wat Chayamangkalaram Thai Buddhist Temple in Penang, Malaysia, next to the Reclining Buddha.
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Have you been promoted? Earned an advanced degree? Been honored for professional or personal achievements? Recently married? Added a baby Pirate to the ranks? We want to know.
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Several members of the Class of 1988 celebrated nearly 40 years of friendship during a weekend reunion in Nashville, Tenn.
The Joy of Toys
From its start as a student-led effort in 1986, Seton Hall’s toy drive has grown into a beloved Christmas tradition. Along with the tree lighting ceremony and other annual holiday events, the toy drive fosters a season of joy that made Seton Hall the No. 1 university for Christmas nationwide, according to Best College Reviews.
Last year the toy drive, sponsored by the Division of Volunteer Efforts (DOVE), collected more than 500 toys, as well as online donations from more than 100 people.
Seton Hall magazine editor Pegeen Hopkins spoke with Michelle Peterson, assistant vice president of service integration, to learn more about the program.
How did the DOVE toy drive start?
Five students on their first mission trip to Appalachia felt a void — they wanted to do more for the people they encountered that summer. So they created a toy drive, working with a sister in West Virginia and developing wish lists for each of the children they met. All these years later, we still serve children from that same West Virginia community, though we now serve a lot of local agencies in New Jersey as well.
What does DOVE’s support to the community look like?
Our online campaign provides for a holiday meal and a clothing refresh for the orphanage in Haiti we serve and support.
More locally, we provide toys for schools in Newark, the Maplewood South Orange School District, the Don Bosco Youth Center and the children served by St. John’s Soup Kitchen. We also fulfill last-minute requests for toys for other families in need.
How does the drive operate?
Starting in mid-November each year, we advertise the annual online fundraising campaign and the toy drop-off collections made throughout the holiday season.
We create toy tags for donors that list the gifts children wish for, showing their age and gender, ranging from trucks and sporting goods to dolls and beauty products. The tags help highlight that we have children from birth through 18 who need Christmas gifts.
Once the drive has ended, DOVE mission director Amanda Cavanagh, several work-study students and I go to the local Walmart in blue Pirate Santa hats to purchase toys for any children we’re missing items for. Additionally, a group of dedicated administrators and staff pool their own donations and host a shopping event for the DOVE Toy Drive, totaling 325 gifts last year.
On University Reading Day, we have a party where students wrap toys for the children in Appalachia. Other toys remain unwrapped, because parents come to several of the local locations to pick out what their children might want.
We then deliver the toys locally and make the drive to Appalachia. Amanda drives the toys to West Virginia. She’s been involved her whole life, really. Her mom, Jeanine, launched the program originally.
How can people support next year’s toy drive or other DOVE projects? People can donate money through our online campaign. They can also review our Amazon Wish List, donate a gift at one of the in-person events like the tree lighting or Breakfast with Santa, or simply drop off a gift to our office at any time. Each donor who comes to the office gets a blue Santa hat with an embroidered Pirate patch on it, which stands out at the annual tree lighting ceremony. Separately we have a drive in the spring to address food insecurity. And we fundraise for students traveling on our annual mission trip to El Salvador.
Anything else?
Seton Hall’s toy drive showcases our Catholic mission and keeps us focused throughout the season on the spirit of Christmas and the joy of giving. n
Seton Hall prepared me for an amazing career, which afforded me the ability to save for retirement. I have the pleasure of giving back to help students have the same experience, in a tax
LINDA J. SCHAEFFER ’73 SCHAEFFER EXCELLENCE ENDOWED FUND AND STILLMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS DEAN’S ADVISORY COUNCIL
