Veronica Jarek-Prinz ’84 and Joseph Bonito ’79 with Honors Program Director Mark O’Connor

Mark O’Connor

JOSEPH BONITO: I had Mark O’Connor for two courses during my freshman year. The first paper I wrote for him, he gave me two grades, a B+ or an A- for content and a C+ for writing. He said, You have great ideas, you just don’t know how to communicate them yet. He worked hard me with all that year to get my writing up to par. Later that year he said, You have the potential to be a really good student here. It meant so much to me that he believed in me.

Joseph Bonito is vice-president, global leadership effectiveness, at Pfizer, Inc. in New York City.

VERONICA JAREK-PRINZ: I had Mark for a class called “Modern Man II.” I had teachers before who were intellectually challenging, but he was the first one who also cared about what I thought. I remember that it was February and the weather was miserable and we were reading Crime and Punishment, so it was all very depressing, and I went to his office in tears. And he gave me something else to read, Robert Browning’s poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra” and some James Leigh Hunt. And he said “When you feel bad, the thing to do is to think more.” He invited us all to the christening of his second son. He was not just an intellectual giant, but he let us see everything that mattered to him intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Veronica Jarek-Prinz is associate director of enrollment management at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.