ML
Makeda Loney
  • journalism-mass communication
  • Brooklyn, NY

Brooklyn woman chosen as student speaker for St. Bonaventure Commencement

2014 May 8

Makeda Loney will reflect on a promise fulfilled when she addresses her classmates and guests as the student speaker at St. Bonaventure University's 154th Commencement Exercises on Sunday, May 11.

Attend St. Bonaventure and you will become connected, aware, involved and passionate, students are told. In short, you will become extraordinary.

It's a message you hear before you enroll, your first day on campus as a freshman and throughout your academic career, said Loney. It's only now, as seniors and degree candidates, that you fully realize the university made good on its promise, she will tell her classmates.

Loney, a journalism and mass communication major from Brooklyn, N.Y., is a student in the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), which provides access to continuing education for promising students with special academic and financial needs. The program is funded by the New York State Department of Education and St. Bonaventure University.

Loney made the most of the opportunity. Earlier this year she was named the Dr. Mary A. Hamilton Woman of Promise, an award that recognizes a female journalism and mass communication student who has excelled in and out of the classroom, set an example for peers and possesses the skills necessary to not only succeed, but also thrive in her postgraduate career.

Loney is the first HEOP student to win the prestigious award.

In addition, she has been inducted into the HEOP National Honor Society, Chi Alpha Epsilon.

Margaret Bryner, HEOP director at St. Bonaventure, describes Loney as "highly energetic, incredibly creative and always positive. She has stepped outside the box she was in when she got here as a shy, reserved freshman."

Loney's involvement on campus spans numerous organizations. She has been a staff member with campus radio station WSBU 88.3 The Buzz, and has been very active in the university's Slam Poetry Club, serving as co-president and secretary, and as an enthusiastic performer. She has routinely placed in slam poetry competitions.

Loney was a student in SBU's theater program, acting in five productions and designing costumes for three. She was twice nominated for the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship Competition.

Loney has been involved with St. Bonaventure's student-run ad agency, the Kwerkworks, through the university's chapter of the American Advertising Federation, and she participated in the university's prestigious Francis E. Kelley Oxford Program, studying abroad in England during the summer of 2012.

She has also been a volunteer at St. Francis House of Boston, Mass., which provides services to the poor and homeless.

Loney is a graduate of the High School of Economics and Finance in New York.

She plans to move to Atlanta after graduation to attend copywriting classes at the The Creative Circus, a portfolio-building educational program.