Dr. Petillo's Blog

It seems as though I was just watching you all unpack and move into the dorms, and now you are wrapping up your final exams and getting ready for the winter break.  I had a chance to stop by the Late Night Breakfast in the Chartwells dining hall Monday night. The faculty and staff volunteers were dressed in festive attire as they served a study-break breakfast to students. I love this tradition, because it epitomizes the reason we all come to work every day – to support our students.

Congratulations to the women’s basketball team for breaking the top 25 in the College Insider's Mid-Major poll. The women, who are off to their best start in program history with a 9-1 record, ranked 24. This is the first time the Pioneers have ranked in the poll this season. Led by Callan Taylor and freshman Gabrielle Washington, the women are averaging 67.3 points per game.
 
Did you have a chance to attend either the Christmas Extravaganza by our choirs or the Holiday Voyage by the concert band last weekend? If you did, you experienced some amazing musical performances. Alumna Allegra DeVita was back to perform as a special guest of the choir. It was wonderful to welcome her back again and hear her incredible voice.


The holiday festivities continue tonight with our third annual performance of the Messiah in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. The chapel is the perfect setting for this magnificent work, which will be performed by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and the Cathedral of Saint Joseph Schola Cantorum. Our grateful appreciation goes out to the generous sponsors who helped make this event possible.
 
Since this is the final blog of the semester, I want to take a moment to wish everyone a happy and blessed Christmas and a fun, relaxing winter break. Let’s enjoy the holidays and time with our families and friends and then come back refreshed for another successful semester.

It’s been a busy few days for the concert choir as they were among the groups that performed at the Service of Lessons & Carols last Sunday and then also performed at the Christmas tree lighting Monday evening and at the Advent Wreath Lighting Service on Wednesday. In each instance, they did a beautiful job and contributed to the feelings of joy, awe and gratitude that we all experience during the Christmas season.

You have another opportunity to see the choir perform on Saturday when they join the Pioneer Choir, 4 Heart Harmony, the Liturgical Choir, SHU LOVE and the Women’s Quartet for the Christmas Extravaganza. The concert will feature popular, Broadway, jazz and traditional Christmas songs and holiday music. Past experience would suggest that this is an event not to be missed!
 
We usually reach out to our alumni this time of year to suggest a year-end gift to the annual fund. After a few years of having professional fundraisers contact alumni, University Advancement returned to the practice of having current students reach out for donations.  I had a chance to stop in at the phone-a-thon a couple of times this past week to chat with the students working the phones. From what I observed, both students and alumni were enjoying the opportunity to chat about their experiences at Sacred Heart. More importantly, the fundraising was an unqualified success.

The University has received a special gift from Dr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Hartman. They are donating their collection of scholarly works on the holocaust to our library. Dr. Hartman and his wife amassed the collection while doing research for the Holocaust Survivors Film Project. As the Hartmans prepared to move to a smaller home, they began looking for a place to donate their collection of works on the holocaust. The work going on at Sacred Heart’s Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding tipped the scales in our favor. We are grateful for the gift and expect it to be a valuable resource for our students and faculty.
 
Still on the topic of giving, our annual Adopt-a-Family for Christmas program concludes on Monday with delivery of baskets to the Golden Hill Methodist Church and St. Charles Parish. Members of the Sacred Heart community quickly committed to providing food, toys, hats, scarves, mittens and more for the 75 families in our list. In addition, there were single donations of food items and gift cards that will be gratefully received. While it gives me great pleasure to share this news, I am not surprised. Your spirit of generosity is evident year round, not just at Christmas.
 
Our annual Christmas party for faculty and staff was a wonderful chance to relax and celebrate both the Christmas season and the winding down of another successful semester here at Sacred Heart. I was thrilled to see more than 500 people turn out for delicious food, great conversation and festive music.
 
Our new provost, Laura Niesen de Abruna, Ph.D., officially joins us on Monday. We are excited to have her here and look forward to the vast experience and creativity she brings. If you haven’t met her yet, be sure to introduce yourself and welcome her to Sacred Heart.
 
Another semester is coming to a close. I want to take a moment to wish our students the best of luck as they wrap up their classes next week and take final exams.
 
Last, but certainly not least, I want to mention that in addition to the Christmas Extravaganza Saturday night, the concert band will present Holiday Voyage on Sunday afternoon. This is a special farewell performance as they prepare for their first-ever international tour to Ireland. I hope you have a chance to check out the great musical performances by our extremely talented students over the weekend. Whatever you decide to do, enjoy yourselves.

It was nice to get back to campus after a relaxing holiday weekend and find everyone in the Christmas spirit. There’s a definite difference in the air as we begin to celebrate the joy of this blessed season. Many of you have already adopted a local family and are busy shopping for food and gifts to make their holiday bright. It’s so important that we thank God for what we have been given and reach out to those who need our help.

Speaking of giving, two SHU students, Javier Vidal and Michael Wright, are making plans to lead the seventh delegation for the Mission Matters Mississippi trip.  Sacred Heart students have been aiding in Hurricane Katrina relief since 2005. This is a student-funded trip, and the group needs to raise $12,000 this year. They have set up an online donation site for those who would like to help.

I also want to share a link to a video, Pushing Back the Wave. This video was created by Greg Golda and Steve Wrinkle in our Media Studies Department and shows the destruction seen by the first two groups of Sacred Heart volunteers who visited Louisiana after Katrina struck.

We recently received exciting news that the Nursing program has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA). The money will be used to add a state-of-the-art SimMan 3G patient to the program’s simulation laboratories. It may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but it’s actually pretty amazing. The SimMan allows the nursing students to observe and record most vital signs. His eyes respond and react to light, and he can bleed, sweat, cry and even froth at the mouth. I’m told that working on him is the next best thing to assessing a real patient. He will allow students the experience of caring for a patient with multiple problems so that they learn to establish priorities, apply the concepts they’ve learned in the classroom and use their therapeutic communication skills. Congratulations to Dr. Anne Barker, Nursing chair, and Dr. Virginia Harris of University Advancement for this successful grant application.

On Tuesday, we had a reception for Dr. Gary Rose to commemorate his new title of 2011 Connecticut Professor of the Year. The new café in the library was a great venue for the event, and many of Gary’s students and colleagues stopped by to congratulate him on his well-deserved award.

Wednesday evening, I had the opportunity to lend my culinary skills to Chef Carol’s team in the Iron Chef competition. The three groups of contestants had to produce a recipe that included fall harvest beets. Congratulations to chefs Mark Tammone, Kirk Bartholomew, Mark Beekey and Natasha Sousa on their first-place win.

Congratulations to the Greek life students on a tremendously creative and successful fundraiser. They organized a see-saw-a-thon to raise money for a playground at the Six to Six Interdistrict Magnet school in Bridgeport. Students and special guests seemed to be having a great time see-sawing for 24 hours-- from 6 p.m. on Wednesday to 6 p.m. on Thursday to raise money for a new playground at the school. The students set a goal to raise $12,000 through donations and raffles. Visitors who stopped by had the chance to participate in a full slate of activities, including games and contests, a movie and popcorn, Zumba, hip hop aerobics and more. This is the first time the Greek organizations have worked together on a fundraising project and as of this morning, they had raised $10,400 with donations still coming in. Great job! Let’s make this an annual event!

It’s hard to believe it, but the end of the semester is drawing near, which means that it’s time again for Late Night Breakfast!  I encourage faculty and staff members to sign up to help out on December 12. The breakfast – designed to provide energy to students studying for finals – is scheduled from 9 to 11 p.m. in the Mahogany Room. It’s a wonderful opportunity to interact with the students and show them by example that the reason we are all here is to ensure that they are successful.

A round of applause goes out to the SHU women's volleyball team. They claimed the 2011 Northeast Conference Championship with a dramatic 3-1 victory over Long Island just before the Thanksgiving holiday.  Kudos to Kimmee Roleder who posted a match-high 17 kills and was named the tournament MVP.  Elisa Sage was also instrumental with 16 kills on her way to a spot on the all-tournament team.  This victory gives the Pioneers the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for a second straight season.

Mark your calendar for the annual Lessons & Carol service Sunday afternoon, the Christmas tree lighting Monday evening and the Advent Wreath Lighting on Wednesday. These are all wonderful events that are guaranteed to get you in the right frame of mind for the Christmas season!