Foundation Board Member Michael Doyle Creates Endowed Scholarship to Support Communication Students
Brockport Foundation Board Member Michael Doyle ’80 has established an endowed scholarship to support students studying in the field of communication.
Doyle, Regional Vice President at Entercom Communications—one of the largest pure play, publicly traded (NYSE) radio companies in the U.S.—got his start in communications during his undergraduate days at The College at Brockport.
While an undergraduate working toward his bachelor’s degree in communication, Doyle aspired to be on-air radio personality after graduation. While he didn’t know then that his successful career path would one day lead him to his current position, it was his experiences at Brockport that helped prepare him for this role. Today, Doyle manages 90 AM\FM\HD radio stations in nine cities for Entercom. In addition, he oversees the company’s training and development department, the recruitment department and serves on the company’s operating committee.
“I had the good luck when I was at Brockport not only to get a good education but to be involved with student activities,” said Doyle. “I have a strong belief that that experience transformed me. It gave me the opportunity to stretch my wings a little bit and to learn about the world.”
Since taking this position with Entercom, which allowed him to return to the Rochester area in 2000—along with his wife, Vicki, and their two children, Bridget and Patrick—Doyle has been able to reconnect with his alma mater and get involved in the community. He has served on the boards of the American Heart Association and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester and currently serves on the Board of the Advertising Council of Rochester and the Brockport Foundation, which he joined in 2009.
Doyle said he established the scholarship because he wanted to give back to his alma mater not only because of what the College means to him but because he knows firsthand the experience of working to help offset the cost of college while a full-time student.
“As a student who paid his way through school, I understand that every little bit helps,” said Doyle. “It’s incumbent on those of us who have had the opportunity to succeed to try and help.”
Doyle served as Brockport Student Government President from 1979-80 and as BSG Director of Student Activities from 1978-79, a position that gave him the opportunity to book bands and produce events on campus. He also wrote for the student newspaper, The Stylus, and served as news director of the college’s radio station, WBSU.
The third of four children, Doyle’s father worked two jobs and helped pay for tuition to the extent that he could, said Doyle. This support, along with some Tuition Assistance Program funding, still meant Doyle needed to contribute to the cost of his college education, so the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., native spent his summers in Brockport working to do just that.
In addition to stipends for his BSG service, Doyle worked at local bars and restaurants, including as a disc jockey. Every Thursday night, he spun records at the on-campus student hangout, the Rathskeller, and he worked doing sound and lights for local bands. He also got a paying job at the local radio station, WWBK 1560 AM.
When he was on air at WBSU, the college radio station was only available on campus via a carrier current. As BSG president, Doyle helped rally to move WBSU to an FM radio frequency. With support already pledged by then-President Albert W. Brown and College Council, Doyle and other students carried on the fight to win approval from the Federal Communications Commission to allow an antenna to be constructed on the roof of Mortimer Hall. In January 1981, WBSU hit the airwaves at 88.9 FM.
Using his position as president of BSG, Doyle also spearheaded many initiatives to connect students with the College, including commuters. He and other students started a check cashing service so students had the convenience of cashing checks on campus. He remembers on summer days when he and other BSG representatives grilled hotdogs on the campus mall for students attending summer session. “Our role, in BSG, was about both serving the students, and representing them to the College Administration,” he commented. This experience outside the classroom was as equally important to him as was the in-classroom learning, he said.
“It transformed me,” he said. “It gave me a lot more confidence in myself.”
The atmosphere on college campuses in the mid- to late-70s was not that of activism, an environment experienced by college students in the previous decade. Part of his job was to get students involved in things they should care about, including state and local government and issues that affected their lives. Doyle remembers a student strike against tuition hikes, which included the students refusing to attend classes and instead gathering on the campus mall. Their issue, he said, was that students didn’t have a say in the matter, compared to the recent tuition hike enacted by SUNY, which was supported by the majority of students.
“I would try telling them, ‘You should care about this,’ and sometimes people didn’t,” Doyle said. “That opportunity taught me a lot about willingness to take a risk personally and to stand out from the crowd.”
These Brockport experiences carry with him today. A few years ago, during a Penfield Board of Education meeting, Doyle found himself asking the board members when they voted on a particular issue, citing state open meeting laws that were enacted during Doyle’s time on campus and for which he lobbied in Albany for passage of these laws.
Doyle also recalls a pivotal moment during the Iran hostage crisis involving the late Harold Rakov, a professor of political science and an administrator here from 1949-1984, that shaped his view of the world and Brockport. The crisis began when a group of Islamic students and militants in Iran took 52 Americans hostage on Nov. 4, 1979 in support of the Iranian Revolution, and ended 444 days later with their release.
Rakov and other political science professors went to the Student Union and residence halls to gather with students to engage them in a dialogue about this world event.
“There were some wonderful professors that would do that kind of thing when something happened in the world,” Doyle recalled. “It was a great experience to see people like that.”
“It was those kinds of experiences that trained me to see how people gave back. It was the dedication of some of the faculty members back then that impressed me.”
Brockport Foundation
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The College at Brockport
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