Dr. Petillo's Blog

President Petillo's Blog: Friday, April 25th

I want to start this week by welcoming everyone back from Easter break. We are in our final run of the semester with commencement right around the corner. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were gathered in the Pitt Center welcoming the class of 2017 to campus.

Despite the short week of classes, we had a lot going on here this week. Tuesday was the Faculty Institute that takes place each semester. This time, it included a special academic convocation where an honorary degree was awarded to noted author, scholar and human rights activist Conor Gearty. Conor was also the keynote speaker for the Institute on the subject of “Global Awareness and Terrorism.” During his talk, he pointed out the way in which broader global understanding changed the way that people thought about that idea. This broadening of thinking is what we mean at Sacred Heart when we talk about global awareness as a necessary learning outcome for students in the 21st century.

From left are President Petillo, Conor Gearty and Rev. Robert Kinnally.

On Wednesday, we kicked off a series on women in leadership titled “Women Can Have it All.” The series is hosted by University Trustee Linda McMahon, and the first guest was her daughter, Stephanie, who serves as chief brand officer for World Wrestling Entertainment—the family’s company. She had plenty of great advice for the young women—many from the Welch College of Business—who packed the Schine Auditorium for this event. Among her many suggestions were to line up as many internships as possible, find a mentor and avoid the pitfalls that come with social media. If you missed it, you can see a video of the event here.

Linda and Stephanie McMahon

Other events on campus this week included a talk by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, author of Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy; a French film discussion; a program with Fairfield native Dylan Connor featuring his protest songs; an Interfaith Conference on the beauty of nature in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions; and a Veterans Night of the Arts, presented by Hearts United, with poetry, music and drama from a group of talented veterans.

Left: At the interfaith conference are Professor Marie Hulme, Rabbi Suri Krieger, Michael W. Higgins
and Ayse Kubra Coskum. Right: Kathleen Fitzpatrick presents her talk in the library.

We are in the midst of our mid-term review of the University’s strategic plan. We have already made the decision to extend the five-year plan into 2017. Senior leaders have also made recommendations for updating the five goals to reflect internal and external changes since it was finalized 2 ½ years ago, and these have been shared with the original subcommittees for each goal. We are now looking for feedback from the entire University community. The changes were outlined in an email from Rupendra Paliwal earlier this week. You can provide your feedback to him via email, or you can attend an open meeting in the Pitt Center Board Room either Monday from 2-4 p.m. or Thursday from 1-3 p.m. These goals are critical to our success, and we need everyone to be invested in them.

This week, the Athletics Department announced that our student-athletes have donated 12,919 hours of community service during the 2013-14 academic year. Not only did this surpass their goal of 10,000 hours, but it is almost double the amount of hours served during the 2012-13 academic year. We will announce the total number of hours contributed by students, faculty and staff soon, but our athletes have gotten us off to a great start!

I hope you had a chance to stop by the Academic Festival in University Commons today. It’s a great opportunity to see the research and projects that students have been working on all year. The range of subjects is fascinating, and the students are eager to show off their expertise by explaining their process and answering your questions.

Today is the final event for admitted students, and more than 200 students and their families are on campus to find out about the opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities such as Greek Life, clubs, student government, club sports and more.

Tonight is our annual Relay For Life event, which is organized by a student group to raise money for cancer research. The event starts at 6 p.m. in the Pitt Center and continues for 12 hours. I encourage you all to stop by at some point to support the students and the cause. In honor of SHU’s 50th anniversary, the team has set an aggressive fundraising goal of $50,000. So far, they have raised over $35,000, but they still have a way to go. If you are unable to attend the event, but would still like to support the cause, you can do so here.

I’m sure you all are aware that Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized as saints this weekend. Our local expert, Dr. Michael Higgins, can be heard on this subject in a one-hour documentary on CBC IDEAS this evening. In addition, an article he wrote on the subject appeared in The Globe and Mail today and can be found here.

In addition to the Relay For Life event this evening, there is something for all musical tastes on campus this weekend. This evening the Faculty Brass Quintet presents “Music for Brass and Organ” in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow SHU L.O.V.E. will present a pops concert, and the instrumental chamber ensembles will perform Sunday afternoon.

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy the weekend!

President Petillo’s Blog: Friday, April 11th

I want to start this week by welcoming some special visitors. We have five Fulbright Scholars from Brazil who are here in the U.S. for 18 months and will be at SHU through the end of the summer studying English in the Intensive English Program offered through the English Language Institute. So far they have been enjoying living in Fairfield and loving their time on our campus. Welcome to Vitoria, Filipe, Mariana, Dennis and Bruno.

We also welcomed this week about 60 admitted students from the surrounding area here in Connecticut. They attended a reception in the art gallery Tuesday evening.

Speaking of Tuesday evening, I hope you had a chance to stop by this year’s Dancing with Heart event. It was a great mix of talent and fun. Congratulations to winners Susan Gannon and Stephan McNicholas.

Also on Tuesday evening, Professor Janet Boughton performed on the violin in the Chapel as part of the Faculty Concert Series. We have talent everywhere we look.

We had a special event for donors last weekend, and after dinner we headed to the Edgerton for the student performance of Chicago. It was another tremendous display of talent. We certainly picked a great way to show our guests the kind of programs their gifts are supporting.

Another great showcase of student talent was the second annual “Sing Out! A Concert Against Bullying” that was reprised Wednesday afternoon in the Chapel. I wish more faculty and staff members had been able to get there. The music selected by 4 Heart Harmony was very personal as were the testimonies shared by some very brave students who want to ensure that others don’t experience the bullying that has been part of their lives. This is an important concert that should be on all of our calendars every year.

Other events on campus this week included speakers on “Women with HIV-AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa” and “The Persian Gulf and the Arab Spring: Reactions and Future Outlooks,” and Glenn Patterson was here to discuss his latest novel, The Rest Just Follows. We also heard from Julia Balfour on the keys to success with social media.

Congratulations to Nicole Trudell ’14 of the bowling team. She was named a second team All-American by the National Tenpin Coaches Association Wednesday night at the NCAA Bowling Championship banquet. This honor makes her a three-time All-American as she was named to the second team and NTCA Rookie of the Year in 2010-11 and the third team her sophomore season. Earlier this year, she was also named to the All-Northeast Conference first team and the Northeast Conference Championship All-Tournament team. Kudos to Nicole and best of luck to her and the rest of the team as they head to the 2014 USBC Intercollegiate National Championship beginning Wednesday. 

Congratulations are also in order for Professor Damon Maulucci who is getting rave reviews for his recently released film, Detonator. The most recent one came from VARIETY, which described it as a “fine feature debut” and “punchy drama.” The film has also been praised in the Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice and more. It is available through iTunes and OnDemand.

Our Relay for Life Team is continuing to work toward their aggressive goal of $50,000 (to commemorate our 50th anniversary). Please consider helping them by organizing a team or sponsoring team members. To create or join a team, or to make a donation, please visit www.relayforlife.org/sacredheart. You should also consider stopping by the event on April 25 at the Pitt Center. It begins at 6 p.m. and continues for 12 hours. It is always filled with both fun and moving moments. We all have been touched by cancer or know someone who has, which is why this event should have meaning for all of us.

Tomorrow is our 25th annual Discovery Gala, which is our major fundraiser of the year. All the money raised goes to student scholarships. This year’s Gala, which includes the Beach Boys’ performance in the Edgerton, is sold out, and we have raised a record-breaking $750,000 for our students.

Linda Lavin will be on campus Sunday as part of the American Legends series. She is a Tony winner and Emmy-nominated actress who won two Golden Globes for her title role in the long-running TV series, Alice. She will be at the Edgerton for conversation and Q&A.

Enjoy the weekend!

President Petillo's Blog: Friday, April 4th

We received the good news this week that the John F. Welch College of Business is included in Bloomberg Businessweek’s ninth annual ranking of the Best U.S. Undergraduate Business Schools. A total of 132 U.S. undergraduate business programs are included in the magazine’s 2014 rankings. This is the first time we have been on the list. Congratulations to the Provost Laura Niesen de Abruna, Dean Chalykoff and the faculty and students at the WCOB on this outstanding achievement.

We have also learned that the speech-language pathology program has been awarded candidacy, the first stage of accreditation conferred by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA) of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association (ASHA). This status is awarded to new programs that demonstrate compliance with the Standards for Accreditation as outlined in CAA’s Standards Compliance Continuum, for an initial period of five years. The program is also fully licensed by the State of Connecticut Office of Higher Education. Congratulations to Rhea Paul and her team on this important accomplishment.

In addition, our s.w.e.e.t. peer educators won the award for “Outstanding Peer Education Group” at the NASPA/Bacchus Network Area 10 (New England) Spring Conference last month. While there, they presented a program entitled, “Stand Up & Speak Out!” on bystander intervention. Congratulations to the team both for the award and for getting the word out on this important topic. 

A big round of applause goes to our winter guard on their championship performance at this past weekend’s MAC competition. They took home the top prize, which was a fitting finale to a successful season. Great job, ladies!


Congratulations also to the club figure skating team for placing fourth in the Northeast Section of the USFSA Collegiate Figure Skating Competition at the University of Delaware. They fought off some tough competition to land in the top five.


This week, members of the community has the opportunity to attend two colloquia—a series of short films aimed at clarifying the confusion on water pollution, which was presented by the Green SHUs environmental club, and a screening of the documentary, Inequality for All, that follows former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich as he attempts to raise awareness of the country’s ever-widening economic gap.

We also screened Schooled: The Price of College Sports, which was produced by Bobby Valentine, SHU’s executive director of Intercollegiate Athletics, and film producer Andrew Muscato. Following the screening, a lively discussion took place on the issues raised by the film, including the large sums of money brought in by college sports, whether student-athletes should be paid beyond their athletic scholarships, the massive NCAA rulebook and the way it is applied and much more.


Gary Rose was the keynote speaker for an event on campus sponsored by the Fairfield League of Women Voters entitled “No Holds Barred.” He shared some of his conclusions on the 2012 senate race—garnered from his research for his recent book on the same topic.

Our final Irish-music lecture of the spring took place on Thursday and featured Eamon O’Leary and Jefferson Hamar, members of The Murphy Beds, on Irish bouzouki and guitar.

Our percussion ensemble will be traveling to Hartford this weekend to perform at the Percussive Arts Society Connecticut Day of Percussion. This is the Connecticut chapter’s version of the international convention held each fall by the Percussive Arts Society. It celebrates percussion with master classes, clinics and performances by top Connecticut percussionists. This is the ensemble’s third year performing at the conference and we wish them much success and a great time.

Unfourgettable, 4 Heart Harmony and student soloists will reprise the second annual Sing Out! A Concert Against Bullying on Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Chapel. I highly encourage all members of the community to attend this uplifting and moving event.


If you are looking for something to do on campus, you have a variety of musical options from the Fontenay Chamber Players and Chopin Musical Inspirations concerts on Saturday to the student performance of Chicago throughout the weekend. Whatever you decide to do, enjoy the spring weather and have fun!