Judith Guccione's Page:

A Deep Look into the Creation of the Pryz

Sitting here in Starbucks, looking around the Pryz, students can be seen walking together about to enjoy the traditional Pryz cuisine and rushing to grab a quick coffee before a meeting in one of the offices. There are students on their phones planning to meet friends for dinner and professors meeting students to talk about class earlier that morning. Let’s face it; we the students, faculty and administration of the University, need the Edward J. Pryzbyla Center. Before the Pryz was built, students did not gather in one place like they do today. Students ate in dining halls located in three different parts of campus; the south (now Cardinal Hall, the north (now the Kane Fitness Center) and Caldwell Hall. There was no central place for student... [Read more...]

CUA Awarded Kennedy for Service to Church, Nation

Former President John F. Kennedy was presented with the Ninth Annual James Cardinal Gibbons Medal at the University in 1956 for “his great deeds as a Catholic patriot, as a civic leader, as an incomparable humanitarian and as an unflinching champion of principles we hold sacred,” as alumni president James Kenny stated at the presentation of the award. Kennedy received the award during his time as Senator of Massachussetts. During his acceptance, he stated that splitting parties between liberals and conservatives would “lessen political tolerance, make more difficult bipartisan cooperation on basic national policies and reduce drastically the checks and balances on extreme action which our present two-party system provides.” He later... [Read more...]

Priests, Presidents & Parties - Party Heads Faced-off at CUA

In 2004, Chairs of DNC, RNC Were Both Univ. Alum Against the odds, it happened once, and it is not likely to happen again - the heads of the two biggest parties in the country were both Catholic University Alumni. Terry McAuliffe, B.A. 1979, and Ed Gillespie, B.A. 1983, faced off in a political debate in 2004 in the Edward J. Pryzbyla Center, as they were both chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties (respectively) at the time of the debate. Rev. David M. O'Connell, center, with former GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie, left, and former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, right. Over 800 students, faculty and alumni gathered to watch the well known alumni battle it out in the Pryzbyla Center Great Room. The former politics majors discussed the... [Read more...]

Personal Rant About the Holiday Weekend

Not that I don‘t love three-day weekends, but I‘m not 100% sure exactly why we are celebrating. Should my mom be baking lasagna for a family party? Why are the cheerleaders marching down main street as firetrucks blasting their alerts follow closely? Oh. yea! This Italian guy Columbus got money from Spanish royalty to “disover America“ in 1492.  Well… not really. This weekend should really be called Viking Day Weekend. Columbus was actually looking for India, which is why calling Native Americans ‘Indians’ is politically incorrect. Truth is, the Vikings were chilling off the Northern Atlantic Coast since about 900 A.D. Actually, if this is all about Italian heritage (which I am totally cool with), we should call this weekend... [Read more...]

University Alumnus One of the Boyz

Who’d a thunk it? An alumnus of The Catholic University of America becomes an ‘Altar Boy.’ University Musical Theater graduate Patrick Elliott was cast as the lead in the Bethesda Theater’s production of Altar Boyz, which  will run through October. After Elliott graduated with a Bachelors degree in Music in Fall 2007, the Bethesda Theater contacted him and asked him to audition. “It was a show I definitely wanted to do at some point in my career,” said Elliott. Altar Boyz, which began its run Off-Broadway in 2005 in New York City, is an addictive musical comedy which introduces us to the spiritually awesome Christian boy band from Ohio, the Altar Boyz. With the help of the Sony Soul Saver DX 12, the group can find out how many... [Read more...]

Groups Give Back to Community

You think you know everything about student organizations, but you have no idea. We all walk around the Pryz and notice the colorful pieces of paper pinned to the bulletin boards but simply do not take the time to see what they are for. As Beakon editor, it is important for me to be knowledgeable about activities on campus. Even so, it is more important to understand the organizations that are responsible for these activities. I took the matter into my own hands and held a group discussion for representatives from all of the organizations I could think of. As we all chatted over some pizza, it became very clear to me that these groups want to be known. They want to be understood. What they want us to understand is that they do a lot more than... [Read more...]

What CUA Students Watch and the Facts to Prove It

So yea, we got all these great TV channels and it can be agreed that while students over-involve themselves in student organizations, at the end of the day we just want to sit back and escape the real world via television. In order to truly understand what people watch here at the University, I took it upon myself to hand out surveys to approximately 40 random people across campus. Even with the small sample size, I figured out that students watch a lot more than we think they do. Despite this, watching TV is certainly a community event. My survey included a few brief questions, including “Do you watch any specific TV shows each week?,” “Do you watch it with anyone else?,” “What channel do you watch the most?”,... [Read more...]

Mr. Belding Rocks The CUA Pryz

As the actor that brought the generational icon Mr. Belding of “Saved By the Bell” to life, Dennis Haskins, walked onto the stage this past Tuesday evening, he was at a comfortable ease and even said “What’s up?” to students in the aisles. He was our principal.  “I’m sorry if I’m being preach-y,” said Haskins. “Actually, I’m not sorry.” It may be simply because I’ve only seen Haskins be, for lack of a better term, the most ballin-ist principal ever. Even wearing a black button up, not a light tan suit, he was able to make students feel like they were kicking back in his office at Bayside High. “He related to us well,” said Jaquie Orwick, Sophomore psychology major. “He... [Read more...]

Advice from a Former Freshman

As Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” Although quite colloquial, Berra’s thoughts on life are as incredible as his baseball talents were (I’m not just saying that because I’m from New York). Call me horribly cliché, but as we grow older, things inevitably change. The leaves on the trees surrender to the crisp chill of fall, babies learn how to talk and realities become, well, new realities. Each of us students has recognized what I like to call the ‘college dream.’ We knew we would live it one day, no matter what your version of the ‘college dream’ was. We’ve considered the typical Animal House frat party fantasy, walking around dirty frat houses smashing guitars in togas. We’ve imagined yelling... [Read more...]

The Madwoman of Chaillot’ Offers Student Viewers a Window into Insanity and Farce

The problem with finding oil is that cities like Paris can get in the way. This weekend CUA Drama presents The Madwoman of Chaillot, a comedy from another time and place that seems to apply all too well to our current economic situation. The townspeople of Chaillot are lead by Madwoman Countess Aurelia (Elizabeth Sibley) while they try to save their corner of the Earth from headstrong businessmen. “It’s the end of free enterprise as we know it,” exclaims the Ragpicker (Whalen J. Lawrence). He, among many other distinct characters, dwell and play together at the Café Francio in the district of Chaillot, Paris. The stage is ornate with intriguing subplots and character growth. The conflict begins when we meet the President... [Read more...]

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