by andywpadm | Jul 15, 2025 | Staff
The Office of Alumni & Constituent Engagement cordially invites you to attend the 2025 Distinguished Alumni and Emerging Leader Award Ceremony and Dinner.
Canisius University has conferred more than 220 Distinguished Alumni Awards since the recognition was established in 1975. Introduced this year, the Emerging Leader award recognizes an alumna/us who is 40 years of age or younger and has demonstrated exceptional achievement early in their career.
Friday, September 26, 2025 | 6 p.m.
Montante Cultural Center
Canisius University
2001 Main St.
Buffalo, NY 14208
Tickets are $100 each, which includes a salad, plated dual entree dinner, dessert, and an open bar. Register here!
Family, friends, and colleagues of honorees are welcome to attend.
Our 2025 recipients include:
Thomas Barnett ’79
Owner and Founder, Tom Barnett New York
Mark Johnson ’94
Senior Vice President & Community Development Manager,
Commonwealth of Virginia/Truist
Carla Sacco MSED ‘09
Vice President, Music Mentor Productions
Demario Strickland ’06, MS ’18, EdD
Inaugural Emerging Leader recipient
Superintendent of Schools, Mount Vernon City School District
Thomas White ’80, MD
Internal Medicine, Buffalo Medical Group & Medical Staff, Buffalo Bills
For questions, please contact Lauren Orlowski, Director of Alumni and Constituent Engagement at orlowskl@canisius.edu
Submitted by: Lauren Orlowski, Director of Alumni and Constituent Engagement
by andywpadm | Jul 15, 2025 | Staff
Canisius University is taking faculty and staff ‘out to the ballgame’ on Wednesday, August 20, when the Buffalo Bisons take on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. The Faculty and Staff Appreciation Day kicks off at 1:00 p.m. at Sahlen Field.
Please click on the link below to RSVP
https://forms.gle/8ydKcQC8KkNxFfu67
If you have any questions, please email hr@canisius.edu.
Submitted by: Lynn Incardona, HR Associate, Human Resources
by andywpadm | Jul 15, 2025 | Staff
On June 25, The Clean Mobility Project held a press conference at Viridi to speak about their project on the East Side of Buffalo and Viridi’s commitment to providing public transportation and biking options to their employees. Canisius University is an anchor institution with this project and had a representative at the press conference who has been developing projects for your campus to offer greener and more sustainable transportation choices for our students, faculty, staff, and neighbors. Watch here!
Submitted by: Yvonne K. Widenor, Assistant Professor, Art History, MLLC, Director, ArtsCanisius
by andywpadm | Jul 15, 2025 | Staff
The Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center helped sponsor the Omega Home Network National Conference held in Buffalo June 2-4, 2025. This Network promotes and supports community comfort care homes for dying people across the United States. Several generations of Griffs were key to the success of this conference. The conference was organized by Sloan Comfort Care Home, the first comfort care home in Erie County. Alumna and palliative care physician, Kathleen Grimm ‘77, MD, helped found and serves as the board chair for the Sloan Home. This past spring Dr. Grimm served as a mentor to Tarin Reitz ’26, who completed her premed internship at the Sloan Home. In addition to learning about palliative care and end-of-life care, Tarin also learned about running a non-profit and helped to organize the conference. Tarin, along with fellow premed and current Sloan Home volunteer, Evan Folsom ’26, and premed advisor, Dr. Allyson Backstrom, served as session moderators at the conference.
Alumnus, Jonathan Bartels ‘90, RN, gave the conference keynote address, “Compassion…Something We Can Not Afford to Lose!” Bartels, a palliative care nurse liaison, developed and implemented “The Pause” while working as an emergency trauma nurse. “The Pause” is a process through which providers can stop and take time to honor the death of a patient, provide closure to the medical team, family and patient, and promote practicing resiliency amongst providers.
Last year, as part of a service-learning course, Dr. Grimm and several colleagues provided Mercy (end-of-life) Doula training for Canisius premed/pre-health students, Canisius physician assistant students, and Jacobs School of Medicine medical students. Canisius undergraduates then volunteered at Sloan Home. Another round of Mercy Doula training is being planned for this fall.
Submitted by: Allyson Backstrom, Director, Dr. George E. Schreiner ’43 Pre-Medical Center
by andywpadm | Jul 15, 2025 | Staff
Sunstone Press, based in Santa Fe, NM, has published Seotse: A Visionary Tale, the final volume in Michael Shurgot’s Green River trilogy of western novels. Previous volumes are Green River Saga: A Novel and Raven Mountain: A Mythic Tale.
Shurgot graduated from Canisius in 1965 with a major in English. He earned an MA in English literature from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Medieval and Renaissance literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at University of Texas-El Paso, Seattle University, and retired as Professor of Humanities from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, WA. In addition to his fiction, he’s published a memoir, Could You Be Startin’ from Somewhere Else? Sketches from Buffalo and Beyond, and several works of literary scholarship.
You can learn more about Shurgot and his work on his author website:
https://www.michaelshurgot.com
Submitted by: Mick Cochrane, Professor, English
