Captured by Fordham's Seismic Station . . . a rumble in the Bronx

The helicorder display sheet for yesterday, Tuesday, August 23rd, showing the day's seismic readings for the New York City area.

IPED Students Study Emerging Economies at the Source

For the fourth consecutive year, Fordham University students are in South Africa studying with students from the University of Pretoria (U of P) through a joint venture with Fordham’s International Political Economy and Development (IPED) program on emerging markets.

The students are working with South African and American business, government and labor leaders to learn about monetary and fiscal policies and to explore issues of economic partnership between the nations. So far, students have participated in briefings with political advisors at the U.S. Embassy and with top economists at the South African Reserve Bank (pictured above). They will be visiting the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as well.

During the first couple of weeks of August, student research terms worked at U of P analyzing data to determine prospects for future U.S. equity investment in South Africa. This year the students were joined by students from several other nations, including Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the Philippines.

The summer session is part of an exchange agreement that was completed in 2008-09 between Fordham’s IPED and the U of P, in which students from each university do summer study abroad.

In June, Fordham hosted a contingent of South African students for a five-week study at the Rose Hill campus.

Fordham's IPED program is internationally recognized for its excellence: graduates of the program, which was founded in 1979, consistently obtain prestigious awards ranging from Fulbrights to US Presidential Management Fellowships.

Fordham Student Shows She Can Dance

Fordham Lincoln Center campus student Melanie Moore may study art, but at heart she is a dancer.

The freshman visual arts major took first place honors on Thursday, Aug. 11 when she clinched the title of America’s favorite dancer on the Fox channel’s popular show, “So You Think You Can Dance.” The native of Marietta, Ga. won with 47 percent of a four-way vote, with dancer Sasha Malloy coming in as the runner up. Together, they accrued 71 percent of all of the 11.5 million votes cast.

According to the show's website, Moore received a $250,000 award and will be featured on the cover of Dance Spirit magazine. She also goes on an American dance tour in the fall, reportedly putting her studies on hold.

Moore had seemed like a favorite of the panel of judges for some weeks; she was consistently recognized for her acting ability as well as her dance prowess.

This summer's contest was judged by a panel that included actress Katie Holmes, producer/choreographer Nigel Lythgoe, ballroom dance champion Mary Murphy and choreographer Kenny Ortega. This summer some five million viewers tuned in to watch and vote for their favorite dancer on the Emmy-award winning show, which is now in its eighth season.

The show auditions young dancers from all over the country; those dancers who are chosen to appear are given the chance to work with top choreographers to learn multiple styles of dance, including hip hop, salsa, quickstep and jive.

Books? Bring Them On!

It hasn’t exactly been quiet in the Quinn Library this summer, but the annoyance is about to come to an end.

A major shelving installation project, said Quinn Library Director Linda LoSchiavo, is scheduled to be finished by the beginning of the academic term.

The project, which has been underway all month, will enable the Library to house approximately 290,000 books on electrically operated high density shelving systems replacing stationary shelving. It will boost the library’s total potential capacity to 562,000 volumes.

Currently, the library stores 400,000 volumes.

The new shelving will be used to expand the Quinn collection as well as to hold a portion of the present collection of law library books while the new law school is built. The old law school and its library will undergo a major overhaul to create new space for Quinn Library and Fordham-Lincoln Center’s other professional schools.

LoSchiavo said that Clancy-Cullen Movers have been transporting approximately 10,000 books a day to the new shelves, which are compressed on moveable tracks.

“This type of shelving gets a lot of volume into a lot less space,” she said.
In an effort to conserve, the university had its existing metal shelves taken off and put in the moveable frames, she said.

Once the books are moved, the Quinn Library will get a mini-facelift: new carpeting, new paint, new lighting and a re-configuring of the reading and study areas.

And quiet, of course.

—Janet Sassi

Batisti to Receive Woman of the Year Award

Congratulations to Fordham Graduate School of Education’s Anita Vazquez Batisti, Ph.D., associate dean and director of the Center for Educational Partnerships (CEP). Batisti has been named Woman of the Year in Education by the New York League of Puerto Rican Women for her leadership in education. She will be honored on Aug. 19.

Batisti was tapped in 2006 to launch the CEP, a far-reaching educational-services institution for public school students. Through her leadership, CEP has helped meet the needs of the metropolitan area’s school children through grassroots outreach in mentoring, scholarship awards, literacy improvement, professional development and other initiatives.

Batisti will receive her award at the NYLPR’s annual College Awards Gala, to be held at Marina Del Ray in the Bronx. The event raises funds to help support Puerto Rican women doing their undergraduate studies.

All for equal time, the women’s group will present a Man of the Year award to Ray Negron, sports executive with the New York Yankees. Several others will receive Lifetime Achievement awards.

—Janet Sassi

Fordham Celebrates Sister’s Years of Service

Members of the Fordham and religious communities came out on Saturday, Aug. 6 to celebrate a Mass and garden party for Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., (center above) on her fifty years of service with the Sisters of Saint Dominic of Amityville.

A longtime member of the Fordham community known for her dogged devotion to her vocation and duties, Sister Anne-Marie served for 20 years as research associate to the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Fordham’s first Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society.

Following the Cardinal’s death, Sister Anne-Marie continued on as research associate for the new McGinley chair, Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., who was appointed in 2009.

Offering Saturday’s special homily, Father Ryan (pictured below with Sister Anne-Marie characterized their relationship in opening remarks: “My name is Father Ryan,” he joked. “And I work for Sister Anne-Marie.”

The Sister renewed her vows at the Mass.

Over the course of her career, Sister Anne-Marie has worked as an elementary schoolteacher, an adult education specialist, a religious education coordinator for the diocese of Rockville Centre, and an instructor at several seminaries and colleges in the New York metropolitan area. Once Father Dulles was named a Cardinal, Sister Anne-Marie said she took on many new duties: liturgical consultant, wardrobe mistress, executive assistant and eventually as care giver when the Cardinal began to suffer the effects of post-polio syndrome.

Currently at work on a Dulles biography, Sister Anne-Marie said she is aiming to bring the late Cardinal’s theological teachings to “the person in the pew.”

And she is well positioned for the task; her 1989 doctoral dissertation was on the Jesuit’s writings; shortly thereafter, she was named his research associate.

“I was in the right place at the right time!” she said. “The twenty years I worked with (him) were filled with excitement and blessings.”

Along with maintaining her duties for the McGinley chair, Sister Anne-Marie teaches theology in Fordham’s College of Liberal Studies. She recently co-edited The Legacy of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (Fordham University Press, 2011) with Michael M. Canaris.






—Janet Sassi

Fordham Pilgrims Travel to Spain for World Youth Day

Thirty-Eight members of the Fordham community head to Spain Aug. 4 for a three-week pilgrimage in the footsteps of St. Ignatius.

Their celebration of Catholic faith starts on Aug. 5 with MAGIS 2011, a three-day pastoral experience organized by the Society of Jesus in Spain, where students have been gathering from around the globe at the Sanctuary of Loyola, St. Ignatius’ childhood home in the mountains near the Basque country.

From there, the groups will spend a week in various locales in Spain or Portugal doing social service, ecology and spiritual pilgrimage. The event is being co-sponsored by many religious organizations, among which are the Sisters of Charity, the Inigo Network, the Xaverian Missionaries and other lay movements.

On Aug. 15, the Fordham group will join some 400,000 youths and members of religious communities from every continent as they gather in Madrid to participate in the weeklong World Youth Day (WYD). The annual event celebrates the message of Christ through gatherings at emblematic sites, and will include a Papal Welcoming Ceremony on Aug. 18 at the centuries-old Plaza de Cibeles in downtown Madrid. Pope Benedict XVI is expected to travel through the Madrid’s streets by popemobile and to receive the keys of the city from the mayor.

This year’s WYD participants will also be able to see Caravaggio’s The Deposition at the Prado, on loan from the Vatican Museum for the event.

The Fordham group, organized by Carol Gibney of Campus Ministry and Roxanne de la Torre, (FCRH ’09, GRE ‘11) will be blogging and tweeting their experience daily. You can follow their journey at http://fordhamwyd-madrid11.blogspot.com/.

—Janet Sassi