Dr. Petillo's Blog

June 29, 2012

I have been in Luxembourg this week for Sacred Heart University’s 20^th Commencement exercises for students attending the John F. Welch College of Business in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. With me is Jim Morley, who recently took on the role of chairman of SHU’s Board of Trustees. While here, we had a meeting with the Luxembourg Board of Regents. It was great to have a chance to thank them in person for their efforts on behalf of SHU.

The graduation ceremony was beautiful, and the weather cooperated with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s. It was my great honor to confer MBA degrees and a Graduate Professional Certificate in Global Investments. In addition, we conferred a degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on Michel Wurth, senior executive vice president and CFO of ArcelorMittal, which is the world’s largest steel company. He is also chairman of the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Union des Entreprises Luxembourgeoises and vice-chairman of the Luxembourg Red Cross. He followed up with a thought-provoking commencement address to the graduating class. The students, their families and guests also had a chance to hear from the incoming dean of the Welch College of Business, John Chalykoff, and from their fellow students François Roser, who gave the Alumnus Award Address, and Valedictorian Didier Robart.

This was also a special week for a much younger group of students as 32 youngsters who will be in first and second grade in Bridgeport in the fall began Horizons at Sacred Heart on Monday. Over the next six weeks, they will participate in academics, arts, cultural programs, sports and will learn to swim.

We officially launched the Horizons at Sacred Heart program with a reception on June 7. At that time, we heard from Paul Vallas, Bridgeport’s interim superintendent of schools, who emphasized the great things that can be done when entities such as SHU and the Bridgeport Public School system collaborate. Greg Middleton, executive director of Horizons at Sacred Heart, also spoke at the launch event. He shared that one 5-year-old program participant lost his mom during the past school year and, with no dad in the picture, is now living with his grandmother. As you might expect, this has been a sad and scary time for this young man. He is the reason why I am so excited to bring Horizons at Sacred Heart to this campus. We have the opportunity to truly make a difference in the lives of children who statistically might otherwise fall through the cracks. I look forward to sharing more news about this important program as we move through the summer.

Have a wonderful weekend and a happy Independence Day!

 

June 21, 2012

For those of you who haven’t already seen it, I want to provide you with a link to a slide show entitled The Year in Pictures 2011-2012. It depicts the activities and events here at SHU during the past academic year, beginning with members of the freshman class moving in and ending with graduation. It is an impactful reminder of everything we accomplished during the past year together as well as the reason that we are all here. I know you will enjoy it as much as I did. To view the show, click here.

I want to thank Tracy Deer-Mirek, assistant director of Communications, who not only put this montage together, but also took many of the photographs that captured so many of the great times we had this year at SHU. I’m hoping SHU’s Year in Pictures will become an annual tradition.

Stay cool, and enjoy the weekend!

 

June 15, 2012

We said a reluctant farewell to our good friend Jim Costello recently at a dinner honoring him for his 25 years of service to Sacred Heart University as a member of the Board of Trustees. When Jim first joined the Board, Sacred Heart was still a commuter college with almost no endowment. Not only has Jim seen many changes during his years here, but he was instrumental in making some of them happen. His dedicated service and faithful stewardship of our finances allowed us to grow our endowment and led to many of the physical changes we see on our campus today. We are grateful to Jim for his guidance, friendship, wisdom, humility and support of Sacred Heart’s mission, and we wish him all the best as he takes more time to relax and be with his family.

I had the chance to be in New York City for the NEC Awards ceremony where Sacred Heart received the Brenda Weare Commissioner’s Cup, which is awarded to the top athletic program in the Northeast Conference; the Joan Martin Women’s Commissioner’s Cup; and the second annual NEC Building Communities Award, which recognizes the institution that demonstrates the highest dedication to making an impact in the community through the efforts of its student-athletes, coaches and administrators.  We also finished second behind Monmouth for the Men’s Commissioner’s Cup.

Our student-athletes have much to be proud of.  A total of 300 SHU student-athletes were named to the Northeast Conference Academic Honor Roll for 2011-12, and 48 are on the NEC Commissioner’s Honor Roll for posting a grade point average of 3.75 or higher.  Four student-athletes were named Scholar Athlete of the Year for their sports. Congratulations to junior Joshua Salah (men’s golf), senior Callan Taylor (women’s basketball), junior Jacqueline Carbonetto (bowling) and senior Samantha Kee (women’s soccer). Finally, the members of our Division I teams finished this past spring with SHU’s highest-ever student-athlete GPA – an impressive 3.23. They are true champions – on the field, in the classroom and in the community. Congratulations!

While I’m on the subject of sports, I want to extend congratulations and best wishes to Bertony Jean-Louis, who graduated from Sacred Heart in May and is awaiting word as to whether he has qualified to participate in the Olympic trials for the 110-meter hurdle. A hamstring injury during the winter was a setback for Bertony, but he is hoping that a lack of automatic qualifiers will allow him to make it to the trials, which begin June 21 in Eugene, Oregon. Bertony earned first-team All-Northeast Conference honors in the 110 this past spring with a league-record time of 14.02.

The last group of incoming freshman and their parents were here for orientation earlier this week, and it was a pleasure to welcome them to the SHU community. All of the class of 2016 will be reading Wes Moore’s bestselling book, The Other Wes Moore – One Name, Two Fates, over the summer. In the book, the author, a former paratrooper in the U.S. Army, describes his interactions with another man named Wes Moore who is two years older and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an off-duty Baltimore police officer. He explores the different paths that two men with the same name and from the same neighborhood have taken. The author will be on campus September 5 as part of the Student Affairs Lecture Series.

Students from the Stratford Public Schools had a chance recently to take a field trip to Long Island Sound and work with SHU’s Drs. Jennifer Mattei and Mark Beekey on Project Limulus, which involves the study and conservation of the American horseshoe crab. This is just another example of how we can expose younger students to the variety of experiences a college education provides.

Congratulations to Dr. Jacquie Kelleher, assistant professor of Education who, along with the rest of the state-appointed Bridgeport Board of Education, received the Bridgeport Regional Business Council’s 2012 IMPACT Award in the category of Educators of the Year. The award was presented at the BRBC’s annual meeting and luncheon on Wednesday.

It looks like another beautiful weekend! Have a fun and relaxing time!

 

Welcome to the class of 2016! Members of the incoming freshman class and their families were on campus for orientation this week with the final session slated for Monday and Tuesday. It was great to meet some of these new members of the Sacred Heart community as they interacted with the faculty, met with advisers about their fall schedule and got their first taste of life at Sacred Heart during an overnight stay. Students stayed at Roncalli Hall during their visit, while parents had the option of participating in dorm life or finding offsite accommodations. There was also time for socializing with dinners, a barbecue, a dance and bingo – activities that gave the students their first opportunities to get to know their new classmates.

A separate series of events for parents covered such topics as financial assistance, career services, athletics, academic support services, residential life, commuter life and much more. I don’t want to wish the summer away, but I am looking forward to having these bright, energetic and optimistic students on campus full time!

We have gotten great interest in our pre-college program that provides high school junior and seniors with the opportunity to earn college credits during the summer. Especially popular are Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Economics, the Health and Wellness Seminar, Financial Accounting & Reporting, Academic Writing and Modern College Math. There are still openings in all our pre-college courses, and we are looking forward to giving these teens their first taste of college life, along with a jump start on the credits needed for a college degree.

Congratulations to the staff of WSHU on the station being selected as the best college radio station in the Best of Fairfield 2012 edition of the Fairfield County Weekly. The article pointed out that the station not only caters to the Sacred Heart community, but to all its listeners, which leads to financial support of the station.

The weather report for the weekend sounds spectacular! Have a great time!

It’s been a special and exciting week for our Athletics Department as the news came on Tuesday that we won our fifth consecutive Brenda Weare Commissioner’s Cup, tying the league record for consecutive cup wins. Sacred Heart also took its sixth-straight Joan Martin Women’s Commissioner’s Cup, which extends our own league record. With this win, we tie UMBC’s record for consecutive Commissioner’s Cup wins. We just need one more cup victory to equal the all-time record of six shared by Fairleigh Dickinson and Monmouth.

We had barely caught our breath when we learned yesterday that Sacred Heart is the winner of the second annual NEC Building Communities Award. We also won the inaugural award last year. The award recognizes the institution that demonstrates the highest dedication to making an impact in the community through the efforts of its student-athletes, coaches and administrators. Overall, conference members donated an impressive 26,000 hours of community service. Our student-athletes alone contributed 6,625 hours to that total. This award is especially meaningful to me because it epitomizes everything that Sacred Heart stands for – a commitment to community involvement and social responsibility. The volunteerism from our Athletics Department was part of an overall commitment of more than 50,000 volunteer hours this year by students, faculty and staff.

Congratulations to our student-athletes, coaches and athletics administrators for an outstanding year both on and off the playing fields. You did us proud!

Before I wish you all a wonderful weekend, I want to congratulate the students in our Masters of Arts in Communication Program on an outstanding event this past Tuesday evening. The SHU Media Exchange offered guests the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of a moderated panel of local media experts. The panel included Vinnie Fusco, general manager/executive in charge of NBCUniversal Stamford Media Center; Meryl Moss founder/president of Meryl Moss Media Relations; Bud Grebey, vice president, Corporate Communications, Tronox, Inc.; and Kip Bergstrom, State of Connecticut executive director of the Commission on Culture and Tourism and was moderated by John Seigenthaler of NBC Nightly News and Seigenthaler Public Relations. The program drew a large crowd who heard about the opportunities available locally to graduates with a background in media, as a result of the expansion of Connecticut’s “Creative Corridor” and the emergence of the media industry in our state. The MACOMM program plans to make this exchange an annual event, and they have created a great model to build on.

Have a fun and relaxing weekend!