re: Summer 2017

As a retired teacher, I am still looking for creative ways to encourage reading that I can pass along to other teachers. I think the Fade to Books program (“A Cut Above the Rest”) is a wonderful idea that stimulates a love of reading and the importance of being a part of your community. Congratulations to all involved.

Suzanne Palmer-Smiga (Long Branch, New Jersey)

 

The summer issue was the best Monmouth magazine. Please keep the informative articles coming.

Lois Harm Cahill via Facebook(Parent)

 

Good read, cover to cover. Enjoyed all the articles, especially the one on the Middle East. Great view from the inside looking out.

John Reiss via Facebook (Parent)

 

The magazine is wonderful and it keeps us all in touch with Monmouth’s progress. Great job!

Lois La Pointe Kiely ’65, ’80M, ’88HN

 

Crazy good read (re: “End of an Era”).

Glen DeNigris ’19 via Twitter

 

The best piece of mail I’ve gotten in a while was the Monmouth magazine with President Dimenna on the cover

Sarah Lewis ’17 via Twitter

 

I’m sorry, but my president is better than your president.

Bennie Kanzler ’17 via Twitter

 

Monmouth Memories

My dad, Dr. Harold Jacobs (far right in photo above), was the founding chair of Monmouth’s Electrical Engineering Department. He is pictured here with an electronic measuring device he co-developed with Dr. Richard Benjamin (center, and later chair of the same department) and Dr. Frank Brand (left, a former Monmouth professor). My dad did some amazing things at Monmouth, and I established a modest scholarship in his honor to remember him: the Dr. Harold Jacobs Memorial Scholarship in Science & Technology. I find it thrilling that to this day, students post their resumes on LinkedIn and mention they received this award in honor of my father.

Steven M Jacobs ’74

 

Remembering James Cavazzini

I was deeply saddened to learn of Professor Cavazzini’s passing (“In Memoriam,” summer 2017). He was such an inspiring teacher, and despite his numerous groundbreaking achievements in the cable television industry’s founding, a very humble and endearing human being.

I was fortunate enough to take his Strategic Management course in spring 2010, and he made it one of the most memorable and motivating experiences in my scholastic career.

I learned a great deal from him, far beyond the course materials.

I was disappointed that I never got a chance to take him again when I entered Monmouth’s M.B.A. program, but I did run into him one evening in Bey Hall between night classes. Right off the bat he told me he expected to see me on the cover of Fortune one day. He was always ready with sincere encouragement and expectation. He believed in his students.

The Leon Hess Business School has truly lost one of its greatest professors. I will never forget him.

Brian J. Blackmon ’10, ’11M

 

#MUx2

We met at one of the tennis courts behind the field house in the mid-’70s. There was a sea of courts behind the old field house, before the football revamping of the area. Tennis, at the time, was extremely popular in the country and with Monmouth students in particular. The campus played a large part in our lives in the late Seventies, and we were married on June 2, 1979, in the chapel in Wilson Hall. Paul Stookey wedding song music played softly in the background; the chapel at the time cast a curious, haunting spell and an implied air to whisper and conduct everything in hushed tones—likely the quietest New Jersey wedding ever. A very small ceremony (a dozen or so in attendance) but grand in results. We celebrated our 38th anniversary last June.

Erik ’77 and Sharon (Tosel) Liljestrand ’74

 

I met my husband, Ron ’66 ’75M, at a fraternity/sorority Halloween party in October 1964. We were engaged the following March and married in August 1965 after a nine-month courtship. Now, 52 years later, we still have many fond memories of Monmouth College. We are both very proud in what the university has become.

Carol (Volk) Kurowsky ’65

 

Good Sports

I mustered out of the Navy in June of ’63 and enrolled at Monmouth College in September of that year. A few friends asked me to try out for an intramurals team, the Chinese Bandits. The Bandits, I found out after making the team, dominated intramural sports for years (and continued to after I graduated). Fifty-two years ago, this picture was snapped on The Great Lawn before one of our games. It seems nondescript, but two of the history makers of Monmouth University sports are pictured here: Vincent “Vinnie G” Giordano ’66, ’73M (#33) and John “Hoss” Kessler ’69 (#40). That year our team went on to win another championship thanks to the fierce competition by these two winners.

Dennis Redmond ’67

 

What Professor Changed Your Life?

Deanna Shoemaker has helped make my time at Monmouth the best it could be. I go to her with all of my problems, because she always has the solution. I can’t wait to continue my academic journey with her as my mentor.

Emily G. Blaser ’20

 

Lauren K. Woods was my first real acting teacher, director, and mentor. He dropped into my life like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life and showed me the path forward to what has now been almost a 50-year career in theater, film, and TV. “Woody” and his influence have played an important part in every step I have taken in my career and in life. I feel his presence whenever I make an artistic choice.

Bill Cwikowski ’67

 

Thomas Kelly, my freshman English teacher, advised me to join the staff of the school newspaper. That was the moment my life changed. I took his advice and went to see Howie Newman ’63, the editor-in-chief of The Outlook. Howie hooked me up with Art Katz ’60, the sports editor, who had me cover a couple of baseball games. Then, Art gave me some wonderful advice. He told me my stories were strong but, in writing sports, I should try to write more like I was sitting at a bar and talking to the person next to me. In other words, more conversationally. That was great advice. I went on to have a wonderful career in sports journalism, as a reporter, editor, and award-winning columnist. I was twice voted New Jersey Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters & Sportswriters Association. And it was all because of Mr. Kelly, who steered me in the right direction.

Chuck Hassol ’61A