Tag: Emily Steves

#Bonaventure student receives prestigious Murray scholarship

By Natalie Kucko, @nkucko

Emily Steves, a journalism & mass communication student at St. Bonaventure University, is one of the commemorative Jim Murray scholarship winners this year. The $5,000 journalism scholarship is awarded to a select few on behalf of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation. The award calls for an essay contest that asks willing college students to write about and highlight a sports figure on campus. The contest is quite exclusive and is only extended to about 30 colleges nationwide.

Steves wrote about Catie Greene, a former lacrosse player and cross-country runner at Bonaventure. She chose to write about Greene because she was intrigued by her ability to maintain a 4.0 grade point average all throughout college along with her performance on the fields.

The process for this contest was an enduring one. Within Bonaventure alone, there was a competition over who should apply. Once she was selected through a vote from faculty in the journalism school, Steves sent her piece to the Foundation and was declared a winner by some of the top journalists in the country. In addition to this prestigious award, she was given the opportunity to fly to California this past week with the Foundation for a week of planned activities with fellow scholarship winners.

Steves has had a true passion for writing from a very young age. Her inspiration came from her “journalistic family.” Her mother studied English at Bonaventure and her brother Jordan graduated in 2009 with a journalism & mass communication degree. Her brother won the honorable Mark Hellinger Award during his time at Bonaventure, which she always looked up to him for.

Steves started working for a reputable local newspaper for teens in Buffalo, N.Y. called “NeXT.” She also wrote in the Gowanda, N.Y. penny saver and has kept a personal online blog from the age of 14. She continues to post, which includes her insightful thoughts and observances about lessons learned from life.

Her time so far at Bonaventure has been rewarding for her and her writing career. She speaks highly of professors Denny Wilkins and Chris Mackowski, who she says have contributed to her growth as a writer.

She never gave up on her love for writing.

“I don’t remember thinking it’s what I wanted to do,” Steves said, “but I knew I wanted to get there to make it happen.”

kuckonf13@bonaventure.edu

Spring 2012 concert selections chosen

By Mark Belcher, News Editor, @markbelcherjr

ST. BONAVENTURE (Feb. 9) – Members of the Campus Activities Board (CAB) announced tonight Breathe Carolina and The Ready Set as the spring 2012 concert band selections.

Melissa Gentile, president of CAB, announced the April 12 concert, after Norman Ng’s magic show in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Tickets are set at $10, but the time of the concert is yet to be determined.

“We chose (Breathe Carolina) because they have a lot of energy and we wanted it to be a high-energy show,” she said.

Neither band appeared on CAB’s original survey for students.

Gentile said CAB members decided on a band outside of the survey due to budget cuts.

“Our budget decreased slightly this year, and the prices of our prospective artists increased dramatically within a couple of days,” Josh Maxey, performance chair for CAB, said. “We had to begin searching for artists within our budget, and we are lucky we got two bands for such a low price.”

Emily Steves contributed to the reporting of this article.

UPDATE:

Maxey said a newsletter will go out to students today explaining further why CAB looked elsewhere for band selections.

Thisness is more Bonaventure than students think

By Emily Steves, Staff Writer, @SeeEmilyPlay

A search of thisness into Google may reveal what the word means, but it can’t communicate the word’s unique connection to St. Bonaventure University.

The first result in a Google search of thisness is a Wikipedia page mentioning a man named Duns Scotus. Here lies a direct correlation to the required CLAR-207, Catholic and Franciscan Heritage Clare course.

“If you took Cath-Fran, there’s an important Franciscan theologian and scholar called John Duns Scotus,” said Chris Brown, coordinator for residential education and housing. “The term talks about the ways each individual person is unique and gifted, and, in the Franciscan tradition, that’s a gift from God.”

According to Brown, thisness is derived from the Latin word haecceitas. Scotus referred to someone’s thisness as qualities that make the person who he or she is. St. Bonaventure adopted this idea and ran with it -– but with a somewhat different approach.

Each student is an individual who contributes to the university as a whole. Nichole Gonzalez, executive director of residential living and chief judicial officer, and junior Joe Fagan, designed the puzzle pieces to fit the theme.

“It also talks about how we are all unique and gifted but in relation to one another,” Brown said. “Thisness started because there was a student who was concerned about a lot of the recent suicides that have come from bullying.”

Jacob Witter’s concern with the nation’s bullying problem snowballed into the puzzle pieces seen around campus. When the Bona junior approached Fr. Francis Di Spignio, O.F.M. with his concern, Fr. Francis decided to do something about it.

“There was a group of people called together by Fr. Francis from the University Ministries,” Brown said. “(The group consisted of) faculty, staff, students, the student government association and administrators from all over the campus to start talking about what we could do on campus to proactively address the issue of bullying.

“Even if it’s not a major problem now on campus, what we know is it’s a major problem in junior high schools and high schools, and those are the students coming to Bonaventure,” he continued.

There are nationwide anti-bullying organizations, but Brown said, using thisness makes this campaign very Bonaventure.

stevesem11@bonaventure.edu

thisness stumps students

This university advertising plan last throughout the semester

By Emily Steves, Staff Writer, @SeeEmilyPlay

Puzzle pieces decorate the walls across campus. It can be assumed that these pieces fit together, but the word printed on them is the most puzzling piece of all. 

What is thisness? Unfortunately, not much can be revealed about it at the present time, said Chris Brown, coordinator for residential education and housing.

“Basically what we’re looking at is that there will be a series of events that will be connected to the thisness theme and will help unfold what it means,” he said. “The first of those events was the MLK celebration that happened on Wednesday.” 

Brown said the campaign was designed for throughout the fall semester. And, for now, he said only a handful of people on campus know what thisness is. 

stevesem11@bonaventure.edu