Lifetime Achievement Award

Sister Denise Receives "Woman of Influence" Lifetime Achievement Award

Buffalo, New York – September 25, 2012 – Sister Denise A. Roche was selected as the 2012 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by Business First and was honored along with 25 other woman at the annual Women of Influence Luncheon on September 20 at Salvatore's Italian Gardens.

Business First, Lake Shore Savings Bank and Kaleida Health sponsor the awards.

"The awards recognize the business acumen and community spirit of these women," Business First publisher Jack Connors said.

Sister Denise was cited for her long time leadership of D'Youville and the progress made during the more than three decades of her presidency. "D'Youville has nearly tripled its budget to $73 million and grown the student population to nearly 3,200. Those numbers are even more impressive considering where the college was in 1979 when Roche was named president; a budget of $5.4 million and 1500 students," the citation said. In accepting the award, she remarked that she looks at each day as a new opportunity to finish a project, learn something or try something new. "I love what the students bring to the college. They have such great ideas and see things differently and ask wonderful questions." Sister Denise told the audience of more than 500 attendees, the college was named for Marguerite d'Youville, an 18th century woman who took care of the poor and founded the Grey Nuns, Sisters of Charity in Canada. "St. Marguerite always said, 'the poor must know that we never refuse to serve.'"

D'Youville College was founded by the Grey Nuns as the first college for women in Western New York.

Another D'Youville alumna, Cory Shaffer '88, founder and president of Mobile Primary Care, Inc., received the Award for Innovation. Her company was started by Cory and two partners in 2007 and consists of 11 nurse practitioner who do home visits for the elderly or homebound. They provide primary care to more than 2000 patients in the home and currently cover the six counties of Western New York. "Elderly patients can't always get the medical care they need, so we bring it to them and in a way you would want your mother or father treated – care and compassion," she said. Cory earned her undergraduate and graduate nursing degrees from D'Youville and is currently working on her doctorate at her alma mater.