For a busy college student, not much is better than having the opportunity to get free food and bond with friends, classmates and laid back professors after a long day of classes. This thought crossed the mind to former student Joey Rettino last year as a senior at Cabrini, though he is now a 2016 graduate with a degree in Communications.
On Sept. 28th, with the help of communications professors Dr. John Cordes and Dr. Jerry Zurek, junior Christopher Fonte and sophomore Ryan Brong pulled together the second annual “Joey Rettino COM LC Barbeque” for the students of the current communications learning community at Cabrini.
Each year, Cabrini gives incoming freshman students the opportunity to come together in small theme based learning groups with others that share a common interest with them. These groups, consisting of about twenty students each, are called “learning communities.”
During the first few weeks of the 2015 school year, Rettino came up with this idea to bring students specifically in the communications learning community together over a laid back barbecue event.
“As their orientation leader and just a general upperclassmen that was majoring in communications at the time, I really just wanted to get all my kids back together, especially since the communications department is all about
collaboration,” Rettino said. “It makes me really happy that it has continued on to this year, even after I have graduated.”
At this year’s event, Brong and Fonte began cooking up burgers and hot dogs outside of the RAC Grille at about 5:30 p.m.. Inside the RAC, members of the 2014 and 2015 communications learning communities played music and set up other fixings including potato and macaroni salad, popcorn, soda’s and water.
“I thought the event was really cool,” Emily Miller, a freshman student in the 2016 communications LC, said. “There was good food, good music and it was also nice to meet and hang out with communications alumni and upperclassmen.”
In addition to previous and current members of the communications learning community, all of Cabrini’s communications faculty attended the event as well. This includes Dr. Jerry Zurek, Dr. John Cordes, Dr. Dawn
Francis, Cathy Yungmann, Jill Smith and Professor Margaret Rakus.
“I liked hanging out with the teachers and meeting the upperclassmen,” Dylan Ashcraft, another member of the 2016 communications learning community, said. “As someone who is excited to make his mark on the communications department at Cabrini, I think is pretty important to meet the alumni from the LC’s before us. And who doesn’t like free food?”
One face that every communications student is always happy to see around Cabrini and at events such as these is Dr. John Cordes, a beloved member of the Cabrini faculty. Cordes has the pleasure of working with each communications learning community as their first semester advisor and professor for the Communications 101 and College Success courses.
“The 2016 LC is a great group,” Cordes said. “Every year is different but I am always so privileged to work so closely with the students. The Joey Rettino COM LC barbecue was definitely a great success as well. It was very fun, there were a lot of people and nobody got sick!”
After seeing how successful the 2016 COM LC barbecue was, members from former communication LC’s are already eager about planning more fun events for the 2016 COM LC this school year.
