Syracuse vs Ithaca vs St. Bonaventure for Sports Media and Communications

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Please help my son decide among offers to major in sports media and communications at these three schools – Syracuse’s Newhouse Communications School, Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications, St. Bonaventure’s Journalism program.

My son so far likes the feel of St. Bonaventure the best – thinks the students are the most down to earth and really likes the feeling of community.

My questions include what it is like to be a student at St. Bonaventure who is not Catholic? Specifically, what is it like to be a Jewish student on campus? We are not very observant but would he feel very isolated on campus on the Jewish holidays, for example?

Also, do some students find the campus to feel too small by the end of four years? Is there much support for spending a semester abroad or doing an internship elsewhere?

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I would have questioned applying there up front - if this would be a concern. St Bonnie is Catholic, not Jesuit.

They’ve had very few Jewish students. I can’t imagine a Jewish student attending - there will be imagery, curriculum requirements and more.

That said, if that’s what he chooses, at least he does eyes wide open.

Best of luck.

Part of the General Ed:

  1. An ability to engage with ultimate questions of a metaphysical, theological, and philosophical nature.

  2. A basic understanding of the Catholic tradition and an appreciation of the intellectual and moral virtues expressed in the Franciscan movement (e.g., humility, compassion, justice with peace, love of wisdom, and the inherent goodness of all creation).

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A few comments:

–Are all options comfortably affordable (no hardship, no or minimal loans)?

–In a competitive field where I believe connections matter, I would have a hard time saying no to Syracuse Newhouse.

-Has the student looked at the core curriculum at StB? Looks like there is some Catholic based required coursework. Have you asked what the Jewish population on campus is? Is the student comfortable seeing Christian symbols on campus? Is there a Hillel on campus?

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Sports media - I’m a Newhouse alum. The name is overhype - sportscasters come from all over - literally. The top Fox guys are Beloit and William Paterson.

The most important thing is opportunity - but today everyone has an iPhone so they can sit in a hs gym and do play by play.

But I don’t think, on its face, there’s anything wrong with saying no to SU. 80% plus of their kids likely don’t make it in the business. It’s why SU used to require a minor or double major - I forget but many programs still do everyone needs a back up plan.

But in this case, I can’t imagine being a Jewish Bonnie. Nice campus. Been actually. But Jews don’t exist - at least in multiples.

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Maybe because we think so highly of you, but I agree with @happy1.

I would push your son a bit more to further consider Syracuse.

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Congratulations to your son on three great admits!

Choosing a school where you’re going to be happy is a pretty popular mantra here on College Confidential. For a student who prefers St. Bonaventure (about 2k undergrads), I have a hard time seeing them feeling equally as comfortable at a school nearly 8x larger (Syracuse, about 16k undergrads). It’s not impossible, but it doesn’t feel like an “of course people would like those similarly!” Ithaca, at 4300 undergrads, does feel like it could still work for someone who liked a small school.

I used College Navigator (feds’ website with IPEDS data) to see how many students were sports communication majors as their first major at the three schools under consideration and looked to see the percentage of sports communication majors as a portion of all comms majors, and the percentage of comms majors at the college.

Ithaca St. Bonaventure Syracuse
Sports Communication 24 13 39*
% of sports communication grads of communications 12% 42% 8%
Total Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs 207 31 482
% of Communications grads of total 22% 8% 14%
Grand Total grads 935 395 3,356

*In College Navigator there was no listing for Sports Communication, but there were 39 graduates with Journalism-Other. I am just making a guess that this might be the sports journalism major.

I think the percentage of sports journalism majors as a percentage of the comms majors is important because there are generally only so many sports segments on a school broadcast, or so many sports broadcasts total. The higher the percentage of comms students with a sports interest, the greater the competition for those slots is likely to be. Looking at it from that perspective, 42% of the comms undergrads at St. Bonaventure are interested in sports, way higher than the 8% at Syracuse or 12% at Ithaca.

That said, there’s also the total number of students who are interested. There are only 13 in the most recent set of grads (of data in IPEDS), which mans roughly 52 students in the sports comms undergrad program (13 x 4 years). That’s a lot less than the 24 grads (96 totalish students) at Ithaca or the 39 (156ish) at Syracuse.

The internships and on-campus experiential options at St. Bonaventure also sound promising.

All of that said, though, St. Bonaventure is a Catholic university, and your son is Jewish. As part of the curriculum at St. Bonaventure, your son is required to take one class on Franciscan Studies/Theology (options listed below). Are there any classes that he would be interested in taking to meet the requirement, or would he feel uncomfortable in them?

  1. Franciscan Studies/Theology (Click to see courses)

  • THFS 225. Theology and the Arts

  • THFS 226. Theology through Film

  • THFS 230. Faith and Doubt

  • THFS 235. Catholic Theology

  • THFS 245. Christian Ethics

  • THFS 252. Christian Spirituality

  • THFS 261. Jesus Through the Centuries

  • THFS 263. Sacraments

  • THFS 266. Franciscan Theology for Today

  • THFS 270. Introduction to the Bible

  • THFS 271. Understanding the Old Testament

  • THFS 272. Understanding the New Testament

  • THFS 307. Christian-Muslim Relations

  • THFS 333. Christian Marriage

  • THFS 340. Ethical Leadership: Franciscan Values in the Workplace

  • THFS 342. Bonaventure – Life & Writings

  • THFS 345. Catholic Social Thought

  • THFS 348. Health, Faith, and Ethics

  • THFS 359. Franciscan Spirituality

  • THFS 360. Early Christian History to the Reformation

  • THFS 370. Feminist Theologies

  • THFS 374. Women and the Bible

  • WS 374. Women and the Bible

Additionally he’s required to take (emphasis added to THFS 101)

I. Required specific courses — 15 credits

  • BONA 101. Introduction to St. Bonaventure — 3 credits.

  • THFS 101. The Way of Francis and Clare (Honors students may take THFS 104H) — 3 credits.

  • PHIL 104. Introduction to Ethics (Honors students may take PHIL 105) — 3 credits.

  • ENG 101. Writing I and ENG 102. Writing II (Honors students may take ENG 104H) — 3 credits each.

How would he feeling about class on The Way of Francis and Clare?

This post is getting quite long, so I’ll continue my thoughts on Ithaca and Syracuse in a different one.

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When I was at SU, it was all about Bob Costas, Marv Albert, and Dick Stockton. Yes, they had many well known journalists - but it always came to them. Today, it’s the Eagles (Ian and Noah) and Mike (Tirico).

Kids get small market jobs and play by play jobs from all schools but as Ian said in an address to recent students - your superpower is not a program but an iPhone. Practice, practice, practice.

Some kids are just naturally talented - you know from day one. It’s not taught in school.

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Syracuse would have a very different vibe than St. Bonaventure, but my initial reaction was to point in that direction. Was it because of Newhouse? Nope! It was because of all of the minor league teams in the area. There’s the:

  • Syracuse Strong: minor league football
  • Syracuse Mets: AAA baseball affiliate for the NY Mets
  • Syracuse Crunch: hockey affiliate for the Tampa Bay Lightning
  • Syracuse Monarchs: ABA basketball team
  • Central New York Blue Devils: American indoor football team

So in addition to the various sports teams playing at Syracuse, there are additional options to get experience and build connections. Have all the other sports communication majors figured this out and are competing for these same spots? Don’t know, but it’s at least something to consider.

Ithaca, on the other hand doesn’t have any minor league teams that I found. It does, however, have Cornell with its 16k undergrads next door along with its 21+ varsity sports teams, and it appears as though Ithaca College students are the ones who do all the sports coverage for Cornell. Its students also appear to do well on the internship front. And I think its size is much more similar to St. Bonaventure, if that’s an aspect that drew him to that school.

According to Hillel (with which others have reported some inaccuracies), Syracuse has about 2500 Jewish undergrads representing about 16% of the total undergrads. At Ithaca it’s about 1,050 Jewish undergrads representing about 25% of the total undergrads. Neither school has a religious affiliation. Hillel had no information on St. Bonaventure.

My gut says that he can do great things wherever he lands. Hope you’ll come back to let us know what he decides!

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This I’ll agree with. The other thing to ask about is opportunity. The world is different but when I was at SU, you had one shot at anchor, one at weather, and one at sports - in newscast practicum.

I visited a friend at U of Montana, who had to drop out of Newhouse. I went to class wit her. There was about 20 students and they all had their own cameras to use. I was wow’ed. And Becky told me they all found jobs whereas SU kids became stock brokers, law students, or like me working in a hotel sports book before I got a job a year later at a major sports network (off air) for $7.50 an hour for 40 hours a week, working at least double that (unpaid of course).

I personally have a bias against journalism programs given so many never attended one - but the amount of students at SU just make it near impossible to get the opportunities kids do at other schools.

Yes, it’s a different era - but this is what I’d be asking - access to actual things - not just that we have Z89 and WAER - too many trying to get on, can’t, etc.

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My son is currently at a small Catholic college taking a class titled “Jesus as a Muslim” being taught by a female Jewish Religious Studies professor.

I’d bet a bunch of Franciscan priests would be more than accommodating to any student of different religious faith. But the Jewish population is likely low to nonexistent due to its location. Local synagogue closed. I went to college nearby and had a bunch of friends from Olean and environs. They get along with everyone. The Amish have been moving up there from Lancaster because the land is cheaper.

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I’ll give OP a little head start on St. Clare. She was very young (14 or 15) and wanted to be a nun. Her family said no. In those days in Assisi, it was unlucky to have a dead body removed from the home through the front door so homes had a special door in the kitchen to remove the dead bodies. Yes, Death’s Door.

St. Clare sneaked out death’s door to become a nun.

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My atheist kid at Cuse says it feels like a larger number of Jewish students there. Maybe its just in his circles (and he isn’t even in the Jewish fraternity).

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