On Tuesday, Nov. 14, the campus community celebrated Cabrini Day, an annual celebration of heritage and mission honoring Cabrini’s namesake, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.
Each Cabrini Day, classes are canceled and students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to participate in the day’s mission-oriented activities and educational programming. The 2017 theme, Connecting Through Culture, celebrated multiculturalism as a way to promote learning and communication about diverse cultures.
Programming for the day included a Presentation Forum, in which students presented research, programs, and activities; an awards presentation, in which students received awards for their commitment to leadership and service and winners from the morning’s Presentation Forum were announced; a lunch, in which faculty and staff volunteered to serve; a keynote presentation titled “The Trouble with My Name,” presented by celebrated author and Northampton Community College Professor Javier Ávila, the 2015 Pennsylvania Professor of the Year; a Walk for Immigration; and an interfaith dialogue, “Connecting Our Journeys: How does Cabrini help you be you?”
“Mother Cabrini was just a great model for us, a symbol of courage and unconditional love for the stranger, a true example of selfless compassion and love for her God,” said Jeff Gingerich, PhD, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. “Mother Cabrini didn’t necessarily have superhero powers to do the work that she did and to have that impact. She had the same human abilities that we all have and the same ability that we do to make decisions to work toward a caring society that is just and fair and compassionate. She followed her heart and went wherever there was a need in the world. As members of the Cabrini community, we now follow in her legacy and model, and we have a responsibility and the ability to carry out her mission.
“Today we celebrate the many students who are doing the work, who have taken the courage to speak out against bias, to call many of us to task to work harder to create a more inclusive and just institution,” said Gingerich. “We celebrate all the students who are reaching out to those who are less fortunate and who are learning about their connections to the world around them. The world needs this kind of leadership and service.”
Recipients of the Charles A. Mastronardi Award for Service and Leadership—a prestigious scholarship that recognizes outstanding contributions to leadership in service to the community—are Nia Alvarez-Mapp (’19); Jessica DiProspero (’18); Eric Lodi (’18); Kristina Pilat (’19); Malachi Purnell (’19); and Molly Seaman (’18).
2017 Mastronardi Award winners (from left) Molly Seaman ('18), Malachi Purnell ('19), Eric Lodi ('18), Jessica DiProspero ('18) and Nia Alvarez-Mapp ('19) with Jeff Gingerich, PhD, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; winner Kristina Pilat ('19) was unable to attend the award ceremony.
The Nerney Family Leadership in Community Service Award, which promotes Cabrini’s mission of providing an Education of the Heart, was awarded to Fabrine DeOliveira (’19); Yorkenia Gomez-Almonte (’20); and Thomas Ngo (’20).
An award new to Cabrini Day, the Newman Civic Fellowship, acknowledges motivation and potential in public leadership. Fellows are nominated by college and university presidents and chancellors for their demonstrated commitment to finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. Kristina Pilat (’19) received the inaugural award.
Awards from the Presentation Session were selected for their representation of Cabrini’s spirit and mission.
Carmen Frias (’18) and Cecelia Heckman (’18) took the Poster Award prize for their poster titled “Rape Culture: From the Victim’s Eyes” (faculty mentor Cathy Yungmann, COM 474 Senior Honors Convergence Program affiliation).
Jerry Zurek, PhD’s ECG 100: Our Interdependent World (a part of the Communication: Telling Stories That Matter Learning Community)’s “Get In Line: A Simulation of U.S. Immigration Problems and Options for Improvement” took the Presentation Award prize, with student contributors Shaiza Ali, Jason Archer, Nicholas Conroy, Kathryn Davis, Amber Garrison, Anthony Gatto, Brian Genao, Christopher Giacobbe, Amy Gilette, Ja-Lisa Glover, Melanie Hart, Jake Kaeser, Samuel Labarge, Max Lenet, Reginald Loper, Nicholas Marcellino, Alonso Puentes, Sophia Solitro, Jiarui Sun, and Gabrielle Thompson (all first-year students).
In the “Get in Line” simulation, participants chose an immigrant persona and had to navigate the trials and tribulations of emigrating to America, complete with varying outcomes based on political policies and processes, crime and poverty rates, and even “the luck of the draw,” evidenced by a spinning wheel that determined possible effects.
Presentation Session winners received $100, to be awarded to the charity of their choice. Frias and Heckman awarded their $100 to Mil Mujeres Legal Services, a direct service 501(c)(3) organization that provides comprehensive immigration legal services to low-income Latino families.
For pictures from the day’s programming, check out the Cabrini Day 2017 album on Cabrini’s Flickr.