June 29, 2011
James Monnier wasn’t supposed to go to St. John’s
University.
As a member of the first generation in 
his family
to go to college, he was planning to attend an out-of-town
institution and enjoy the benefits of a residential college
experience. Sadly, those plans changed when his father passed away
during the last semester of his senior year in high school.
“When I was growing up, my dad and I used to go to St. John’s
basketball games in Alumni Hall all the time,” he recalled, “and
when he passed away I decided that I was going to St. John’s rather
than leaving my family to go away to school. I know how happy he
would have been to see me going to St. John’s.”
Currently the University’s Associate Vice President for
Development, Monnier is responsible for a variety of initiatives,
including the Office of Major Gifts, the Office of Gift Planning
and the Office of Research and Prospect Management. While his
activities vary from day to day, his ongoing focus is on engaging
St. John’s most successful alumni in ways that will encourage them
to support the University’s mission, programs and students.
“My staff and I spend our time meeting, engaging, cultivating
and, hopefully, connecting our most successful alumni to St.
John’s,” he said. “Sometimes it’s about our alumni helping us by
coming back to campus to speak to our students about career
opportunities; at other times it’s about alumni offering our
students internships that help them get started in a profession
even before they graduate. But at the end of the day, all roads
lead to financial support. My staff and I are very ‘donor-centric’,
which means that we try to get to know our donors’ interests and
passions and then do the best we can to match them up with the full
range of opportunities here at the University. When we can do that,
that’s when the magic happens.”
Monnier refers to his current position as “the second time
around” in his professional life at St. John’s. An active and
involved student during his undergraduate days, a few months after
graduation he was invited to become Assistant to the Dean of
Students and was soon promoted to Assistant Dean of Student
Development, a position he held until 1980, when he completed his
M.S. in Counselor Education and chose to enter the world of
corporate training.
After years of honing his training skills within some of the
most well-respected firms in the financial services industry, he
decided to take his career to the next level and established his
own training and development consulting firm. A lifelong fan
of St. John’s basketball, it was at a game in Alumni
Hall that he made a professional contact that ultimately resulted
in the University becoming one of his clients.
“I was asked by Human Resources to do some training for St.
John’s administrators,” he said, “and once I got more involved with
the University again I was amazed with the changes that had taken
place on campus and impressed with how it had evolved into a
world-class institution with a reputation for excellence. When an
opportunity arose a few years ago to return to St. John’s full-time
as Director of Development, I didn’t have to give it a second
thought. After all, I was coming home!”
This gifted double alumnus first became aware of the Vincentian
commitment to serve others as a sophomore, when he became involved
with C.A.U.S.E. (Community and University Services in Education), a
student organization that tutored students from P.S. 48 in South
Jamaica. He later ran a summer program for these students, and soon
came to understand that these interactions were a true reflection
of the University’s mission in action.
“Looking back, I realize that by participating in C.A.U.S.E. I
was acting totally Vincentian by serving the needs of the poor and
disenfranchised,” he said. “We really didn’t talk about those ideas
back then, but we simply went out and put them into practice. Those
values have stayed with me for my entire life, and even though I
wasn’t consciously aware of them all the time, I’ve always been
attracted to jobs that allowed me to be of service to others.
That’s a commitment I definitely got from St. John’s.”
Monnier acknowledges that one of the things he enjoys most about
his current position is the opportunity to meet and interact with
so many of the University’s most successful alumni. He continues to
be impressed with both their willingness to work hard to ensure
their own success as well as their generosity in sharing their
talents with St. John’s.
“No matter where I go, I usually run into someone with a St.
John’s connection,” he noted. “Our alumni are great people who’ve
always worked hard and earned whatever success they’ve had in their
lives. I know for a fact that a lot of that work ethic was learned
at St. John’s, because I learned it here myself. Many of us had to
balance our academics with working 20 or 30 hours a week, and once
that becomes a part of your personality you tend to carry it with
you for the rest of your life. St. John’s does so much to turn
successful students into successful alumni, and it’s great that so
many are willing to give back to show their appreciation for what
was done for them many years ago.”