By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
As St. Bonaventure seniors prepare to transition into “the real world,” a new batch of students are nearing the beginning of their college experience. More than 130 admitted students visited campus for the annual admissions event “Spring Into Bonaventure,” which was held on April 10.
For competitive purposes, university officials were unable to release the number of students who have committed to Bonaventure so far.
The day included a seminar entitled “Making a Big Bang in the Classroom,” a student scavenger hunt, a university club fair and campus tours. The night before these activities, both prospective and current students participated in the retreat at Mount Irenaeus in West Clarksville.
“It’s a chance to see one of the treasured places here before even becoming a student,” Chris Brown, director of First-Year Experience and orientation, said.
To plan “Spring Into Bonaventure,” associate director of admissions Christina Sutphen worked with the office of events and conferences as well as her other colleagues across the campus to coordinate the daylong event.
“[Sutphen] depends on the cooperation of our faculty, staff, students and even some alumni,” Emily Morris, vice president for university relations, said. “It is an enormous undertaking to coordinate the involvement of more than 100 people who help us with this event. We are blessed by the generosity of our campus community members who so willingly and enthusiastically support events like this.”
Natalie Wasek, a freshman accounting major who attended the overnight retreat at Mt. Irenaeus, believed “Spring Into Bonaventure” was a success.
“I personally wanted to continue to make Bonaventure a friendly place and help welcome the students no matter if they were committed yet or not,” Wasek said. “[The prospective students] got to know each other and created friendships and bonds in such a short amount of time.”
Lawrence Hayes, a sophomore marketing major who is also a student ambassador, wanted to show prospective students the ‘Bonaventure spirit’ and how contagious it can be.
“The weekend went very well,” Hayes said. “The families and students who I interacted [with] had nothing but positive things to say.”
Morris said that the university’s intention every year is to present visiting families with “a true slice of campus life,” which includes an in-depth look at academic and co-curricular opportunities available at St. Bonaventure.
According to Morris, the university has received positive feedback from students and parents from surveys taken after each “Spring Into Bonaventure” event.
“It gives [the students] an opportunity to experience the campus in a slightly different way than they have in the past when they attended open house[s] or a weekday or Saturday visit, for example,” Morris said. “We viewed the visitors as future students and treated them to a ‘day in the life’ of a [Bonaventure] student. We wanted to help them to see themselves already as members of the SBU family. I think we accomplished that mission.”
