4 The Bona Venture/December 7, 2018 thebvnewspaper.

com

Opinion
Kiley’s last hoorah at The BV
I
t’s been two years since I trans-
ferred to St. Bonaventure Univer-
sity. And, boy, am I
glad I did.
Truthfully, I Ryan Signorino, I never thought I
should have come
here when I was
a freshman, but I
was too invested in
volleyball, and Bo-
naventure wasn’t
KILEY
even on my radar
O’DONNELL
since it didn’t have a
team. The only rea-
son I don’t yell at myself every day for
not choosing Bona’s in 2014 is because
I met my best friends at my old school,
and for that, I’m forever grateful.
I never thought I would branch out
in the fashion I did. I also never thought
I would write an article for each section
of the paper during my time here. A few
thank you’s are in order because of this.
Dom LoVallo, thank you for becom-
ing one of my first friends at Bona’s and
encouraging me to write for The BV. Ev-
erything I have done at the paper I owe to
you. Boston sports are still better, though.
Carole McNall, I can’t thank you
enough for putting up with me during my
time at Bonaventure. I’ve learned so much
Photo courtesy of Allie Piergustavo from you, and I couldn’t have asked for a
better mentor, in school and in life.
Kelly Haberstroh, you’re going to
make an amazing EIC. Thank you for Want to write for the
sticking with me this semester.
opinion section next
would become so close with a random kid
I met at a BV meeting with a bleached mo- semester?
hawk, but I’m happy I did. I’m blessed I
met a lifelong friend.
To all my amazing editors and writ-
Email John Pullano
ers, thanks for making my last semester at pullanjj18@bonaventure.edu
the BV memorable. I’m forever thankful I
joined this paper.
And, obviously, to my parents and
brother back home in Boston, Massa-
chusetts, thanks for making me realize
that Bonaventure was where I belonged
all along.
I’m sad to be leaving a place that I tru-
ly call my second home, but I’m excited to
get back to the coast and start my life in the
real world. Wherever it takes me, I know
I’m going to bring the values I’ve learned
at Bonaventure, as well as the friendships.
One final thought: Meghan Hall is
going to run the J-School in the upcoming
years, and I can’t wait to watch from wher-
ever I am.
Kiley O’Donnell is
the Editor-in-Chief at
The Bona Venture. Her email is
odonneke16@bonaventure.edu

Comprehensive courses Is SBU 101 too

are different for a reason challenging?
A s the days tick closer
and closer to May,
many se-
niors across
campus are
dreading the
thought of
graduating
and having
to leave St.
RYAN Bonaventure
SIGNORINO behind.
In order
to graduate,
many majors require a com-
prehensive course building
upon the four years of work
and demonstrating knowledge
of field subject matter. And as
my friends and I work on and
complete our comprehensive
experiences and capstone proj-
ects, one can’t help but compare
the amount of work put in com-
pared to those in other majors.
Journalism and strategic
communication majors, for ex-
ample, must utilize what we’ve
learned over the course of our
time at Bona’s, select a job in
the field they wish to pursue and
“apply” for the position, includ-
ing an interview by staff.
While I was nervous head-
ing into my interview, I left
breathing a sigh of relief, as I
was well prepared and had a
strong resume and cover letter
to help me.
I excitedly told my friends,
who complained my comprehen-
sive experience was easy com-
pared to what they had to do.
Political science majors,
for example, have to complete
an in-depth research project,
including a large paper and pre-
sentation of material, while bi-
ology majors must complete a
senior-faculty colloquium com-
posing a 25-minute presentation
followed by 20 minutes of com-
prehensive questions. English
majors must pass an oral exam
of British and English literature,
while all senior business majors
must complete a case analysis
of a company using facets of ac-
counting, finance, management
and marketing.
For the variety of different
majors and programs offered at
St. Bonaventure, each is unique
in the courses it offers. This in-
cludes the capstone and compre-
hensive courses. Each is specific
to what careers in the field will
require post-graduation.
The journalism and strate-
gic communication majors are
all about first-hand experience
in the real world, which is why
the capstone for those majors
emphasizes the job interview
process to ensure students are
prepared to demonstrate their
hard and soft skills.
Another major component
of the J-School is the require-
ment of 400 internship hours.
These hours should be com-
pleted prior to taking the com-
prehensive experience course,
so finding relevant, hands-on
internships early in the college
career is imperative for commu-
nications students.
Some of these internship
hours can be completed on
campus in relevant extracur-
ricular clubs, such as The Bona
Venture, The Buzz or The In-
trepid. While technically clubs,
each can be time-intensive.
Each also can provide students
with first-hand experience,
suhc as creating a newspaper
or running a radio station.
I don’t see an issue with the
journalism capstone being less
intensive, because giving a pre-
sentation or doing an in-depth
research project isn’t relevant
in journalism. In this field, it’s
all about being concise.
Getting internship hours
wouldn’t be as helpful for other
majors, such as education. Edu-
cation majors do field block and
student teaching and have to
create an efolio showing what
they’ve learned since freshman
year and what their time in the
classroom taught them.
The basic concept of each
capstone or comprehensive
course is to show the faculty
in the department what you’ve
learned in your time at St. Bo-
naventure. It can be difficult to
compare the workload of one
major to that of another, be-
cause the majors themselves
are preparing students for dif-
ferent careers.
While some might be
more or less intensive than
others, each capstone requires
the student to build on what
they’ve learned since fresh-
man year and be able to apply
those concepts.
Ryan Signorino is the Opinion
Editor at The Bona Venture.
His email is
signorra15@bonaventure.edu
A s I enter the final week
of my first semester at
St. Bonaven-
ture, I look back
at all the friends
I’ve made, how
much I’ve grown
as a person and
how I’ve tran-
sitioned from
LOGAN high school
CARUSO to college. So
far, I think
I’ve done well
making the transition both
athletically and academically.
I achieved all I could hope for
during my first collegiate cross
country season, and my grades
are where I expected them to be,
except in one class: SBU 101.
For whatever reason, this
class, which is supposed to help
freshmen make a smooth tran-
sition to life at Bonaventure by
teaching students about ele-
ments of community and study
strategies to help their transi-
tion to college life, turned out
to be my most work-intensive
class. Over the course of this
two-credit class, we managed to
write three papers and probably
had four presentations, a few
random assignments and ended
with a project in which we had to
create a 10-minute presentation
for the Community Conference.
These papers weren’t long,
and the presentations weren’t
hard to make. However, my in-
structor graded these papers
hard for no real reason. And this
wasn’t just for me. A lot of stu-
dents in my SBU 101 class and
in my other classes thought the
class was more difficult than
necessary. Many told me it was
their hardest class or their worst
midterm grade. But then oth-
ers would say it was their easiest
class or that they never really did
anything in class. This makes me
even more angry because it seems
like there’s no continuity between
what’s being taught in one sec-
tion compared to another, and I
can’t tell if my instructor is teach-
ing the course properly.
The worst part about all of
this is I don’t feel like I got any-
thing out of the course. I put in
all this work and yet none of it
connects. I honestly couldn’t tell
you what we did in class most of
the time. Our instructor put forth
tons of information about com-
munity, study strategies and re-
sources on campus. But, for the
most part, it was already infor-
mation I had either already heard
or that I found useless. The only
thing I got out of the class was
updating my resume and spruc-
ing up my LinkedIn account.
I had a rough introduction
to Bonaventure classes because
of SBU 101, and I feel like nu-
merous students would reaffirm
my claim about how awful this
class was. The university should
think about taking a look at the
hot mess SBU 101 is and make
some serious changes so future
students don’t go through the
same pain as I did.
Logan Caruso is a contributing
writer at The Bona Venture.
His email is
carusolj18@bonaventure.edu

St. Serra a positive influence in Southwestern Christianity

I remember my first week at St.
Bonaventure University. I had
come to these hills
from the arid New
Mexico desert. I left
behind the landscape
that had shaped me,
but I carried within
me the culture and
complex history that
ALEXIS characterizes Mexi-
LONGORIA cans in the Southwest.
I came here be-
cause that same cul-
ture cultivated in me a faith that the
Franciscans at St. Bonaventure have
helped me develop further. I live in a
discernment house on campus which
bears the name of the Spanish friar who
founded the California missions, St. Ju-
nipero Serra.
An opinion article written by Ryan
Signorino three weeks ago in The Bona
Venture sparked controversy over the
name of the house where I live and pray.
I found this peculiar because of how
complex the question of decolonization
is in the Southwest. The Spanish came
to this land with a two-edged sword.
The ambition of the Spanish crown and
its military might came with the intri-
cate dynamics of religious elements
represented by figures like Serra. These
religious elements introduced a differ-
ent identity, syncretized by the native
people in Latin America.
This helps in understanding why
there are natives like the Costonoan
Rumsen Oholoe who supported Serra´s
canonization to sainthood, and those
like the Amah Mutsun who opposed it.
The issues surrounding the mis-
sions and the histories of the Catho-
lic Church and the Franciscans in the
Southwest are extensively discussed
and considered by the people who live
with the physical reminders of their
legacy. However, the article calling for
the Serra House name change does not
carefully and honestly consider Serra’s
role in colonization.
For starters, Junipero Serra did
not kill a single native person, despite
Signorino’s claim that Serra killed
thousands. This does not mean that
Serra isn’t a reminder of the history
of colonization in the southwest and
its devastating effects on indigenous
peoples. But,if this fact is reason to
have his name removed – despite the
reality that no indigenous nation near
this university has a history with Ser-
ra – then the advocates of this change
should at least reflect on the ways they
benefit from colonization and recom-
mend ways to actually enact change for
native communities.
Decolonization requires greater ef-
forts than starting uninformed quarrels
about non-issues. The controversy over
the Serra House points to a deeper prob-
lem in this university; struggles that are
real and concrete – experienced by a
largely silent minority on campus – are
toyed with by individuals who continue
to benefit from that which they swear to
stand against.
The name of the building in which
I live reminds me of the importance of
discernment. Serra had to engage in
discernment to effectively carry out his
mission of evangelization without dam-
aging the autonomy of the native people.
It is this kind of discernment that I
would invite people to consider if they
disagree with the name of the Serra
House. What else are you doing in the
fight for indigenous people’s rights?
There are many issues native peo-
ples face throughout this continent.
Changing the name of a house under
false and aggrandized claims about
Junipero Serra soils the cause of rec-
onciliation and understanding. I still
struggle adjusting to conversations at
this university where issues, of life and
death for some people, become playful
politics in the “Bona Bubble.”
My own O´dam ancestors in the Si-
erra Madre Occidental lived these com-
plexities.The scarcity of resources and
hardships they faced continue to bear a
mark upon my family. The fact that the
greatest issue bearing on the conscience
of some in the university is the name of
the Serra House is a Kafkaesque real-
ity. This situation is only a reflection of
something best summed up by author
and social activist Gloria Jean Watkins.
¨[There is] no need to hear your
voice, when I can talk about you bet-
ter than you can speak about yourself.
No need to hear your voice. Only tell
me about your pain. I want to know
your story. And then I will tell it back
to you in a new way. Tell it back to you
in such a way that it has become mine,
my own. Re-writing you, I write myself
anew. I am still author, authority. I am
still [the] colonizer, the speaking sub-
ject, and you are now at the center of
my talk,” said Watkins.
It is in this shadow that critics like
Signorino must advance when it comes
to these questions. This applies espe-
cially to those individuals who do not
know the full context of these experi-
ences and their unending complexity.
When I consider the humble patron
of my house, I think of the friar who fre-
quently stood against the Spanish gov-
ernment to defend the rights of the na-
tives – the same friar who helps me to
better understand why I am a Catholic.
People like Serra were the agents that
opened the door to my very identity.
When I return to New Mexico next week
and see the Matachines dance to the
God of our ancestors, I will continue to
thank figures like Padre Serra.
Alexis Longoria is a contributing writer
at The Bona Venture. His email is
longora16@bonaventure.edu