By Hannah Gordon
Assistant News Editor
Far too often students take the close-knit community here at St. Bonaventure for granted. The opportunity for students to communicate personally with the president of their university is not common at other schools. Realizing St. Bonaventure forms special bonds is essential to the SBU experience.
Tuesday night, the third floor of Robinson Hall hosted “Pizza With The President.” When I first heard the phrase “Pizza With The President,” I was more than confused. When I showed up for the event in the lounge, I expected to hear a short speech from Sister Margaret Carney, O.S.F., and then we’d get our food and leave.
Instead, Sister Margaret sat down in a circle formation with the residents of the floor and asked everyone their name, hometown and what brought him or her to St. Bonaventure. After all the introductions, we spoke openly with Sister Margaret about our concerns, things that needed to be changed or fixed around our building, suggestions for the school and, of course, our favorite things about St. Bonaventure so far.
It was empowering to see an authority figure genuinely care about our concerns and want to help. Sister Margaret clearly isn’t the only one on campus who cares, though. There are countless professors, deans and other faculty and staff members who make a point to get to know their students and help them excel however they can.
On Wednesday, I had a nearly hour-long conversation with Sandy, arguably the sweetest employee in Hickey Dining Hall. She was just curious about what I was doing over mid-term break and how classes were going for me. She told me about her long weekend (her first day back was Wednesday) and I showed her pictures of my dogs. As a freshman who has only been here for half a semester, being on a first-name basis with the dining hall workers isn’t something I expected. No friend of mine who went to a different university can say they’ve had that experience.
Students at other schools also can’t say that so many of their professors have a general open-door policy. I can’t speak for other majors, but as a journalism and mass communication major, whenever I walk into Murphy I say “hello” or have a conversation with at least one J/MC professor. What’s even more impressive to students of other schools is that I’ve walked into Dean Hoffmann’s office just to talk about how our days have gone.
This closeness is reminiscent of my high school experience at Immaculata Academy, a small, all-girl Catholic-Franciscan school. The difference is that I graduated with a little over 50 girls, not a little over 500 students. Thinking about the amount of students that each faculty member comes into contact with makes it even more amazing that they have so much interest in each individual student.
This whole experience, I’ve learned, is called “the Bona Bubble.” Well, I think that we Bonnies, no matter what age, major or year, should remember to appreciate the time and effort the caring faculty and staff of St. Bonaventure put into their work and making our time here enjoyable and memorable.
gordonhr13@bonaventure.edu
