Many journalism students know her as the engaging professor full of “shameless plugs.” However, Carole McNall, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, originally planned to attend Syracuse University until falling in love with Bonaventure during her first visit to campus.
“My guidance counselor said, ‘Have you looked at St. Bonaventure’s journalism program?’ and I hadn’t,” McNall said. “I came down here for what was then called Press Day, now Comm Day, and walked around saying ‘I can see myself here.’ Little did I know.”
McNall, a self-proclaimed Beatles fan and cat lover, said that although current students hold their own, basketball games were just as rowdy during her time as a student.
She added that she even witnessed food fights in the Hickey Dining Hall.
“The first game of the season, you were either involved in the food fight or you learned to grab your food quick and go eat it in your room,” McNall said.
McNall added that she wouldn’t be surprised if there were remnants of these food fights on the Hickey Dining Hall’s walls during the building’s renovations.
Although the campus may have changed aesthetically, McNall said the overall student body’s mentality is very much the same, especially in the journalism school.
“It’s been essentially consistent,” she said. “But we, as a program, have grown significantly, and we’ve managed to continue that feeling that JMC is a family.”
As an undergraduate, McNall said she made life-long friends, such as current journalism professors Rich and Anne Lee, which carried over into her life after Bonaventure.
McNall met Stephen McNall while with friends in the Rathskeller, which she said used to be a popular student hangout. The two sat in the Rathskeller talking the entire night they met, and that started their long-term collegiate relationship.
“I was proposed to in the basement of De La Roche Hall,” McNall said. “We were doing some work, I said something and he came back with some sort of wisecrack. I said, ‘What am I going to do with you?’ and he looked at me very seriously and said, ‘Marry me.’”
While McNall graduated from Bonaventure with both a husband and a degree, she said she never anticipated that she would find herself back at the school teaching full time.
McNall originally planned to be a reporter and editor. She worked a number of jobs before coming back to Bonaventure, reporting and announcing for local radio station “The Pig” and working for The Olean Times Herald.
After what she called a “career crisis,” she enrolled in the University at Buffalo Law School, worked for a law firm and came back to Allegany, teaching a constitutional law and a business law course at Jamestown Community College.
McNall said that, not soon after, she was asked to teach a course at Bonaventure, which began her assimilation back into the campus and life as a full-time professor.
Today, McNall has worked at Bonaventure for 12 years, and she doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon, due to her love of the Bonaventure community, she said.
“A friend of mine who’s about to retire keeps asking me, ‘When are you going to retire?’” she said. “I keep looking at him saying, ‘I have no plans to do that anytime soon.’ And part of that’s the community. It’s just a fun group of people that I’m around.”
Looking back on her time as a student at Bonaventure, McNall said the biggest piece of advice she has for students is to never take the Bonaventure experience for granted.
“For some, take your studies more seriously. For others, take a break and go do something other than studying. Appreciate the experience while you’re here and the people you’re getting to know and care about.”
This is the fifth installment in the “Professors from Bonaventure” series. Check out future issues for more!
mcgurllt14@bonaventure.edu
