Photo by Kyle Vertin
Photo by Kyle Vertin
LERON WELLINGTON
Special to The Leader
This year, two professors have won the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching. Both faculty members, Louann Laurito-Bahgat and Raymond Bonilla, are Fredonia graduates and have returned here after following their own different paths.
Laurito-Bahgat has been teaching accounting classes at Fredonia for eight years. Having an interest in the field from a young age, she tries to apply her life experience to her students. Growing up in Fredonia, attending the university was an easy decision considering she could work and pay for college here.
To her, “Fredonia is home, and the campus is the jewel of Fredonia and brings life to the community.” It was apparently the right choice because she left with no debt, and she “enjoyed her time here on the campus that was and still is beautiful.”
Following graduation from Fredonia, Laurito-Bahgat received her licence to be a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner. She and her husband, who were high school sweethearts, opened their own accounting firm in 1993. Having this real-world experience helps her relate to her students with things that “are more that just the textbook.” She remembers when she planned on expanding her business and bought an abandoned lot to relocate in. On the first day of renovations, the building next door collapsed. And after two years of lawsuits and legalities, she looks back on the experience as a lesson on running a business.
Laurito-Bahgat sees accounting as her job and teaching here as more of an interest that she considers a “double bonus.” Getting to work side by side with students who have graduated and are now professionals in the field is really “neat” for her. She said teaching here has helped her keep up with new content, become a better public speaker and meet a lot of great people. When it comes to receiving this award she said, “I’m really happy but working with the students is really nice, and I’m so grateful for that.”
On the other hand, Bonilla teaches classes in painting and illustration here while featuring his works around the country. His interest in comics books and video games as a kid got him interested in art, specifically computer art. After graduating here in 2005, he went to the Academy of Art University and majored in illustration. Bonilla initially wanted to work in the film industry as an artist for Pixar but, after a year, switched from the character animation program to the illustration program.
Since graduating from the Academy of Art University, Bonilla has had his works featured in The New Yorker magazine and in galleries all over the country. From Missouri to Utah, he worked on his portfolio and expanded to doing posters for theatrical productions. You can see some of his work in the posters for productions on campus. He is currently working on his first couple of shows in Buffalo, at Meibohm Fine Arts, Inc. and at the Echo Art Fair. He enjoys living in Buffalo, spending time outdoors and traveling with his wife.
Bonilla approaches teaching as a way to pass down knowledge in a way that benefits himself and his students alike.
“It is both selfless and selfish. It is both a natural thing and a craft. It is paying forward everything that you have been taught,” he said.
Teaching here, he has the rare opportunity to work alongside some of the professors who taught him when he was an undergrad here, such as Alberto Rey of the Visual Arts and New Media Department.
“It has been my honor to have had him [as a student] and now as a colleague. He understands the short- and long-term value of setting clear and ambitious goals in his drawing and painting classes,” Rey said.
Though he thinks that many other professors deserve the Chancellor’s Award, he also attributed his success to Tom Loughlin, chair of the Theatre and Dance Department, and Bob Booth, his own department chair, for his success.
“[All three] really helped me become the teacher that I am today, and the departmental support that I received from Bob and Alberto is a major reason why I was able to win the Chancellor’s Award,” Bonilla said.
Neither Laurito-Bahgat nor Bonilla originally saw teaching in their futures. They actually were both offered their positions because of temporary openings from professor sabbaticals and intended to stay for a semester. But for both, one semester turned into years. Though they have both ended up teaching here, their personal paths have helped them at not only being better teachers, but appreciating what Fredonia has to offer.