Tom Toronto \u201979 had not been to campus in more than 30 years when he attended Montclair State University\u2019s Annual Scholarship Dinner as a guest of an old classmate. As he walked around the campus that evening, he says that he felt a renewed connection to the University and decided to become a member of the President\u2019s Club. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be able to pay back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom recalls that he wasn\u2019t keen on the idea of college when he graduated from Lodi High School. \u201cI was a little bit of a late starter,\u201d he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t necessarily planning on going to college. I was going to go to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after a stint as a truck driver, Tom began to rethink his decision. \u201cI realized that there might be a better way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom enrolled at Montclair State, landed what was then the highest paid student job on campus \u2013 Student Center building manager \u2013 where he had the chance to work with virtually every student group on campus and got to know Dean of Students Lawton Blanton, who Tom remembers as a \u201cgreat guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Academically, Tom embraced wholeheartedly the idea of a liberal arts education, taking a wide assortment of classes and experiencing all that the campus had to offer. \u201cIt was all the things that happen to young people between the ages of 18 and 22,\u201d he remembers. \u201cLearning to not accept conventional wisdom, forging bonds of friendship, making connections with professors \u2013 significant changes and growth in what I now understand is a very compressed period of time,\u201d he says. He eventually settled in the Department of Political Science from which he earned his degree.<\/p>\n
Tom says attending Montclair State changed his life. \u201cMy horizons were broadened; my sights were raised significantly.\u201d He decided to pursue studies at the graduate level, attending Columbia University, from which he received a master\u2019s degree in administration. Connections he made at Columbia led to a position with the United Way, where he has risen through the ranks and is now president of Bergen County\u2019s United Way.<\/p>\n
Being on campus last spring helped him understand the enormous impact Montclair State had on him. That understanding, he says, was what prompted him to make a gift to the University. \u201cI received wise counsel here from people who took an interest in me,\u201d he says. \u201cThey helped me to chart a direction for my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom Toronto \u201979 had not been to campus in more than 30 years when he attended Montclair State University\u2019s Annual Scholarship Dinner as a guest of an old classmate. As he walked around the campus that evening, he says that he felt a renewed connection to the University and decided to become a member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":205962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-77_alumni-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205947"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206157,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205947\/revisions\/206157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}