FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANHATTAN COLLEGE WELCOMES GUARDIAN ANGELS TO LEAD VIOLENCE PREVENTION SEMINAR FOR EDUCATORS

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Manhattan College will host a violence prevention seminar in conjunction with The Guardian Angels, to be lead by Guardian Angels director John Munro, on October 19, 2004 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The workshop, sponsored by the College’s school of education, will be held on campus in Smith Auditorium. Registration begins at 4:00 p.m.

For more than two decades, The Guardian Angels, founded by Curtis S. Sliwa, has aimed to keep the streets of New York safe and the neighborhoods clean. The once-small group of thirteen volunteers has grown into an organized structure with 25 chapters throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Brazil and Japan. The Guardian Angels began protecting the community by riding the subway between the toughest stops and using the legal concept of citizen’s arrest to detain gang members and criminals for police. Volunteers, who were mostly inner-city youth – some connected to neighborhood gangs – initially received a lukewarm reception by police and officials. However, they soon gained trust and respect after proving their efforts were successful in keeping peace on the streets.

An expert in the field of character education, John Munro, educational programs director at The Guardian Angels, also is an assistant professor at Saint Peter’s College and a consultant to school districts and businesses throughout the tri-state area. For 15 years, Munro served as the coordinator of Project Understanding, an anti-bullying and tolerance education program for the River Dell School District in Oradell, New Jersey. This nationally recognized program successfully emphasizes the virtues of character education for its students.

The Guardian Angels have been conducting the seminar on violence prevention for educators for the past two years, primarily at St. John’s University where Sliwa was recently named an adjunct professor. The New York State Education Department approved this state-mandated program on violence prevention for educators seeking certification as part of the State’s “Safe Schools Against Violence in Education” Act (Project SAVE). The program includes tried and proven skills to keep a classroom orderly and a school focused on its core mission – education.

This workshop is open to current Manhattan College students at no charge with a valid student ID. Manhattan alumni with proper identification may attend for a fee of $40, and non-Manhattan College attendees are required to pay an admission fee of $50. For more information about this program and questions about registration, please contact the school of education at (718) 862-7373. If you are a member of the press and wish to cover this event, please contact Melanie A. Farmer at (718) 862-7232.

Manhattan College is located at West 242nd Street near Broadway in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, one mile from the Westchester County line and accessible by MTA subway lines 1 and 9.

Manhattan College was founded in 1853 in the Lasallian tradition of excellence in teaching, inspired by St. John Baptist de La Salle.  Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science. For more information about the College, visit www.manhattan.edu. For more information about The Guardian Angels’ seminars on violence prevention, visit www.guardianangels.org/edu_violence.html.

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