CCPS Opens Deckinger Center for Integrated Advertising Communications

The Deckinger family’s contributions advance the University’s advertising program.

The Drs. E. Lawrence and Adele V. Deckinger Center for Integrated Advertising Communications at St. John’s University opened Sept. 20, making it the newest addition to the Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies (CCPS). The center is equipped with Mac stations, Cintiq drawing monitors, format printers and video display screens.

Dorah Ganchoso, senior advertising communications major and president of Category 5 — the student-run ad agency at St. John’s — shared her experience with The Torch. “The opening ceremony of the new Deckinger Center consisted of immense gratitude and inspiration. It was great to hear multiple CCPS faculty speak so highly of the advertising and PR programs that St. John’s offers,” Ganchoso said. “The Deckinger Center is exactly what Category 5 needs in order to be in the right direction. I’m excited to lead this agency knowing that we have the tools and resources to succeed.”

The late Adele V. Deckinger and Elliot Lawrence Deckinger, Ph.D. — who studied and taught at St. John’s — passed away in 2002 and 2008. A year before his death, the Deckinger family founded the E. Lawrence and Adele V. Deckinger Advertising Fund.

Dea HOxHa | Sept. 26, 2022

“We are so thankful to the Deckinger family for their generous donation, as well as their faith in St. John’s, its advertising program and most importantly its students,” Ganchoso said. “This specialized learning environment gives students the opportunity to receive hands-on experience like you would in any advertising agency.”

Deckinger worked for the Biow Company and Grey Advertising from 1937 until 1982, when he became a Marketing professor at the University, retiring in 2007, about one year before his passing. While teaching at the University, Deckinger managed to aid in bringing the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) to the University. Deckinger was awarded for his efforts with the President’s Medal.

Ganchoso was part of the NSAC at the University last year. “That was a great experience and such a wonderful opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the advertising industry,” Ganchoso explained. Her team placed third in the region.

Following the center’s opening, associate professor John A. Swan Jr. announced the new Advancing Advertising Scholarship Fund. The center is intended to further opportunities in the field while honoring the late professor and his wife for their contributions to the University.

St. John’s Plan To Retain Staten Island Students

The Staten Island campus will shut its doors in Spring 2024, but the University hopes to transition students to Queens.

When St. John’s University’s Staten Island campus closes after the Spring 2024 semester, the school’s administration hopes the freshmen and sophomores currently studying there will relocate to the Queens campus. The University has operated a satellite campus in Staten Island for the last 50 years, with the main campus located in Jamaica, Queens.

To make that proposition feasible for Staten Island students, St. John’s is offering a financial aid package that goes beyond what the University typically offers. The aid is supported by the “Staten Island Heritage Endowment Fund,” which allocates $1 million in scholarships to Staten Island students who transition to Queens, the University announced in a press release.

“We’re putting together a pretty enticing package for them to be able to come,” said St. John’s President Brian Shanley on the likelihood of Staten Island students continuing their studies in Queens, in a January 2023 interview. “If we’re going to get them to stay at St. John’s and graduate, we think we’re going to have to find a way to get them to live here.”

University spokesperson Brian Browne said that St. John’s is “more or less” offering free housing to Staten Island students who want to live on the Queens campus starting in the Fall 2024 semester, but noted that the details were still being ironed out as of January 2023.

The University is conducting focus groups and student surveys to gauge interest, but Shanley said it was too soon to tell how many students will take up the offer.

When contacted in April 2023, the University would not confirm that Staten Island students are being offered free housing, despite Browne’s earlier comments.

“It is hard to speak of specific benefits as each student and their situation varies,” Browne said in an email. “Regular outreach and engagement with impacted students are ongoing, and the University is making various accommodations for Staten Island Campus students based upon feedback from impacted students and their families during multiple listening sessions.”

The University hopes that the transition from Staten Island to Queens will be smooth, since all academic programs offered on Staten Island are simultaneously offered on the Queens campus. To limit the disruption of students’ academic careers, St. John’s is offering accelerated degree programs, five-year programs and summer courses to Staten Island students.

“The Academic Task Force and multiple members of the St. John’s community are working individually with each student to make the transition to Queens as smooth and transparent as possible either as a new resident student in Queens or as a commuter,” Browne added.

“From a lot of the underclassmen that I’ve heard from, if they’ve not had the opportunity to graduate early, they are seriously thinking and probably going to the Queens campus,” said Ang Brusgard, secretary of The Bolt, the student multimedia production organization of the Staten Island campus, in a February 2023 phone interview.

Staten Island students are being told that their tuition — which is significantly cheaper than that of students on the Queens campus — will remain the same if they relocate. This reflects the University’s initial statement on an FAQ page titled “Staten Island Teach-Out,” where St. John’s says students will keep their current tuition, including aid for any program-specific rate differentials, if they remain continuously-enrolled in a degree program.

“It’s the freshman and sophomores that we’re concerned about,” Shanley said. “We want to retain those students.”

The decision to close the Staten Island campus was preceded by internal discussions regarding the campus’ future that spanned at least a decade, according to Shanley. Before that, the University did not renew the lease on its Hauppauge campus in Long Island in July 2022 — which replaced the Oakdale campus that was sold in 2016 for $22.5 million.

“We still have a footprint in Manhattan,” Shanley said. “And I think we need to think about the viability of that footprint going forward.”

St. John’s is shifting its focus towards the Queens campus, but it remains to be seen whether freshman and sophomore Staten Island students will finish their programs at the University.

“I think that the University’s resources are better used in Queens than Staten Island, given the number of students on Staten Island,” Shanley said.

St. John’s Unveils LGBTQ+ Center’s New Home

The center provides an open environment for queer students on campus.

The St. John’s University LGBTQ+ Center opened Sept. 30. Located in St. John’s Hall Room 216, the center provides an open and welcoming environment for queer students on campus.

The center is a “University-wide resource and research hub for students, faculty and employees,” according to the University’s website, “Its purpose is to organize, coordinate, and innovate LGBTQIA+ issues in the St. John’s University ecosystem to create and sustain an open and welcoming environment for LGBTQIA+ students, faculty and employees.”

Founded and co-directed by Drs. Candice Roberts and Shanté Paradigm Smalls, the LGBTQ+ center is the fruition of their efforts. As the “faces of the center,” Roberts and Smalls have spent years assessing the needs of queer students that failed to be met on campus, they told The Torch.

“In 2019, we started to want a cohesive, connected and visible LGBTQ presence on campus,” Roberts said. “We wanted to do something bigger. We wanted to do a little bit more.”

The center was officially named in Fall 2021, but did not have a home until today. “Last year was our year of trying to get our name out there and trying to do more events,” they continued. Many of the LGBTQ+ Center’s events included film screenings and gatherings in conjunction with the LGBTQ+ student organization Spectrum. The center not only is a space for queer students, but also is a place of employment. The center offers work-study and graduate assistantships for interested students. The positions are open to all eligible students regardless of orientation, but employees must “demonstrate knowledge (or desire to learn) of marginalized communities and historically underrepresented groups,” according to the employment listing.

Sophomore undecided major Irene Barlis is an undergraduate student worker for the LGBTQ+ center.

“I usually sit at the front desk, and if anyone needs anything they come in for any resources they need,” Barlis told The Torch at the center’s opening. Some of these needs include instructing students on the school’s chosen name policy, providing an all-gender bathroom and being a sanctuary on campus.

“Students can do their work if they want to, or if they need a breath throughout the day. If they feel there’s anything we can add to our space, they can do that too,” Barlis continued. “I hope it keeps growing. I honestly didn’t know about it until I applied to work here, so I hope it grows and people can know about and utilize it more.”

As for the center’s future, Dr. Roberts believes it is bright. “We’re looking forward to building something with all the St. John’s community members.”

They shared their vision, which includes increasing their resources in order to “create and innovate” a research hub for St. John’s students as well as visiting scholars.