Dr. Petillo's Blog

There is a season and time for everything. Traditionally, the Thanksgiving holiday is a time for giving thanks and remembrance. As each of us prepares to visit friends and family or welcome them into our homes, I would like to offer my best wishes for a grateful and blessed Thanksgiving. In the hustle of everyday life, this holiday provides a precious opportunity for all of us to take a breath and enjoy the gift of time to spend with our loved ones. Let’s pause for a few moments and recall how fortunate we are to have their love and support every day of the year.

Let’s also take a moment to remember that there are some among our community who may not be so blessed. Let us remember them and, if possible, let us welcome them. This is not only a time for thanksgiving, but also a time for grace. It can be a time to extend and share the richness of our blessings with others who are alone, who have lost someone or who are suffering. Let us all take a brief moment to remember them in our thoughts and prayers.

To those of you who are traveling over the holiday weekend, do so carefully and peacefully. During your travels, cherish the grace that gives you the opportunity to get away and to visit. Let’s all return next week well rested and ready not only to end this semester successfully but to celebrate the joys of the Christmas season together. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Congratulations to Dr. Gary Rose on his selection as 2011 Connecticut Professor of the Year! Gary was in Washington, D.C., yesterday to pick up the award from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He was one of 27 honorees chosen from nearly 300 nominations. Gary’s passion for teaching political science has always made his courses popular among the students—and it’s what makes this award so well-deserved.

Last Saturday’s crisp and cool weather was perfect for a football game, and I had a chance to stop by the Mexican Fiesta Spirit Club event. They did a great job. The food was delicious; the band was outstanding; and faculty and staff were having a great time with their family and friends.

Halftime activities included a celebration of Sacred Heart University’s 10-year anniversary of winning the NCAA I-AA Mid-Major National Championship football title. About 35 former players and their families were on hand to commemorate that achievement. The tri-captains from 2001 joined current SHU football captains on the field for the coin toss at the beginning of the game. Then the entire team was honored during the halftime festivities. Eric Hernandez and Jayson Jarrett – two members of the team who have passed away – were also remembered.

The Faculty Art Exhibit opened on Tuesday and will continue through December 8. The pieces can be viewed online, but I suggest taking time for a visit to the Gallery of Contemporary Art for the full impact of the talent on display. Congratulations and thank you to Jonathan Allen, Thomas Brenner, Stefan Buda, Jacquelyn Etling, Jack De Graffenreid, Peter Konsterlie, Nathan Lewis, Carl Schumann, Anahit Ter Stepanian, Mary Treschitta and Jon Walker for sharing your work with us.

For those of you who are concerned about the future of art on campus—and I do read the Spectrum—be assured that art, including The Collection, will continue to be an essential part of our culture. The Collection will remain in the hallways where it always has been, and we will work directly with the Art Department to find dedicated space to showcase student and faculty art, so we can continue to enjoy and learn from their talent.  I want to reiterate that the decision to close the Gallery was made after many sessions of weighing our strategic priorities and determining the best way to achieve our goals with limited resources. It was not an easy decision, but we made it knowing that art would continue to have an enduring presence here at Sacred Heart.

Members of the SHU community gathered at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit on Wednesday for an interfaith Thanksgiving prayer service. Students, faculty and staff sang together and offered up Muslim, Jewish and Christian prayers. Throughout the ceremony, attendees were invited to light a candle in thanksgiving for the blessings in their lives.

The giving spirit of our community was visible as the altar was crowded with bags and boxes of food that had been collected by organizations, departments and sports teams around campus. That food will be delivered to the St. Charles Food Pantry in Bridgeport and will provide Thanksgiving meals for approximately 500 area families. Student Government is still collecting funds for their goal of 600 turkeys for those in need. If you haven’t done so already, please consider making a donation.

On Wednesday, you should have received a phone call, text and e-mail as SHU conducted a test of its Emergency Alert System. At 2 p.m., the Blackboard Connect Emergency Notification System deployed phone calls, texts and e-mail messages to all registered users with a 96 percent success rate. The test message script was also displayed on the University’s main website, indicated by the Campus Alert symbol, and posted to Facebook and Twitter. SHU’s Emergency Alert System intentionally uses multiple communication avenues to ensure notifications are received immediately one way or another. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to fill out the follow-up survey regarding the test. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DSLM9Q

This week was National Nurse Practitioners Week, and the graduate nursing faculty took the opportunity to celebrate the important work of these unique health-care professionals. They play an important role in today’s health care landscape. In fact, research has shown that they provide high-quality primary care with outcomes that are similar to – or even better than – primary care physicians.

On a related topic, a new report shows that SHU nursing students have achieved a historically high rate on the national licensing exam that they must pass to become a registered nurse. According to the National Council on State Boards of Nursing, our students scored an average of 95 percent on the most recent test. The average pass rate is 87 percent. Congratulations to Anne Barker, the Nursing faculty and the students on a job well done!

Nearly 130 occupational therapy, physical therapy and nursing students turned out Thursday for the College of Health Professions First Annual Safe Patient Handling Workshop. The event was the brainstorm of four second-year graduate students in the OT program who organized it as part of their Capstone project. Kudos to Nicole Corsini, Nathalie Henriquez, Lisa LaBruzzo and Kate Pepe. I continue to be fascinated and impressed by the creativity, passion and forward-thinking of our students.

Next week brings the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I wish those of you who are traveling a safe journey, and I hope you all have a joyous and blessed holiday with your loved ones.

I want to start today by wishing a happy Veteran’s Day to all the veterans in the Sacred Heart Community. As Cynthia Ozick once wrote about this day, “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”  Let’s offer a grateful thank you to all veterans for their sacrifice and service.

Have you had a chance to see the student art exhibit that is currently hanging outside of Outtakes in the Main Academic Building? What a display of talent! There is something for every artistic taste. I am also looking forward to the faculty exhibit that opens in the Gallery next week.

I had a chance to drop in on the Welch College of Business Research Day  event today. It was a chance for the WCOB faculty to present their recently published research to each other and to the business students. It was a wonderful opportunity for them to celebrate their hard work and recognize each other. It also was a great vehicle for the students to get to know their professors better and discover what they are passionate about. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations that I heard, and I applaud the WCOB faculty for their creativity and initiative in putting together this terrific program.

Earlier this week, we published the University’s five-year strategic plan. The five broad goals of the plan are as follows:

• Increase academic excellence and distinctiveness
• Develop a student development plan of Learning and Living Outside the Classroom
• Build new facilities and upgrade existing infrastructure to be more competitive
• Strengthen the long-term financial stability of the University
• Deepen the commitment to the Mission and Catholic Identity of the University 

If you haven’t had a chance to read the plan in its entirety, I encourage you to do so. The committees – made up of faculty, staff and students – have worked hard to develop a challenging, but achievable, set of goals. In particular, they have made every effort to incorporate the feedback they received from you during campus forums and discussions. I am looking forward to working with all of you in the coming years to achieve these goals.

The Irish Music and Dance Festival this past weekend had a wonderful turnout. Hosted by SHU’s Center for Irish Cultural Studies and the Milford branch of Comhaltas, the weekend involved a range of activities from music and dance workshops to an all-star concert.

On Sunday, the University community came together to celebrate our annual Mass of Remembrance. This solemn occasion is an opportunity for the Sacred Heart community to honor those who have gone before us, including alumni, faculty, staff, friends and families. This year, the wreath of remembrance held hundreds of names. Many of the attending alumni traveled quite a long way to remember their classmates and professors who have passed away.

Congratulations to the men’s and women’s fencing teams. They had their greatest success ever at The Big One Individual Collegiate Fencing Tournament last Saturday at Smith College. The event featured 485 fencers from 25 colleges. The Pioneer Men won five medals and placed 11 fencers in the top 16 in their respective weapons. The Pioneer Women also won five medals.

Saturday morning, the College of Health Professions is holding an open house for students interested in the Health Professions programs. Attendees will get an in-depth look at the individual programs offered by the College and will have a chance to interact one-on-one with the Dean of the College, professors and current students. The other three colleges held very successful open houses last month. Thanks to everyone for working hard to put these events together and helping students and their families with their college search.

A couple of other great events to look forward to this weekend--the men’s football team takes on Duquesne at noon on Saturday. And on Sunday, we will break ground for the new Pioneer Park softball stadium. The new park will include stadium seating, a new press box, locker rooms connected to both dugouts, as well as a bullpen and batting cage along each foul line. Come and join us!

Have a wonderful weekend!

It’s been a tough week here in Connecticut after Saturday’s extraordinary October nor’easter. Many of our friends and neighbors have been without power for nearly a week. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who has been adversely impacted by Winter Storm Alfred.

I want to congratulate the four faculty members who successfully submitted proposals for the Academic Research Showcase portion of the Presidential Inaugural Lecture Series. They are Dr. Anne M. Barker with Complexity Science: A Theoretical Model to Inform New Beginnings; Dr. Jacqueline Kelleher with Film and Perspective-Taking: Educating Educators on Youth with Autism; Dr. Peter Maresco with The Expanding Christian Marketplace: If You Can Name It, or Make It, the Christian Marketplace Probably Sells It!; and Jennifer McLaughlin with Reflecting on the Bicentennial of the War of 1812. One winner was chosen from each of the four colleges. It was a tough choice for the selection committee as there were many worthy submissions, so I want to thank everyone who took the time to write and submit a proposal. I also want to thank the selection committee for their hard work. We will hear from the winners during the spring semester. It sounds like it will be a fascinating series of lectures.

Although our new provost, Laura Niesen de Abruna, Ph.D., will not officially join us until December 12, we had a welcome reception for her this week, and many members of the university community had a chance to greet her and get to know her.  She already has some wonderful ideas about how her office can support our mission, goals and strategic five-year plan. I am looking forward to hearing more as she gets settled.

The newly renovated Ryan Matura Library is always filled with students, and they have been giving the updated study areas, the warm and inviting furnishings and the new café rave reviews since they arrived on campus in September. On Wednesday, students, staff and friends crowded in for a rededication ceremony to officially introduce the revamped space to University members and the general public. It was great to hear from Trustee Robert Matura about his late wife’s passion for libraries and for books. The library was named in honor of his wife, Bernadette Ryan Matura, in 1993. As we heard during the rededication, patrons have changed the way they use libraries over the years, and libraries have had to change as well. We are proud to offer our students, faculty and staff an updated, modern facility that lends itself to interactive and self-directed learning.

As many of you know, our Web Content Team announced that the firm New City has been selected to redesign SHU’s website. Many thanks to the members of the the Website Redesign Committee --who represent a range of departments across campus--for their time and careful consideration of the candidates. I’d also like to thank the prospective students, current students, parents, faculty and staff across campus for participating in focus groups and brainstorming sessions that will help to inform the design of our new website. It’s great to see this process unfold in such a collaborative manner.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already November, but it is. And that means that Student Government’s annual turkey drive is under way. Last year, 500 turkeys were given to Bridgeport-area families who might not otherwise have had a Thanksgiving meal. This year, the goal is 600 turkeys, and I have no doubt we will achieve it.

The weather forecast for this weekend is a great one, which is a welcome relief after last weekend’s storm. It also bodes well for the students who have signed on to clean up a couple of Bridgeport parks on Saturday through the Office of Volunteer Programs. 

Other campus activities this weekend include the Irish Music & Dance Weekend, celebrating the 60^th anniversary of Comhaltas. The festivities begin this evening and continue through Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday, a day-long workshop in Norwalk will provide invaluable education for pediatric occupational and physical therapists, teachers and parents and will also raise money to benefit the Memorial Christine E. Busher Occupational Therapy Award Fund. Christine was an alumnus and adjunct faculty member at Sacred Heart University and an executive board member and secretary for the Connecticut Occupational Therapy Association. Following her death in 2009, her friends and colleagues at SHU created an award to assist occupational therapy students. The award recipients, very much like Ms. Busher, are those pursuing occupational therapy as a second career.

Have a safe, fun and relaxing weekend!