$1.2M donation goes to Saint Rose
Funds to renovate building for female leadership program
Marking a step forward for a women’s leadership initiative, the College of Saint Rose on Monday received a $1.2 million gift to renovate a building that will house a group of specially selected students participating in an intercollege network aimed at fostering future female leaders.
“Take note of them, they are going to make an impact,” Saint Rose President Carolyn
Stefanco said of the seven women selected for the program.
“Graduating from Saint Rose made me so proud and it still does,” said Michelle Cuozzo Borisenok, class of 1980.
A $1.2 million gift from Borisenok and her husband, Walt Borisenok, will fund renovations to a building at 1020 Madison Ave. to house the students and serve as home to the school’s Women’s Leadership Institute.
The institute, along with the BOLD network, aims to boost the confidence and leadership prospects for college women.
Saint Rose was invited to join the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network by the Pussycat Foundation, which is named in honor of the late journalist Helen Gurley Brown, who favored the term.
Gurley Brown was the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, published by Hearst, which is also the parent company of the Times Union.
The BOLD network consists of six colleges and universities including Saint Rose, Ithaca, Middlebury and Colby-sawyer colleges, the University of Connecticut and Rutgers University–newark. Each partner institution in the network is led by a female president.
The seven Saint Rose women chosen as scholars are from a diversity of places, including Albany, Harlem, the Catskills, Rhode Island and Zimbabwe.
Hellen Jumo, who grew up in the small city of Kwekwe, Zimbabwe, said she initially became interested in Saint Rose after seeing pictures of the Statue of Liberty.
While she quickly learned that Albany wasn’t part of New York City, the school has become her second home. “I found another home away from home here at Saint Rose,” said the chemistry major.
Just as important, she said, Saint Rose has allowed her to expand her learning horizons. She has participated in a study exploring how alcohol affects the neural pathways of pregnant women and wants to become an oncologist.
Other students said joining the network has already boosted their confidence. “I honestly feel as if the world is my oyster,” said Essence Coxum of New Paltz, who is studying social work and wants to devote herself to social justice issues.
In addition to Coxum and Jumo, the other women who will live at the center starting next fall, during their senior year, are Arianna Paul, of Albany; Janay Salter, of Harlem; Belinda Ligotino, of Ellenville; Marissa Isabella, of Lincoln, R.I.; and Nia Brown, of Newburgh.
Like Stefanco, who has a PH.D. in history from Duke University, Borisenok said she was the first generation of her family to attend college.
During a brief ceremony Monday, she recalled commuting to Saint Rose from her home in Troy at a time when I-787 had just been completed. She earned a degree in business administration and recently started Brown Road Racing LLC to get more women involved in horse racing.
Her husband, a SUNY Plattsburgh graduate, founded the Fortitech food fortification firm in 1986. It was sold to the Dutch firm DSM in 2012.
As well as funding the BOLD institute’s home, Stefanco said she believed the $1.2 million gift could spur other alumni to give to and get involved with what she termed a hometown school for many.
“It also is a signal to other alumni, women and men, to come home,” she said.