Cynthia M. Stalcup of Ashburn, Virginia, has been selected as the Outstanding Graduate of 2020. Cindy graduated summa cum laude after completing the MA in Theology and Educational Ministry degree program with a 4.1 GPA. Cindy has worked as a religious educator, either as a volunteer or professionally, since her early teen years.  Her enthusiasm for this field eventually led her to pursue an advanced degree at CDU. The flexibility of asynchronous online education coupled with CDU’s academically accomplished faculty presented the opportunity to achieve this goal despite a busy family life, a part-time job, and multiple volunteer positions. As a participant in CDU’s pilot practicum program, a requirement for the degree, she developed a four-part program to enhance an established grade-level curriculum.  She continues to use this learning experience to expand her own classroom instruction in terms of content, delivery, and technological methodology. “My experience at CDU has provided rich rewards in the catechetical classroom.  Not only have the courses expanded my knowledge of the faith, but my online learning experience has encouraged me to re-formulate my instructional methods,” Cindy says. Cindy will be honored by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, CDU’s accreditor, which honors an outstanding graduate each year from its member institutions.  

At the January meeting of the CDU Board of Trustees, Stephen D. Pryor was elected to serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees effective March 15, 2021. He succeeds Dr. Charles R. Wasaff, who has been a CDU trustee since 2012 and chairman since October 2017. “CDU has a life-changing impact on its students in terms of the growth of faith and service to the Church. We are excited about the opportunities ahead to extend the University’s reach and share its expertise as a pioneer in Catholic distance education,” said Mr. Pryor. President Dr. Marianne Evans Mount said, "I am thrilled to welcome Stephen Pryor as our new Board Chair effective March 15, 2021. CDU has been blessed with extraordinary board leadership in the work of retiring Board Chair Dr. Charles Wasaff. That tradition will continue with Stephen Pryor.” “Steve brings remarkable corporate success with a deep commitment to the Catholic Church and the mission of Catholic Distance University. He is a strategic thinker with great insights about current opportunities and CDU's strength as the only and exclusively online Catholic university whose expertise in theological education impacts all areas of knowledge. I am privileged to work with him," she continued. A highly accomplished business executive with a long history of service to the Church and Catholic organizations, Mr. Pryor brings a wealth of experience and visionary leadership to the role of chairman. He retired as president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company in 2015 after more than 43 years of ExxonMobil service. Before his appointment in 2008 as president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company, he was president of ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Company and president of ExxonMobil Lubricants and Specialties Company. He also served as vice president of Exxon Mobil Corporation from 2004 until his retirement. Before the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999, Mr. Pryor was executive vice president of Mobil International Marketing and Refining and president of Mobil Asia Pacific. He joined Mobil Corporation in 1971 in the U.S. Marketing Division and went on to lead marketing / refining and chemical business units in Cyprus, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Mr. Pryor is a trustee emeritus of Lafayette College and former vice chair of the board. He is a director and retiring board chair of The Immokalee Foundation and a director of the Foundation for Government Accountability. He earned a BA in Biology from Lafayette College and an MBA from Harvard University. With CDU’s Graduate School of Theology having received accreditation from The Association of Theological Schools in 2020, CDU is poised for growth in both its student body and educational offerings.  The university has also just embarked on a newly adopted strategic plan. The Board and staff look forward to Mr. Pryor’s service to the university as Board chair. He was first elected to the Board of Trustees in October 2017.

Undergraduate Theology professor David Bonagura, Jr., has published a new book: Staying with the Catholic Church: Trusting God's Plan of Salvation, which explains the mystery of the Church and why we need her to encounter Christ in light of contemporary challenges. The book can be ordered on Amazon. Professor Bonagura, who also teaches Theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., was inspired to write the book in 2018, after the revelation of a new wave of scandals within the Church hierarchy. “So many Catholics were angry, confused, and questioning how such things could happen in God's Church,” he says. “These reactions are understandable--I shared them. But, if the Church is what we know in faith that she is--the Body of Christ, the temporal extension of the Incarnation--then there has to be more to her than the sins of her members.” “I set out to explain what the Church is, why Christ founded her, and what her mission is in the hope that Catholics would understand that the Church is a great mystery, a collection of sinners ministering divine healing to sinners, that is worthy not only of our continued support, but our faithful love," Professor Bonagura says. People are turning away from the Church in increasing numbers today. “Cascading waves of secularism and radical individualism have caused people to move away from organized religions. Added to this are the Church scandals and lack of understanding the essential truths of our faith,” Professor Bonagura says. “The way to return Catholics to the Church is the same way in which people have been brought into her for centuries, all across the globe: bold proclamation that Christ and His Church are necessary for our salvation, coupled with a tireless witness of Christ-inspired charity toward other people. Scandal draws people away from the Church. Holiness attracts them. The degree to which we live out our baptismal call to holiness will predict how successful we are in bringing people back into the Church." Professor Bonagura published the highly rated Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism in 2019, which is also available on Amazon.