September 01, 2013
PC News, Fall 2013
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Doubleday, 2013), a novel by Mark Haddon about a 15-year-old boy with behavioral difficulties similar to Asperger’s syndrome, was selected as the Freshman Common Reading Program book for the 2013-14 academic year.
It is the third year that PC has selected a book for campus conversation. Copies were distributed to Class of 2017 members and transfer students during New Student Orientation in June and were made available to faculty and staff.
When new students arrived on campus for the second part of their orientation in late August, their schedule included book discussions facilitated by faculty and staff. They also had the opportunity to engage in conversation about the book during the summer through an essay contest, online discussions, and weekly trivia contests on Facebook and Twitter.
Class of 2017: Distinct in Diversity
The Class of 2017 — the Centennial Class — is the most diverse in PC’s history and the largest in at least five years.
Some 1,040 students began their freshman year on September 3, up by 40 from last year. Students of color make up 17.4 percent of the class. The students include 13 percent who are first-generation college students. Their average high school GPA was 3.37 percent, with 36 percent ranked in the top 10 percent of their class.
The class includes the largest-ever group of international students at 26, up from 17 last year. Some 132 students were accepted through the College’s new Early Decision process.
New Randall Professor Rooted in PC
Forty years after his last teaching assignment at Providence College, Rev. Paul J. Philibert, O.P. ’58 is back on campus as the Rev. Robert F. Randall Professor in Christian Culture for the 2013-14 academic year.
Father Philibert’s academic specialty is pastoral theology. He will teach two seminars to juniors and seniors in the Liberal Arts Honors Program: Christ and the Church in the fall and Maturity of Faith in the spring. He also will present collegewide lectures.
Father Philibert was assistant professor of theology at PC from 1968-1973. He has taught at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland; the University of Notre Dame; the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, Calif.; The Catholic University of America; and St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. Most recently, he was chaplain at the Dominican Monastery in Lufkin, Texas.
A native of Baltimore, he has a doctor of sacred theology degree from the Dominican Pontifical Faculty in Washington, D.C. He is one of the few members of the Dominican Order to be awarded its highest honor, the Masterate in Sacred Theology (STM), given for singular intellectual contributions to the Church and the Order over a lengthy period.
The Randall Professorship was established in 2002 to honor Father Randall, who taught at PC for more than 25 years in the Department of English, the Development of Western Civilization Program, and the Liberal Arts Honors Program.
Wendel ’13 Chooses Nepal for Fulbright Teaching
Annie Wendel ’13 is spending a year teaching English in Nepal after receiving a competitive, merit-based grant from the Fulbright Program, the flagship international program of the U.S. government.
Wendel, who graduated summa cum laude in May with a degree in public and community service studies, was one of 1,700 U.S. students selected to receive a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant.
She chose Nepal because of her fascination with other cultures. During her years at PC, she worked in social justice ministries in Australia, taught at a boarding school in the Solomon Islands, and studied abroad in South Africa while teaching seventh-graders and visiting Zambia and Zimbabwe. Her home is in Ridgefield, Conn.
Join Business School’s LinkedIn Group
Alumni of the College who majored in business or who work in business careers are invited to join the Providence College School of Business LinkedIn group. The group, meant to complement the College’s Friarlink career group on LinkedIn, will help current students and alumni to connect, network, and share job leads and tips with a greater focus on business.
5 Receive Honorary Degrees at Commencement
College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80 awarded a doctor of religious education degree to author and theologian Rev. Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire Ministries and the commencement speaker, during Commencement Exercises in May. Also receiving honorary degrees were Paul J. Birmingham, founder of the Catholic Schools Foundation in Boston; Dr. Louise J. Buonomano ’76G, retired assistant professor of education at Rhode Island College; her husband, Vito D. Buonomano, D.D.S. ’53 & ’76G, a retired dentist and dental consultant; and Michael A. Ruane ’71, past chair of the PC Board of Trustees and the founder and owner of T.A. Associates Realty in Boston.
PC Helps to Save the Bay
Save the Bay, the nonprofit environmental advocacy organization in Rhode Island, honored Providence College with its 2013 Environmental Achievement Award for the creation of bio-retention gardens on the Slavin Center lawn and near Martin Hall.
The College is the only higher-education institution in the state to adopt a campus-wide stormwater management plan. In 2003, it partnered with the Narragansett Bay Commission to develop a “low impact development” approach to stormwater management.
Bio-retention gardens are hollows that collect and filter stormwater, with plants and soils that remove contaminants as water returns to the ground.
