By Tom Seipp, Managing Editor
On the campus of St. Bonaventure University, grief continues to be felt across the school with the loss of university president Dr. Dennis DePerro.
Since DePerro’s passing on March 1, the university has done an abundance of memorials in honor of its 21st president. Most notably, the basketball teams wore patches displaying the initials of DePerro in brown and white on their jerseys, giving fans watching from home an opportunity to remember the president. On each telecast for games – which included CBS, TNT, ESPN+ and more – commentators have always honored the president.
Additional memorials are being requested to honor DePerro but no immediate plans are in place, although something may be done in the future, said Tom Missel, chief communications officer at Bonaventure.
“We recognize the overwhelming desire to honor him in some permanent way, so I’m sure we will do something, although it’s not something we will likely consider for a while,” said Missel. “We want to make sure that whatever we do is aligned with his wishes as well as his family’s.”
Bonaventure has received many suggestions on ways to honor DePerro but the beloved leader never wanted anything to be named after him.
“He always told colleagues he didn’t want anything named after him when he retired,” Missel said about DePerro. “That just wasn’t his style.”
The Dr. Dennis R. DePerro Scholarship Fund was established upon request of his family immediately after his death, Missel announced. The fund has raised more than $125,000 in cash and pledges in less than a month.
The Student Leader of the Year Award at Bonaventure is being switched to the Dennis R. DePerro Student Leader of the Year Award, according to the Student Government Association. The award will be presented to the top leader of a campus organization who has shown exemplary leadership abilities in guiding his or her organization to success.
“We decided on this because we wanted a way to honor Dr DePerro on behalf of SGA and he was a champion for the students, which is why we thought adapting the student leader award would be fitting,” said Meghan Hall, the vice president of the Student Government Association.
Although DePerro touched many with his legacy, he never was able to attend Bonaventure due to financial problems, but he received his dream job of university president.
seipptw19@bonaventure.edu
