Fordham's Career Services & Buzzfeed's Tips for Millennials New to the Workforce

Whatever you do, don't be like the main character in the movie,  'Office Space.'

We’re roughly one month away from most college and university commencements, and this means college graduates, including some of ours, are settling into their brand new jobs. “The real world” of work may be a rude awakening for some since not all of its survival tips are taught in the classroom. Luckily, today’s new workforce has the Internet.

Buzzfeed, a site which bills itself as the "first true social news organization," and is well known for publishing listicles, coo-worthy images of cats, and even in-depth analysis of the U.S. economy, has tips for those new to the workforce. In fact, “13 Important Tips For Twentysomethings In TheirFirst Jobs,” includes a tip from Fordham’s very own office of Career Services:

DON’T: Spill personal details to Mandy the PR girl just because she sits next to you.

When you’re a young person at an office filled with lots of young people, it can be tempting to cross the friend–colleague line and talk to your co-workers just like you would your pals at a bar. But even if you just went through a heart-wrenching breakup AND you just got in a fight with your mom AND you’re stressed because you just bounced a check, it might be best to save the cathartic chat for your BFF.

“Leave your life at home,” says Stefany Fattor, director of Career Services at Fordham University. “Yes, I know that girl in marketing is such a good listener. But it’s not the time or place.”

Fattor also adds the following tips, which she shared with us here at Fordham Notes:

BE REMARKABLE

Remember that moment before finals when you’d calculate exactly what you had to do to pull of a ‘B’ or ‘C’? Then you’d study the minimum amount possible to make that grade.  Those days are gone my friend. The great thing about the workplace is that you can almost always count on the hardest working, most talented people getting the respect, promotions and best compensation.  Everyone wants a team of talented, generally awesome people. It’s your job to be the most awesome.  Regardless of what you do, whether it’s putting together pitch books for a managing director or picking up latte’s for the queen editor, make sure you’re better at it than anyone else. No matter how menial the task, nothing better will come your way until you're the best at what you do. 

BE PROFESSIONAL

Much like the "leave your life at home," piece of advice, if you’re interested in your supervisor being enchanted by you, it’s simple: Close your personal social media and email, stop texting your mom, and show some personal interest in them. And you know those work events with cocktails. They are still work events.  2 drink maximum!  You're not funnier with a buzz and no one wants to see you put your fist in your mouth. They really don't want to see you hit on the bartender, or worse, a workmate.  Seriously, two drink maximum.  

BE INDISPENSABLE

Have you noticed the job market is tough?  Perhaps you heard there was a recession. People are losing their jobs and having trouble finding jobs. They also aren’t getting big raises. Guess who gets to keep their jobs—people who are indispensible. That’s right, if your boss can’t live without you, or their job would be significantly harder if you weren’t around, you aren’t getting laid off.  In other good news, this is also exactly what you share when it’s time to ask for your first raise. Don’t be that guy that asks for a raise because guys at other firms make more, or your rent is too expensive, or you want new Ferragamo loafers. No one cares. Ask for a raise because the value you add every single day and the value you can add next year is far more than what they have to pay you.  

Read the rest of Buzzfeed’s tips for twentysomethings in their first jobs, including the number one tip, DO: Negotiate your starting salary, even if you’re afraid, here. 

And since it’s #ThrowbackThursday, check out this 2013 piece in the Chicago Sun-Times “The Grid,” in which Erin McLaughlin, the assistant director of experiential education at Fordham’s Career Services, doles out advice to a twentysomething who asked if she should be taking free candy from a man in her work building. (Yes, it was a real question.)

Remember that Fordham’s Career Services offers several services for students (and some for alumni), including Fordham Futures, a career planning and professional development program that integrates the values of a Jesuit liberal arts education with contemporary society. Learn more here.

-Gina Vergel

Fordham Alumni Company Presents the New Works Series

The original iconic New York Penn Station provides the setting to the first play of the Fordham Alumni Company’s 2014 New Works Series, which kicks off this Monday, June 9, at 7 p.m., in the Veronica Lally Kehoe Studio Theatre at the Lincoln Center campus.

For three consecutive Mondays, the New Works Series is showcasing three plays that were selected from submissions from alumni who are looking to develop their new artistic pieces with the support of the Fordham Alumni Company. “[They] can ‘come home’ to the Lincoln Center campus to take the time to develop their newest work without the worry of rent,” said co-artistic director Maria Pizzarello, FCLC ’04.

The first of the three plays, The Eternal Space, written by Justin Rivers, FCRH ’01, premieres at Fordham on Monday. The two-man play charts an unlikely friendship between a construction worker turned photographer and an aging English teacher amid the demolition of Penn Station in 1963. The show, which includes production help from several Fordham alumni, will be followed by a talkback with photographer Norman McGrath, whose photos of the architectural marvel are the backdrop to the play. 

On June 16, writer Jeffrey James Keyes, FCLC ’02, will present his dramedy Control, about a wife, her cheating military hero husband, and their swinging marriage. On June 23, writer Chris Barlow, FCLC ’10, and director Morgan Gould, FCLC ’08, will present The Heart is a Lonely Arsonist, in which a wealthy gay man, stuck in a police precinct, must dig through his memories of a 20-year relationship to explain a possible crime.

Alumni also submitted musical pieces for Fordham Alumni Company’s The Music Sessions, which will showcase the works in a coffeehouse-style atmosphere on June 28 in the White Box Theatre at the Lincoln Center campus.

Pizzarello said this year’s submissions were exciting and varied, and those that captured the most attention were “artists trying to take the next step with their piece … Pieces that touched on cultural/political issues struck a chord with us. But really, we just like a good story.”

Each show is one night only, free and open to the public, but tickets need to be reserved at fordhamalumnicompany@gmail.com.

—Rachel Buttner

Jesuit James Martin Answers Your Questions

On April 22, noted Jesuit writer James Martin, S.J., and distinguished Fordham University theologian Sister Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., engaged a group of alumni in an inspiring conversation to mark the publication of Father Martin’s new book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage (HarperOne, 2014). For the event, members of the audience submitted questions, but due to the great number of questions, not all of them could be answered that evening. Father Martin has kindly answered some of those questions for us:

You and Sr. Johnson spoke about how the Church is the reliquary of Christ and how we are to be the light of Christ today, but my question is: How are scientists, or college-level biology students, able to embody the light of Christ wherever we go?
First of all, it's important to remember, as almost everyone knows by now, that faith and reason are not inconsistent, and nor are science and religion. (In fact one of the great definitions of theology is St. Anselm’s “Faith seeking understanding.”) Scientists, and college-level biology students, can embody light of Christ much as anyone can--that is, by being good Christians.

But, more specifically, they might advance the message of Christ by reminding people, through their words and works, that the scientist can be a believer. Here I think of friends like Guy Consolmagno, S.J., and George Coyne, S.J., both astrophysicists who have worked at the Vatican Observatory. In their work, these two Jesuits often try to explain things like the Big Bang, creation, and astronomy from the vantage point of a believer. So anything one can do to rebut these notions that you cannot be a believer in the sciences is helpful.

 

In your historical scholarship do you believe that Jesus had brothers and sisters?
That's a good question! During my theology studies and graduate school, Father Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., was once asked whether that really meant “cousins.” No, said Father Harrington, there is a perfectly good Greek word in the New Testament for “cousins,” and the Gospels do not use it here. Catholic belief of course is that Mary was a perpetual virgin, and therefore had no other children after Jesus. For other denominations her having other children does not prove as much of a theological problem.

One way I like to think about it that these children (indeed “brothers” and “sisters” in Greek, not cousins) were children from a prior marriage of Joseph. At the time, it was probably more likely that Joseph was older than Mary, and so he could have been married before. To me it's more important to remember that Jesus had close relations with his extended family. We often think of Jesus as living almost in a vacuum, or interacting simply with Mary and Joseph. So the emphasis on "brothers and sisters" while hard to grasp, is nonetheless important.

If it is true that the Catholic Church is not gaining members, how do books like your Jesus and Sister Beth’s books get to folks who need them or could help them understand that Jesus was a really great man who was raised up and needs them to stay and fight for their Church—stay and reform?
Actually, the Catholic Church is gaining members. Overall the numbers are down but each year at the Easter Vigil people are baptized! My hope is that my book on Jesus will introduce people to the Son of God in a way that this is inviting and accessible, and in a way that shows that he wasn't just a really great man, as you rightly say, but also desires a personal relationship with them. That's part of what I try to remind people of by combining "Jesus of history" and the "Christ of faith." The "Jesus of history" is indeed a really great man, as anyone can see. But it’s more than that. Because the "Christ of faith" is the one who, risen and alive, invites them into their church. And desires a relationship with them.

Elizabeth Johnson’s books, by the way, are also written at an inviting and accessible way. She’s helped countless people find their way to God, understand Jesus and appreciate Mary—including me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recommended Consider Jesus or Truly Our Sister.


When Jesus answers Mary, he says “my time has not come yet.” Doesn’t that show he knows his identity/mission?
That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought about it quite in that way before. But you could also make the counterargument that his time has in fact come, because afterwards he performs a miracle. So if you raise the question about whether or not his time has come or not, it seems the Mary may know before he does. My sense, and this is purely speculative, is that Mary may have had more time is meditate on his unique identity and mission than he did. So at the Wedding Feast of Cana, in the Gospel of John, Mary is inviting him to embrace his identity, fully, perhaps earlier than he had planned to.


How can we reconcile the time frame of the Gospels with accuracy? Have you read the book that treats Jesus as a zealot?
The timetable for the Gospels is sometimes difficult to pin down. For example, the Gospel of John shows Jesus making at least three pilgrimages to Jerusalem, whereas the Synoptics have him going once. And the Infancy Narratives in Luke and Matthew also diverge. In some Gospels, stories happen at different places in Jesus’s life. But, for the most part, the Gospels agree on the basic sequence of Jesus’s life, and in fact there are “Gospel Parallel" books that try to harmonize the timetable.

And yes, I've read most of the book that treats Jesus is a zealot, and it was an interesting book in its own right (though I doubt he was, technically, a “zealot”) but of course left out “Christ of faith,” which is a pretty big omission.


How would you interpret the post-resurrected Jesus in the historical and spiritual context that you describe?
This is what I try to do the book at length. The Risen Christ is sometimes described as "trans-historical" or "non-historical" by theologians, but it's important to remember that he appeared to people in history. That is, he appeared to people in a particular time and in a particular place. So the risen Christ is in fact an historical reality.


Did Judas betray Jesus in the sense that Judas believed in Jesus as the political Messiah and believed that he would lead a revolt after the altercation in the Garden of Gethsemane?
The explanation you suggest is the one that makes the most sense to me. In my book, I sift through some of the proposed reasons for Judas's betrayal. First, he was greedy -- which doesn't make a lot of sense if he's traipsing around Judea and Galilee for all those years. Why would he lead such an itinerant, poor, mendicant life if he wanted to get rich fast? Second, "Satan entered into him." That's of course true, but what does that mean? One Scripture scholar told me it explains "either everything or nothing." Third, Judas was just a terrible guy. But that makes little sense: Jesus was a good judge of character; presumably he wouldn’t have chosen someone who was irredeemably bad.

But the idea that Judas may have wanted Jesus to be the kind of Messiah that Judas expected makes sense to me. That is, only that particular explanation explains why Judas felt so dejected that he hung himself. Judas wanted to create God in his image rather than to allow God to create Judas in his image.


Jesus talked about “the Kingdom of God”—how do you understand the Kingdom of God?
That's another significant part of my book. The kingdom of God, or reign of God (which is the better translation of the Greek, because it’s freed more from the confines of place), is difficult to understand. In effect Jesus made use of many parables and many stories to help people begin to understand what the reign was. But for the most part I think the reign of God is the world as God wants it to be, the world as it will be in the fullness of time, and the world as it is embodied in Jesus.

One of the best ways of understanding it is to see how the world was when Jesus was there. That is, when Jesus is in the world and encountering people, the sick are healed, storms are still, and the dead are raised. So I see the kingdom of God very much as embodied in Christ.


Which chapter was the hardest to write?
Actually, they were all enjoyable to write, but the one that perhaps took the most research was “Golgotha,” the chapter on Jesus's death. I wanted to get that timetable precisely right, and also be careful to remind people that it was the Romans who killed him, not the Jews. Only Pontius Pilate, as the procurator of Judea, had the power to condemn someone to death. It was also difficult to write because of the subject material—it was hard not to be sad when writing it.

The most enjoyable chapter to write, though, was “Nazareth” where I try to re-create the world of first century Galilee. I could've written that forever -- though I doubt anyone would've wanted to read a 300-page chapter!

Alumni Spotlight: 1984 Graduate Sets the Stage for Jubilee

For the weekend of May 30–June 1, hundreds and hundreds of Fordham alumni, friends, and family will converge on Rose Hill for the annual Jubilee reunion. At the forefront of the Class of 1984’s gathering will be Sally Benner, who is leading the efforts for fundraising and attendance for her 30th reunion.

“If I can be beneficial to Fordham … that’s something that I want to do,” says Benner of volunteering for Jubilee. “I don’t want to sit on the sidelines.”

Alongside her other Class of 1984 volunteers, Sean McCooe and Sue Walsh—with more classmates recently joining to help—Benner has been calling and e-mailing alumni to encourage them to return to the Rose Hill campus for Jubilee weekend: three days packed with dinners, cocktail parties, tours, lectures, class photos, Masses, a picnic, a Yankees game—and the always-popular Jubilee Gala on Saturday night.

She also has been inviting alumni to share their Fordham experience with future Rams by giving back to the University with a gift at the President’s Club level, which will help Fordham make a meaningful difference in the lives of current and future students by providing scholarships, financial aid, and general support.

Sally Benner, FCRH '84

“Working on Jubilee on the production side, I understand how much work goes into it,” says Benner, who has attended previous reunions. “It’s gotten more and more elegant each year.” And more and more popular: Jubilee attendance hit an all-time high in 2013 with nearly 2,000 Fordham alumni and family descending on the campus.

Benner has some familiarity with this kind of behind-the-scenes production work.

As a student at Fordham College at Rose Hill, she was a member of Mimes and Mummers, an extracurricular theater group that stages productions in Collins Auditorium. Benner participated in shows all four years, not only acting and singing, but also working off stage.

“I did makeup, sold tickets, but never built sets. I wasn’t allowed near a hammer!” she says. “It really [was like] Glee. It’s the same group of friendly people, but [with a] heavier course load and minus the parents.”

Benner carried on that experience and love for theater long after graduation. In 2004, she founded the Fordham University Mimes and Mummers Alumni Association, serving as its president for the first three years.

The association’s first large-scale event, its 150th anniversary celebration gala in 2006, drew approximately 150 alumni representing five decades. “No matter our age, it was the same stage, the same curtains—[that] united us across the years,” says Benner. “We knew how to work around the theater; it’s a place we were so fond of.”

Benner, the executive director of the New York Office of Development and Alumni Relations for Northwestern University, also spearheaded a campaign to raise $25,000 to replace the old manual light board system with a digital one in the Mimes’ home in Collins. At the 150th anniversary gala, the Mimes alumni association announced the successful completion of the campaign—which surpassed its goal by 12 percent.

“I knew the goodwill was there, the people would be there. We wanted to leave something behind [for the students],” Benner says. “Whenever we go back for shows, students are working with a good light board, and it’s what they should have.”

Benner first became interested in theater as a student at Nardin Academy, an all-girls Catholic school in Buffalo, New York, where she currently serves as a member of the board of trustees. She says she was a very shy child and “learned that if I learned to inhabit another character and use another person’s words, I couldn’t make a mistake. I had a rich imagination and [the theater] was a place of joy for me.”

Nardin Academy’s theater program collaborated with Canisus High School, the all-boys Jesuit school across the street. “That’s how I fell in love with the Jesuit tradition,” says Benner, and in part why she decided to attend Fordham. “The Bronx Jesuits welcomed me.”

After graduating from Fordham in 1984, Benner continued performing until she “outgrew it,” she says, but then found a way to still “use my imagination,” as a playwright. She earned a master’s degree in dramatic writing from New York University. When her career in higher education took off, “playwriting took the side road, [but] I’m always writing and attending theater. Broadway, off-Broadway, and of course, Mimes every year.”

This year, with another trip to the Rose Hill campus fast approaching, Benner is wistful about her student days. “My heart was on Edwards Parade or the cafeteria in McGinley Center,” she says. “Fordham was a little utopia for four years.”

She’ll soon be returning to the green oasis of Edwards Parade for the Jubilee reunion, where she is eager to reunite with her Fordham friends.

“If you realize that you’re only going to see each other every five years, it becomes momentous,” says Benner. “You can’t help but feel like you’re 18 years old again when you see each other, and the laughter makes me feel even better.”

—Rachel Buttner

Fordham Superbowl Flyover

Superbowl Heads Up

Had you looked up on Superbowl Sunday, you would have seen a Fordham alumnus. Lt. Col. Bernard J. Harrington, Gabelli ’97, was commanding officer of the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment. He led a flight of nine helicopters on their flyover of MetLife Stadium just as the national anthem was ending. 

Three AH-64D Apache Helicopters on a Practice Flight over MetLife Stadium

Jennifer Brizzolara Harrington
and Bernard J.Harrington

Harrington, an Apache helicopter pilot, commanded three Apache, three Blackhawk, and three Chinook helicopters during the flyover. He is part of a contingent of soldiers from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

"It's an incredible honor to lead a team of professional, selfless soldiers and represent our armed forces during Super Bowl XLVIII," Harrington said. "Like so many military officers serving today, I feel that my Fordham experience, particularly being a member of the Pershing Rifles, provided me an outstanding foundation to serve in today's military. I was also blessed to meet my wife, Jennifer, at Fordham. She has always been the most important part of my life since leaving Rose Hill."

Harrington and his wife, Jennifer Brizzolara Harrington, FCRH ’97, live in Fort Campbell. Bernard Harrington is from Rego Park, New York, and was commissioned from the ROTC Battalion at Fordham, where he was a member of the Pershing Rifles drill team. He is a graduate of Xavier High School, in Manhattan.

Jennifer Harrington is from Wilmington, Delaware. She graduated from Fordham with a degree in anthropology, is currently raising their 3-year-old son, Jeremy, at home. Both her father and sister attended Fordham.

An Apache Helicopter from Harrington's Command
Flies Past the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan on a Practice Flight

Bernard Harrington and Jennifer Brizzolara at Commencement, Rose Hill 1997

—Bob Howe

Fordham Pride on ABC's 'Good Morning America'

Fordham is going to be represented on "Good Morning America's College Week" and you can be a part of it.

The ABC morning show is celebrating "back to school" at colleges coast-to-coast with a special week of shows. The "Fordham Pride" episode airs live on Monday, Sept. 9, from 7 to 9 a.m. 

Proud students and alumni are urged to show up outside of the Good Morning America's New York City studios to give their school a shout-out. Wear your favorite Fordham and Fordham Rams shirts, hats, and gear. Bring signs that celebrate Fordham. 

Again, Fordham Pride on Good Morning America will take place on Monday, Sept. 9, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., at the GMA Studios, West 44th St. and Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

-Gina Vergel

Alumni Go Maroon for the Yankees

All clad in maroon baseball caps featuring the Fordham “F”, 170 alumni, family members, and friends gathered for the third annual Tampa Brunch and Baseball event on March 11.

Sponsored by Alumni Relations, the day included a Mass at the Jesuit High School’s St. Anthony Chapel led by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., Fordham’s president, and Daniel Gatti, S.J., Fordham’s alumni chaplain and interim director of alumni relations.

Brunch was held in the Yankee Pavilion at Steinbrenner Field. Peter Farrell, director of admissions, discussed Fordham’s achievements and Fr. McShane gave updates on the University and the Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham.

Following brunch, the group watched the Yankees triumph over the Phillies, 4-0. The Fordham group got a shout out by the announcer and on the scoreboard during the 7th inning stretch.

Following the Yankee win, several alumni got autographs from Yankee greats, Reggie Jackson and David Wells.

Pictured above from left to right: Sean Salai, David Paternostro (GSAS`11), and Daniel Gatti, S.J.

Future regional events are posted to the Alumni calendar located at www.fordham.edu/events.

—Jenny Hirsch

Fordham Cheers on New Cardinal

Timothy M. Dolan was elevated to cardinal on Saturday, Feb. 18, along with 21 other priests in a ceremony at the Vatican. Cardinal Dolan was named Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI on February 23, 2009. Prior to being named archbishop of New York, he had served as archbishop of Milwaukee since June 25, 2002.

Several members of the University community were on hand for the Cardinal’s elevation, including trustees, faculty and administrators.

(L to R) John N. Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman, Fordham University Board of Trustees; Cardinal Designate Timothy M. Dolan; Norma Tognino; Barbara Costantino; and John R. Costantino (FCRH ’67, LAW ’70), Fordham trustee emeritus.

Monsignor Joseph G. Quinn, vice president for University mission and ministry, and Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley, S.J. Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, both in Rome for Cardinal Dolan’s elevation, and were an on-air expert for WABC and other news outlets.

(L to R) Henry Schwalbenbeg, Ph. D., director of Fordham’s graduate program in International Political Economy and Development; the newly-elevated Timothy Cardinal Dolan; and Alma Schwalbenberg (GSAS ’93)

In New York, Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., the Avery Cardinal Dulles Professor of Theology and chair of the Department of Theology at Fordham, said “[Cardinal Dolan] smiles, he laughs, he has a good time. He will present being a Catholic as being simply joyous. As someone who is a sinner who is a redeemed sinner, like a recovering alcoholic who is enjoying the new status.”

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology at Fordham, said the Cardinal’s impact could be considerable. “Between his personality and his record, he has the potential…and I say the potential, to be the most influential Cardinal from New York since Cardinal Spellman.”

‘Rock Star’ Dolan Embraces Bully Pulpit


Photos Courtesy of Henry Schwalbenberg

Alumnus and Broadcaster’s Personal Battle Becomes Public

Fordham University alumnus Chris Carrino, GSB ’92, has had a distinguished sports broadcast career, most notably for the past decade as the radio voice of the New Jersey Nets on WFAN. Yet despite the Yonkers native’s strong, dulcet tones on the airwaves, Carrino has been battling Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD), a debilitating form of muscular dystrophy, for most of his adult life.

The cross country travel and mostly-night-games-life of an NBA basketball broadcaster can take its toll on even a perfectly healthy individual, so the treks have sometimes been that much more grueling for the WFUV Radio product. Not many knew. Yet, Carrino has truly achieved elite status in his chosen profession, making his mark with the likes of Vin Scully, Mike Breen, Michael Kay, Bob Papa, Charlie Slowes, and Spero Dedes for excellence in the play-by-play calling of sporting events.

“I was always reluctant to be treated differently,” says Carrino, who kept his physical plight to a select few on a need-to-know basis, preferring to fight his fight quietly. That was until earlier this year, when with the support and urging of his wife, Laura, whom he calls “the person who inspires me every day…who finally convinced me that it was time.” And so, the Chris Carrino Foundation for FSHD was born.

“I was determined to continue on the path I set forth,” reflects the New Jersey resident. “I had dreams of a career in sports broadcasting and dreams of having a family. I was determined not to let FSHD get in the way of those dreams.” He was not to be denied.

FSHD is difficult to pronounce, a disease you probably might have never heard of before Carrino began to bring attention to the muscular affliction with a media tour that gained national attention in print, radio and television. Fordham alumni scribes, Tom Canavan of the Associated Press and Dave D’Alessandro of the Newark Star Ledger, broadcast partner Tim Capstraw and his radio outlet WFAN, YES Network and the Nets were among those who teamed to assist in getting the word out. Carrino’s efforts have been tireless to fight the disease that effects thousands of adults and children worldwide.

Carrino says that his game plan was always to first “make something of myself” (he sure has) and “then try to help others” (he sure is). Teaming with Jennifer Burgess, “a devoted mother and tireless worker trying to help cure FSHD through her own Long Island foundation,” the Chris Carrino Foundation for FSHD was hatched.

The Chris Carrino Foundation for FSHD is a 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to eradicating the life-altering effects of fascioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. The foundation will hold its inaugural dinner dance on Thursday, August 18. You can find the foundation’s website at: www.chriscarrinofoundation.org.

—John Cirillo, FCRH ‘78

Alumni Chaplain’s Leap of Faith

On May 5, 2011, Alumni Chaplain Daniel J. Gatti, S.J., performed his first parachute jump—at age 69—with the U.S. Army’s Golden Knights Parachute Team at the Joint Base in Lakehurst, N.J. (if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is the crash site of the Hindenburg).

See the Video
(Added June 15, 2011)

Father Gatti was in Lakehurst as a friend of Xavier High School, whose X-Squad Drill Team was performing at the three-day Army-sponsored event. His thoughts on the jump are below.


From my perspective as a Jesuit, I somewhat jokingly call my tandem jump a “leap of faith.” And so it was. Not, however, in the theological sense of a movement to belief in God, but in the basic sense of trust; trust in the U.S. Army, its plane, its equipment and its personnel; trust that all elements would work together for a successful jump!


How did I feel about doing this? I felt euphoric, extremely happy to be able to do something exciting I had never done before. Once in the plane and ascending to 13,000 feet, I had the sense that “this is it; the time has arrived; no thought of changing my mind now.” I had willingly boarded this plane; I will willingly tandem jump from this plane and “return to earth.”


The initial free fall lasted about 60 seconds and the two of us were falling at 120 miles per hour. With our arms and legs now extended, my partially exposed face felt like it was about to freeze. My Army instructor and Golden Knight, Greg, then pulled the chute and we quickly came to a sudden but not jolting stop. In reality we were still descending, but for a moment the sensation was that of absolute stillness, with a blue sky all around us, and a familiar terra firma beneath us. To the northeast I could see the skyline of New York some 85 miles away, and to the east the New Jersey coast and the expansive Atlantic Ocean beyond. All was simply beautiful.


Our full descent took a few minutes more, with only sounds of wind gushing through and around our chute to accompany us. Then with land seemingly rising up to meet us, we made our approach to the target area and made our landing—not as soft as I would have liked, since I jammed my knees, but a welcomed landing none the less. Greg later described it as “a little bumpy.”


Certainly it was an experience making one feel fully alive! Yes, given the opportunity, I would be willing to jump again. Certainly it was the highlight of my two days at the event. But what impressed me most was the caliber of the Army personnel I met. Not for nothing is their current motto Army Strong! These are men and women battle tested and mission ready; confident, fit, crystal clear in eye and in speech, exuding an admirable strength of character for which all Americans can be extremely proud.

—Daniel J. Gatti, S.J., FCRH '65, GSE '66, '96
Alumni Chaplain

Fordham Alumnus Named President of Renowned Cancer Center

Ronald A. DePinho, M.D., a 1977 alumnus of Fordham College at Rose Hill, has been named the sole finalist to become the next president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas System Board of Regents announced on May 11.

“Doctor DePinho is a distinguished scientist and proven administrator capable of leading the nation’s premiere comprehensive cancer center,” said Gene Powell, chairman of board of regents. “He has an excellent background in teaching and research and a demonstrated ability to work effectively within complex medical institutions. The board is extremely confident he has the ability to advance the institution's mission ‘to make cancer history.’”

The son of Portuguese immigrants, DePinho earned his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Fordham College at Rose Hill, with a minor in art history, before earning his medical degree with distinction in microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he later served as a member of the college’s faculty.

A renowned cancer geneticist, DePinho is currently director of the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center and professor of medicine (genetics) at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

DePinho’s focus includes the fields of cancer research, aging and chronic degenerative diseases. He is a leader in using lab mice as a model of human disease, genetically manipulating and engineering the mice to understand the molecular underpinnings of complex human disorders, most notably cancer and aging.

In 2002, DePinho received the 43rd Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association of Cancer Research, in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in research.

More recently, he appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss his research of reverse aging in mice.

Once officially approved by the board, DePinho will become the fourth president in MD Anderson’s 70-year history.

“This is what makes this country great,” DePinho told the Houston Chronicle, “that the son of uneducated Portuguese immigrants could become president of the nation’s premier cancer center.”

DePinho was profiled in the fall 2003 issue of FORDHAM magazine.

—Miles Doyle

New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade 2011

Fordham University enjoyed pride of place at the 250th New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark, FCLC ’79, served as Grand Marshal, while more than 500 Fordham alumni, students, family and friends marched up Fifth Avenue as one of the largest collegiate contingencies in attendance.

“When you march along Fifth Avenue,” said Paul Reilly, FCRH ’80, “the crowd just loves you. You’re like a rock star. The warmth you feel coming from the sidewalk is amazing. Everybody on Fifth Avenue knows someone who either went to Fordham, or knows somebody who wishes they went to Fordham.”

Richard S. “Dick” Colt, FCRH ’67, and Edward H. Winkler, FCRH ’67, LAW ’72, served as University banner bearers during the parade.

For the former classmates, it was a return to form. They marched in the parade four years straight as members of Fordham’s ROTC program.

“We’re really just continuing what we did back then,” said Winkler, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army and a 2008 inductee into the Ram Battalion Hall of Fame. “But it’s still a great honor.”

Earlier that morning, alumni gathered at the Princeton Club for a pre-parade brunch, hosted by the University’s Office of Alumni Relations. Christopher Maginn, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s Institute of Irish Studies, and Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University, addressed the group before a performance by the Broome County Celtic Pipes and Drummers, which included Fordham alumnus Paul Sweeney, FCRH ’84, and his son, Patrick, a sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

“This morning, after I delivered the homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I prayed at the crypt of [Fordham’s founder, Archbishop] John Hughes and thanked him for the crazy notion of a dream he had 170 years ago,” Father McShane said. “I thanked him for the great grace of Fordham.”

With this grace in mind, Fordham alumni throughout the tri-state area traveled to New York for a chance to march with their alma mater.

Denis Dineen, FCRH ’74, drove all the way down from Albany. “It’s long day, but it’s worth it,” he said, before marching in his third parade. “It’s a chance to get down to New York City and be among some of my Fordham friends and fellow alumni.”

Though he only traveled across town, Matt Sheehan, a third-year student at Fordham Law School, appreciated the significance of marching with Fordham.

“I just wanted to be a part of the day,” he said. “I’m happy to represent Fordham and celebrate the day with friends, Fordham alumni and my fellow Irishmen and Irishwomen.”

—Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01

Some more images from the day, courtesy of Chris Taggart.

A Fordham Voice Among the March Madness

If you’re watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, keep an ear open for a familiar Fordham voice.

Spero Dedes, FCRH ’01, the radio play-by-play announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers, will call four early-round games in the tournament’s Southwest region.

On Friday afternoon, Dedes, who got his start at WFUV (90.7 FM, wfuv.org ) will announce the Notre Dame- Akron game followed by the Texas A&M game against Florida State. Later that evening, Dedes will return to the air as the No. 14-seed Saint Peter’s Peacocks try to upset the No. 3-seed Purdue Boilermakers.

Dedes is also in line to finish a busy day behind the mic with the matchup between Georgetown and Virginia Commonwealth, who defeated USC in the tournament’s first round of play.

In 2001, Dedes received the inaugural Marty Glickman Award, given annually to the Fordham announcer who best exemplifies the standards set by the late sports broadcasting icon. Along with Bob Aherns, executive producer of WFUV sports, and John Cirillo, FCRH ’78, Spero credits Glickman for helping him perfect his craft.

“[Marty] would be very harsh on most of the kids’ [tapes],” Dedes told FORDHAM magazine in late 2005. “But he called me in my dorm room after I’d worked a weekend basketball game and told me he’d heard something in my tapes and that if I kept working on it, I had a bright future in the business. That gave me confidence.”

Dedes is one of a long line of Fordham-trained sportscasters, including Mike Breen, FCRH ’83; Michael Kay, FCRH ’82; Bob Papa, FCRH ’86; and Ford C. Frick Award winner Vin Scully, FCRH ’49, the longtime voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

—Miles Doyle, FCRH ‘01

(Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Lakers.)

Kevin Rooney Jr., GSB '07, to Fight, Flack

Boxer Kevin Rooney Jr., GSB ’07, will step into the ring for the first time as a professional on April 22 at the Mohegan Sun resort in Uncasville, Conn.

The son of Mike Tyson's former trainer, Kevin Rooney Sr., Rooney posted a 9-2 record as an amateur. Last year, he reached the quarterfinals of the New York Golden Gloves before deciding to turn pro. He is expected to fight at 154 pounds, about 10 pounds less than his amateur fighting weight.

When not in the ring, Rooney is director of media relations for Joe DeGuardia's Star Boxing. DeGuardia—a former boxer turned promoter who also served as a Bronx assistant district attorney—is a 1986 alumnus of Fordham College at Rose Hill. He established Star Boxing in 1992.

Fittingly, Star Boxing is promoting the April 22 card, and Rooney will work the media after he’s through working his opponent.

"I'll go in the back to the dressing room after my fight to change," Rooney recently told ESPN. "I'll put my suit back on and be back working as the publicist for the show."

—Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01

Van Hughes, FCLC '05, Stars in "American Idiot"

Van Hughes, a 2005 alumnus of Fordham University’s Theatre Program, has landed the role of Johnny in the Broadway production of American Idiot, the theatrical adaptation of Green Day’s rock opera of the same name.

“I’d been waiting in the wings, as they say, for about a year,” said Hughes, who had been an understudy for the musical's three lead characters—Johnny, Tunny and Will—and whose Broadway credits include 9 to 5: The Musical and Hairspray. “It really taught me a lot about rolling with the punches, and never knowing what you’re going to get."

In the show, Johnny is a disaffected youth, fed up with the trappings of modern suburbia. He moves to the city and quickly loses himself in sex, drugs and rock and roll, while his friend, Tunny, enlists in the military. A second friend, Will, languishes in the trio’s hometown, Jingletown, USA, raising a child with his girlfriend, Heather.

“It's about people searching for meaning, like all shows,” he said. “It’s about these kids trying to figure out the next steps forward in a post-9/11 world.”

After studying musical theater at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, Va., Hughes wanted to explore the craft of acting in full—which is how he ended up at Fordham.

"One of the main things I learned at Fordham,” he said, “was the importance of physical actions. You have to use your body to tell a story. Someone in the back row needs to understand the story by the way your body is positioned. I have to show [my character] is working something out while singing lyrics that aren’t necessarily expressing that.

“I combine what I learned at both schools for what I do every night on stage.”

In addition to his Broadway credits, Hughes has appeared in the films Sex And The City: The Movie, Sex and the City 2, Tenure and Rachel Getting Married.

His first official performance as Johnny was Tuesday, March 1, at the St. James Theatre.

For tickets or more information, click here.

—Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01

Husband and Wife Team Up to Run Medieval Academy of America

Eileen Gardiner, TMC ’69, GSAS ’80, and Ronald Musto, FCRH ’69, met as pre-med students in a science lab on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus in the late 1960s.

“I was pulling Ds,” Musto said. “She was pulling Cs. I asked to borrow her [burners] and flasks. Hers were always clean. Mine were not.”

Musto and Gardiner’s interest in medicine didn’t stick. She found her calling in English—medieval literature, in particular—and he rediscovered his love of history.

“I was always reading history as a kid,” said Musto, who earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in medieval history at Columbia University. “It constantly raises questions that fascinate me.”

Meanwhile, Gardiner went on to earn her doctorate at Fordham. She was “drawn to the amazing imagination that one could find in [medieval] literature, which combined religion and nature and a sort of way of life that was so different from our own,” she said. “There was just something that naturally attracted me to it.”

As Gardiner and Musto found their academic calling, they also fell in love.

“We tried to get married [at Fordham] one night by a Jesuit friend,” Gardiner said. “He told us to go home and sleep it off!”

They did, but eventually married in 1970, a year after graduation, and they’ve been together—personally and professionally—ever since.

Recently, Gardiner and Musto were named executive director and editor, respectively, of the Medieval Academy of America and its journal, Speculum, following a successful 10- year stint as co-directors of the American Council of Learned Societies’ humanities e-book division.

“We’ve always done things together. We were business partners from so early on,” said Gardiner.

“It makes for an interesting breakfast conversation,” Musto said. “It makes for obsessiveness,” Gardiner added.

In the first of their many projects together, Gardiner and Musto started the Co-Op Bookstore at Fordham with a $10,000 investment from the University’s United Student Government. They ran the store, located at 613 Fordham Road, during their junior and senior years.

Later, after earning their doctoral degrees, Gardiner and Musto worked in book publishing. Eventually, they decided to start a publishing house.

In 1985, they founded Italica Press, publishing six titles in their first year, mostly out-of-print books. Though they still publish roughly the same number of titles today, Gardiner and Musto have expanded their list to include original academic titles.

They also publish electronic books, something they did earlier than most houses.

In 1999, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) tapped them to publish an electronic collection of monographs in history.

Together, Gardiner and Musto created the ACLS Humanities E-Book Division, a fully searchable online collection of nearly 3,000 titles. With more than 640 institutional subscribers, in 33 different countries, it is widely considered one of the best online resources for research and scholarship.

At the Medieval Academy of America, Gardiner and Musto will help bring the academy into the digital realm, while maintaining the quality of the academy’s journal.

It is, in a sense, their dream job.

“The opportunity to work for the Medieval Academy really combines everything that we could imagine to be able to work on,” Gardiner said, “and to do it for the premier society in the world is an honor.”

“We’ve always been outsiders,” Musto said. “We’ve never held academic positions. I think it’s delightful and in a certain sense ironic that we’ve ended up in a position that is central to this world.”

—Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01