The Bona Venture

Issue date: 3/13/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Image courtesy of Stephen McNall

To one co-worker, Daniel Brislane was more than a colleague and professor.

"He was a friend and mentor," said Carole McNall, a long-time friend of Brislane.

Brislane, a former St. Bonaventure University English professor died March 6,at age 71.

"I can't even begin to count the number of times I'm going to miss him," McNall, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, said.

Brislane taught at Bonaventure for more than 30 years, retiring after the spring semester in 2000. But as Patrick Panzarella, an English professor and former colleague of Brislane, said, he did more than just teach at Bonaventure.

"He did a great deal while he was at St. Bonaventure," Panzarella said. "For instance, almost immediately he became a volunteer for the swim teams, and he became practically indispensable to them. He was a faculty senator for many, many years and chair of the constitution committee."

McNall said she often found a friendly ear in Brislane when it came to the Faculty Senate.

"There were a couple of times where I'd be whining and groaning about the Senate, and he'd say, 'I sympathize completely,'" McNall said.

Panzarella said Brislane was a great professor who always tried to improve education at Bonaventure.

"Something in the English department he did that was really great was beginning a program in which he took students to Stratford in Ontario, Canada," Panzarella said. "He and the students would read plays and then go up to Stratford and see them performed."

Panzarella said Brislane did just as much for the Olean community as he did for Bonaventure. According to Panzarella, Brislane became a lector at St. Mary's of the Angels parish and volunteered at the Olean Public Library.

"That's how we really got to know each other," McNall said. "He was on the Friends of the Olean Library Board when I joined the board."

McNall said Brislane organized the yearly membership campaign as well as the two yearly writing contests run by the library board, one for poetry and one for short stories. McNall said Brislane's mentoring helped her early in her teaching career at St. Bonaventure.

Brislane graduated from the St. Ignatius College Prep School in Chicago as an ROTC student and then served in the U.S. Army. He later graduated from Xavier University. He started his teaching career at Bowling Green State University before coming to Bonaventure in 1968.

"If I had a question that had something to do with teaching, one of the people whose brain I'd pick would be Dan's," McNall said.

"One of the pieces of advice he gave me, that I later told him had been really valuable when I started teaching as an adjunct, was when he said, 'Remember every time you teach a new course you have to learn to teach that course.' It's kept me from beating myself up every time I teach a course for the first time because otherwise I feel like I'm a dunderhead. Like I'm not going to be able to do this," she said.

Panzarella said Brislane's selflessness will be missed.

"I would describe him as someone who was constantly selflessly involved," Panzarella said. "He's a loss not only for the university, but for the area."

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