Whether he was setting up craft nights as a hall director, taking photos around campus or working as the house manager of the University of Rhode Island’s theatre department, the impressions Michael LaPointe made on students and staff over his 50 years at URI are everlasting.
LaPointe began his career at URI as a student, graduating in 1993. He would go on to become a residential assistant, a hall director, a part-time theatre professor and the house manager of the theatre department.
“He was Rhody until the end,” Brenda Celone, the owner of Total Image Hair Salon said. “He went to school here and just never left.”
LaPointe’s impact went further than being a professor and hall director, according to Bonnie Bosworth, administrative assistant and publicity director of the theatre department.
“I can’t even think about how long it would take to describe his personality,” Bosworth said. “He was an incredibly kind, considerate, wonderful teacher, he loved people, he was a dreamer and above all just an incredible individual.”
Studying at the URI, LaPointe first met Bosworth and Paula McGlasson, chair and production manager of the theatre department, as a student.
After his graduation, LaPointe would work alongside Bosworth and McGlasson as the house director of the theatre department.
LaPointe was responsible for managing every show, greeting the audience and overseeing the box office, according to McGlasson. In this role, McGlasson said LaPointe not only did his job, he did it well and with trust.
“I didn’t have to come back every night and watch over things,” McGlasson said. “If Michael was there, I didn’t worry.”
Outside of his professional life, LaPointe held a passion for photography, according to McGlasson.
“You can go into many buildings on this campus, and there will be a photo on the wall framed that’s Michael’s,” McGlasson said.
The URI library is working on compiling thousands of LaPointe’s photos of URI through the years and producing them through Flickr so people can go in and see the photography he has contributed, according to Bosworth.
The most memorable thing about LaPointe however, had less to do with what he did and more to do with who he was, according to McGlasson. There were many little things he did that made people feel important.
“Michael used to take, I don’t know, $10 or $20 [from the refreshment table] and hand it to the people running that table, ” McGlasson said. “He’d say, ‘just apply this towards whatever the house managers want.’”
Throughout his years at URI, LaPointe frequently got his hair cut at the Total Image hair salon, according to Celone.
One week at the salon she introduced LaPointe to a pomade, and ever since then he had bought the product weekly, according to Celone.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing with this pomade?’” Celone said. “All the while he was buying it for students. If he told them about it and they couldn’t afford it, he bought it.”
LaPointe always had a ton of packages delivered to the mailroom, mostly for the craft nights he would hold for students on campus, according to Celone.
Fourth-year student Ava Gillap, who works in the mail room, first encountered LaPointe when she was a senior in high school and happened to get lost on a self-walking tour during COVID.
As she scrambled around campus, LaPointe stopped to ask if she needed help, and then talked with her a bit about her plans for the future, according to Gillap.
“He asked me what I was majoring in and I was pretty unsure at the time,” Gillap said. “He gave me some really encouraging advice, essentially telling me that everything will work out as it’s supposed to.”
That moment played a big part in her decision to come to URI, Gillap said.
“It was honestly such a memorable encounter for me,” Gillap said.
As a student at URI, Gillap continued to see LaPointe around campus.
“He would always come into the mailroom and say ‘Hello world!’” Gillap said. “He would often bring donuts and other treats that he had purchased from clubs and organizations in the [Memorial] Union to support them, which was so incredibly kind.”
LaPointe was also the housing director in Wiley Hall when she was living there as a second-year student, according to Gillap.
“I would see him everywhere I went and my friends would kind of joke with me that he was like my guardian angel,” Gillap said. “He always brought so much positivity and light everywhere he went.”
The impact LaPointe has left on students is clear and noticeable every day, according to McGlasson and Bosworth.
“He made an impression, I guess that’s what’s so important,” McGlasson said. “He impressed every single student he worked with.”
Students from the 1980s have been emailing the theatre department to share their gratitude for the techniques LaPointe taught them over 40 years ago, according to Bosworth.
LaPointe never had a funeral, according to Celene.
“He didn’t want sadness,” Celene said. “He wanted people to celebrate him.”
The theatre department will hold a celebration of life sometime in the spring.
“It was never himself first, it was always someone else,” McGlasson said. “His heart was big enough to hold many, many, many people in it, and he did.”
