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The Online Magazine for Alumni and Friends of Siena Heights University
Melissa poses atop The Eiffel Tower during a recent trip to Paris.
By Doug Goodnough
Since high school, Melissa Lefere-Cobb ’95 was determined to live in New York City and work in the fashion industry.
Thanks to a unique Siena Heights degree program – along with a relentless work ethic—she said she was able to achieve both of those goals. For more than two decades, Lefere-Cobb has worked her way up to the pinnacle of the fashion industry. She is currently the division head for Herve Leger, a well-known French fashion house, in New York City.
She said Siena Heights’ fashion merchandising program started her down the “runway” of her very successful career path. She learned about the program while a student at Jackson (Mich.) Lumen Christi High School.
“It was a great program that allowed me to go to Siena for three years, and then my junior year I spent at the Fashion Institute of Technology,” Lefere-Cobb said of the fashion merchandising major, which is no longer offered. “It served me well.”
With a 100th Anniversary theme of “Legacy,” a Siena Heights education has been a family affair for many over its distinguished history. Reflections Magazine asked alumni to submit their family legacy stories, and the response was fantastic! Over the following pages, learn about how “The Siena Effect” impacted the lives of these families in so many ways.
Jacob Chi, Maurice Chi, Margaret Chi and Jane Chi.
Chi Family
Legacy names: Margaret Chi ’82 (aunt); Jane Chi ’82 (aunt); Maurice Chi ’84 (nephew); Jacob Chi ’85 (nephew).
Our Siena Heights legacy: from Maurice Chi—The Chi legacy started with my Aunt Margaret Chi, who received a full scholarship from Siena Heights College in 1948. It was her dream! But because of the civil war in China at the time, she was not able to obtain the passport. Soon after when the country changed its political system and shut off from the world, so did her dream. It was not until 1978, thirty years later, did she finally have the courage to write to Siena Heights College. The sitting president, Dr. Louis Vaccaro, welcomed her not only with her scholarship reinstated, but also granted her sister, my other aunt Jane, a full scholarship. Together they came, and both pursued their Master’s degree in education. They graduated in 1982. Then in 1981 my brother Jacob and I also attended SHC. I completed a double major in math and CIS with the Outstanding Male Student Award in 1984. Jacob received his B.A. in music a year later. Without the generous financial support from the college, none of these would be possible. We built successful careers thereafter: Jacob held the baton for the Pueblo Symphony and led other orchestras across the continent, and I became an IT professional in corporate Americas like IBM and Thomson Reuters. We are forever grateful to the college for the knowledge, the friend-
ships, the fulfillment, the value of being, the faith to God, and the love from the Dominican Sisters who enlighten us all.
Editor’s Note: Norm Bukwaz is the assistant to the Dean for the Graduate and Professional Programs and Director of the Bachelor of Applied Science Degree Program for more than 45 years. He was be honored with the Honorary Alumni Award during Homecoming Weekend 2019. Reflections Magazine sat down with him to discuss his distinguished career at Siena Heights.
How did you first come to Siena Heights?
I decided that I wanted to come back to Michigan. I was in Illinois, and had taken a one year appointment. Siena Heights had an opening and at the time I thought I was going to be forever-after a sociology professor. I came to Siena in the fall of 1974 and taught one year in the sociology department. And I also coordinated the internship programs for the whole division of the Social Sciences and the Humanities. That connected me to administrators that forever after changed the types of things I did for Siena.
How did you go from a sociology professor to what you are doing now?
It’s an interesting question. Nobody plans on administering off-campus programs. When I got involved with the internship program, I became fairly close (with the director of cooperative education). Well he was leaving … so I decided when I asked ‘Do you want to administer that for a year?’ and build that into the role… I was asked if I could possibly build that into the role because that involved a connection with a Detroit school called RETS electronic school. … Before long the university continued to do thinking about reaching out into the larger community. In 1975-76 I started working with taking courses to the Metro Detroit area. We originally offered courses at a number of corporate sites. That was a result of our being asked by students who were driving 70 or 80 miles to Adrian to take an evening course. (They asked) what if you were able to get a bunch of students, would you be willing to bring classes to us? That was sort of the beginning of that.
