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The Online Magazine for Alumni and Friends of Siena Heights University
Pat Hogan, OP, aka Sister John Mary, began teaching philosophy and history at Siena Heights College in 1966. She went on to chair the philosophy department from 1979 until her un-expected death March 13, 1991, while at home in Chicago on sabbatical.
Pat Hogan’s legendary impact on students was never more evident than at the 2009 Alumni Awards ceremony, when three honorees—Tod Marshall ’90, now a poet and English professor at Gonzaga University; Jacob Chi ’85, now conductor of the Pueblo Symphony Orchestra and professor at Colorado State University; and Gabrielle Davis ’85, a lawyer specializing in women’s rights—all credited her with helping them find the right road to their future.
Tod Marshall remembered goofing off and skipping the reading for his independent study with Sister Pat—until the day he found her in the library “bent over her notes and poring over what we were going to talk about that day.” Startled to realize how much time and effort she was putting in “for me—just for me,” Tod reshaped his attitude. Knowing how committed she was to his education, he said, he “never again dropped the ball” on his studies.
Jacob Chi was a 28-year-old violinist, without funds and or a place to stay, when he arrived from China to attend Siena Heights in the early ‘80s. Sister Pat opened her home, as well as her heart and mind, to the talented musician. “There is no one in my entire academic life as important as Sister Pat,” he said recently, and “no other universities (as important) as Siena Heights.”
Carolyn Donaldson ’82 Brings a ‘Zest’ for Life as TV News Anchor
By Doug Goodnough
Carolyn Welniak Donaldson ’82 is used to the spotlight – both on camera and off. The longtime news anchor for WTAJ-TV in Altoona, Pa., nicknamed “Zest” by her family, not only has a zest for the news business, but also for the community in which she lives.
“I am most gratified, as part of our news team, when we are able to bring our views and members of our community meaningful stories that have or could impact their lives,” said Donaldson, who has anchored at WTAJ for nearly 20 years. “There is no greater reward than ‘doing the next right thing’ as my husband (Robert) and I and now our grown daughters (Elisabeth and Sarah) try to embody and live each day.”
Her broadcasting career actually blossomed from a corporate sales career after she graduated from Siena Heights with a double major in theater/speech communications and business administration/management.
“My Folgers coffee sales days armed me with invaluable time management and marketing skills,” said the Toledo, Ohio, native, who first moved to central Pennsylvania when she managed a sales territory for Proctor and Gamble. “When the opportunity presented itself to move into broadcasting at the local TV station, I welcomed the challenge of reporting and anchoring weather.”
Glenn Crane Remembered for Work at Croswell, Siena
Editor’s Note: This edited article is reprinted with permission by the Adrian Daily Telegram. By Arlene Bachanov—Daily Telegram Special Writer.
Glenn Crane
A man devoted to the history of theater, a dynamic teacher who made sure his students and those he directed onstage paid attention to the details, and a person who was constantly teaching, both in and out of the classroom.
Those are only some of the ways Glenn Crane’s former students and theatrical colleagues have described him in the days since his Sept. 1 death in Florida, where he and his wife, Alice, were living in retirement.
Crane was part and parcel of Lenawee County’s theatrical community for years as a professor of theater at what is now Siena Heights University and at the Croswell Opera House.
One of the countless theater people whose lives Crane touched over his years in Adrian was Mark DiPietro, who today is the chairman of SHU’s Division of Visual and Performing Arts as well as a longtime Croswell actor and director.
“In 1975, I’d never heard of Adrian,” said DiPietro, who grew up in Livonia. But then he came to the Croswell’s production of “The Music Man,” in which Crane played Professor Harold Hill.
