(DePaul University/Jamie Moncrief)On Saturday, Sept. 26, Jean Lenti-Ponsetto, recently-retired director of DePaul Athletics, and Bob Janis, vice president for Facility Operations, will be made affiliates of the Congregation of the Mission. In recognition of St. Vincent de Paul's Feast Day, Lenti-Ponsetto and Janis will receive this highest honor conferred by the Congregation of the Mission for their decades of Vincentian service.
Jean Lenti Ponsetto and her husband, Joe. (Image courtesy of DePaul Athletics)
“I've known both Jean and Bob for more than 45 years. Jean and her husband, Joe, and I were students together at DePaul. I've known Bob since he first started working at the university during those same years," says the Rev. Ed Udovic, C.M., former secretary of DePaul and vice president for Mission and Ministry.
Bob Janis. (DePaul University/Jeff Carrion)
“My
fellow Vincentians in Chicago who have also all known Bob and Jean for years,
if not decades, recognize in each of them the faith, the values, and the
personalism that we know is at the heart of our shared Vincentian vocation to
serve,” Udovic says. “Jean and Bob might not sign a C.M., for Congregation of
the Mission, after their names, but they don’t need to. They have this
engraved on their hearts. We as Vincentians do not confer affiliation to
the Congregation lightly, but only upon those whose lives of service resonate
with the ideals we have vowed our entire lives to live.”
The
affiliation is awarded by the Congregation of the Mission’s superior general,
the Rev. Tomaž
Mavriĉ, at the request of the Western Province, the
Vincentians in residence at the Vincentian Kenmore Residence and the Rosati
House Vincentian Residence. Past DePaul awardees include the late Ray Meyer,
former men’s basketball coach; Dick Meister, former executive vice president
for Academic Affairs; Jack Lane, former director of DePaul’s Center for the
Study of University Values, and Frank Dinello the founder and former
director of the DePaul Community Mental Health Center.