Dr. Petillo's Blog

President Petillo's Blog: Friday, March 28th

This was an incredibly busy week on campus with a great many programs and events. There was truly something for every interest. We had a lecture on mindful eating and several colloquia—a talk on problem gambling with a first-hand account; a discussion with business leaders and leaders of charitable organizations on why businesses need to consider issues of global and local poverty, health and education; a showing of the film, The Central Park Five followed by a discussion; a talk on domestic workers’ rights and a screening of the film, Blackfish. The John F. Welch College of Business also featured a Q & A with Frank Martire, chairman and CEO of Fidelity National Information Systems (FIS) and vice chairman of SHU’s Board of Trustees. Moderator Linda E. McMahon (also a SHU trustee) asked the right questions to ensure that the roomful of business students benefitted from Frank’s wisdom and experience. We are extremely grateful to all our guests this week who took time to visit and share their expertise about these very important topics. 

It was also a great week for cultural experiences. I am in awe of the talents of our students and staff, and that continued to be the case as I attended the Friends choral program, the Great American Band Concert and a performance of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown over the weekend. I hear last night’s Antonio Carlos Jobim tribute concert by Joe Carter and the Brazilian Jazz All Stars was also incredible.

This week, we hosted a special workshop on affordable housing for the town of Fairfield, which was sponsored by the local neighborhood group, the Stratfield Village Association. It was very well attended, and it was our pleasure to provide a forum for this necessary discussion on an important topic.  

The John F. Welch College of Business hosted a reception in Stamford Wednesday evening to showcase our new master’s programs in digital marketing and human resource management, as well as the Doctor of Business Administration in Finance. All these programs are offered at our Stamford Graduate Center in Landmark Square. The event, co-hosted by the Business Council of Fairfield County, welcomed prospective students, alumni and regional business representatives. Approximately 60 people attended and had a chance to network with colleagues and meet program directors, faculty and staff.  


Once again, it’s nice to see so many visitors on campus today as we welcome more than 400 admitted students and their families, making this the largest admissions event of the semester. Today’s visitors are interested in the College of Arts & Sciences, the Isabelle Farrington College of Education or are undecided. Please make them feel welcome.

Among our 50th Anniversary events this week was a Senior Pub Night at Red’s to celebrate just 50 days until Senior Week. (Can that possibly be true?) The pub was packed with students enjoying the special 50th anniversary cake and the St. Patrick’s Day theme.

Congratulations are also in order for the men’s fencing team for posting its highest-ever team finish at the NCAA Fencing Championships. The team placed 11th in the team competition, winning 50 bouts over the four days of the tournament.

Kudos also to alumna Kate Hann who is this year’s winner of the Nightingale Award at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. The award recognizes nurses who go beyond the call for patient care, volunteer their time and mentor other nurses.  Kate is one of the youngest to ever receive the award.

Our 50th Anniversary Outdoor Movie Night series starts up again next week with a showing of Forrest Gump to celebrate the 90s. Come by for some pizza, popcorn and an Oscar-winning performance by Tom Hanks.

And if you are free Saturday night, I strongly recommend that you go by the Chapel for “Sing Out! A Concert Against Bullying.” Last year’s program of music and testimonies was deeply moving, and I am looking forward to more of the same.  

Have a great weekend!

President Petillo's Blog: Friday, March 21st

Wednesday was our annual Founder’s Day celebration, which is always an important commemoration of our beginnings and a celebration of those faculty and staff members who have dedicated a large chunk of their career to this University. This year, we continued our year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration by awarding the prestigious Bishop Walter W. Curtis 50th Anniversary Medals to five staff members (four current and one retired). The medals go to individuals who embody central elements of the University’s core values in their lives. The honorees were Cynthia Conte, Denise Tiberio, Jamie Romeo, Taveres Tuck and retired staff member Nancy Sidoti. Congratulations again to these deserving employees.

We also honored 73 staff members who have served at SHU for 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 years. Special thanks and congratulations to our two 40-year honorees, Roberta Staples and Albert Wakin. It was great to see so many of you turn out to celebrate these landmark anniversaries. I hope you enjoyed the special 50th Anniversary cake and champagne tower!

If you are noticing a lot of visitors on campus today, we have more than 250 students accepted into the John F. Welch College of Business and their families on hand today to find out more about SHU and the programs offered by the WCOB. Please make them feel welcome.

Congratulations are in order for Amy Tran who is the recipient of an American Physical Therapy Association Minority Scholarship for Physical Therapy. This is a national prize that is awarded to just one physical therapy student. The purpose of the award is to acknowledge and reward demonstrated participation in minority affairs activities and services, the potential for superior achievements in the profession of physical therapy, appropriate display of professionalism as a future physical therapist and academic excellence.

Congratulations also go out to alumna Allegra De Vita ’11, who won the Young Texas Artists Music Competition’s Voice Division Gold Medal and the coveted Grand Prize. In addition to the $6,000 prize, the honor comes with an invitation for a solo performance with the Allen Philharmonic near Dallas.

The fall edition of the Sacred Heart University magazine is a Silver winner in the magazine category of the Collegiate Advertising Awards. The issue focused on SHU’s 50th anniversary, and the cover was a pullout of Nathan Lewis’ “Spirit of SHU” mural. Thanks to Tracy Deer-Mirek and Deb Noack for their hard work on this and every issue of the magazine. To take a look at the recently released spring issue, which also celebrates our 50th, click here.

Lily DiPaola and Jessica LaFlam, co-presidents of this year’s SHU Relay For Life event, are looking for support from the SHU community. In addition to raising money for an important cause, the Relay For Life event is always both moving and fun. This year’s event begins at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 25, in the Pitt Center. Please consider forming a team to raise money or supporting your friends and co-workers who are on a team.

The Wellness Center is offering suicide prevention training and lunch to faculty and staff in support of our many efforts on campus to keep our students safe. With their regular contact with students, faculty members are in an excellent position to recognize students having difficulty. Mary Jo Mason has informed me that 52 faculty and staff have shown interest in this training, and 19 have already completed it. I urge all of you to take part in this very important endeavor. It only takes an hour, and rumor has it that there are delicious rewards for your time!  Call the Wellness Center for more information.

As part of our 50th Anniversary Celebration, we welcomed back three alumni who have published books. Christopher Conway ’92, author of The Road to God Knows Where, Dawn Foss ’06 ’08 MSN, author of I Will Stand, and Adrian Stroud ’82, author of Prisoner of War Number 2378, were on hand to talk about their books, the writing experience and the impact their time at Sacred Heart has had on their lives.

Other offerings on campus this week included a talk entitled “The Evolution of Jealousy” by Barry X. Kulhe, a professor of psychology at the University of Scranton, and “Jane Doe No More” with survivor Donna Palomba, who shared the details of her complex case that led to the capture of sexual predators. 

There’s also lots to do on campus this weekend—in addition to getting outside to enjoy the spring weather before winter-like temperatures return on Monday. Tonight there will be a screening of the film, Besa, about the way Muslims in Albania went to extraordinary lengths to save Jews from the Nazis during World War II. Tomorrow night is the Friends choral program, and Sunday afternoon is the Great American Band Concert by the University Band. In addition, performances of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown continue throughout the weekend in the Little Theatre.

Enjoy the weekend!

President Petillo's Blog: Friday, March 14th

I am heading back to campus today after a trip to Florida, but I did not want to go two weeks without writing a blog, especially when so many great things are happening on campus. With my daughter away at college for her freshman year, it was nice to continue our family tradition of spending her spring vacation in Florida. We all enjoyed the chance to relax together.

We received a lot of good news this week, including that SHU is ranked 17^th on The Princeton Review’s just- published list saluting the best graduate schools to study video game design for 2014. SHU was the only Connecticut school to appear in the top 25. Congratulations to Dom Pinto, Bob McCloud and Frank Sardo for their outstanding efforts in making our program such a great success!

We also learned that we have been awarded the JedCampus seal, which is awarded to schools that exhibit comprehensive programming in both mental health promotion and suicide prevention. Mary Jo Mason and the rest of the staff at the Wellness Center have worked hard to build up these programs on campus, and this award indicates that they are on the right track. Congratulations to all!

Congratulations to Sarah Pfeffer, who recently graduated from our master’s in communication program. A film she produced while doing an internship with the Biology Department, entitled Project Limulus, has been selected for a screening at the Beneath the Waves Film Festival during the Benthic Ecology Meeting in Florida next week. A tip of the hat also to Tracy Deer-Mirek whose photos were used in the film. In addition to the screening of Sarah’s film, Professors Jennifer Mattei, Mark Beekey, Michele Guidone and LaTina Steele will be presenting at the meeting.

Julie Savino was in Hartford this week to speak before the legislature in support of the Governor’s Scholarship Program. She also offered some suggestions to eliminate some of the challenges that have surfaced in administering the scholarship program. Our thanks to Julie for discussing this important issue.

Our Horizon program’s participation in the Fairfield Community Foundations Day of Giving last Friday was a great success. In conjunction with the New Canaan Horizons program, we raised more than $12,000. Out of the 270 charities that participated in the event, Horizons was sixth in funds raised and 38th in number of contributions. Our heartfelt thanks to all of you who went online and made a donation.

More than 300 families of students admitted into our School of Nursing are on campus today, and we are expecting more than 400 families of students admitted into the College of Health Professions to be here tomorrow. As always, we ask that you go out of your way to be friendly and helpful and give them a taste of the special community we have here at Sacred Heart.  

It’s exciting to see how much progress has been made on the construction of our new academic building on the corner of Park and Jefferson—especially considering the relentlessly cold and snowy winter we have had. The insides of the building are already beginning to take shape.


As always, there were some interesting programs on campus this week for the SHU community and our neighbors in area towns. These included a talk by Tim Zimmerman, co-writer of the documentary film Blackfish, as part of the Student Affairs Lecture Series. An award-winning writer, he has reported on everything from extreme cave diving to communicating with dolphins. There was also a panel discussion on criminal justice in the 21st century to commemorate Criminal Justice Month. And this week’s colloquia celebrated Women’s History Month with a talk by Yi-Chun Tricia Lin, president of the National Women’s Studies Association; offered a discussion on creativity by Professor Leesa Sklover; and included a showing of the controversial film Compliance, which tells the story of how strip-search scams were perpetrated on female workers in fast food restaurants around the United States.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, you won’t have to stray too far from campus. Comedian Eric O’Shea is performing tomorrow evening, and the legendary Jack Jones will be here Sunday afternoon. The grand opening and a reception for the Student Art Exhibit in the Art & Design Gallery at the Edgerton is Sunday afternoon with awards presented at 1 p.m., and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown will be performed in the Little Theatre all weekend.

Have a great weekend!