Iona College

A d va n c i n g

the

Legacy

The Story of Iona College 1940–2015

A d va n c i n g St. Columba statue

the

Legacy

The Iona Quad: (from left) Cornelia Hall, ginkgo tree, St. Columba statue, Doorley Hall

A d va n c i n g t h e L e g ac y T h e S t o r y o f I o n a C o ll e g e 1940–2015

“Exegi monumentum aere perennius.

—I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze— From Horace’s Odes, inscribed on a memorial plaque to Brother Patrick B. Doyle on the Iona Quad: “Friend, naturalist, scholar, man of God, a founder of Iona.”

75 Years Founded 1940

Copyright Š 2015 Iona College All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Iona College.

Iona College 715 North Avenue New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801 914.633.2000 www.iona.edu Manuscript based on earlier research by Brother Charles B. Quinn and Brother Harry Dunkak Other Contributors Suzanne Augustyn Casey DelliCarpini Suzanne Flood Dawn Insanalli Rick Palladino Lisa Romano Paul Sutera Todd Wilson Photography The Iona College Collection Managing Editor Rob Levin Design Rick Korab and RenĂŠe Peyton Indexing Bob Land Book Development By

Covington, Georgia www.bookhouse.net

Iona College North Avenue main entrance and Ryan Library

A d va n c i n g t h e L e g ac y T h e S t o r y o f I o n a C o ll e g e 1940–2015

Contents Foreword x Acknowledgments—The Iona Story Keepers xiii Part I

Crossing the Atlantic—From the Isle of Iona to Long Island Sound 1 Part II

Brick by Brick—A Campus Grows 9 Part III

At the Helm—Strong Leadership, Decisive Action 29 Part IV

Life at Iona—Something for Everyone 81 Part V

The Vigor of the Gaels—Sweat and Glory at Iona 101 Index

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Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice and students statue, Iona Quad

Foreword One could say that the publication of Advancing the Legacy—The Story of Iona College has been 75 years in the making, as we are celebrating our diamond anniversary in 2015. After all, a polished diamond is made from an otherwise unattractive stone, and only after the rock is shaped, carved and polished does the brilliant light shine through. So the diamond out of the rough would be an accurate metaphor for what Iona College has evolved from in 1940 to what it is today.

The only problem is that a diamond is a finished product, and Iona College’s story is anything but complete. Since Brother Cornelia first took the reins as president, the College has been cut and carved and shined and buffed and rebuilt time and again, and like any great college, it will continue to be polished for its entire future.

Though Iona College’s ancestral roots date back more than 1,000 years—to the Isle of Iona—I recognize that it is young when contrasted to the world of gems.

But I will submit to you that we have far more value than any of those shiny stones. Our gems are the thousands of students, faculty, and staff who have turned into brilliant lights spread across the globe, every one of them carrying the Iona message—and that of the Christian Brothers—that you not only go into the world, but you move the world.

I have been more than honored to work at this college for virtually all of my adult life—I have truly been blessed. Iona College has done more for me than anybody can ever know, and my love and appreciation for it runs deep. I am immensely pleased to have been able to work on this history (following the excellent example set by Brother Charles B. Quinn in his Iona College: The First Fifty Years), but my efforts were simply to capture on paper the events of the past. The real work was done by the many others who came before me and will continue with the many others who come later as the College continues to be shaped and polished, more brilliant by the day.

—Harry Dunkak Brother Harry Dunkak Ph.D., ’51 is history professor emeritus at Iona College and has been a member of the College faculty for almost 50 years.

The High Cross at Iona College, erected to celebrate the College’s 50th anniversary in 1990–91

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Acknowledgments

The Iona Story Keepers Advancing the Legacy—The Story of Iona College would not have been possible without the studious, prolonged, and exceptional historic research and writing efforts of Brother Charles B. Quinn and Brother Harry Dunkak. Though they knew each other, they worked on this history at separate times, with Brother Quinn’s book—Iona College: The First Fifty Years—taking the story into the late 1980s and Brother Dunkak’s ample research picking up where Quinn’s book left off.

This present book would never have made it to press without their deep knowledge of this wonderful College and for that, Iona College is grateful. Also, many thanks go out to Peter Kollmann ’06, whose detailed archive of athletics at Iona College comprise the material for Part V on sports at the College. Richard Palladino ’76, ’89MS, Director of Libraries, time and again provided background research material and historical perspective (as well as numerous photographs, many that he took himself over the years) that could not be found elsewhere, while Paul Sutera, Senior Vice President for Advancement and External Affairs, and Todd Wilson, Senior Director for Communications, tirelessly answered questions and forwarded critical information when needed. Additionally, Iona College expresses its gratitude to the 75th Planning Group for coordinating the many events connected to this milestone anniversary. Please go to www.iona.edu/75 for a list of these talented faculty, students, staff, alumni and friends and more about the 75th celebration.

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PA R T I

Crossing the Atlantic— From the Isle of Iona to Long Island Sound

The scenic coastline and pleasant weather of the Inner Hybrides, an archipelago off the southwest coast of Scotland, belies a complicated, and sometimes violent history of the region. And of the communities and islands that make up the Hybrides, the island known as Iona witnessed more than its share of difficulties.

Occupied by speakers of multiple languages dating to the Iron Age, the Isle of Iona eventually became home to a groundbreaking monastery founded in 563 by Columba, who was born into Ireland’s ruling class, but decided to become a monk instead (later named a saint). Either due to self-exile from Ireland, or because of his participation in the Battle of Cul Dreimhne, he and 12 associates settled on Iona.

In time, the island became a successful center of religious study and learning as the monks practiced what became known as Celtic Christianity and likely began work

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there on the Book of Kells, according to scholars. But life was not easy—there were disputes with the church and in about 800, Viking raids destroyed the monastery, forcing the surviving monks to retreat to the Irish mainland. But by then, the Isle of Iona’s reputation as an early symbol of education was set.

Eleven hundred years later, in the early 1900s, when the Congregation of Christian Brothers searched for ways to service the fast-growing Irish Catholic

1940–2015

population of metropolitan New York, they would look to the ancient educational history of Iona and the work of Saint Columba for inspiration. For the more practical purposes of where to lay brick and mortar, they looked to New Rochelle, a city founded in 1688 by refugee French Huguenots who were fleeing religious persecution. Many of these refugees were artisans from the community of La Rochelle, a seaport in southwestern France.

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PART I | Crossing the Atlantic— From the Isle of Iona to Long Island Sound

She looked the world around—and then She fashioned New Rochelle.”

By the early 1900s, New Rochelle had already become home to several leafy neighborhoods, and in 1902, ground was broken in the Beechmont area of the city. When the lots officially came on the market, interested buyers as well as the merely curious from New Rochelle—a city of about 15,000 at the time—rode through the entrance, past a rustic cabin and into a 160-acre crisscross of winding streets and gently sloping wooded lots that started at an half acre in size and went up from there.

Seventeen years later, in 1919, the Beechmont neighborhood, by then a well-established enclave of New Rochelle’s upper crust (the city boasted four yacht clubs), caught the eye of another group of New Rochelle denizens—the administrators and board of the Iona School, founded three years earlier on Lockwood Avenue by the Irish Christian Brothers, as they were then known. The brothers were surely pleased with the bucolic nature of Beechmont, which was bordered

YZ New Rochelle’s natural beauty and proximity to New York City propelled its rapid growth of a moneyed populace, so much so that by the 1930s, it was the third-wealthiest city in America, per capita. Local poet James Montague, in his poem “Queen City of the Sound,” gushed, “When Nature, seeking upon men to cast a magic spell,

The Abbey and St. Martin’s Cross on the Isle of Iona

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on the west by North Avenue. But doubtless they were also attracted to the convenience of a station of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, a short distance, and from there a 35-minute ride to Grand Central Station. One enterprising New Rochelle real estate agent described the city’s proximity to 59th Street

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YZ It was a warm Sunday afternoon, June 9, 1940, and all over the Iona School campus, proud members of the school’s Mothers’ Club and others gathered to dedicate the new science building, a beautiful stone structure for which the club had spearheaded a $100,000 fund drive. But by the time Monsignor Breslin finished speaking, everyone was “very much surprised and not a little chagrined,” according to a previous history of Iona College, to learn that just the day before, not only had permission been granted to form Iona College on the same campus as Iona School, but that the College would be commandeering the Iona School’s science building for its own when classes began in September. Its new name would be Cornelia Hall, after the College’s first president.

The opening of Iona College was not a total surprise, the unexpected appropriation of Iona School’s science building notwithstanding. The wheels had been in motion for a while, beginning some 900 miles to the north at St. Mary’s College in Halifax,

By the early 1900s, New Rochelle had already become home to several leafy neighborhoods. in Manhattan as only 45 minutes by automobile “without violation of speed laws.” Another attractive feature was the $85,000 price tag negotiated between Br. Joseph Ignatius Doorley and the land’s owner, retired Presbyterian minister Thomas Hall.

The land was purchased, but the officials of Iona School wasted little time admiring its new 18-acre acquisition or the beautiful community in which they had settled. There was work to be done.

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Stearn Estate, Lockwood Avenue, New Rochelle—first Iona school location—­1916

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Nova Scotia, where the Christian Brothers comprised a fair percentage of the faculty. Br. Patrick J. Culhane, the provincial—essentially the regional executive and spiritual leader of the

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brothers—knew that in 1940, those teachers would soon need new jobs as St. Mary’s shifted from Christian Brothers to Jesuit control.

Brother Culhane set his sights on

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metropolitan New York, where the Brothers had been established since 1906. Needing a setting appropriate for a college, he pulled together a plan to place the new academic institution

on the campus of Iona School, already under Christian Brothers leadership. Not only would an Iona College provide a service to Westchester County, but it was felt that its very existence would raise the Brothers’ status in education circles.

A board was formed and the Board of Regents of the State of New York. was petitioned to allow the College to open. The plan called for one graduating class to launch the inaugural year, with one class added each of the next three years.

On Thursday, September 19, 1940, Br. William Barnabas Cornelia spoke to the assembled audience, which included the admitted students of Iona College’s first class. In his role as the College’s first president, he thanked the Church and the Christian Brothers for their support, and also praised the city of New Rochelle and the educational authorities of New York. He also made sure to thank the Iona School, on whose campus he now stood, though it’s doubtful that ladies of the Mothers’ Club, whose new building had been reassigned, were necessarily happy.

The first Iona School group—students and three teachers

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1930 aerial view of Iona school campus after completion of the new school building (now Doorley Hall), Haag Field (now Mazzella Field), Harris Gym (now Amend Hall), and at bottom, the Hall Estate manor house

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Brick by Brick— A Campus Grows

President Cornelia was under no illusions. While Iona College’s opening went smoothly, he was already concerned with future growth. Sharing space with Iona School seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but it was soon evident that cohabitating with a high school and grammar school was not sustainable. Not helping his predicament was a rumor that the grammar and high school enrollments were decreasing due to the presence of the College. Lastly, there remained the ever-present undercurrent of ill will from the patrons of Iona School, who had not forgotten that their science building, for which they had struggled to raise $100,000 to construct, had been annexed by the College.

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For a time, the College considered purchasing 65 acres of the Ward Estate along Quaker Ridge Road, just two miles away. For $100,000, they would get an existing building that could be adapted for classes and enough property for years of expansion.

By late spring of 1941, however, Iona College decided to stay put. America’s almost certain future involvement with the war—which would indeed

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happen just a few months later with the attack on Pearl Harbor—dampened the board’s enthusiasm for moving or expansion. At Iona College’s first board of trustees meeting on June 18, 1941—despite protestations by President Cornelia—the board voted to remain in Beechmont. The board’s decision proved fortuitous: that fall, Iona College opened with 121 freshmen and sophomores. But by the year’s end, enrollment

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would be cut in half as many young men headed to basic training. At the war’s conclusion, President Cornelia, on the cusp of his retirement, would make another case for moving the College, this time to White Plains, 10 miles north. Again, the board would turn down his request.

When World War II concluded, Iona College saw its enrollment climb rapidly, though it remained a commuter school for the working class. And while President Cornelia had been succeeded as president by Brother Loftus—formerly Iona’s vice president—in 1946, it was evident that the former’s early concerns about rapid growth were prescient.

Iona College now had more than 1,000 students, and additional classroom space was badly needed.

While it’s doubtful that “prefab” was a construction term much in vogue in the mid-1940s, it accurately described how Iona handled its initial expansion.

President Loftus ordered two Nissen huts from the army, and almost overnight, the campus took on the aura of a small military base. Named after the British army major who designed them in 1916, the huts were an architectural cousin of the very similar-looking Quonset huts.

The huts arrived in 1944 and soon the College ordered more buildings from the army. They were disassembled, shipped to the campus, and

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The first Iona College class: September 19, 1940

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reassembled. One building provided five classrooms, a library, and a smattering of offices and was named Walsh Hall, in memory of student Charles Walsh, who had lost his life in the war. It was later bricked in and used for years by the College. (Walsh Hall remained in use until 2012, when it was demolished to make room for the new East Hall, a residential facility—the same name by which Hagan Hall was previously known.) The second structure was a wooden gymnasium from Camp Shanks in Orangetown, N.Y., an army base on the west shore of the Hudson River. It was named O’Connell Gymnasium, in honor of Joseph O’Connell, a student in Iona’s first class, a member of the College’s first basketball team, and, sadly, also a casualty of the war. It remained in service until 1974, when it was replaced by the Mulcahy Campus Events Center (and later the Hynes Athletics Center).

However much the structures may have resembled rejects from the army’s surplus of edifices, they not only served the school well but served a long time.

And given that 80 percent of the Iona College enrollment on September 23,

1940–2015

1946—opening day for that year—were veterans, most of the students would have felt right at home in them.

Over the next year, the College continued to carve out space where it could, building some modest new facilities, remodeling and repurposing others. There was an immediate need for a library, a cafeteria and a place to teach science. Additionally, sharing the campus with Iona School still presented challenges. In November 1947, some $250,000 in funding was approved for a library with a cafeteria on the first floor, and construction was completed by early 1949. Later, the sciences found a home when the cafeteria moved out. The sprouting of a few odd buildings here and there, however, were short-term fixes instead of the beat of construction hammers that was needed. But that was about to change.

On a late June day in 1952, Iona College President Arthur Loftus was told that E. K. Smiley was telephoning his office. President Loftus knew who Mr. Smiley was—he was the chairman of the accrediting committee for the Middle States Association (MSA). Getting accred-

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Ryan Library, 1959—note construction of McSpedon Hall outside window

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ited had proven to be elusive for Iona College. Two years earlier, a five-member MSA team had visited the College, studying everything from the workings of the board of directors to the janitorial services. When the report came back a few weeks later, it contained much good advice—but the College was turned down for accreditation.

President Loftus spent the next two years implementing the MSA’s recommendations, which included stronger job descriptions, more clerical help and additional classroom space, as well as adding art and music programs and political and social sciences to the curriculum.

In March 1952, the Middle States Association team returned to check Iona’s progress. Expectations were high, but it was to be three months before the College heard anything. President Loftus took the telephone call from Mr. Smiley, listening and chatting for a few minutes before hanging up. The vote had been taken; Iona College was officially accredited. The accreditation—which was a major and much-sought-after milestone in its own right—was more than a stamp

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of approval. It was as though Iona had finally been given the green light to actually build a college campus.

The news soon reached Brother Patrick B. Doyle’s office on campus. Br. Doyle was an expert in Irish surnames and family trees and made himself equally knowledgeable in the native flora and fauna of Westchester County.

But mostly, he was a serious student of Latin, Cicero, Horace, and, as it turns out, Virgil, the ancient Roman poet from the Augustan period. When informed of the long-sought accreditation, Br. Doyle turned to Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, searching for a passage about the construction of Carthage. Flipping pages, he soon found the phrase he was seeking. “O fortunati quorum iam moenia surgunt,” it read. Oh, fortunate ones, whose walls are rising.

The walls of Iona were about to rise.

YThe Case for IonaZ In 1952, Iona College enjoyed a status that not every academic institution could claim. It was free of debt. Unfortunately, it was also free of anything remotely resembling an endowment, and with

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only 12 years of existence under its belt, the school had no financially established alumni yet.

But what it lacked in assets, it was determined to make up in drive and ambition. Shortly after gaining accreditation to the Middle States Association, President Loftus approached Brother Samuel A. Ryan, the newly appointed vice president of the College, who had a proven track record in fundraising. The problem, President Loftus explained, was that being debt-free

but cash-poor put Iona in a precarious position if it wished to grow. It needed new facilities and it fell upon Br. Ryan to make them happen.

The Committee on Expansion was formed and Br. Ryan published a handsome brochure titled “The Case for Iona” to tout the need for additional buildings. The goal—given the era when it occurred, the size and young age of the College, and the limited resources of its alumni—was nothing short of audacious: $2.5 million. “The Case for

Science building that became Cornelia Hall, Iona College

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1940–2015

Br. Edward Clancy, the Superior General of the Christian Brothers (left), who received an honorary doctorate at the 1950 commencement, with Cardinal Spellman and Br. Loftus

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Iona” addressed the need for a new administration and classroom building, an addition to the library, a gymnasium, a faculty residence and a chapel.

Br. Ryan was savvy enough to recognize he could never raise that kind of money from the alumni, but that foundations, corporations and other friends of the College could be of help.

Members of the board were given their marching orders, and they fanned out into the community to make the case for Iona.

Within three years, foundations were being poured and walls began to rise. On February 3, 1955, ground was broken for two wings to Cornelia Hall, a project costing $230,000. The original contractor who had built Cornelia Hall in 1940 added the wings and matched the Westchester granite. After that, the pace of construction on the Iona campus only accelerated throughout the 1950s.

Work began on an administration building and a two-wing extension to the library. When it came time to dedicate and name the administration building, Br. Ryan suggested that Iona might benefit by having Howard

McSpedon’s name above the front door. A labor leader, Mr. McSpedon had served at one time or another with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, as president of the state Federation of Building Trades Councils, as president of the Building Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, and as a 1949 appointee of President Harry S. Truman to represent the United States in Rome at an international labor conference.

In addition, Mr. McSpedon’s brother, Thomas, was a ward supervisor in New York. City (and later a mayoral candidate) and another brother, Richard, was a Democratic boss in the city. In short, Howard McSpedon’s connections in the construction trades and political circles ran long and deep and Br. Ryan was not shy about ensuring that those connections linked back to New Rochelle, and to the new McSpedon Hall.

The library expansion meant space for more than 400 readers, and 175,000 volumes, a lecture hall seating 200, and rooms for periodicals, seminars, typing, and browsing. But even before this was completed, discussion was already

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underway about a new Student Union building. It was to be a $1.1-million H-shaped structure in the Georgian style, bearing a strong resemblance to McSpedon Hall. On the ground level would be a large dining room, on the next a student lounge with dining and meeting rooms and a bookstore, and the upper level would house offices of the director of student affairs and rooms for various student activities. The steep price tag for what would become Spellman Hall—the most expensive construction project yet at the College— was offset by $765,000 in federal loans.

All this new construction was not warmly embraced by Iona’s neighbors.

In 1954, when the College acquired a plot on the west side of the Beechmont Oval to house the student Brothers on campus, Beechmont area residents protested, arguing that it violated a city housing ordinance. But by classifying the structure as single-family dwelling, the College obtained a building permit from the city and felt the matter was closed, especially after residents failed in their appeals to the City Council.

Undeterred, residents filed a successful suit in Westchester County Supreme

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Court to restrain the city from granting permission. That in turn was appealed

by Iona College and the city, and in 1956 the Appellate Division awarded permission to move ahead with construction.

Again, residents mounted a challenge, this time to the Court of Appeals, which in March 1957 ruled unanimously in favor of Iona College.

Throughout this protracted battle, Iona College relied heavily on its attorney, Myles Amend, an Iona trustee.

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A graduate of what is now Fordham University Law School, and a member of the Manhattan-based family firm Amend & Amend, he time and again met each legal hurdle with an unflappable calmness. Some years later—in October 1977—an Iona building was renamed for him.

Mr. Amend’s handling of the case had far-reaching implications. The 7–0 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals was virtually unheard of. By

affirming that 100 Christian Brothers, under the terms of that zoning ordinance, constituted a single family, it set a precedent that made possible the building of Sisters’ convents in parishes throughout the state. For some time afterward, Mr. Amend was consulted by religious orders from other states facing similar situations.

Iona Grammar School moved to Stratton Road in 1955. The 1960s construction scene remained relatively

Harris Gym c.1930, now Amend Hall

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quiet as Iona School, now known as Iona Preparatory School, moved to its own campus to the north, on Wilmot Road in 1967 and Iona College welcomed its first 200 women students in 1969. After this lull, the 1970s brought a renewed interest in building. And as the campus footprint continued to grow, so did the school’s confidence in erecting new and different architectural styles.

Gone was the strictly utilitarian archi-

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tecture of previous decades as it now moved toward Georgian and, in later years, modern styles. The buildings were also moving toward accommodating a modern student body, with lounges, meeting areas, and more dining options.

The pace of construction activity in the 1970s seemed to pick up where the 1950s left off. On October 14, 1973, the College broke ground for the Mulcahy Campus Events Center (replacing the

Main entrance to Iona School c.1928, original Hall Estate entrance

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1947 O’Connell Gymnasium), in honor of a trustee and benefactor. The Center featured a modern basketball court with a 3,000-seat capacity and boasted a competition-size swimming pool.

In 1974, Harris Gymnasium was determined to be no longer viable for athletic endeavors. The rough-hewn stone structure was completely remodeled to provide 12 air-conditioned classrooms, a statistics laboratory, an art room and faculty offices. It opened in April 1974 and was later renamed Amend Hall, as mentioned earlier.

In the midst of all the construction, the College periodically focused on the grounds themselves, including enlarging and sodding of Haag Field, repaving roads, installing new outdoor lighting, and general landscaping. The new landscaping provided a more attractive first impression for visitors, and the admissions staff recognized how an enhanced physical plant and increased facilities would aid them in their work of recruitment.

In 1976, Doorley Hall, named in honor of Iona School’s founder and the College’s oldest building, underwent a $1-million makeover, much of which was to meet building codes.

With air-conditioned classrooms, and new paneling and ground-floor lounge, Doorley was transformed into a welcoming space for Iona’s students.

Iona’s administration had been

The 1960s construction scene remained relatively quiet at Iona, but with the 1970s came a renewed interest in building. wishing for growth, and by the mid-1980s, it had it. But it also now had a housing problem. While two-thirds of its 3,000 undergraduates were commuters, the other third was boarding in Rice Hall, at the College of New Rochelle, at Concordia College and in various private homes in the New Rochelle area. Compounding the problem were demographic studies predicting a local decline in high school graduates.

Facing a shrinking market of prospective commuter students, the College knew it would have to compete for students from a broader

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area—and those students would need a place to live.

After three years of planning and discussion, exhaustive studies and reappraisals, and endless meetings with community leaders, the College built a residence hall adjacent to the Murphy Science and Technology Center, opposite the main gate. Completed in 1992 and named Brother Arthur A. Loftus Residence Hall, the 10-story brick building would house 320 students.

North Avenue was the site of the next Iona construction project as well: the Iona College Arts Center opened in October 2000, to feature the work of emerging artists, students and faculty.

The Center has also sponsored gallery trips, performing arts presentations and other cultural events.

A year later, Iona’s building program included a feature no one could have predicted even just a few years earlier— it moved boldly into the Internet age. Students in the fall of 2001 were welcomed to a connected campus that enabled access to the College’s computer network, library databases and the Internet from anywhere on campus at any time of the day or night. This

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remarkable achievement made Iona the first college in metropolitan New York to install a completely wireless local area network (LAN), all made possible by a gift from an anonymous donor.

The LAN featured 127 access points— essentially transmitting antennas—in 16 buildings on the main campus at New Rochelle and at the Rockland Graduate Center, which had opened in 1980.

While the range of the antennas was small—about 15 feet—compared to the powerful routers of today, it nonetheless put Iona on the technology map.

By mid-2002 construction was underway for two new residence halls, South and Conese Halls. The buildings represented a growth in facilities to match and contribute to the College’s growth in stature, and they joined the existing residence halls, Rice and Loftus, in housing new and current students.

They also enhanced student gatherings and activities. Each dormitory consisted of studios and suites, which accommodated up to eight students, with central lounges and kitchenettes. Additional amenities included laundry facilities and a mail room. The subsequent construction of the Robert V. LaPenta Student

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Union and the Hynes Athletics Center, as well as the expansion of Ryan Library, brought the campus environment and amenities to new levels.

building would soon be named Cornelia Hall, a tribute to the man who was the College’s first president and who foresaw growth and future stature for the New Rochelle institution. Seventy-five years later, Cornelia Hall still stands, as rock solid as the Westchester granite with which it was constructed.

Ironically, however, the historic edifice is now a science building—its original designation three-quarters of

Y Iona Today Z In 1940, Brother William Barnabas Cornelia stood in front of a handsome stone building, the first building that Iona College would call its own. The View of Ryan Library, LaPenta Student Union and Hagan Hall from atop Loftus Hall

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a century ago when the Iona School erected it before it became Iona College’s first building.

Cornelia Hall today is home to the College’s chemistry program, where a sprawling lab brims with beakers,

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large-screen computers, high-powered trinocular WPI Precision Microscopes and posters ranging from the instructional (“Be Prepared. Be Organized. Be Focused”) to the informational (“Polymorphic control of a and y Glycine”).

Ryan Library

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Elsewhere in Cornelia are equally impressive facilities for the study of biology, biochemistry, physics and environmental sciences.

The contrast between 1940 and today continues when you step out of Cornelia Hall’s front door. Looking to the right, one sees McSpedon Hall and to the left stands Doorley Hall. Directly in front, the welcoming and bucolic quad lawn is laced with sidewalks, sprouting colorful planters and benches, and shaded by Iona’s iconic ginkgo tree, which predates it all.

The 19-acre campus of 1940 has grown to spread over 45 acres, its hills and roads leading visitors into a college campus that sparkles with surprises all along the way. But to the students, faculty, and staff who live and work in this environment, and especially to those who have taken the time to appreciate its history, very little of it is surprising. Iona College has consistently reinvented its physical self while remaining true to a Catholic heritage and tradition of educational excellence.

For years, as Iona grew, it continually struggled to accommodate an increasing number of students in

on-campus housing, and cobbled together a patchwork of alternate living arrangements, relying heavily on nearby colleges and private residences. But as the number of out-of-town, and soon out-of-state students, increased, the College responded. Today, there are six residence halls and another one under construction across from the main entrance on North Avenue. Conese Hall, East Hall, Loftus Hall, Rice Hall, South Hall and the Apartments at Eastchester house students from across America and over 30 countries.

Student housing today boasts features ranging from suites and kitchens to wireless Internet that is supercharged compared to the early2000 versions. Some of the facilities have living and learning communities for science and honors students while others feature exercise, game and even meditation rooms.

Among many other showcases on campus is the exceptional Ryan Library with its quarter-million volumes, 100 electronic databases accessing millions of full-text resources, and the grand 800 Room, flanked on one side by dramatic arched windows and populated with

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Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

polished wood tables lit by vintage-style reading lamps. The Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, housed at Iona, makes this Founding Father’s papers and ephemera available to the world in the Iona archives.

The Helen T. Arrigoni Library/ Technology Center, with its modern interior and comfortable work stations sheltered by butterfly-wing awnings, is no less impressive than the Mass Communications facilities, home to instructional space, ICTV and WICR radio, the student-run stations for campus news and entertainment, or the LaPenta-Lynch Trading Floor, where Bloomberg terminals provide live data feeds of financial market information.

For the soul, there is the nearby Church of the Holy Family for weekly masses, and the historic Blessed Edmund Rice Chapel, a former 1905 carriage house where masses are celebrated Monday through Thursday at 12:30 p.m.

For the heart, the Iona College Arts Center features the Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery, along with studios for art, dance, painting, and music.

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For the stomach, the Vitanza Dining Commons’ daily menu offerings include everything from comfort food and burgers to vegetarian fare, ice cream, and sushi. There is also LaPenta Marketplace, a full-service Starbucks store, the Ryan Library’s Castle Café and a late night food truck.

And for recreation, athletics have been a mainstay at Iona College from the beginning. In 2015 the campus enjoys Mazzella Field, which seats 1,300 and hosts soccer, lacrosse and rugby, while not too far away the top-ranked Iona College cross-country teams compete in Van Cortlandt Park, while the rowing teams launch from New Rochelle’s Glen Island Harbour Club. The Hynes Athletics Center is well equipped with free weights, space for yoga and wellness classes, a Cardiovascular Center, gymnasium and swimming pool.

Judging from the growth of Iona’s first 75 years, one senses that a visit to the campus 50 years hence will feature much of the same and yet so much more that is new, as Iona continues to transform and adapt to the next era.

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Ryan Library 800 Room today (current students affectionately refer to it as “The Harry Potter Room”)—this one room was the original Ryan Library.

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Four Iona College Presidents: Br. McKenna, Br. Power, Br. Loftus, Br. Barnes

A d va n c i n g

the

L e g ac y — T h e S t o ry

of

I o n a C o ll e g e

1940–2015

PA R T I I I

At the Helm— Strong Leadership, Decisive Action

Iona College has had eight presidents who have helmed the College that could barely keep its doors open to an institution with national respect and world-class programs. But one thing all of the presidents have had— regardless of the times and circumstances—is boldness of vision. Their profiles in this chapter reflect a remarkable breadth of audacity and an unshakable determination to leave the College in better shape than they inherited it.

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Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

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teach students to think clearly and form judgments unencumbered by the arguments of others, to develop lifelong interests in matters intellectual and cultural, and to defend their Christian faith—all in all, a fairly advanced outlook for a small and unknown college in a New York City suburb.

Br. Cornelia was born in Dublin on March 31, 1885, and from an early age he impressed those around him, especially his school friends, with his brainpower and almost photographic memory. “The impression that has lingered,” recalled classmate Brother Thomas Perry, “is due solely to the wonderment with which [everyone] witnessed his skill in making calculations, and his knowledge in answering questions.”

It is not clear what in the young Br. Cornelia’s life led him to the Church or the Christian Brothers. On August 4, 1899, Willy Cornelia took up residence in Baldoyle, as a postulant to the Congregation of Christian Brothers. He was 14.

At 16, Br. Cornelia was assigned his first classroom, at a school on

Brother William Barnabas Cornelia President, 1940–1946

The roots of Iona College’s leadership were planted about 1,500 years before the College was founded, when Saint Columba founded an island monastery on Iona, off the coast of Scotland. Later, but still almost a century and a half before Iona College welcomed its first student, Irish merchant Edmund Rice founded the Congregation of Christian Brothers, which would provide executive leadership for the College for its first 71 years.

The first president, Brother William Barnabas Cornelia, insisted that Iona

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North Richmond Street, and for the next several years, his appetite for teaching and learning became insatiable. He developed a flair for English and poetry, became proficient at Irish, French, Latin and math, learned to love the sciences, and became almost invincible in debate. In February 1913, he began his college teaching career after being assigned to Christian College,

Cork, and headed the engineering department (though he also periodically taught history, math, surveying, physics, chemistry, French, Spanish and German). It’s a small wonder that Br. Cornelia’s mental prowess was a frequent topic of conversation among his students and colleagues. One such memorable feat of the mind was quoting an entire page from the Cath-

Cornelia Hall (note automobile and dog)

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Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

olic Encyclopaedia—from memory.

In August of 1913, the Congregation shipped Br. Cornelia to St. Mary’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The small college had endured a rocky past until that point. Even though it had been established in 1841, no student had graduated until it came under the Brothers’ control shortly prior to Br. Cornelia’s arrival.

Soon, the school had grown from 50 students to 200, and Br. Cornelia was charged with starting an engineering department as well as teaching many of the same subjects he had taught at Christian College. Over 24 years, he continued to teach at St. Mary’s, using sabbaticals and other leaves to advance his own education in graduate schools such as the National University in Ireland, where he earned his master’s in chemistry, and Columbia University, where he earned his doctorate in Romance languages.

While he was roundly considered an academic, an intellectual and perhaps even a genius, Br. Cornelia’s true love was sports, whether it was hockey, rugby, handball or football played by his beloved New York Giants. Even

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deep into his retirement, decades later, he could recite scores, statistics, batting averages and errors; no detail escaped his attention.

Christopher Grant, a former St. Mary’s hockey standout and later a school administrator himself, pondered what made Br. Cornelia different from others. “What did he possess that others lacked?” he said. “He was gifted but so were others. He was thorough, but so were others. He was fair and just but others were also . . . To me the answer seems to be that he cared . . .

He cared, and he cared tremendously, about us and our problems. And because he cared we went to him . . . He did not seek us out; we went to him because we always had the feeling that he understood and that he cared.”

By 1919, Br. Cornelia was St. Mary’s president, serving two terms—the first ending in 1922, and second from 1931 to 1937. Under his direction, the academic offerings expanded greatly and new buildings were erected.

Despite the tremendous progress, however, it was difficult to bring the academic standards up enough to ensure that St. Mary’s school credits

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were accepted by graduate schools. But Br. Cornelia had a bigger issue which was causing strained relations between St. Mary’s and the Halifax diocese. The Ordinary—the leadership—of the diocese wanted changes in the relationship between the Church and the college, and had instructed the Chancery, which managed contracts for the diocese, to pursue them. The current contract was

supposed to remain in force until 1973, but the Diocese was in no mood to wait—it wanted changes immediately. In Br. Cornelia’s mind, the tense discussions were creating a wall between the area’s Catholic clergy and the Christian Brothers, and he decided he could better serve elsewhere. He applied for, and received in 1937, a transfer to St. Joseph’s Juniorate in West Park, N.Y.,

School photo outside Faculty Residence (Hall Manor House, south side)—site of current McSpedon Hall

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about 85 miles north of Manhattan. For a while, at least, this move enabled Br. Cornelia to return to teaching.

Ironically, while he once again impressed his students and colleagues with masterful mental skills, his love of baseball, and his knowledge of engineering and other subjects, he failed miserably in one crucial domain— learning to drive a car. Turning the

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steering wheel to negotiate a corner was a mystery (and remembering to turn it back an even bigger mystical experience). Shifting gears was something best left to celestial powers, and braking was an endangerment to all of West Park. Three instructors tried and failed to teach the genius academic. “Brother Barnabas,” one instructor snapped, as he exited another near-death experi-

Students on automobile c.1948 (see photo p.63)

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ence and promptly resigned his post as driving teacher, “you just don’t have the mentality to drive a car.”

This abject lack of driving skills notwithstanding, at age 55, and with many crowning accomplishments to his credit, Br. Cornelia could have begun to coast.

But the Christian Brothers had other ideas for him. They separated from St. Mary’s College and decided to act upon their longstanding wish to establish another college, this one in New York. That moment came in 1940 with the establishment of Iona College in New Rochelle, with Br. Barnabas Cornelia as its first president.

To no one’s surprise, Br. Cornelia had been deeply involved with convincing the Church of the need for a men’s college in New Rochelle, an area that already had three women’s colleges. Events moved quickly. On June 8, 1940, the Archbishop gave oral approval for the men’s college. The next day, Monsignor Breslin advised the attendees at the Iona School’s graduation that not only was a college opening on their campus a few weeks hence, but that

their new science building was being taken for it. Through the summer, Br. Cornelia was busy lining up courses, hiring faculty and recruiting students.

On September 19, the new college opened with 83 students.

YZ The deeply spiritual President Cornelia wore round-lens spectacles perched below a high forehead and a mostly bald head. His kindly demeanor and open-door policy helped seal his reputation as a congenial leader; however, this belied a keen appreciation for the potential the College offered.

But in the early years of Iona, whatever it offered was usually tempered by what it didn’t have: money.

So precarious was the situation during the years of World War II that on more than one occasion, Diocese officials urged that the College be closed because it was a drain on precious resources. There was also occasional pressure to relocate it elsewhere in Westchester County. President Cornelia knew it was not desirable to have a college, high school and

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grammar school all in one location as the growing College would soon overshadow the Iona School, placing it in a subordinate position.

At least twice, he tried to coax the board into an expansion of the campus while land was cheap—one location was 65 acres of what was known as the Ward Estate on Quaker Ridge Road, which was on the market for $100,000 and had some buildings that could be converted into administration and classroom space.

Later, toward the end of his term as president, he made a pitch for a property in White Plains. Sometimes President Cornelia returned from property-scouting trips enthused about what he had seen, but the enthusiasm was usually short-lived as it became apparent that either there was no available public transit to and from the site or the property was too expensive. And given the precarious state of the College’s financial affairs, any property was likely too expensive.

Enrollment dropped to startlingly low numbers as the war siphoned off students. The first semester of

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1941 opened with 145 students while the second semester saw only 76 students enroll. An English class of 17 students became 4; a French class of 4 students became 1. By 1943, there were only 43 students in the College— and the drumbeat to close its doors

First Baccalaureate exercise, May 1944

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grew louder. Frequently Br. Cornelia sought financial help from Brothers’ Congregation, which only hardened the position of those who urged its closing. Not helping these efforts was the fact that the College was operating under a provisional charter,

thus preventing the U.S. military from using Iona College for specialized— and well-funded—programs.

A bright spot for President Cornelia was that many former students, when on furlough, would take the time to visit with their college president.

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Christmas brought a flood of mail to him from the same boys in green, and in the future, he would be a guest at their weddings and among the first to see their newborn children.

Despite all the pressures, the president never wavered in his belief in Iona College. Where visitors and others saw empty fields and a total college enrollment smaller than a typical grade-

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school classroom in New York City, Br. Cornelia saw a future—and a bright one at that. His enthusiasm was infectious and it served as a source of inspiration to his colleagues. When the spring of 1944 rolled around, and it came time for the first graduating seniors to receive their diplomas, he pulled out all the stops to make the occasion momentous. When Iona College’s first

Pre-Engineering class, 1940

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graduating class stood up on May 26, 1944, it consisted of three young men.

They were James F. Burns, Edward I. Sergison, and William J. Shields. As far as President Cornelia was concerned, it could have been 3,000—he was as proud as could be.

On May 21, 1946, President Cornelia presented his final report to the trustees. His tenure had been trying, to say the least: opening and growing a college just as a world war was breaking out. But in two post-war years, with the help of the G.I. Bill, enrollment had blossomed at Iona College, rapidly growing to more than 1,000 students, and he felt he had taken the fledgling institution as far as he could.

With his term up, Br. Cornelia took a year to teach at Cardinal Farley Military Academy, but by 1947 he had returned to Iona to teach—free of the pressures of running the College. By late 1949, his health began to fail and he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, resulting in the increasing loss of control of his hands and feet.

He continued to teach, first at Iona and then at St. Gabriel’s Scholastic in West Park, but the disease was quickly

taking its toll. Initially refusing assistance—he abhorred being a bother to anyone—it sometimes took him hours to get dressed. Making it to the morning prayers could mean arising in the middle of the night to begin the laborious and painful process of putting on clothes. Even then, he sometimes could not make it and associates would find him in his room, unable to achieve the final goal of a tied shoelace or a fastened collar button.

His last Superior, Brother Joseph Darcy, recalled: “What impressed me most . . . was not his courage as much as the tranquility with which he accepted these repeated and continual frustrations.

No matter how greatly he was tried, there was no trace of self-pity nor of resentment in his manner. . . . He seemed to accept his illness just as simply and matterof-factly as he had his good health in former years.”

Br. Cornelia died on July 5, 1955, at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, N.Y. In later years, the College would create the Brother William B. Cornelia Founders Award for Outstanding Service to Iona in his honor.

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Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

1940–2015

with the Christian Brothers. A stunned Mrs. Loftus reminded her son he enjoyed playing too much for that sort of life, and his response would guide his work ethic for the rest of his life: “When I play, I play,” he told his mother. “When I pray, I pray.” By All Saints Day of that year, he had received his habit.

At 17, All Saints had named him a teacher in the school. Some students remembered the young Brother as a former student, but his command of the classroom was never questioned. “In the classroom . . . he let the students know that they had responsibilities—attention, cooperation, study, homework,” wrote E. C. O’Connor. “The pupils learned that he meant business . . . He made opportunities of seeing a pupil privately to let him know of his own confidence in the pupil’s ability and then challenged him to produce.”

Somewhere between 1926 and 1928, he earned his college degree from St. Mary’s College, most likely taking courses at the Halifax campus and the West Park, N.Y., branch as well. He enjoyed his time at college, and took special delight in athletics. He despised tennis and golf, but was quite at home

Brother Arthur Loftus President, 1946–1953 Arthur Loftus was born on August 8, 1904, the son of an Irishman father and a New York City-native mother.

Young Arthur attended several schools before landing at All Saints School, the first New York school run by the Christian Brothers.

All Saints was often praised by the New York State Board of Regents for its quality teaching, and feared by some students for its strict discipline. For Br. Loftus, his love of sports and movies both came from his time at All Saints.

In early 1918, Arthur informed his mother that he planned to make his life

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in the contact sports, utilizing a take-noprisoners approach with flaying elbows and shoving hips.

That same year, he was assigned a teaching spot at St. Mary’s, and fellow teachers and students in nearby classrooms would perk up when his loud, shrill voice would carry out into neighboring classrooms, filling them with the principles of mathematics, Cicero and other subjects.

Indeed, his absolute command of Latin became the stuff of legend. For

generations, former students recalled Br. Loftus walking between the rows of desks, his textbook closed, quoting verbatim from Cicero’s Orations and translating at the same time. Shortly afterward, he was assigned to Leo High School in Chicago, and his teaching repertoire grew to include American history.

He was drawn to the ethnic mix at Leo— German, Irish, Polish, Lithuanians—and was especially glad to be tapped as Leo’s basketball coach in the highly competitive Catholic School League.

Iona College main entrance on North Avenue, c.1946

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His teaching ability was nothing short of captivating. Lifelong haters of academic subjects fell in love with those same subjects under his tutelage. “He was an excellent teacher, in fact the best I ever had,” recalled former student Thomas A. Murphy, who later rose to be chairman of the board of General Motors Corporation. “He taught American history and made what could have been a drab subject a very lively and interesting one.”

During five years at Leo, he spent summers in graduate school at Notre Dame University, and by 1933 had earned his master’s in Latin and was assigned to a new school in Manhattan, Power Memorial Academy, which was established for students of lesser financial means. With Br. Loftus’s help, many of his students became the first in their families to attend college.

And for others, it was their first chance to play on a winning basketball team. At Power, it was well established that although Br. Loftus was a man of the cloth, he had little patience for the concept that you played for the

1940–2015

love of the game. “The only reason his team played with rivals was to win the game,” wrote O’Connor. “He didn’t favor moral victories; he wanted real ones.” Since Power could not afford its own gym, Loftus rented one in Inwood, a narrow piece of hardwood that wasn’t even a regulation-size court.

Aerial view of Iona College campus and neighborhood, c. 1948. Also note New Rochelle High School and Twin Lakes at top

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But it was ideally suited for mastering a zone defense, which at the time was virtually unheard of in New York City.

Opposing coaches howled in protest, but could find nothing in the rulebooks to void the stingy strategy.

By 1940, Fordham had awarded Br. Loftus a Doctor of Philosophy and

he was due to transfer to St. Mary’s College. That plan changed as the Archdiocese and the Christian Brothers terminated their relationship with the Halifax-based college. Instead of packing his bags for Canada, Brother Loftus found himself on the grounds of a new school in New Rochelle.

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genius and visionary talents. Also, Br. Loftus was more familiar with the American school system.

During his first six years at Iona, Br. Loftus held numerous posts, including professor of philosophy, teacher of ethics, dean of the college, teacher of junior Brothers in classes at All Hallows High School in the Bronx, basketball coach and part-time bus driver. After

YZ Just as Power School had been founded for the less affluent, Iona College was founded for the sons of the working class, and Br. Loftus was excited by this. His dedication to this mission was an asset as a member of the founding faculty at Iona, and it complemented President Cornelia’s

Br. Loftus and the basketball team c.1940s

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such a well-rounded and well-grounded academic experience, it was no surprise that Br. Loftus was chosen as Iona’s second president on August 15, 1946.

To the new president’s dismay (but perhaps to the relief of rival coaches in the area), he was no longer able to serve as basketball coach. But he soon had other pressing concerns. When the school year ended in 1946, the College had 303 students; when the new academic year began under President Loftus in September, it had more than doubled to 794.

The College was crowded. A hundred students sat in classrooms designed for half that many, some of them perched on windowsills or the teacher’s platform. Night classes were held to handle the overflow. In the classes that Br. Loftus still taught, he would have to carefully thread his way between students to get from the door to the blackboard.

Through it all, Loftus never let his legendary work habits be defined by job description. Alumnus Joe Di Stanislao, who later became a highly successful businessman in the California food industry, remembered this incident: “I

arrived at the school very early to catch the bus to an away [basketball] game… and I found Br. Loftus busily mopping the halls. I commented something like, ‘A great job for the new president.’ His reply: ‘The man who usually does this called in sick, and it has to be done.’…

I’ve never been afraid of dirtying my hands ever since.”

Another issue faced by Br. Loftus was that Iona was still operating on a provisional charter granted by the New York State Board of Regents. What it sought was an absolute charter, which would enable degrees to be granted in Iona’s own name—an important distinction if a student wished to pursue graduate studies. But in order to obtain the absolute charter, Iona College had to be free of debt, and it owed $100,000, a large sum then. At the urging of Br. Loftus, Brother Ambrose Kelly, the provincial, made a successful tour of Christian Brothers communities, seeking donations to liquidate the debt.

There was also the concern that the state regents would look unfavorably on the fact that Iona College employed too few faculty members with Ph.D.s.

This was resolved with the impor-

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tation in January 1947 of three new faculty members with terminal degrees, including Brother William H. Barnes, who would succeed Br. Loftus as president in six years.

Later, he was faced with the largest issue of his presidency: the accreditation of Iona College by the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges, which would give Iona prestige among the metropolitan colleges, attract new students, facilitate the acceptance of Iona graduates into graduate schools, and make it easier to procure loans and gifts for badly needed new construction.

It helped that the College had earlier been granted an absolute charter, but the accreditation was all-important.

In 1953, the Holy See—the government of the Roman Catholic Church under the pope—promoted Br. Loftus to provincial of the North American Province. His time as Iona’s second president had come to an end. Typically, he immediately called meetings and wrote detailed memos of everything that needed to be done or decided upon. Immediately after his appointment to provincial on April 15, 1953, he quickly embraced the duties that came

1940–2015

with the office, including the formidable task of improving communications between the churches in the United States and Canada.

For Br. Loftus, the promotion was bittersweet. He had been with Iona College since its birth, first on the faculty and then as president, and was roundly credited with enhancing its status in academic circles. While his new duties did include serving as chairman of Iona’s board, the day-to-day running of the College would fall to his successor.

An editorial in the student newspaper, the Ionian, on April 6, 1953, reflected on Br. Loftus’ tenure:

Iona has been fortunate during the past seven years to be under his administration. Known nationally as a scholar, teacher and administrator, Brother [Loftus] has given Iona’s growth great impetus by his capable direction of our rapid expansion. It was during his presidency that the veteran boom, characterized by chaos and inadequate facilities in many of the nation’s leading universities,

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was faced and successfully dealt with at Iona.

A leading figure in the close personal contact which characterizes faculty-student relationships at the College, Brother Loftus has won over the student body with his sincerity and his ever-present humor.

Because of this, the respect accorded to Brother by the alumni and the students is outstanding in quality and deep in sincerity.

As a leader, Brother Loftus provides a model for the faculty. With an intense knowledge of his own field of philosophy and an extensive background in general studies, he has imparted an understanding of his subject to his students that is to be sought after in every field.

Brother William Hubert Barnes President, 1953–1959 If the Iona Trustees were looking for someone different from Br. Loftus to succeed him as president, they couldn’t have tapped anyone more distinct than Brother William H. Barnes. Where Br. Loftus was outgoing and witty, Br. Barnes was quiet and reserved. Where Br. Loftus was a force of nature on campus, Br. Barnes blended in among the brick and stone walls of the school’s buildings.

But despite his façade, Br. Barnes, equipped with a doctorate in English literature, and a former teacher in Rome

In later years, a residence hall and major scholarships and awards would be named in Brother Arthur Loftus’s honor.

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before landing in Iona’s English Department in 1947, was nobody’s fool. The son and grandson of British Royal Navy officers, whom even an early gradeschool teacher recalled as being “full of courage,” he may have been somewhat reserved, but he more than made up for it with determination and a small but competent management team.

Born in England, William Barnes spent his late teens and early twenties sailing the world as a wireless tele-

1940–2015

graph operator. His travels took him to China, Japan, India and Mauritius, and it was while on a return voyage from Cape Town, South Africa, that he engaged in a discussion with passenger Hubert Baker, vicar general of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, about a life in the Church. By August 1931, seaman Barnes had become a postulant in the Congregation.

During World War II, he studied in Rome, going long stretches with little

Br. Michael C. Normoyle, Br. Thomas G. Bullen and Br. William H. Barnes

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food or heat in winter. German shells bombed his community, exploding next door as students scrambled from one seemingly safe haven to another only to have shells and hand grenades shatter the walls around them there as well.

At the same time that Br. Barnes was making a name for himself at the Royal University of Rome as a talented and patient teacher of religion, English and Latin, on the other side of the Atlantic Iona College President Arthur Loftus put in a request for three brothers with doctorates who were from either Ireland or England.

Br. Barnes was tapped as one of the three chosen instructors. Due to time constraints, the trio flew from Europe to America via Gander, Newfoundland, the common route at that time, circling in a blizzard at 400 feet above sea level before landing. The next day, after landing in New York on February 4, 1947, Br. Barnes launched the next phase of his life—in New Rochelle.

and faculty from America, Canada, Ireland, and England mingled in a community of more than 1,000 that bustled with intellectual thought and strong spirit, though the crowded conditions left something to be desired.

Br. Barnes advanced quickly and was soon named head of the English Department, the largest at the College.

Additionally, he formed a glee club and an Italian club, and spearheaded the formation of the Iona Quarterly literary magazine.

“Hubert carried an academic load that a later generation would consider absurd,” said Brother Robert Scanlan.

“In addition, because of his academic background, good ideas and capacity for work, he was heavily involved in that unseen but essential part of university life—the committee work. He was leadership personified.”

Br. Barnes was also an inspiring, but highly disciplined, teacher. Most of his students were veterans and not always an easy group to handle, but they admired his no-nonsense classroom command tempered by his extraordinary willingness to help them succeed.

They quickly learned that he was full

YZ From his first day, Br. Barnes was excited about Iona College. Students

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of surprises—try to sneak an Italian or French phrase by him to fellow veterans who had picked up bits and pieces of the languages in Europe, and he would join in the conversation in flawless Italian or French. Legend has it that one night, a group of former soldiers tapped out Morse Code to each other on tables, arranging to meet after class at a local tavern. When they were done, Br. Barnes—who had traveled the world as a wireless telegraph operator—tapped out a response: “Don’t count me in.”

In 1953, President Loftus resigned his post to become provincial. He knew the selection of the next president was a vital decision if Iona was going to consolidate the gains of the previous six years and transition from a predominantly veteran student body to one of traditional college-age students. Br. Loftus and the trustees saw that Iona’s next leader was just down the hall— soon Br. Barnes was named the next president of Iona College.

As Iona’s third president, Br. Barnes was conscious of the need to absorb the growth of the College and stabilize its position. He was aware of, and

1940–2015

sensitive to, the rise in enrollment of non-veteran students and the need to improve facilities. He was anxious to continue enhancing the growing reputation of Iona, and under his direction, many additional faculty were appointed, including in biology, marketing, fine

Aerial campus view c.1953

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arts, natural science and education.

President Barnes also wasted little time addressing the College’s facilities needs. At his first meeting with the board, he argued that not only was an enlarged library an absolute necessity, but there was no place available for

student activities. Additionally, the College was out of room for administrative offices, making it an inefficient workplace. To the consternation of many ultra-conservatives on campus, the new president stressed that not only should all three of these structures

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be built, but that they should be built at the same time. And while the school was at it, he said, it should go ahead and construct the proposed Edmund Hall residence for the student brothers, a structure of 107 rooms with a chapel to seat 150, which opened in September 1958. With clear logic and persuasion, noting it would never be cheaper than now to do it, his appeal rang true with the business leaders on the board, especially Jim Slattery and Jeremiah Burns, who were in the construction trades.

The vote was taken and what followed

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was an almost incessant cacophony of construction noise. One couldn’t help but be impressed at how skillfully the former English professor directed delicate negotiations with architects, builders, bankers and government agencies. To Br. Barnes, the noise was pure music to his ears, and he delighted with each grand opening.

To the casual outsider and visitor, President Barnes appeared nothing less than a man at one with his surroundings—Iona College—and admired and trusted by all. But he was not without

Iona College sign near entrance c.1956

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detractors. No one doubted his integrity and the absolute priority he gave to his religious life, but he could be prickly at times. What was humor to some was interpreted as barbs by others, and while he was a passionate teacher, he could sometimes be aloof. He occasionally mistook reactions of his Brothers as a challenge to his authority. To Br. Barnes, recalled former colleague W. A. O’Hanlon, “If things were not white, then they were black.”

Over time, however, he began to relax. He remained strong-willed and determined, but less headstrong. He remained grave, but with faculty and students could be amiable. “He thought for himself, and was quick to express his opinions,” recalled Br. Alexander Thomas.

“He was frank and honest, so that you knew where he stood on any subject— and you knew how you stood with him.

Hubert did not lack emotion, but there was little of the romantic in him.”

But there was one subject virtually everyone agreed: Iona College had been extremely fortunate to have President Barnes at the helm when it did.

The school, in every respect, was an immensely better place for his service.

So it was with some surprise—even to his critics—and immensely disappointing to President Barnes himself that in the summer of 1959, the Christian Brothers did not appoint him another term after his six years were up. In his mind, he still had much work to do; but it was perhaps testament to the work he had done and the foundations he had laid that the College could readily accept a transfer of administration.

Br. Barnes requested and received a transfer to the West Coast, and was assigned to a high school in Vancouver, British Columbia, of about 800 students.

Perhaps because he didn’t have administrative duties weighing him down, or perhaps because it was a natural love of his, Br. Barnes seemed to find comfort in the classroom—flare-ups of his old temper notwithstanding. Father Mark Dumont OSB, one of Br. Barnes’ pupils at the time, recalled, “He was an excellent teacher, instilling in me a love for English literature, something I abhorred before.”

In July 1966, having just completed a strenuous theological course at the University of San Francisco, he was preparing for his next assignment—head of the English department at Cantwell

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High School in Montebello, Calif. He had just arrived on campus and was chatting with his new colleagues when the Italian gardener entered the room.

Br. Barnes struck up a conversation in fluent Italian and then suddenly fell back into his chair, unable to talk. The series of strokes that he suffered that day would impact the rest of his life and soon end his days as a teacher, as the responsibilities were too taxing.

He eventually transferred back home to England. There he edited the Educational Record, and later assisted

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the superior general in archival work, making use of his immense scholarship in languages. Word spread of his skills and soon packages of documents tumbled in—175 in all—needing his meticulous attention. Discovering that his work could be conducted anywhere, he applied for his final transfer—this time returning to Rome.

One of his early projects there was the transcription of multiple 900-page volumes of the letters of Brother Anthony Maxwell, superior general toward the end of the 19th century.

Students on Haag Field c.1950. Doorley and Walsh halls are in background

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Through many weeks of mind-numbingly tedious effort—the thin, oily paper so unreadable at times from the front that Br. Barnes used a mirror and magnifying glass to read them from the backside—colleagues, time and again, were stunned at his output, even in his paralyzed state.

These years made Br. Barnes friendlier, warmer, deeper and at last able to find joy. Brother Evangelist Carroll remembered that initially Br. Barnes had a reputation for “not suffering fools gladly, for being easy to offend. The volcano smoke did rise occasionally.”

But “bit by bit, we saw him flower and grow into a happy, contented man, radiating the peace of Christ.”

In time, Carroll said, it became “a pleasure to hear Hubert laugh . . .

He could laugh until he cried and [he found] that he could suffer fools gladly with a new sense of mirth.”

Brother William Hubert Barnes died on January 21, 1979, and was buried in a heavy rain in Rome’s beautiful Campo Verano.

Brother Richard Bonaventure Power President, 1959–1965 Replacing Hubert Barnes as president in 1959 was Brother Richard B. Power, who inherited a fast-growing school with construction cranes visible from every window and an efficient team of managers.

Br. Power was no stranger to Iona; he had served as chairman of the Biology Department from 1947 until 1954. But it was a different campus from the one he had left five years before. Enrollment had grown by nearly 25 percent to nearly 2,000 students (and would continue to grow

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St. Mary’s Chapel, originally a carriage house, later renovated and moved—now known as Blessed Edmund Rice Chapel (bottom right photo)

to 2,609 by the end of his term six years later); the faculty had increased to 103 members, of whom 76 were full-time;

There was no mistaking the strong will and love of discipline of Brother Richard Bonaventure Power. No doubt

the physical plant had been enlarged with the wings on Cornelia Hall and the new Rice Hall residence; and the Ryan Library Extension and McSpedon Hall were to come into service during the first months of his incumbency.

In its letter of welcome, the Ionian of September 9, 1959, predicted a future period of growth and excellence under Br. Power’s leadership.

some of his work ethic may have rubbed off on him from his father, who worked in the ticket booth for the New York City subway system—12 hours a day, seven days a week. As a youngster, Richard and his brothers and sister took turns bringing their father meals, which he ate inside the booth.

Br. Power graduated from Power Memorial Academy (no connection to

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the family name) in New York, and then joined the Christian Brothers. In 1937, he began his academic career at All Hallows Institute in the Bronx, teaching second grade although he had only attended college for one year by then.

By all accounts, Br. Power was not only a dedicated and talented teacher but a well-loved one. For years, recalled Brother A. D. Devane, Br. Power brought laughter to his Latin classes

when he would snap at a student who missed an answer: “Who had you for first-year Latin?” “You did, Brother,” came the reply.

In time, Br. Power went on to earn a master’s and doctorate in biology from Fordham, and taught at Power Memorial until 1947. Along the way, in addition to polishing his teaching credentials, he coached baseball and led the team to a 1944 championship.

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Shortly afterward, he received an autographed photo of Babe Ruth with a congratulatory note from his idol, which he kept for the rest of his life.

Arriving at Iona College in 1947, Br. Power only increased the workload from what he had been doing at Power Memorial. He taught religion, Latin and biology, while operating the campus bookstore, coaching the baseball team, taking courses for his master’s degree, and serving as the College’s athletic director.

He did it all with humor and patience, never complaining, always willing to help a student—and more than one student who hated biology at the beginning of a semester ended the term loving the subject and earning an A. Br. Power did have a temper, and generally kept it well in control. But Harry Shantz, an Iona alumnus and teacher, recalled one day he and Br. Power were walking down a secondfloor corridor among students when suddenly Br. Power reached out, grabbed a student who was pulling materials from his locker, and slammed him against the wall. Br. Power was livid. “Your mother called me. She told me what you did last night. You’d

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better not try that again.” The young student had hit his mother, and she had called the school to seek direction.

“Harry, can you believe a kid would strike his own mother?” Br. Power said, as he continued walking down the hall, his composure restored.

In 1959, Br. Power was tapped as president of Iona College. He was blessed with a good management team, thanks in large part to his predecessor, William Barnes. But in truth, Br. Power harbored a certain shyness and reticence while in positions of leadership, and he never really enjoyed the job. Though he was obedient to the Congregation and to the Church and took on whatever assignments they laid at his doorstep, if said assignments involved administrative functions, his happiest day was always the last one, when he could retreat back to teaching and being among students and faculty.

“Basically, ‘Bony’ was a very shy man, especially when he found himself with a large group,” recalled Br. Harry Dunkak, who lived in the same Brothers’ house with him for 20 years.

“The only exception to this was in the classroom. Here, he was at his best . . .

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No doubt, the most difficult years in Bony’s life were the five years spent as superior/principal at All Hallows, which were immediately followed by six years as president of Iona College.”

Despite being a reluctant administrator, Br. Power made important strides at Iona College. He hired the first woman faculty member, negotiated the donation of 27 acres of land on Wilmot Road for Iona Prep, and rolled out graduate education and other new programs at Iona. In addition, at his urging, the Iona College faculty began laying the groundwork to form their own elected body—the Faculty Senate—to represent its views and present advice to the administration. (The Senate’s actual formation happened in 1969.)

With a sense of relief, Br. Power returned to the classroom, taking a position at Essex Catholic High School, where he taught biology and ran the lab for another few years. On September 24, 1993, he entered the hospital in New Rochelle for an operation on his legs to improve circulation. When a nurse came to check on him that evening, he had passed away.

Brother Joseph Gonzaga McKenna President, 1965–1971 Iona College’s next president had little of a honeymoon period. Brother Joseph G. McKenna, a former math professor and dean, suffered from both his own ill health and a school with a “devolution of authority” in the 1960s. It seemed that Br. McKenna could not escape conflict and distractions that delayed his plans for the College’s progress.

His life hadn’t started out that way.

The second of two children of Irishborn parents, Joseph Gonzaga McKenna was born in New York City, and spent

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his high school years in West Park, the Catholic school near the Hudson River two hours north of Manhattan.

He entered the Congregation’s novitiate in 1939, and the following year headed for college at St. Mary’s in Nova Scotia—just in time to be notified that the Canadian college was cutting its ties with the Christian Brothers. He took

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up temporary collegiate studies at West Park (with the help of Fordham University), and received his first teaching assignment—at All Hallows in New York—teaching grammar school, and then taught at Rice High School. A year later, he was assigned to Iona Prep on the Iona College campus. It was while at Iona Prep that Br. McKenna, while

Doorley Hall, c.1965

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teaching mathematics, religion and Latin, completed his undergraduate work at Fordham and began taking graduate courses at Columbia University. After earning both his masters, and doctorate in math, he was offered another job, on the faculty of Iona College in the mathematics department.

Br. McKenna was an immediate hit, so much so that the student weekly, the Ionian, wrote that the new math professor “has that rare pedagogical gift of being able to make his subject penetrate the most stubborn heads. Good humor and clear presentation are the secrets of his success.”

Two years later, Br. McKenna was promoted to dean of the College, overseeing in part the construction of new facilities and working with the faculty, while saving his off time for handball and bridge. After three years as dean, he returned to All Hallows so that he could continue his studies at Columbia and do some additional math teaching, at which he excelled. “Watch carefully,” he would say, as he picked up a piece of chalk, and proceeded to prove to the students that one equals two, then lay the chalk down with the warning that “fools

rush in where angels fear to tread.” But by the end of the class, students had a new-found appreciation for the subject of mathematical logic—and the teacher.

In 1957, he was appointed principal of a new school—Catholic Memorial High School—in the Boston suburb of West Roxbury. It was his six years at this school that he considered the best administrative work of his life.

He would set the tone on opening day, standing on the school steps and welcoming the first crop of freshmen, telling them of his wish that they become what he referred as “Christian, educated gentlemen.” It was a theme he’d repeat often, whether to parents or outside groups. Christian, educated gentlemen, he would pronounce, was what Catholic Memorial High was going to produce. One day, watching his school’s basketball team play a home game against its archrival, Br. McKenna watched with dismay as some of the Catholic Memorial fans began to boo the opponents. He promptly asked the referees to stop the game and he strode over to the stands to lecture the overzealous fans on the subject of sportsmanlike conduct.

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Virtually without exception, Br. McKenna received accolades for his administrative abilities as a rock of calm, kindness and understanding. “He was my superior for two years, and they were the happiest two years of my life,” recalled Brother Ailbe Hennessy.

“Happiness reigned in the community…

No one was ever quicker than he to appreciate merit or to forgive frailty and palliate defect.”

Given the enormous support he had at Catholic Memorial, it seemed a bit of a surprise when in August 1963 he returned to Iona College, this time as vice president, reporting to Br. Power. For two years, he helped the president on academic consultations, and shared advice on protocol as well as faculty, staff and community relations. Two years later, in the summer of 1965, he was appointed president of Iona College.

Br. McKenna eased into his new role and was proud to see the College’s first graduate students take their diplomas in June 1966, including clergymen who earned their master’s in pastoral counseling, and by 1968 he had conferred Iona’s first MBAs. He

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also oversaw the implementation of the school’s first computer center.

He did have distractions, however.

The advent of the mid-1960s brought student unrest across the country, and though Iona College only had mild exposure compared to other colleges, there was a constant stream of invective directed at the administration, the school and society in general from the student newspaper. Though President McKenna was urged by others to become involved in the process of selecting future editors—tradition was that each editor was allowed to choose his successor—he refused to do so, desiring instead to live up to the motto he had adopted at Catholic Memorial—Vince in Bono Malum, a phrase from Romans that loosely means “overcome evil with good.”

His patience was tested, however, when a member of the College’s board of trustees died in an accident in February 1970. The newspaper’s story was so erroneous, and the editor’s subsequent attitude was apparently so hurtful, that a member of the board resigned in disgust. And he had not just been any member—he had been

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one of the major financial backers of Iona College.

The relationship with the newspaper was more than just a dustup between the editors and the administration—it created a massive divide on campus. Brother John G. Driscoll, Iona’s vice president at the time, recalled that “so many counter-pressures were brought to bear that no solution could bring a universally accepted solution to the issue . . . Joe was in deep anguish. One of the most painful episodes during Joe’s years as president involved the college newspaper.”

And then it only grew worse. Trustee meetings were held. Legal action was sought. There was pressure to shut the paper down. For some, it was simply a matter of stamping out an undesirable pest, but for others there were the more complicated issues of student rights and constitutional rights. Ultimately, President McKenna chose to work with the students and other parties, but the longer the discussions went on, the more isolated he became. If he took action, it was criticized. If he postponed action, it, too, was criticized. For Br. McKenna, it was absolutely imperative that the

Students recreate a classic Iona photo from 1948 (see photo p.34)

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dialogue continue, especially given the era of student protests—when emotions on all fronts ran just a hair beneath the surface and there remained the ever-present and real concern that arguments could erupt into violence. Br. Driscoll added: “Two of us were with Joe as he sat crying over the conflict and dilemma, and the damage it was causing to Iona…”

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In the end, the entire episode— which had spread out over nearly seven months—took its toll on Br. McKenna.

“In the summer of 1970, Joe was a very tired man,” Br. Driscoll said. While serving community Mass in September, Br. McKenna felt pains in his chest, and by that afternoon, it had been diagnosed as a heart attack. Those who

Robert F. Kennedy addresses a crowd of more than 3,000 from Spellman portico, October 16, 1964

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worked with him were very upset, “but I do not think we were surprised,” Br. Driscoll said.

Br. McKenna’s job as president was essentially over. Trustees Arthur Radice and Jeremiah Burns secured an apartment for the administrator on the east coast of Florida, where he rested for several months until he could begin to take on some light clerical work. In the meantime, his duties were temporarily assigned to one of Iona’s vice presidents, George Pappas. The following June 1971, the trustees elected Br. Driscoll to become the next president.

In July of 1972, Br. McKenna received permission from his doctor to travel with his sister, Mary, and a tour group to San Francisco for some sightseeing. On July 28, he opted to rest in his room while his sister went shopping. After dinner, he rested some more, and when Mary returned to the room, she found him in the throes of another heart attack.

Though emergency crews were quickly at the scene, it was too late. Within 20 minutes, Brother Joseph Gonzaga McKenna was dead. He was 51 years old.

Brother John G. Driscoll President, 1971–1994 When John G. Driscoll was appointed president of Iona College, he was no stranger to the duties that came with the position. Since 1969, he had been serving as the first “assistant to the president,” and thus assumed his new duties on June 7, 1971, with relative ease. Prior to that, he had been an Iona professor and an undergraduate student.

Not that his long tenure as president was easy—none ever is—but President Driscoll certainly was spared the troubled times of the 1960s that Joseph McKenna weathered. President Driscoll’s administration ushered in

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Mother Teresa and President Driscoll, May 1976 commencement

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an openness, and trustees (several of whom had been greatly offended by the protests of the 1960s) were even encouraged to visit the campus and meet with students and faculty.

President Driscoll made available information on the academic and fiscal states of the College, and he invited all to cooperate in the realization of his hopes and aspirations for Iona. He would not be content merely to maintain the status quo; his vision embraced a transformation that would include an expanded Iona, improved facilities, and new academic programs designed to meet the challenges of the times.

He was also aware the College would need to depend on the generosity and resources of corporations and foundations. With the assistance of the trustees, particularly that of William Maloney, he became Iona’s best and most eloquent salesman, preferring to be addressed as “Jack,” and willing to speak to any individual and group about Iona. To ensure students’ ability to attend college despite inflationary pressure on tuition he established an endowment for scholarship assistance.

Born in New York City on April 17, 1933, Jack Driscoll’s love affair with Iona College began as an undergraduate student, where he majored in physics and graduated in 1954. A master’s in mathematics at St. John’s University was followed by a Ph.D., also in mathematics, from Columbia University.

After a handful of teaching assignments, including the first community of Christian Brothers on the Island of Antigua in the West Indies, Br. Driscoll was assigned in 1965 to teach mathematics at Iona College. For him, it was like coming home.

When Jack Driscoll came into your presence, his infectious smile and his ready laugh gave you the assurance that you were not only where you wanted to be, but where you should be. He wore his collar with honor and meticulous attention to detail, but he was equally comfortable in his Irish fisherman’s sweater and jeans. His gracefulness never revealed any tension or fatigue that might make someone feel uncomfortable and despite his usual role as the center of attention, his focus on others made them feel like he had all the time in the world for them.

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President Driscoll was a gifted speaker, his talks a perfect stew of clarity, drama, creative language and humor. A consummate teacher, forever encouraging others to think and learn (largely because he himself was a constant student), he was blessed with vast vaults of knowledge. He could recall the perfect quotation from the Torah or Christian Bible, or cite an obscure poem as easily as he could recall details of a conversation from decades earlier.

But despite his lifelong love of teaching, he did not shy from his difficult duties as a college president.

Under President Driscoll’s helm, there was tremendous growth at Iona College, both in expansion or creation of programs and physical plant projects such as Doorley Hall undergoing a seven-month, $1-million renovation in 1976.

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in gerontology, ecology, international studies, social work, health care administration, and computer and information science. On the MBA level, programs in taxation, public administration, health care systems management and advanced business studies became available. Iona’s master’s in education program and New York City Public School No. 11 were awarded a federal grant for a bilingual program to benefit students with limited English-speaking ability, with instructors from the College working with school district personnel.

Also during President Driscoll’s administration, Iona was one of eight colleges in the Westchester area participating in the Small Business Administration Program to provide free management counseling and technical assistance to small local businesses.

Additionally, the newly established communication arts major, sponsored jointly by the College of New Rochelle and Iona, sent its students to work in areas of advertising, television, radio broadcasting, journalism, theater, and magazine and book publishing.

Continuing the firm belief that much learning happened beyond the

YZ

The General Studies program, always innovative, added concentrations in criminal justice and in construction and facilities management to the curriculum.

Undergraduates found new offerings

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classroom, a speech pathology clinic for children with speech deficiencies was established. Interns from Iona’s psychology department worked in the area of learning disabilities in an inner-city elementary school while others assisted at the Bronx State Psychiatry Hospital. Other departments such as history and political science, sociology and economics also engaged in internships.

The College’s growth was tremendous during the 1970s, ballooning from 3,780 to 6,139 students, and President

Driscoll’s administration grappled with how to handle it. Everything and every place was crowded on the campus— classrooms, the cafeteria, housing and parking, to name a few. Aside from the philosophical concern of how to keep the small-college spirit with such an explosion of growth, the school had to deal with the practical concern of where to put everybody.

Some of the immediate space problems were resolved by renting space in the adjoining Mayflower Elementary School Building, which the city had

The Christmas Crèche on the Iona Quad, a College tradition since the mid-to-late 1980s

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closed because of falling enrollments.

Premises on North Avenue that formerly housed a supermarket were leased, named Quinn Hall, and remodeled to provide for spacious rooms, a lounge and a bookstore. Nothing is perfect—students and professors who previously strolled from hall to hall on the campus to change classes now had to do some fast walking to negotiate the distance from the new premises on North Avenue to Hagan Hall in the allotted 10-minute span.

President Driscoll was obviously

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a devotee of the benefits of a college education and he was especially vocal about the role science and technology played in that education. As a physics major in college, with a Ph.D. in mathematics, he felt strongly that scientific and technological literacy were no less important than literature and history.

When Cornelia Hall—where most of the College’s science courses were taught—was in the process of being remodeled in the late 1970s, President Driscoll called for a review of the current six-credit requirement in Natural Science/

The Iona College Arts Center on North Avenue, a gift of Joseph M. Murphy ’59, ’83H, and his wife, JoAnn Mazzella Murphy ’98H, both long-serving Iona Trustees

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Computer Science. For him, it wasn’t enough that the courses be revamped— he wanted a bold, imaginative program suitable for the modern age.

What evolved was a 1981 pilot course styled as the Iona College Science Technology Literacy curriculum, an interdisciplinary program in the study of the two fields, funded in part

by IBM and the Sloan Foundation. In 1983, a Science and Literacy Fellows Program was established, and that was followed by a group of public lectures that today is known as the Thomas G. Bullen Memorial Lecture Series. Early speakers included Nobel laureates in physiology, medicine and physics, and world-renowned environmentalist Barry Commoner. All of this dovetailed nicely with the December 1984 dedication of the Murphy Science and Technology Center, built on the other side of North Avenue, between Summit and Mayflower Avenues. The Murphy Center was named in honor of the family of Joseph M. Murphy ’59, ’83H, and his wife JoAnn Mazzella Murphy ’98H, both long-serving Iona trustees and supporters.

In early 1984, President Driscoll

returned from a sabbatical abroad. His travels in Europe and Third-World countries convinced him of how little Americans knew of foreign peoples and cultures, and even of the foreign policies of their own country. Back at Iona he was soon advocating programs in what he termed “Global Awareness,” and calling on the faculty to internationalize the curriculum. The following year, the globe came to Iona when, at President Driscoll’s invitation, His Holiness the Dalai Lama (whom he had met while on sabbatical) came to speak.

Just as a review of the science curriculum led to greater things, President Driscoll’s desire for Iona’s students to learn more of the world led to an expansion of international studies and study abroad sessions. It was typical of the man, who would continue to serve as Iona’s president through 1994, that his infectious desire to seek and sow knowledge would issue an action at virtually every turn.

In the years following his remarkable tenure at Iona College, Br. Driscoll lost none of his boundless enthusiasm for knowledge. For a while, he took up residence in Jerusalem and

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began studies at Hebrew University in the Talmud and other biblical topics, drawing on Jewish sources and methods. He became a scholar-in-residence there, and a director of the Bat-Kol Institute in Jerusalem, a program of Jewish studies for Christians in a Jewish milieu. As he had his whole life, he engaged everyone he came in contact with, siding up to individuals on walks, over lunch, or crossing the yard, inquiring of them about their work, their home country, their hopes, and challenges.

Br. Driscoll was drawn to the power of grassroots ministries, recognizing they were tools which, through their apparent simplicity, could reach people with a directness and immediacy that the academic world could reach only indirectly. He was soon drawn into the Light of Torah, working to bring, in his words, an “unidentified hunger for the experience of Talmud Torah into Catholic Christian homes and parishes.”

Light of Torah had begun as the weekly publication of a ministry to spread the vision of Nostra Aetate—Vatican II’s call for reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish

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people—and it soon grew, with Brother Driscoll’s help. He stayed with it virtually until the day he died on September 21, 2010.

Brother James A. Liguori President, 1994–2011 Brother James A. Liguori came into office as Iona College’s seventh president, replacing the highly respected Br. John G. Driscoll. At his inauguration, President Liguori stood before the assembled on September 17 and urged them “to recommit ourselves to our own ministry . . . and to this uniquely successful experiment which we call Iona College.”

And under President Liguori’s

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leadership, the successful experiment not only continued, it was greatly expanded. More than $100 million was raised during his time, a program of previously unimaginable building expansion took place, and the alumni and other friends of the College lined up to show their support. These years were described as a “coming of age” period for Iona College, and President Liguori didn’t waste a day of the 16

years that comprised the institution’s new age. Small wonder that in 2009, he was named the Westchester Business Leader of the Year.

For President Liguori, it was perhaps impossible to separate the Iona community from the greater community at large. A first-generation American, the son of Italian immigrants, he was a native of New Rochelle and attended Iona Preparatory School.

The Arrigoni Center, named in memory of Ferdinand E. Arrigoni by his son and generous Iona supporter, Edward F. Arrigoni ’56, ’91H

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Afterward, he attended Iona College and later earned his master of science degree in English education from the State University of New York in New Paltz, as well as a master’s and doctorate in educational administration from Fordham University.

Br. Liguori’s career included terms as principal at Rice High School, Iona

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Prep and Bishop Hendrickson High School, as well as associate superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of New York and superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Newark.

By the time he landed back at Iona College in 1993 as executive vice president, he was well suited to become its next president two years later.

The Robert V. LaPenta Student Union, completed in 2005, named after LaPenta ’67, ’00H, a long-time College trustee and generous benefactor

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High on his list of priorities was ramping up the number of accreditations for the College; at the end of his term, Iona held more certifications than any other college in the state—a long way from the days when the small College struggled (and failed at first) to get its first accreditation. Like many of the presidents before him, President Liguori believed the face of the College needed to be seen, and was frequently spotted strolling about the bucolic campus, greeting students, and meeting staff in their offices (not his).

At basketball games, he often stood in the doorway of the gym, greeting the fans as they entered the arena.

His term was a long period of leadership and expansion of academic programs, but it was the rising walls that spoke outwardly of the great work going on inside of them. They included the Iona College Arts Center, the Robert V. LaPenta Student Union, the Hynes Athletics Center and new residence halls, including Conese and South. Renovations included Cornelia Hall, the main entrance, and the former Mulcahy Campus Events Center.

The Vision into Reality campaign,

which raised $82 million, created an endowment for more than 23 scholarships, and helped spawn the $14.7-million Visions of Excellence: A Campaign for Ryan Library, which allowed for expansion and renovation of the library, the acquisition of up-to-date technology (including two electronic classrooms), more than 100 computers, a climate-controlled archive room and other features.

Iona Magazine, in a major profile of the president on the eve of his retirement in 2011, noted that, in many ways, Brother Liguori exemplified the type of person he wants to attract to the College. He believed in the mission of Iona College and in the importance of American Catholic higher education. He also had an impeccable aesthetic sense and that is reflected in the attractiveness and functionality of the campus today.

Toward the end of his term, and true to form, President Liguori once again set out to watch, listen and engage. But this time he did it on a national scale, touring the country to say “thank you” to so many who had supported Iona through the years. To far-flung members of the Iona family,

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he said, “You should be proud of your alma mater—this is what you’ve accomplished, and let’s not sit back because the day we sit back, we start moving backward. There is no such thing as the status quo.”

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Brother in a community infused with the Christian Brother spirit. Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson in his inaugural, President Nyre said life was a journey—and your journey at Iona should, and was, going to be memorable, whether you were a student, staff, or faculty.

Not long after taking office President Nyre had already marshalled a steering group of faculty, staff and students to take short-, medium- and long-range views of Iona College’s future. The result was a five-year strategic plan addressing everything from a new core curriculum and establishment of the school’s first fully endowed professorship to new master’s programs and the development of a comprehensive program review policy. Very little escaped President Nyre’s attention during the early years of his administration as he pushed the College into the future.

A native of Wisconsin, Joseph Nyre earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse, and continued his formal education by obtaining an MA in educational and counseling psychology from the University of Missouri, an educational specialist

Joseph E. Nyre President, 2011–present From the beginning, it was evident that Iona’s eighth president, Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D., would be different. Not only was he Iona College’s first president to hail from west of the Hudson River (the other presidents came from either Europe or New York), but he was the first president not to be a Christian

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(Ed.S.), and Ph.D. in school psychology with a clinical child psychology minor from the University of Kansas. In addition, Dr. Nyre also completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships in clinical child psychology at Harvard Medical School’s Boston Children’s Hospital and the University of Kansas.

After his studies, he practiced as a psychologist in academic, clinical and private practice settings and served in a faculty capacity at the University of Chicago, Baylor University, and Harvard Medical School.

But President Nyre, despite not being a Christian Brother, focused on Catholic identity and created the position of a Christian Brother advisor to the president to promote the advancement of the Christian Brothers’ heritage at Iona College (the first in that role was Brother J. Kevin Devlin, Ed.D., ’61).

Resembling the two faces of Janus—one looking to the past and the other gazing into the future—it became evident that under President Nyre the “life as a journey” was going to become quite a ride, indeed.

The writing kit of Thomas Paine in Ryan Library’s Thomas Paine National Historical Association Collection

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Just four years into his term, President Nyre’s administration has implemented a strategic plan that focuses on students, faculty and campus infrastructure. In fact, focusing on affordability and scholarships—especially in light of the fact that the country was barely emerging from a horrific recession when he was appointed—was critical.

The result was the smallest net tuition increase in a decade paired with more than $43 million in financial aid the same year.

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Meanwhile, faculty have seen an increase in professional development, awards and innovative programs and improved work environments such as labs, centers and offices. Additionally, new graduate, certificate and undergraduate programs have been launched; a satellite program in Manhattan was opened; and international studies in Spain, France, India, Asia and the Middle East have been initiated.

On campus, President Nyre oversaw the opening of the Institute for

Thanksgiving food baskets project—community service, fall 2014

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Thomas Paine Studies, the Center for Financial Market Studies, the International Student Center, the Institute for Business Analytics, and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning.

Land holdings increased and several buildings, including residence halls, have been built or renovated.

President Nyre’s focus on improving the financial health of the College has been virtually non-stop. In four years, the endowment has grown by more than 100 percent and annual giving has grown more than 65 percent, increasing funds available for scholarships and creating a new endowed professorship. Not only has revenue grown, but the administration has refinanced the College’s debt and instituted stronger internal controls.

Today, Joseph Nyre heads a college of nearly 4,000 students—up slightly from the 43 students during the early part of World War II. The once all-male student body is now equally divided between men and women representing over 30 different nationalities.

Students today can choose from 60 majors and 40 minors, or can enroll in a five-year bachelor’s/master’s program

in business (MBA), chemistry, computer science, criminal justice, English, history, mathematics and psychology. Additionally, there are over 40 graduate programs in the Hagan School of Business and the School of Arts and Science.

Despite the enormous advances and successes on campus, President Nyre, in a television interview during the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade, seemed most animated about what happens after Iona students graduate (there now are more than 40,000 alumni, men and women).

“Our students go on to move the world,” he told his host.

Indeed, in November 2014, the U.S. Department of Education named Iona as one of 98 colleges and universities honored for leadership in developing programs in community service. Iona was selected partly because of its ability to build relationships between community members of diverse backgrounds, while engaging in service projects.

Service “is expected of Iona students,” President Nyre told the TV host (himself a former Iona student), noting that service has always been a core tenet of the Christian Brothers ideology.

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Campus lamp post banners and students in front of Spellman Hall, c. 2014

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Life at Iona— Something for Everyone

There was a certain to-be-expected innocence that permeated college campuses around the country in the early 1940s, but for Iona College it was different.

Born literally when America was on the cusp of war, the College had no traditions or customs on which to fall back while the country grappled with a new reality. It had only studies, Church, and a student body—and even the student enrollment dwindled to 43 warm bodies as the others marched off to basic training and combat in multiple theaters.

But after the conclusion of World War II, Iona’s student body wasted little time in creating a college environment just for them. Clubs, student publications, different societies, and numerous activities began to fill the gaps between and after classes.

As the years marched on, whether you wanted to see a production of South Pacific,

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attend a writer’s conference, or play in a pipe and drum ensemble, Iona had something for you.

The first student activity was in April 1941 with the publication of the Iona Pinnacle, the student newspaper, and later it morphed into the Ionian, which first appeared under that name on November 1, 1946.

After the war, life for the students, and the huge influx of veterans, began to flourish. In marched the Tara Knights, the Veterans Club, Debating Society, Dramatics Society, Swing Band; and the introduction of athletic activities such as basketball, baseball, track and field, and crew. Among the student organizations popping up, the Gaelic Society was especially popular, a language club that for many years hosted the annual aeriocht (a festival of Irish dancing, music, language, and games) in cooperation with the Council of Gaelic Societies in New York City. In fact, for a while, campus activity calendars became so chaotic that a much-needed coordinated activities council was established to restore order in arranging of dates for various Iona social functions.

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Other entertaining and attractive activities was the work of the Dramatic Society, which produced two shows annually, a rather full and ambitious program for a student group, including Ah Wilderness, A School of Scandal, Le BourAn Iona production of The Glass Menagerie, spring 2015

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geois Gentilhomme as well as Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of which one critic wrote: “Because of rain, the stars in the opening night sky were invisible but on the boards of Doorley Hall were clustered

a galaxy of performers radiating their stellar light upon a charmed audience.”

In 1964, a series of annual Writers’ Conferences was initiated by Brother Patrick S. Collins of the Classics Department. Aspiring writers from inside and

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Piper in front of the High Cross

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outside the campus gathered to hear such successful authors as mystery writer Frederick Danay (Ellery Queen), novelist Brian Moore, and others. Perhaps the most valuable aspects of the conferences were the opportunities available to struggling writers to have their manuscripts assessed.

The Gaelic Society was the proud sponsor of a pipe band, which had been a dream of the College for many years. Rehearsals for prospective pipers and drummers began in October 1965.

Joe Brady, a 1953 graduate, donated his services to train the band, and the College helped with instruments. The tartan uniform was that of the Clan MacLean of Duart, the dominant tartan used on the island of Iona. The pipe band’s first formal appearance was at the Yonkers St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 13, 1966.

The pipers and drummers stepped out confidently, not unduly worried about their very limited repertoire, knowing that they had a fresh audience on each successive block. Four days later, and much to their astonishment, they won a trophy for their appearance in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In future years, the pipe band would lend color to functions and sporting events.

Not everything was fun and games, though. In the mid-to-late 1960s, student unrest hit Iona. As the Vietnam War captured public attention, the spate of letters to the Ionian on political and moral issues continued. Students worried about their draft status and of the wisdom of American involvement.

As always, freedom of the press from censorship was a prime topic of discussion. In their letters, students advocated greater freedom for students, participation in decisions affecting their conduct and studies, and relaxation of the dress code. Aware that no list of “appropriate” and “inappropriate” clothes could be complete, the dean of students simply asked for neatness in attire. How varied the student interpretation of “neatness” could be was only too readily apparent, much to the dismay of many in the College community. At this time the administration had also begun a year-long examination of the College curriculum and it introduced on a trial basis a policy of unlimited cuts in class attendance for juniors and seniors.

By 1967, the student government, prompted by movements in other institutions, introduced plans for

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Muhammad Ali speaks to students on Spellman portico, April 1968

and grading, quality of the instructor’s presentation, and the relevance of particular courses.

Some of the returned suggestions mirrored the students’ perennial fear of examinations and commented on the lack of uniformity in multi-sectioned courses as well as the striking variety in grading standards. Some more general recommendations asked for improvement in the faculty advising program and for consideration of having the fall semester finish before the Christmas recess. This latter suggestion was subsequently adopted.

By 1969, the recent violent turmoil on some New York college campuses prompted the state legislature to pass a bill requiring all institutions of higher learning to file with the Board of Regents a statement of rules and regulations for the maintenance of public

student evaluation of courses, tests, and professors. In its words, the aim was “to criticize constructively and to suggest corrections for those aspects of academic life at Iona that the students find particularly unrewarding or unprofitable [and] to express approval of those aspects which are considered useful and advantageous by the students.” The questionnaire sent to all students was actually fairly objective, seeking information on texts, assigned readings, tests,

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order on their campuses. Iona had some demonstrations, teach-ins, and other activity, but the College was let off rather lightly, due perhaps in great measure to the fact that at a commuter college such as Iona most of the students left campus after 3 p.m. Certain days were organized nationally to involve all campuses in protest movements against the continuing war in Vietnam, and as such the October 15, 1969, moratorium at Iona was a carefully planned affair with

well-known speakers, a series of workshops, and an evening “Rally for Peace,” which attracted over 3,000 people to the campus. A group of Iona students joined the march along North Avenue to the Pershing Square Building, which housed the New Rochelle Draft Board.

YZ Until 1969, Iona College had been traditionally male. In 1966, female

Fall 1969: Iona admits first full class of women

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students had been admitted to the summer sessions and, through agreement with the neighboring College of New Rochelle, cross registration of courses began. This departure from custom and the success of women students in the graduate programs and special institutes, along with a decline in freshman admission statistics, influenced the admission of women into the regular day sessions. The 1969-70 school year became known as the “Year of the Girls” when about 200 women, one-quarter of the freshman class, registered.

At about the same time, an important development in the reorganization process was the decision to abolish the divisional structure (Arts, Science, Business) and form two schools—a School of Arts and Science and a School of Business, each under the supervision of its own dean.

By the 1970s, whether because of the sluggish nature of the national economy or the concern with job security, the student generation of the 70s was very much career-oriented, to many a welcome change from the activism of the previous decade. Fields

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of endeavor, particularly in business areas, were becoming increasingly popular while there was apparent a growing lack of emphasis on the liberal arts. Arts and Science majors used their electives for courses in accounting, marketing, economics and computer science. The General Studies program added concentrations in criminal justice and in construction and facilities management to its offerings, and undergraduates found new choices in gerontology, ecology, international studies, social work, and health care administration. At the MBA level, programs in taxation and public administration became available.

YZ Coupled with these changes was the rise of science and technology at Iona. Before beginning the renovation of Cornelia Hall, which housed the programs for science majors—physics, chemistry and biology—Iona President John Driscoll had raised the question of the needs of the non-science students in an age of popular misgivings about the rapidity by

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which science and technology have outdistanced popular understanding.

There existed at the time a six-credit requirement in natural science/ computer science, but there were no definite outcomes stated as to what degree of knowledge was desirable.

President Driscoll did not want a mere revamping of existing courses but a bold imaginative program in scientific and computer literacy.

For President Driscoll, few of the classic debates of history had more rele-

vance to our times than that between the humanist and the scientist, and thus in 1979 a Science Development Committee was charged with defining the scope and outcomes of a suitable program. Because the members were unable to find an existing curriculum they set about designing one centered on the three themes of energy, health and environment. The faculty of the three science departments assumed responsibility for the major work, yet, because of considerable involvement of

Student working at radio station WICR c.2013

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faculty from other disciplines the project operated as a campuswide effort from its inception. The members of the Department of Computer and Information Science designed a computer literacy program that would complement the work of their science colleagues.

In May 1982, the Academic Senate approved a six-credit interdisciplinary course sequence in the study of science and technology. The sequence was structured in the form of four 1½-credit modules that were taught in two semes-

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ters. Emphasis was placed on process rather than content, a laboratory component was included, and a leadership grant from IBM enabled the College to develop the courses, train faculty, and provide teaching materials.

Planning for a new science center building was also developing in the early 1980s. When a rather ambitious architectural design for a structure on campus proved too expensive, the school instead purchased the empty nearby Mayflower School and adapted the

Students, mid 1970s

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building to the needs of the program.

The $7-million construction work was dedicated in December 1984.

In the 1980s, there was no official foreign study program for students at Iona, but through the International Studies division, arrangements were made for individual students to pursue their studies at institutions in Europe. In the summer of 1986, the Hagan School of Business established a program at the National Institution of Higher Education in Limerick, Ireland.

In the following years, students were in residence for a full semester in Limerick, five weeks of which were spent at the Irish Institute for European studies at Louvain, Belgium.

Later, a summer session in Rome was begun. That same summer, art students spent time in Liverpool, England, which was followed by semesters at St. Mary’s College, Dublin. Since that fledgling beginning, study abroad programs have had marked success at Iona—with numbers of Iona students studying abroad increasing notably in the last few years.

But not all endeavors at extending the boundaries of Iona College proved

successful. Most significant of these was in 1989, the consolidation with Elizabeth Seton College in Yonkers. Separated by a distance of eight miles, the two campuses were located at opposite sides of southern Westchester County: Iona College near Long Island Sound

In 1986 the Hagan School of Business established a program at the National Institution of Higher Education in Limerick, Ireland. on the east and the Hudson River as a backdrop for the Yonkers campus on the west. Elizabeth Seton College was founded in 1960 by the Sisters of Charity as a two-year junior college. At the time of the acquisition in February 1989, it had approximately 1,000 students, 58 percent of whom were adults. It was the first college in the area to pioneer the weekend college on a trimester basis.

Over the years, there was a close collaborative relationship between Elizabeth Seton College and Iona, many graduates

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of the former completing their four-year degree program at Iona.

After preliminary discussions, both colleges had conducted extensive studies to examine the potential for consolidation. The task forces reported favorably and the proposal was approved by the trustees, and the state Board of Regents issued a new charter on February 17, 1989. The Yonkers college became part of Iona College as the Elizabeth Seton School of Associate Degree Studies.

But it was problematic from the start.

Iona found it nearly impossible to join the two academic programs, and the attrition rate of the Seton students was very high.

Iona College was forced to heavily subsidize the Yonkers campus and by 1995, it shut the program down. Unfortunately, the damage was done. While it forced Iona to reevaluate and reaffirm its mission to be a four-year program, it was now a program saddled with a huge deficit, caused in large part by this unsuccessful effort. A restructuring, including one in 1995, reduced administration, faculty and staff by 30 percent. Iona downsized its budget in both 1994 and 1995 and instituted better cost controls.

A continued bright spot—among

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many—for Iona College has been the Hagan School of Business, which in 2000 received accreditation from the premier accrediting agency for business schools in the United States and internationally, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). There were approximately 1,200 colleges and universities in the U.S. offering undergraduate business Hagan Hall (formerly East Hall)

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degrees at the time, with 700 that also offered graduate programs. Iona became only the 359th school in the United States (and 374th in the world) to earn AACSB accreditation. The Hagan School was commended for its strong student-centered environment, which encouraged improvement, commitment to diversity, recognition by the Iona administration that the Hagan School

was a flagship academic program of the institution, utilization of instructional technology, and the hiring of outstanding staff. To achieve accreditation, a business school must have satisfied the expectations of a diverse range of quality standards relating to curriculum faculty resources, admissions, degree requirements, library and computer facilities, financial resources

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and intellectual climate that were all linked to centralize the mission of developing excellence in business programs.

By 2012, the Hagan School master’s program included financial services, finance, international finance, and public accounting and further distinguished Iona’s business school reputation. The financial services program focused on global and domestic financial markets, commodity markets, and investment analysis, while the finance program

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delved into financial engineering—the application of economic principles to the dynamics of financial markets, especially for the purpose of structuring, pricing, and managing risk. The international finance program concentrated on monetary and macroeconomic interrelations between two or more countries and the dynamics of the global financial system. Courses looked into the workings of international monetary systems, balance of payments, exchange

Student in an Iona chemistry lab c.2013

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rates, foreign direct investment, and how these topics related to international trade. The public accounting program was intended for students who earned a business degree, did not major in accounting, and later decided to become certified public accountants. The program complied with all professional requirements and provided both the mandated course work and necessary knowledge to pass the CPA exam. Earning this degree reduced the requirements for the awarding of the CPA from two years to one.

The College also opened the LaPenta-Lynch Trading Floor, almost 1,000 square feet of space devoted to learning about, and trading on, the various stock exchanges.

In 2014, Iona established an analytics institute within the Hagan School of Business and under the direction of Dean Vincent Calluzzo. “The Iona College Analytics Institute will provide area businesses and organizations with reliable, independent data verification and decision modeling,� Calluzzo said at the time.

The first major program initiative of the new institute was the Center for Health Care Analytics. This center

focuses on developing health care management capabilities by drawing clinical and business intelligence from massive repositories of information that are available across the continuum of the health care industry. A multidisciplinary program, the Center draws on expertise from the Iona faculty, information systems, health care management, finance/accounting, operations research, and other programs.

YIona on the Rise . . . AgainZ By the winter of 2004, Iona College resident students found the picture was very bright. As the resident population increased, options for dining, relaxation and recreation were growing better and more varied. The modern North (now Conese) and South residence halls, which opened in August, brought the total number of students Iona housed on campus to 933. Student activity in clubs increased. There was by then a greater number of students on campus, a new electronic message board for publicizing events, and a more structured program of activities. The program included movie nights on Mondays,

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acoustic nights on Tuesdays at the Isle of Iona coffee house, and comedy and karaoke nights once a month. Iona was also providing more opportunities for students to take advantage of the social and cultural offerings of New York City. A series of trips to Broadway shows turned out to be one of the most popular events offered. Students greatly enjoyed college life and from the number of Iona sweatshirts being worn around campus, school spirit was at an all-time high.

In later years, students would enjoy additional study opportunities, such as an environmental studies major, which includes three concentrations: politics and policy, religious studies, and ecological and environmental biology.

This degree offered Iona students an integrated understanding of the earth and humankind’s impact upon the environment. Those who hope to influence environmental policy or join non-profit advocacy organizations can focus on politics and policy, while the religious studies concentration was designed for students who are interested in ministry or social/environmental entrepreneur-

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ship. Students interested in becoming sustainability coordinators can focus on ecological and environmental biology.

Another addition for the curriculum in 2014 was a new master’s program in communication sciences and disorders. Working in space shared by New Rochelle’s Holy Family Parish, the 58-credit graduate program leads to a master of arts degree. Also in 2014, Iona announced undergraduate and graduate programs with a concentration in the rapidly expanding cyber security fields. The programs provide students with cyber security skills and hands-on experience. Students are exposed to new research ideas across many cyber security areas including software security, mobile security, networking security, database security, and cryptography. In 20142015, the College developed a new core curriculum that is slated to go into effect in fall 2016 pending state approval.

It’s clear that Iona College continues to live up to its motto: certa bonum certamen: Fight the good fight!

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Iona commencement, Madison Square Garden, May 16, 2015

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Over the years many celebrities have come to the Iona campus. Counterclockwise from the top: Brother Ruane holding hands with Diana Ross, with the Supremes on the left; Carly Simon and Livingston Taylor in concert, spring of 1972; Iona 1968 graduate Don McLean giving a concert in 1975

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Iona College students are active in many ways. Counterclockwise from top: 1970 Iona cheerleaders; 1949 Ryan Library; 1968 patriotic ceremony on campus; 1968 anti-war demonstration, in front of campus on North Avenue; 1961 under the ginkgo with Spellman Hall under construction in background

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Jim Valvano, Iona head basketball coach from 1975–1980

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The Vigor of the Gaels— Sweat and Glory at Iona

By Peter Kollmann ’06

Iona College currently features a Division I athletics program with 21 men’s and women’s varsity sports teams, but in 1940, only one sport— basketball—existed. Men’s basketball was inextricably woven into the fabric of the school, and several of the early College presidents were basketball coaches in their faculty years. “Men’s basketball is a focal point of who we are and what we are,” said Vice Provost for Student Life Charlie Carlson, a 1971 graduate. “There is a rich tradition.”

Br. Arthur Loftus was the first men’s basketball head coach, as well as Iona’s first athletic director. There have been 12 athletic directors in Iona’s 75 years. Br. Loftus guided the “Irish,” as the teams were called in the 1940s, to a 14–9 record in the inaugural season, then 19–4 in 1941–42. World War II put a

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halt to men’s basketball for the next three seasons.

After the war, Iona introduced men’s cross country and track, baseball and rowing. By the late 1940s, cross country and baseball were excelling, while rowing was proving to be a steady young athletics program. The baseball team played on Haag Field, an on-campus field, starting in 1948. A varsity bowling team began in 1949, and lasted for some 30 years before phasing out.

Jim McDermott began coaching the men’s basketball team in 1948. During his 26-year tenure, he accumulated 319 wins—the most of the 12 men’s basketball coaches in history. Richie Guerin ’54 was the premier player in the early 1950s, and would go on to have the most decorated NBA career of any Iona player. From 1956–63, he starred for the New York Knicks and made six All-Star Games—and in 2013 was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the NBA hall of fame.

Golf began in 1950, and the Gaels immediately began dominating opponents for the rest of the decade in the Middle Eastern College Athletic Association (MECAA). This conference began

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in 1955 and gave medium-size colleges, such as Iona, Siena, and Saint Peter’s, the chance to compete against each other.

Men’s tennis also participated in the MECAA in the 1950s. Created in 1953, men’s tennis was strong early. Three clay courts existed where the present Spellman Hall stands; the courts were removed when Spellman was built in 1960.

In the mid-1960s, football was introduced at Iona, though first as a club sport, not varsity. The student-run club collected many $5 pledges, and by early 1965, enough pledge money had been raised, and the College declared club football a go. But the team wouldn’t be playing on campus or even in New Rochelle. Instead, they secured Mount Vernon’s Memorial Field Stadium, which could seat 5,000-plus fans.

In only their third season, the Gaels went a perfect 9–0 under coach Ben Bedini. In this magical 1967 campaign, Iona outscored its opposition 270–27, including a 20–6 victory over King’s in the club championship game. The year 1967 was also the first year of Iona’s ice hockey program, and around that time, the men’s rowing team captured four Spring Metropolitan Championship

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Regattas, in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969.

In 1969–70, when Iona became coed, women’s sports became intertwined in the College’s culture. The first women’s sport was basketball, which began in 1973.

The Goal Club, originally founded as the “5ers” to support Iona athletics, has been an important fundraising group over its 50 years, helping the College to remain successful in competition and in recruiting talented student

athletes. The club also hosts events that promote and advance the Gaels.

A huge milestone in Iona athletics history came in 1974, with the completion of the John A. Mulcahy Campus Events Center. A $4.5 million project, the Mulcahy Center (and 700-space parking garage) gave the men’s basketball team a definitive on-campus home court. No longer would the Gaels have to play home games at Mount Saint Michael Academy.

O’Connell Gym c.1958

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By 1979, under iconic head coach Jim Valvano and star center Jeff Ruland, Iona made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for the first time. The next season, the Gaels knocked off No. 2 Louisville at Madison Square Garden, 77–60. Guards Kevin Hamilton and Glenn Vickers, along with Ruland,

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were simply too much for a complacent Cardinals team that night. This upset win is arguably the top moment in Iona athletics history.

In 1971, the baseball team went 19–5 and won 17 games in a row—the longest streak in school history. Aces Dennis Leonard, a future major league

Burns Sundial, located on the Iona Quad near St. Columba, which translates the College’s motto, Certa bonum certamen: “Fight the good fight.” President Cornelia awarded James Francis Burns the first Iona degree (Bachelor of Business Administration) on May 20, 1944

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star for the Kansas City Royals, and southpaw Steve Broege led the way.

The creation of the Mulcahy Center led to a new Haag Field, the dimensions of which were 430 feet to left, 480 feet to a “Death Valley” in left center and a mere 280 feet down the right-field line.

The men’s tennis team was very powerful in the 1970s—dominant, in fact. Under coach Brother Harry Dunkak, Iona went 144–23 from 1968– 78, including perfect seasons in 1972 (16–0), 1975 (16–0) and 1977 (19–0).

Among the stars were George Loesch, Frank Jules, and Kevin Kavanah.

Women’s basketball had begun in 1973 and two other important women’s sports—volleyball and softball—started in the late 1970s. Softball began in 1976, with volleyball coming the next year. Women’s tennis and rowing both started in 1979, and men’s swimming and diving began in 1975. Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, Bill Martin shined as a cross country/track star; he was one of Iona’s best runners ever.

New developments continued in the 1980s. Iona was one of six schools that formed the new Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC)

in 1980. The basketball, baseball, and softball teams all fared well early on, each winning multiple MAAC championships. The men’s basketball team, behind Steve Burtt Sr. and Gary Springer Sr., captured the 1982 and 1984 MAAC titles, and the baseball team won MAAC crowns in 1984 and 1985, the first one coming at Shea Stadium, the then-home of the New York Mets.

Both men’s and women’s soccer began this decade; men’s started in 1981 and women’s in 1985. Forward Tom McElderry scored a single-season record 20 goals in 1984 as Iona went 10–9 (4–3 MAAC). Larry McGee, one of Iona’s best ice hockey players ever, starred for the Gaels from 1981-85. McGee ranks fourth all-time in career goals and first in career assists. Men’s water polo began in 1979, and players like Matt Judge, Ray Judge and Rob McNulty made the team a force in the 1980s.

YThe 1990sZ By the 1990s, football began to take off. Quarterback Tom Proudian led the school to a 9-2 record in 1993, the first year of the new MAAC Football League.

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Against Siena, he threw six touchdowns, four of them to wide receiver Tim Silo, and passed for 485 total yards, both school records. The Gaels beat a tough St. John’s squad 42–30 in the final regular-season game to win the inaugural MAAC Championship. In 1999, a thrilling 62–50 Homecoming win over Duquesne lit up Iona’s campus; running back Ralph Saldiveri rushed for five

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touchdowns and 248 total yards in that memorable game.

In 1991, Iona introduced women’s cross country and track; it was a landmark addition to the athletics department. That same year, the men’s cross country team began an unprecedented streak—one that would endure all the way to the present. Starting in 1991, the Maroon & Gold harriers have

Kate Avery, national champion NCAA Division I cross country, November 2014

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captured the MAAC Championship every fall through 2014. Longtime head coach Mick Byrne, who led the teams from 1989 to 2008, valued international recruiting. He targeted Kenya, Ireland, and other foreign countries. One such talent was Irishman Packie Mulvany, who captured three straight MAAC individual titles from 1990–92. Then, from 2002–06, Kenyan Richard Kiplagat electrified Iona’s campus with his dominant runs and vibrant personality.

Kiplagat was Iona’s first star runner from Kenya.

In 1993, the men’s swimming and diving team won its first and only MAAC title, under longtime coach Nick Cavataro.

Gaels baseball had winning seasons and dominant players in the 1990s.

The 1990 season was highlighted by two big-time victories in the Hawaii Easter Rainbow Tournament. Iona beat nationally ranked Georgia Tech 4–1 and Oklahoma State 3–2. Iona went 24–19 (9-7 MAAC South) in 1991 on the strength of an NCAA-leading .356 team batting average. Right fielder Derek Wachter hit .339, second baseman Jeff Spilsbury hit .422 and first baseman George Phillips hit .382, with 13 home

runs and 54 RBI. The women’s soccer team won its first and only MAAC Championship in 1992. The Gaels beat Loyola in penalty kicks, capping off a great 12–6–2 (9–0–1 MAAC) season under coach Vic Acosta.

Two years later, the golf team won its first MAAC Championship, and Iona’s ice hockey team joined the new MAAC league in 1997. Ryan Carter, a star from Canada, made the hockey team a force in the late 1990s.

YThe 2000sZ As a new decade began, the athletics spotlight shone on the men’s basketball, baseball and golf teams.

Iona men’s basketball reached an apex in 2000 and 2001. Under coach Jeff Ruland, Tariq Kirksay averaged 19.2 points and 9.3 rebounds per game as Iona won the 2000 MAAC crown. The Gaels defended their MAAC title in 2001, as center Nakiea Miller willed them to the championship. Miller used every ounce of energy to score 24 points and grab 15 rebounds, as Iona beat Canisius, 74–67, in Buffalo, N.Y. Right after the

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game, Miller collapsed on the sideline in need of oxygen.

The baseball team recorded one of its best seasons ever in 2000. The Gaels went 31–13 and 22–4 in the conference; both win totals established new school records.

The golf team won its third straight MAAC title at Walt Disney’s Lake Buena Vista Golf Course in 2002. In

1940–2015

consecutive NCAA Championships where the men’s cross country team placed in the top 10. The Gaels were in the top 10 from 2002 to 2011, including second-place finishes in 2007 and 2008.

On the women’s side, Kenyans Emmily Chelanga and Salome Kosgei kickstarted an era when the Gaels captured the MAAC title 10 straight years—from 2005 through 2014.

Women’s lacrosse, Iona’s youngest sport, began in 2005. These Gaels play their home games at Mazzella Field. Jaclyn O’Leary, a member of the inaugural team, is the program’s all-time leader in career goals (188).

Lacrosse’s first season was also a very successful one for the women’s soccer team, which played on the same field.

With goalie Jessica Martin leading the way, Iona won a program-high 10 games.

Steve Burtt Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps as he led the men’s basketball team to the 2006 MAAC title. Behind Burtt Jr., who set the single season record with 25.2 points per game, and shooting guard Ricky Soliver, Iona beat Saint Peter’s, 80-61.

Burtt earned tournament MVP honors,

Women’s lacrosse, Iona’s youngest sport, began in 2005.

2003, the College canceled its ice hockey and tennis programs, an emotional ending.

A great moment came in 2004, when the volleyball team won its first MAAC Championship. Miki Hogg, the MAAC Offensive Player of the Year, and Emily Mansur led the Gaels’ surge, which resulted in a 3–0 sweep of Fairfield in the conference tournament.

In 2005, the cross country teams appeared in the NCAA Championships, and it was the fourth of 10

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just as his father did in 1984. Burtt Sr. and Jr. are the top two scorers in school history; Burtt Sr. has 2,534 points, while his son has 2,034.

Kenya finished in 13:26.01, a new Iona and NCAA Championship record.

The 5,000-meter race consists of 25 laps, and the 5-foot-8, 140-pound Korir began to tire around the 15th lap. With just a few laps left, his body started feeling good. “I realized I think I’m going to win this thing because my opponents were getting tired. I could feel them breathing very hard,” Korir said. “Being the first person to ever win a national title at Iona was really a good achievement.”

Y2010 to the PresentZ The setting was Texas A&M University on March 11, 2011. At the NCAA men’s indoor track championship, Leonard Korir won the 5,000-meter race to become Iona’s first national champion. The junior from

Hynes Athletics Center, dedicated in 2005, named in honor of James P. Hynes ’69, ’01H, longtime trustee chairman and, with his wife, Anne Marie Hynes, a generous benefactor

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Just three months later, on June 10, “King Leonard” achieved national fame again. He won another NCAA individual championship, the outdoor 10,000-meter race, held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Korir

1940–2015

finished with a time of 28:07.63.

And when Kate Avery won the NCAA women’s cross country 6,000meter race on November 22, 2014, in Terre Haute, Ind., she joined Korir as Iona’s second individual national

Mazzella Field, Hagan Hall, and Hynes Athletics Center today

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champion. “I just hope now more girls look to Iona rather than just being a great team for men,” Avery said. Avery, who hails from northern England, has simply dominated MAAC opponents.

When she won the 2014 MAAC cross

country championship, she crossed the finish line a staggering one minute, 42 seconds ahead of the runner-up.

On the softball diamond, the Gaels carved a great legacy in 2010-12. They won three straight MAAC championships, and ace Sarah Jackson was the main reason why. The value of having a poised pitcher like Jackson who could throw 65 mph was clearly evident in the 2011 MAAC Tournament.

Jackson pitched two complete games against Fairfield on the same day, firing 241 pitches. Iona won 4-0 and 4-2. Jackson and co-ace Alyssa Maiese, who also reached 65 mph, both won 17 games in a banner 2012 campaign. The Gaels won a program-record 35 games, and again beat Fairfield twice on the final day to win the MAAC crown.

The women’s water polo team also won three straight MAAC championships from 2011-13. Iona went 26-11 (10-0 MAAC) in 2011, behind strong play from veterans Maggie Wood and Cecilia Leonard. In the 2012 NCAA Tournament, which consisted of eight teams, Iona beat Pomona-Pitzer, 12-8, for its first-ever NCAA victory. It’s the only NCAA tournament win by any

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1940–2015

Women’s basketball player Damika Martinez ’15, set the alltime scoring records for Iona and the MAAC

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varsity sport in Iona history.

On the baseball diamond, the campus was abuzz about the presence of Mariano Rivera III wearing an Iona uniform. He pitched for the Gaels—at their new City Park field location— from 2013 through 2015. Iona began playing at City Park in 2013, after 23 seasons at J.B. Buono Field. Armed with a low-90s fastball and a pitching motion like his famous father’s, Rivera made the Iona community proud that he is a part of the College’s athletic heritage. Gael fans were also proud when former Gael Jason Motte closed out Game 7 of the 2011 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The women’s basketball team won its first regular-season MAAC title in 2013-14. Shooting guard Damika Martinez (who a year later set Iona and MAAC all-time scoring records) and forward Joy Adams led the Maroon &

Gold to a 26-6 (18-2 MAAC) record, which included an 18-game win streak, the longest in program history. The 26 overall wins set an all-time single season record.

Tim Cluess’ high-octane men’s basketball offense resulted in a 25-8 (15-3 MAAC) record in 2011-12. “Tim approaches coaching at Iona the right way,” said Jim Nantz, who has called NCAA tournament games, including Iona’s in 2012 and 2013, since 1986. “He brings excitement and a high-powered offense. I love watching his teams play.”

Iona won its ninth MAAC Championship, taking the regular season title in spring 2015. To date Iona owns the most MAAC championships of any school. This honor epitomizes the consistent success Iona men’s basketball has endured for 75 years.

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1940–2015

The Iona campus is rich in history: Top left: The original campus statue of St Columba; Top right: Blessed Edmund Rice, 1762-1844, founded the Christian Brothers in 1802; Bottom: Late 1940s Nissen huts, north of Cornelia Hall—obtained from the army—ICANN office on the left, classroom building on right

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At an international Day of Service event on September 19, 2015—which began with President Nyre addressing students, just as the first president, Br. Cornelia, had 75 years before—the Iona community also welcomed Pope Francis to New York City, a visit which took place the following week on September 24-25.

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Aerial view of Iona College campus, c. 2013— an illustrated map of Iona today is always available at iona.edu/map

Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

Numbers in italics indicate images.

———

1940–2015

AACSB. See Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business Abbey and St. Martin’s Cross, 2–3 Academic Senate, 90 Acosta, Vic, 107 Adams, Joy, 113 Aeneid (Virgil), 14 Ali, Muhammad, 86 All Hallows High School (the Bronx), 44, 60, 61 All Hallows Institute, 57 All Saints School, 40 Amend, Myles, 18–19 Amend Hall, 8, 18–19, 21 Apartments at Eastchester, 25 Arrigoni, Edward F., 73 Arrigoni, Ferdinand E., 73 Arrigoni (Helen T.) Library/ Technology Center, 26, 73 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), 92–94 Avery, Kate, 106, 109–10

personality of, 53 as president, 50–53 quiet nature of, 47–48 studying in Rome, 48–49 baseball, 102, 104, 105, 107, 111–13 basketball, 44, 45, 101–4, 105, 107, 112, 113 Bat-Kol Institute, 72 Bedini, Ben, 102 Beechmont (New Rochelle, NY), 3–4, 10, 18 Book of Kells, 2 bowling, 102 Brady, Joe, 85 Breslin, Monsignor Joseph A., 4, 35 Broege, Steve, 105 Bronx State Psychiatry Hospital, 69 Brothers’ Congregation, 37 Bullen, Thomas G., 48 Bullen (Thomas G.) Memorial Lecture Series, 71 Buono (J. B.) Field, 112 Burns, James Francis, 39, 104 Burns, Jeremiah, 52, 65 Burns Sundial, 104 Burtt, Steve, Jr., 108–109 Burtt, Steve, Sr., 105, 108–109 Byrne, Mick, 106

Baker, Hubert, 48 Baldoyle, 30 Barnes, William Hubert, 28, 46, 58 at Cantwell High School, 53–54 committee work of, 49 death of, 55 early life of, 48 education of, 53 as educator, 49, 53–54 later years of, 54–55

Calluzzo, Vincent, 95 Camp Shanks (Orangetown, NY), 12 Cantwell High School (Montebello, CA), 53–54 Cardinal Farley Military Academy, 39 Carlson, Charlie, 101 Carroll, Brother Evangelist, 55 Carter, Ryan, 107 “Case for Iona, The,” 15–17 Castle Café, 26

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Catholic Memorial High School (West Roxbury, MA), 61–62 Cavataro, Nick, 107 Celtic Christianity, 1 Center for Financial Market Studies, 79 Center for Health Care Analytics, 95 Chapman (Brother Kenneth) Gallery, 26 cheerleaders (1970), 99 Chelanga, Emmily, 108 chemistry lab, 94 Christian Brothers, x, 33 founding Iona School, 3–4 heritage of, promoting, 77 in metropolitan New York, 2, 7 opening Iona College, 35 service as core tenet of, 79 St. Mary’s College and, 4–6, 35, 43 Christian College, Cork, 30, 32 Christmas Crèche, 69 City Park, 111 Clan MacLean of Duart, 85 Clancy, Edward, 16 Cluess, Tim, 113 College of New Rochelle, 21, 68, 88 Collins, Patrick S., 83 Columba (Saint), 1, 2, 30 statue of, iii, v, 114 commencement (2015), 97 Commoner, Barry, 71 communication sciences and disorders, master’s program in, 96 computer literacy program, 90 Concordia College, 21 Conese Hall, 22, 25, 75, 95 Congregation of Christian Brothers, 30, 32. See also

INDEX

Christian Brothers convents, building of, 19 Cornelia, William Barnabas, x, 7, 9–11, 23, 30–39, 44, 104 caring nature of, 32 death of, 39 driving difficulties of, 34–35 education of, 30, 32 as educator, 30–32, 34, 39 former students and, 37–38 love for sports, 32 mental prowess of, 31–32 as president of Iona College, 35–39 pride of, in Iona College, 38–39 scouting properties, 36 at St. Mary’s, 32–33 transferring to St. Joseph’s Juniorate, 33–34 Cornelia (Brother William B.) Founders Award for Outstanding Service to Iona, 39 Cornelia Hall, iv, 4, 15, 16, 23– 25, 31, 56, 70, 75, 88 Council of Gaelic Societies, 82 cross country, 102, 105, 106–7, 108, 109–10 Culhane, Patrick J., 6–7 cyber security, concentration in, 96

Doyle, Brother Patrick B., 14 Dramatics Society, 82–83 dress code, 85 Driscoll, John G. (Jack), 63, 64–65 advocating global awareness, 71 drawn to grassroots ministries, 72 education of, 67, 72 as educator, 67, 68 with Mother Teresa, 66 personality of, 67–68 as president, 65–71, 88–89 stressing scientific and technological literacy, 70–71 Dumont, Mark, 53 Dunkak, Harry, 58–59, 105

Dalai Lama, 71 Danay, Frederick, 85 Darcy, Joseph, 39 Debating Society, 82 Devane, A. D., 57 Devlin, J. Kevin, 77 Di Stanislao, Joe, 45 Doorley, Joseph Ignatius, 4 Doorley Hall, v, 8, 21, 25, 54, 60, 68, 114

Gaelic Society, 82, 85 General Studies program, 68, 88 ginkgo tree, iii–iv, 25, 99 Glass Menagerie, The, 82–83 Glen Island Harbour Club, 26 golf, 102, 107 Goal Club, 103 Grant, Christopher, 32 Guerin, Richie, 102

East Hall, 12, 25, 92–93 Edmund Hall, 52 800 Room, 25–26, 27 Elizabeth Seton College, 91–92 Elizabeth Seton Hall of Associate Degree Studies, 92 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 76 environmental studies major, 96 Essex Catholic High School, 59 Faculty Residence, 33 football, 102, 105–6

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Haag Field, 8, 21, 54, 102, 104 Hagan Hall, 12, 23, 92–93, 110 Hagan School of Business, 79, 91, 92–95 Halifax (NS) diocese, 33 Hall, Thomas, 4 Hall Estate, 8, 20, 33 Hamilton, Kevin, 104 Hands Around Iona, 109 Harris Gymnasium, 8, 18–19, 21 Hebrew University, 72 Hennessy, Ailbe, 62 High Cross, xi, 84 Hogg, Miki, 108 Holy Family Parish (New Rochelle, NY), 96 Hynes Athletics Center, 12, 22–23, 26, 75, 109,110 Hynes, Anne Marie, 109 Hynes, James P., 109 IBM, 71, 90 ice hockey, 102, 107, 108 Institute for Thomas Paine Studies, 26, 79 International Student Center, 79 International Studies division, 91 Iona College accreditation of, 12–14, 46, 75, 92–94 activities at, 26, 49, 81–85, 95–96, 99 activities council, 82 aerial view, 42–43, 50–51, 116–17 affordability of, 78 alumni support of, 73 architecture of, 20 athletics at, 26, 82, 101–14 athletics directors at, 101 authority at, devolution of,

Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

59. See also Iona College, student unrest at basketball team (c. 1940s), 44 campus map (fall 2015), 115 Christian Brothers’ heritage at, promotion of, 77 closing or relocation of, consideration of, 35, 36–37 Committee on Expansion, 15–17 community service at, 78, 79 consolidation of, with Elizabeth Seton College, 91–92 core curriculum proposed for, 96 curriculum at, expanded offerings of, 68–71, 78–79, 88, 96 divisional structure at, abolishing, 88 dress code at, 85 early buildings of, 11–12 early years of, 9–10 Elizabeth Seton School of Associate Degree Studies, 92 endowment at, 14, 67, 75, 79 expansion of, 36 faculty, professional development for, 78 Faculty Senate, 59 financial condition of, 14– 15, 35, 79, 92 first Baccalaureate exercise (May 1944), 36–37, 38–39 first class of (1940), 10–11 first graduate degrees

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awarded, 62 formation of, 4–7 fundraising at, 15–17, 73, 74, 75 growth of, 11, 17–18, 20– 23, 25–26, 39, 50–52, 55–56, 68, 69–70, 75 housing at, 21–22, 25 Internet age at, 22 main entrance, 41, 75 master’s programs at, 68 opening of, 35 overcrowding at, 45, 69–70 participating in Small Business Administration program, 68 provisional charter for, 37, 45 relations with Iona School, 9 restructuring at, 92 scholarship assistance at, endowment for, 67 science and technology at, 22, 88–91 sign near entrance (c. 1956), 52 strategic plan for, 76, 78 students on automobile, 34, 63 students involved in administration of, 85–86 student unrest at, 62, 64, 85, 86–87, 99 study abroad at, 91 women admitted to, 20, 87, 88, 103 during World War II, 36–38 Iona College Analytics Institute, 95 Iona College Arts Center, 22, 26, 70, 75 Iona College Science Technology Literacy curriculum, 71

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Iona College: The First Fifty Years, x Iona Heritage Trail marker, 113 Iona Magazine, 75 Iona Pinnacle, 82 Iona Preparatory School, 20, 59, 60–61. See also Iona School Iona Quarterly, 49 Iona School, 20, 15, 24, 35–36 aerial view of, 8 founding of, 3–4 main entrance to, 20 relations with Iona College, 9 student/teacher photograph (1916), 6–7 Ionian, 46–47, 56, 61, 62–64, 82, 85 Irish Institute for European Studies (Louvain, Belgium), 91 Isle of Iona, 1–2 Isle of Iona coffee house, 96 Jackson, Sarah, 111 Jesuits, 6 Judge, Matt, 105 Judge, Ray, 105 Jules, Frank, 105 Kavanah, Kevin, 105 Kelly, Ambrose, 45 Kennedy, Robert F., 64 Kiplagat, Richard, 107 Kirksay, Tariq, 107 Korir, Leonard, 109–10 Kosgei, Salome, 108 lacrosse, 108 LaPenta-Lynch Trading Floor, 26, 95 LaPenta Marketplace, 26 LaPenta (Robert V.) Student

INDEX

Union, 22–23, 74, 75 La Rochelle (France), 2 Leo High School (Chicago), 41 Leonard, Cecilia, 111 Leonard, Dennis, 103 Light of Torah, 72 Liguori, James A., 72 as administrator, 74–75 education of, 74 named Westchester Business Leader of the Year, 73 national tour of, 75–76 personality of, 75 as president, 72–73, 75–76 as principal, 74 Loesch, George, 105 Loftus, Arthur A., 11, 12–14, 15, 28, 49 as coach, 41, 42–43, 44, 45, 101 education of, 40, 42, 43 as educator, 40–42, 44, 45 joining Christian Brothers, 40 love of movies, 40 love of sports, 40–41 as president of Iona, 45–47 as provincial of the North American Province, 46, 50 Loftus (Brother Arthur A.) Residence Hall, 22, 25 MAAC. See Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Maiese, Alyssa, 111 Maloney, William, 67 Mansur, Emily, 108 Martin, Bill, 105 Martin, Jessica, 108 Martinez, Damika, 112, 113 Maxwell, Anthony, 54–55 Mayflower Elementary School, 69, 92

Mazzella Field, 8, 26, 108, 110 McDermott, Jim, 102 McElderry, Tom, 105 McGee, Larry, 105 McKenna, Joseph Gonzaga, 28, 59–65 administrative abilities of, 62 as dean, 61 death of, 65 education of, 60, 61 as educator, 60–61 as high school principal, 61–62 as president, 62–65 as vice president, 62 McLean, Don, 98 McNulty, Rob, 105 McSpedon, Howard, 17 McSpedon, Richard, 17 McSpedon, Thomas, 17 McSpedon Hall, 13, 17, 18, 25, 56 MECAA. See Middle Eastern College Athletic Association Memorial Field Stadium (Mount Vernon), 102 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, 106–8, 111–13 Middle Eastern College Athletic Association (MECAA), 102 Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges, 12–14, 46 Miller, Nakiea, 107–108 Montague, James, 3 Moore, Brian, 85 Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 66 Motte, Jason, 113 Mount Saint Michael Academy, 103

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Mulcahy (John A.) Campus Events Center, 12, 20– 21, 75, 103, 105 Mulvany, Packie, 106–7 Murphy, JoAnn Mazzella, 70, 71 Murphy, Joseph M., 70, 71 Murphy, Thomas A., 42 Murphy Science and Technology Center, 71 Nantz, Jim, 113 National Institution of Higher Education (Limerick, Ireland), 91 NCAA tournaments, 104, 108– 9, 111, 113 New Rochelle (NY), 2–4, 87 New Rochelle High School, 42–43 New York Court of Appeals, 18–19 New York State Board of Regents, 45–46, 86–87 Nissen huts, 11–12, 114 Normoyle, Michael C., 48 North Avenue main entrance, vi–vii North Hall, 95 Nyre, Joseph E., 77–79 O’Connell, Joseph, 12 O’Connell Gymnasium, 12, 20, 103 O’Connor, E. C., 40, 42 Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning, 79 O’Hanlon, W. A., 53 O’Leary, Jaclyn, 108 Paine, Thomas, 26, 77 Paine (Thomas) National Historical Association

Advancing the Legacy The Story of Iona College

Collection, 77 Pappas, George, 65 Perry, Thomas, 30 Pershing Square Building, 87 Phillips, George, 107 pipe band, 84, 85 Power, Richard Bonaventure (Bony), 28, 55–59, 62 education of, 56–57 as educator, 57–59 as president, 58, 59 temper of, 58 work ethic of, 56 Power Memorial Academy (the Bronx), 42, 44, 56–58 pre-engineering class (1940), 38 Proudian, Tom, 105 Quad, iv–v, viii, 69, 104 Quinn, Charles B., x Quinn Hall, 70 Radice, Arthur, 65 Rally for Peace, 87 religious orders, housing for, 18–19 Rice (Blessed Edmund) Chapel, 26, 57 Rice, Edmund Ignatius, viii–ix, 30, 114 Rice Hall, 21, 22, 25, 56 Rice High School, 60 Rivera, Mariano, III, 113 Rockland Graduate Center, 22 Ross, Diana, 98 rowing, 102–3, 105 Ruane, Brother Darby, 98 Ruland, Jeff, 104, 107 Ruth, Babe, 57 Ryan, Samuel A., 15–17 Ryan Library, vi–vii, 13, 22–23, 24, 25–26, 27, 77, 99

1940–2015

Ryan Library Extension, 56 Saldiveri, Ralph, 106 Scanlan, Robert, 49 School of Arts and Science, 79, 88 School of Business, 88 Science Development Committee, 89–90 Science and Literacy Fellows Program, 71 Sergison, Edward I., 39 Shantz, Harry, 58 Shields, William J., 39 Silo, Tim, 106 Simon, Carly, 98 Sisters of Charity, 91 Slattery, Jim, 52 Sloan Foundation, 71 Small Business Administration, 68 Smiley, E. K., 12–14 soccer, 105, 107, 108 softball, 105, 110–11 Soliver, Ricky, 108 South Hall, 22, 25, 75, 95 Spellman, Francis, 16 Spellman Hall, 18, 80, 99, 102 Spilsbury, Jeff, 107 Springer, Gary, Sr., 105 Starbucks, 26 Stearn Estate (New Rochelle), 5 St. Gabriel’s Scholastic, 39 St. Mary’s Chapel, 56 St. Mary’s College (Halifax, NS), 4–6, 32, 33, 35, 40–41, 43, 60 Student Union building, 17–18. See also LaPenta Student Union study abroad, 91 Supremes, the, 98

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swimming and diving, 105, 107 Swing Band, 82 Tara Knights, 82 Taylor, Livingston, 98 tennis, 102, 105, 108 Thanksgiving food baskets, 78 Thomas, Alexander, 53 track, 102, 105, 106, 109 Truman, Harry S., 17 Twin Lakes, 42–i43 Valvano, Jim, 100, 104 Van Cortlandt Park, 26 Vatican II, 72 Veterans Club, 82 Vickers, Glenn, 103–4 Virgil, 14 Vision into Reality campaign, 75 Visions of Excellence: A Campaign for Ryan Library, 74, 75 Vitanza Dining Commons, 26 volleyball, 105, 108 Wachter, Derek, 107 Walsh, Charles, 12 Walsh Hall, 12, 54 Ward Estate (New Rochelle), 10, 36 water polo, 105, 111 West Park, 60 Westchester County Supreme Court, 18 WICR, 89 Wood, Maggie, 111 World War II, 10 Writers’ Conferences, 83–85 writing kit, Thomas Paine’s, 77 zone defense, 43

75 Years Founded 1940

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