Bayonne Prepster, ‘a man for others,’ to receive honorary doctorate from Seton Hall | Faith Matters – NJ.com

Even though Seton Hall University, a diocesan institution, will award an honorary doctorate to Kenneth Kunzman this Tuesday, May 25, it was his years as a student at two Jesuit institutions — St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City and Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts — that had the most profound impact on his life.

Back in 1950, he recalled, the mission of any student in a Jesuit school was to become “a man for others.” He then updated it today to “a person for others.”

That ethic of service set Kunzman onto a career of doing that very thing for over 60 years.

Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D., president of Seton Hall, explained in a letter announcing his honorary degree: “We do so in recognition of your extraordinary achievements in your field and longtime supporter of the university.”

It all started 40 years ago when the late Richard Reagan, then the university’s athletic director, enlisted season SHU Pirates basketball ticketholder Kunzman to co-found the Pirate Blue initiative to raise funds to improve athletics at the university.

He became so involved and successful, Kunzman was eventually inducted into the university Athletic Hall of Fame even though he never played ball for them.

Kunzman also served as co-chair and legal counsel to the university’s Board of Regents for 20 years.

A 1961 law graduate from Fordham University, Kunzman joined the law firm of Connell Foley in 1965 and became a partner in 1968. He was chairman of the law firm’s executive committee from 1995 to 2002.

In particular, he focuses on corporate transactions, trusts and estates. His legal work brought more honors.

The Seton Hall School of Law awarded Kunzman the St. Thomas More Medal for Integrity in the Law and he received the Douglas S. Eakeley Award for legal service to the poor. He served as a member of the board of trustees and the executive committee of the Scholarship Fund for Inner City Children, which raises funds and provides scholarship aid to children from poor families attending Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Newark. And he is the former chairman of the Essex Legal Services Foundation, where he continues to serve as a trustee.

He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Essex County Bar Association and another from the construction industry.

Growing up on Fourth and Garretson, Downtown Bayonne was the epicenter of his early life attending St. Andrew’s School and growing up in the parish.

“It was wonderful,” he recalled, “walking to school every day and playing ball after school.”

He described “great friendships,” for example, with Jim Byrne, who became the popular Shore entertainer.

He took the bus from Avenue C and Fourth Street to Prep in Downtown Jersey City, where he played basketball. He recalled the late Jesuit Father Francis Shalloe, for whom a Prep building is named. He became a Knight of the Blessed Sacrament.

Prep designated him a Legend of St. Peter’s Prep, the highest award from the school.

He also played basketball for Holy Cross, which eventually awarded him the Edward Bennett Williams Award for lifetime achievement.

West Orange became his family home after he married Ann Degnan, from the famed family, whose brother was the late Jesuit Daniel, former president of St. Peter’s University. They raised five girls and one boy and now have 17 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. That’s also where they met their close friends, Mary and Thomas Collinson, and lived on the same block.

They still belong to St. Joseph Church in town.

“He is a very dedicated, good person who goes out of his way to help people,” Tom Collinson said. “He is a humble man.” But he added, “He is very exacting.”

Tom reminds him “that he can’t do everything.”

But Kunzman considers himself “a fortunate guy.” His friend, Joseph Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, will also receive an honorary doctorate this Tuesday.

And he’s a prime example of a phrase that often pops up in his conversation, “good people.”

At every phase of his life, in every institution, from Bayonne to West Orange to Spring Lake, where he has a summer home, he always applauds “good people.” And now Seton Hall recognizes the best of “the good people” – Kenneth Kunzman.

The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, NJ 07030. Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken.