alumni successes & profiles

Alumni Search
Alumni Profiles
National Award Recipients
Class of 2007 Graduate School and Job Placements

To search the Honors Alumni Directory, enter your keyword(s) and hit the Search button (an AND is implied between keywords). You can search by name (first and/or last), business, city, state abbreviation or graduated class year.

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Adam Zyglis, '04
Adam ZyglisThe Buffalo News' editorial cartoonist and former Honors student Adam Zyglis graduated summa cum laude from Canisius in May 2004.  He majored in computer science with a concentration in studio art and credits the Honors Program for his success.

"I feel that I wouldn't have my career as an editorial cartoonist if it wasn't for my experience in the Honors Program," Zyglis says.  "I'm extremely fortunate to have landed one of only 85 full time editorial cartoonist positions in the U.S."

In addition to regular features in The Buffalo News, Zyglis' work has appeared in several books, magazines and Web sites such as msnbc.com.  He has done storyboard artwork for national commercials including Verizon, as well as advertising and editorial illustrations.

In 2003, Zyglis won first place in Editorial Cartooning from the Associated Collegiate Press and the Universal Press Syndicate.  He was also awarded second place in the John Locher Memorial Award, given by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and was a finalist for the Charles M. Schulz Award, sponsored by the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Zyglis says of the Honors Program: "Writing my honors thesis gave me the opportunity to look beyond my major and discover my true passion.  In writing the paper, I got to interview some of the nations best cartoonists and develop my own theory on the craft.  This pushed my cartoons to a new level and gave me the confidence to go after my dream job."

To see some of Zyglis' work, click here.

Once Upon Charles Dickens, book cover
Laura Szkutak, '05

Laura Szkutak earned her bachelor's degree in 2005 and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in literacy at Canisius. After writing her honors thesis, she sent it to several publishing companies. Publish America, a company located in Baltimore, Maryland showed interest, and within a couple of months after graduation, she signed a book deal.

Once Upon Charles Dickens, a thesis about how Dickens’ literature was influenced by various fairy tales, thus creating a fairy tale matrix in the themes of his works, was published in spring 2006. The book is available at major bookstores including on-line at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and borders.com. It was even picked up by the Charles Dickens museum store in England. In August 2006, book sales cracked the 2,000 mark.

Laura Szkutak  
Laura is an English teacher at the Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School on the corner of Main and Jewett, where she has worked for the past two years. This year, she was promoted to eleventh grade chair, and is in charge of integrating the curriculum among the eleventh grade teachers at the school.

“Writing my honors thesis was one of the most powerful experiences I ever had," Laura says. "Typing your name into Amazon and seeing your book come up is unbelievable. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to get my work out there, and I never would have had the idea to write something like this if not for Dr. Sroka’s class.”

  adrienne vargo
Adrienne Vargo, '03

"Since graduation in 2003, I entered UB Medical School and I am now looking forward to graduating from medical school in May 2007. I am pursuing a residency in Radiology, and I will find out where I match in March.

"The Canisius College Honors program, and indeed all of my time spent at Canisius, represented an excellent experience which truly helped to prepare me for my future and inspired me to seek out opportunity wherever I could."

Honors Graduates Earn National Awards

Fulbright-Hays Scholarships
Melanie Horton 2007   Mexico
Elise Garvey 2007 Ukraine
Edward Snyder  2002  Germany
Stephen Altieri   2002 Canada
Amy Lyons   2001 France
Michael Slosek 2001      Canada
Elizabeth Mangus   2000 Canada
Benjamin Krass   1999 Spain
Michael O’Sullivan   1999 Germany
Rebecca Cressman   1997 Australia
Marcella Kearns   1995 Austria
Dan Sherman   1995 New Zealand
Michael Klier 1994  Germany
Erick Filipink   1993 Belgium
Maria Miller   1993 New Zealand
Lisa Kuriscak   1993 Spain
Carolyn Dudek   1993 Spain
Matthew Klaben   1991 Germany
Thomas Malucci  1988 Germany
 
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship
Steven Seegel  1999
 
Truman Fellowship
A.J. Bellia  1991
 
NCAA Woman of the Year
Mary Beth Riley  1991
 
Arthur H. Carter Scholarship in Accounting
Brian Laibble  1999
Stephen Bubar  1993
Joyce Adzilka  1991
 
Jacob Javits Scholarship
Maureen Cody  2000
Amy Whipple  1997
 
Rotary Fellowship
Meghann Drury  2001
Lynn Pokrzyk  1998
 
Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program
J.R. Lipartito  2001

For a list of Professional School placements, click here. (Adobe Acrobat .pdf)