Christian Brothers Welcome Prof. Emeritus Ed Tywoniak

The Christian Brothers welcomed Professor Emeritus Ed Tywoniak '75 and his family on Saturday, April 2, to celebrate his affiliation to their religious Institute. Ed has been associated with the College for 50 years, ever since his undergraduate days. After graduating in 1975, Ed began his vocation as a Lasallian educator at Saint Mary's residential grammar school at Mont La Salle. By 1978 he was back at the College, this time to build KSMC, the campus radio station. Forty-one years later Ed retired, having become the beloved patriarch of the Communication Department. Along the way, Ed earned an MFA from Mills College and a doctorate from USF.  

Ed's journey has been an immersion in the spirit and aims of the Lasallian education. He is widely known to the Brothers, nationally and internationally. He has been a zealous and faithful member of District Mission Assemblies. He has also been the recipient of a number of campus awards recognizing the Lasallian tenor of his teaching and mentoring of students. During his last sabbatical, in 2015, he devoted his time and scholarship to an aboriginal school conducted by the Brothers in Balgo, Western Australia. The study that emerged was something that he was able to share with the College as well as the General Council of Brothers at their Mother House in Rome. Ed has been a champion of the Brothers' educational mission and did much during his tenure to spread its tenets to his peers at the College through the many positions of faculty leadership he has held here. He expressed his own understanding of his affinity to the Brothers upon his retirement in 2019.

“I had no plan whatsoever. I came to build a little radio station for KSMC and that led to a 40-year career, literally," said Ed. "It’s funny how life works out. It’s very serendipitous in that way. The best testament that I can give is that I was nurtured every step of the way by the Brothers. I really do owe them my career. And each Brother I have known over the years has contributed a small piece to the mosaic that is my life and my career. Two, in particular, I need to mention as foundational mentors for me. The first is Brother Mel Anderson, who arrived at Saint Mary’s as president just two years before I arrived as an undergraduate and has been a role model since then in so many facets of my career. And the other is our recently departed Brother Dominic Berardelli, who was such a dear friend and will always be, for me, the closest I’ve ever been to a saint." 

Ed, over the years, has lived the mission of the Institute and has been a living definition of what it means to be a Lasallian Partner.

In recognition of his heartfelt vocation and the countless lives of students that he has helped to form by a human and Christian education and with the formal approval of the Superior General of the Brothers in Rome, the Brothers welcomed Ed as an affiliated member of their Institute, with all the spiritual and fraternal benefits that they have to offer.

Read more about Ed in this article on his retirement, here.