SHU Announces 2024 Commencement Speakers

Leaders in business, health care and social service will deliver this year’s keynote addresses

To accommodate a growing student body, Sacred Heart University will have five ceremonies in May to confer degrees upon the class of 2024.

The five commencement speakers will each deliver a keynote address, and four will receive an honorary degree. They are all inspirational leaders in their respective fields. The speakers and honorary degree recipients are Andrew Banoff, Simone Campbell, Chris Lowney and Kerry Alys Robinson. Nick Donofrio is a keynote speaker.

Undergraduate Ceremonies

Campbell, a religious leader, attorney, author and recipient of a 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom, will address undergraduates from the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) and College of Health Professions (CHP) at the Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater in Bridgeport on Saturday, May 11, at 10 a.m.

Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, will address undergraduate students from the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology (WCBT), Isabelle Farrington College of Education & Human Development (IFCEHD), Dr. Susan L. Davis, RN, & Richard J. Henley College of Nursing (DHCON) and St. Vincent’s College at the Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater on Saturday, May 11, at 3 p.m.

Graduate Ceremonies

Donofrio, an honorary IBM fellow, will deliver the keynote address to graduate students in the School of Computer Science & Engineering at SHU’s Martire Family Arena on Tuesday, May 7, at 3 p.m.

Lowney, board chair at CommonSpirit Health, the nation’s largest tax-exempt health system, will speak to graduate students from the WCBT and IFCEHD at Martire Family Arena on Tuesday, May 7, at 6 p.m.

Banoff, president and CEO of Mozaic Senior Life, will address graduate students from the CAS, CHP and DHCON at the Martire Family Arena on Wednesday, May 8, at 6 p.m.

About Banoff

Banoff has been president and CEO of Mozaic Senior Life in Bridgeport, formerly known as The Jewish Home for the Elderly, for more than 20 years. Some of his key accomplishments include creating Connecticut’s first and only household-model nursing home and intergenerational campus, restoring financial stability with the addition of new community programs and services and ushering in innovative changes in structure.

Prior to his role at Mozaic, he worked as executive vice president of St. Vincent’s Health Services, president and CEO of Connecticut Health Enterprises and vice president of ambulatory care at Stamford Health System. He also spent nearly 10 years working in director positions for The New York Hospital System. Banoff serves on several organizations’ boards, including the Association of Jewish Aging Services and LeadingAge Connecticut. He is dedicated to his Jewish faith and has organized trips to Israel for nursing home residents and staff.

About Campbell

Campbell, a Roman Catholic Sister of Social Service, has extensive experience in public policy. She is an elder with the Emerson Collective, a California-based organization that addresses issues involving education, environment, immigration and health equity, and she co-leads Understanding US, an online publication and forum that focuses on political healing. For 17 years, she was executive director of the faith-based political advocacy group NETWORK, Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, and leader of Nuns on the Bus, an activist group that speaks out on issues of justice and federal policies.

Her health-care policy efforts laid the groundwork for the Affordable Care Act. She has received numerous awards, including the Defender of Democracy Award from the Parliamentarians for Global Action. A California native, she founded the Community Law Center in Oakland, CA, and from 1995 to 2000, she led the Sisters of Social Service, an international religious organization with ministries that help the poor and promote Gospel values. She also wrote two award-winning books.

About Donofrio

Donofrio is former executive vice president of innovation and technology at the IBM Corporation. Upon retirement in 2008, he was selected as an honorary IBM fellow, the company’s highest technical honor. He holds seven technology patents, is a member of numerous technical and science honor societies and holds several scientific board positions.

He has earned numerous awards, including Industry Week magazine’s Technical Executive of the Year, the Industrial Research’s Institute’s IRI Medal and the International Peace Honors Award. He is a former chair of the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education. In 1995, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions in the development of semi-conductor memory and technical leadership in computers. He serves on the board of the National Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the National Association of Corporate Directors and is a director at Liberty Mutual Group.

In May 2022, Scribe Media published Donofrio's memoir If Nothing Changes, Nothing Changes.

About Lowney

Lowney helped negotiate the 2019 merger that created CommonSpirit Health, which he now chairs.

Prior to CommonSpirit Health, he worked at J.P. Morgan Co. as a corporate banker to Fortune 1000 companies and later as a managing director in Tokyo, Singapore, London and New York. During an era of change in the banking industry, he served successively on Morgan’s management committees in three continents.

Since leaving J.P. Morgan in 2001, he has authored six books. A recognized authority on leadership, change management, business ethics and decision-making, Lowney has lectured in two dozen countries and been featured in the Wall Street Journal and in online editions of the Harvard Business Review and Forbes. As a social entrepreneur, he helped create an innovative collaboration that offers online university education in refugee camps and other low-resource settings.

About Robinson

Robinson is president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, the national membership organization that represents 168 Catholic Charities agencies in the United States and its five territories. Last year, the Catholic Charities network served more than 15 million people in need.

Robinson was the founding executive director of Leadership Roundtable, an organization of lay people and religious leaders working together to promote best business and communication practices and accountability within the Catholic Church. She also previously served as executive director of the Opus Prize Foundation, which awards $1 million dollars annually in support of a ministry dedicated to alleviating human suffering, and as the director of development at the Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University.

A member of the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities and Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, Robinson has been an adviser to and trustee of more than 25 grant-making foundations, charitable nonprofits and family philanthropies. She also is the prize-winning author of the 2014 book Imagining Abundance: Fundraising, Philanthropy, and a Spiritual Call to Service.

Pictured, from left, are Andrew Banoff, Simone Campbell, Chris Lowney, Kerry Alys Robinson and Nick Donofrio.