St. Dominic Weekend
October 12 - 13, 2012
"Your Leadership. Your Impact."
Providence College thanked more than 500 of its most generous benefactors with a weekend of special events that included a dinner at the Rhode Island Convention Center, a luncheon on campus with scholarship recipients, and a discussion about the presidential election with a political analyst from CNN.
The fourth annual St. Dominic Weekend was a show of appreciation for members of the St. Dominic Society (annual giving), the Harkins Society (planned giving), and the 1917 Society (lifetime giving). Those attending spanned 59 class years and came from 21 states, including Texas, Colorado, and Minnesota.
The highlight was the weekend-closing Evening of Appreciation at the Rhode Island Convention Center in downtown Providence, where Matt Weber ’06, author of Fearing the Stigmata (Loyola Press, 2012), drew a standing ovation after an entertaining talk about the challenges of being young and Catholic.
Weber said he learned to explain his faith to students who were unfamiliar with it while he was a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he is now the new and social media officer. Eventually, Weber came to host segments on CatholicTV, the national cable channel, and to compile his essays into a book.
At the Scholarship Luncheon, where donors are united with scholarship recipients, Sharon T. Driscoll ’80 and ’16P, vice president for marketing and communications-global enterprises at IBM, told how her College experience was enhanced by the professors and Dominicans who taught her.b Building on that inspiration, Driscoll established the Treacy Family Scholarship Fund after her father died in April. The fund will assist future students “who will build a beautiful PC mosaic,” she said.
During the weekend, 17 new members were inducted into the Harkins Society and 16 new members into the 1917 Society. Two anonymous donors joined the 1917 Society and one anonymous person became a Harkins Society member.
Benefactors and their guests also enjoyed receptions, campus trolley tours, and athletic events. Meetings were held by the Board of Trustees, the National Board of Overseers, the School of Business Advisory Council, the Parents Leadership Council, the National Alumni Association Board of Governors, and the Regional Alumni Club.