Daci Colón knows more than anyone the value of a mentor. Since Colón’s sophomore year, Emily Ciraolo, ’08, ’09, has been a guiding light for the senior swimmer from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Ciraolo is chair of SBU’s Alumni Council and a former St. Bonaventure swimmer.
“Emily has helped me get my name out there on different posts on LinkedIn and has helped me organize things like my résumé and cover letter,” Colón said. “But beyond that, she has been a major mentor in my personal life, guiding me through different difficulties that come up in college and hard times that happen in life.”
The pair first connected through the university’s Swim & Dive Mentorship Program, an initiative born from a collaboration between the Career and Professional Readiness Center (CPRC) and Mike Smiechowski, head coach of swimming and diving.
Ciraolo says the program allows St. Bonaventure alumni to give back in a way that feels deeply personal. Her relationship with Colón has become a model for what Bonaventure’s culture of mentorship can be.
“We offer a unique perspective that a non-swimming and diving alum can’t,” said Ciraolo. “We’ve lived the highs and lows of such a long and grueling season.”
That shared experience is the cornerstone of her bond with Colón. When Ciraolo was in Denver last year, she invited Colón to join her at a Savannah Bananas game — a small but meaningful gesture that turned a mentorship into a friendship.
“At the student’s pace, we also help with résumé building, internships, or connecting with other alums for networking,” Ciraolo said. “And because I’m on campus regularly, I’ll invite my mentees out to meals as a nice break from the Hickey. An off-campus meal is something I always cherished as a student.”
The Swim & Dive Mentorship Program is the Career and Professional Readiness Center’s most structured and successful student-alumni mentoring initiative, according to Molly Moretti, director of the CPRC. Each year, the program pairs all 58 student-athletes on the team with roughly 30 alumni mentors — about two students per alum — for a full academic cycle.
“Every swim & dive student is required to participate — and to meet with the CPRC one-on-one each semester,” Moretti said. Students also attend a professionalism presentation in September, complete updated résumés and LinkedIn profiles, and participate in the CPRC’s annual Etiquette Dinner, which drew nearly 100 attendees last fall.
The program’s champions are both in the CPRC and on the pool deck. Smiechowski, who helped launch the effort with then-CPRC director Pam Ferman in 2022, has made participation mandatory for all team members.
“Coach Mike has been the No. 1 champion of the program,” Moretti said. “He sees how these connections motivate his athletes beyond the lanes.”
Mentor-mentee pairs are encouraged to connect monthly by phone or Zoom. Some relationships have continued long after graduation.
“We’ve seen alumni attend meets, take mentees to games, and help them land jobs,” Moretti said. “Those are real outcomes, and they speak to the Bonaventure bond.”
George Triepel, ’89, was paired with Miko Synowiec, ’25, a computer science major from Poland. Their match was serendipitous.
Triepel had a CEO friend who was launching a startup company in Poland, and before he graduated, Synowiec was hired to be a U.S. liaison for the company based in Virginia Beach.
“That ‘coincidence’ is essential to what I have emphasized to these young adults,” Triepel said. “Put their diligent habits that they’ve gotten used to in swimming, and is arguably unmatched, into a habit of constant networking. It could be two weeks or five years, but networking is key.”
Beyond the established success of the Swim & Dive mentorship program, Athletics has expanded its vision with Bonnies Career Connection, a new platform linking student-athletes with alumni employers across industries.
“We’re always looking to improve our student-athlete experience, especially when it comes to preparing them for life after Bonaventure,” said Bob Beretta, vice president and director of Intercollegiate Athletics. “There’s nothing more powerful than Bonnies helping Bonnies.”
The initiative, developed in collaboration with the CPRC, lets alumni search for talented student-athletes who bring dedication, discipline and teamwork to the workplace. Alumni employers can use the site to search for talented candidates for internships and career opportunities, while student-athletes can showcase their professional profiles.
Students who sign up receive professional communication training from the CPRC before being added to the site, ensuring they’re “workforce ready.”
Bonnies Career Connection is open to all student-athletes, as well as alumni who weren’t athletes while at SBU. The program shares the ethos of both the Swim & Dive Mentor program and LaunchSBU.
“Our program shares the same goals as those programs — to leverage the love and affinity that our alumni have for SBU to help provide our students with a distinctive edge as they enter the workforce,” Beretta said.
The CPRC’s mentoring ecosystem reaches beyond athletics. Through events like “Dinner with a Bonnie” and reimagined Bonnies4Bonnies gatherings, alumni and students share professional and personal insights in settings that mirror the close-knit Bonaventure community.
Moretti sees these touchpoints as essential to sustaining the university’s mentoring culture.
“We look at the whole student — résumé, cover letter, LinkedIn, etiquette training — the works,” she said. “It’s about preparing them for every aspect of their professional lives.”
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