Dr. Kevin Cahill Honored with Ireland's Distinguished Service Award

Dr. Kevin Cahill, left, with Ireland's President Michael D. Higgins.

Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., University Professor and founder of Fordham's Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, was recognized on Oct. 30 by the government of Ireland for his tremendous work in peace, reconciliation, and development. 

In a ceremony in Dublin, Dr. Cahill was presented with the 2014 Presidential Distinguished Service Award by Ireland's President, Michael D. Higgins. Actress Fionnula Flanagan, top EU civil servant Catherine Day, Australian author Thomas Keneally, and Irish-American activist and newspaper publisher Niall O’Dowd were amongst those who were also honored.

The award is given to individuals living outside of Ireland who have made great contributions to Ireland, Irish communities abroad, as well as Ireland's international reputation.  Dr. Cahill also serves as the president of the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation, a nongovernmental organization that promotes healing and peace in nations shattered by national disasters, armed conflicts, or other violence. 

Congratulations, Dr. Cahill!

Campus Ministry Organizes Reprise of Sandy Saturdays

Today, Oct. 29, marks the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy’s widespread devastation in New York and New Jersey. For weeks on end during late 2012, the spring of 2013, and the 2013-14 academic year, students led by Fordham’s Campus Ministry office joined with Habitat for Humanity-Westchester for weekly Sandy Saturdays, to help clear and rebuild neighborhoods in the Far Rockaways and Breezy Point areas.

Next weekend on Nov. 8, a Fordham contingent will return to the Rockaways with Habitat to do another Sandy Saturday.

“We have a number of student leader groups co-sponsoring this,” said Gil Severiano, administrative assistant in Campus Ministry. “Including the Pedro Arrupe Faith and Justice Community, the retreat leaders, the Interfaith Council, Global Outreach, and the Dorothy Day Service and Justice leaders.”

Severiano said that Campus Ministry recently did a Sunday alms collection to go toward the Sandy Saturday and received $850, which will help pay for Habitat supervisors needed to oversee the day’s construction. The Ram Van office has donated three ram vans to drive volunteers to the site, and Campus Ministry will fund food and other supplies. 

Unfortunately, she said, the Sandy Relief Fund that the University had collected is depleted.

So far, 45 students and chaperones are signed up to go.

“We will be working on four houses in Breezy Point that are in the finishing stages, painting and sheetrocking,” she said. “So hopefully we are getting some folks home for the holidays!”

Any interested volunteers should contact Severiano at severiano@fordham.edu.  (Photos by Conor O'Kane)

One Wrongly Accused Speaks on the Challenge of False Confessions

Jeffrey Deskovic, executive director of  the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, was just 16 years old when his friend Angela was found murdered on Nov. 17, 1989 in upstate New York. In all of the disturbance surrounding the event, Deskovic said he was lured into a false confession by zealous police officers under pressure of a polygraph test, and the teenager ended serving several years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit.

Deskovic addressed his ordeal to more than 100 students, administrators, and faculty at a Sept. 26 Fordham Law-Psychology seminar at the Lincoln Center campus, co-sponsored by Psi Chi, SPSSI-NY and the Manhattan Psychological Association. The seminar was part of a Law & Psychology course being given by Harold Takooshian, Ph.D., professor of psychology.

Deskovic said his repeated appeals were all denied, including the a U.S. Supreme Court appeal in 2001. The Innocence Project at first rejected him, too, until investigator Claudia Whitman intervened, and he was fully exonerated in 2008 with a simple DNA test that identified the true killer of his friend.

Since then, Deskovic has used a $1.5-million compensation to launch his foundation, which works to free other innocents in prison and to help correct the legal system. The foundation works with the Innocence Project to advocate dozens of important reforms, including: videotaping of all confessions, preservation of DNA evidence, limiting incentivized witnesses, requiring corroboration for informants, and punishment of prosecutorial misconduct.

The forum also featured Robert Emmons, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, forensic psychologist Ann Winton, and attorney-psychologist Cory H. Morris. 

Jeffrey Deskovic (Photo: Harold Takooshian)

A Stellar Welcome for Fordham's Newest Landmark

Lincoln Center campus' Robert Moses Plaza overflowed with smiling faces yesterday as nearly 1,000 Fordham Law faculty, administrators, students, and alumni joined dignitaries and well-wishers in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the brand new law school. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor,former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Cardinal Edward Egan were on hand. (Photos by Chris Taggart and Dana Maxson)

Realist Acting and the White Tee

Julie Harris’ and Hilary Swank’s costumes for "The Member of the Wedding" and "Million Dollar Baby."  

One of the lasting iconic images in American cinema is of Marlon Brando in a white undershirt in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” With much of nation’s attention focused on domestic violence, the “wife-beater” is a timely reminder of the violence that inheres in some of our most potent cultural images.

The poster for the Sept. 20 "Rethinking Realist Acting" symposium (which will be held Saturday in the 12th-floor Lounge/Corrigan Center in Lowenstein Hall at the Lincoln Center campus), features an image of a man’s tank top, but without anyone wearing it.

“The white undershirt is the most problematic symbol because it’s associated with domestic violence,” said Keri Walsh, who together with Shonni Enelow and Mary Luckhurst organized the conference.

Walsh and Enelow are both assistant professors within Fordham’s English Department and Luckhurst is the Professor of Artistic Research and Creative Practice at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

The poster’s design invites reflection on the status of the object in popular culture and on what the realist acting tradition contains beyond its inflammatory icons, said Walsh. She said many playwrights and actors in the realist tradition, such as Henrik Ibsen and Lorraine Hansberry, have been feminists seeking to challenge violence against women.

Brando in the famous tee.

“What interested us about this photograph was that no one was wearing the shirt; it didn’t make any assumptions,” she said.

The image also captures the conference’s goal of revising the tradition of ‘the Method’ and other forms of realist acting, and to enlarge a sense of the people who contributed to it beyond the kneejerk stereotype of macho and violent men, said Walsh. The play by Tennessee Williams, and Brando’s realistic performance in it, “eroticized labor and fetishized rough trade.” The naturalism of Brando’s performance catapulted the white undershirt and the white t-shirt into popular consciousness and infused them with new meaning.

While Brando’s image may be the most influential, it does not mark the only appearance of the garment in a realistic performance—this symbolic imagery recurs through James Dean’s crew neck tee in "Rebel Without a Cause," and in Julie Harris’ and Hilary Swank’s costumes for "The Member of the Wedding" and "Million Dollar Baby."

How is it that such realistic performances could change the meaning of an everyday garment? Both Dean and Brando studied at the Actors Studio, where director Lee Strasberg taught his own variation of Stanislavsky’s method, which encouraged actors to reduce the seeming distance between art and life. But Walsh said that realistic acting’s roots go far deeper than the 20th century.

“Realism goes back to the 19th century with Ibsen, Chekov, and Zola, and at the conference we’ll try to look even further back than that, to the 18th century,” she said.

 -Tom Stoelker

#FordhamHomecoming 2014 on Storify!

Presenting Complex Topics to a Lay Audience

Fordham students in the Bronx Science Consortium presented their work yesterday at the Bronx Zoo.

Beyond the bears, birds, and large body of reptiles, a group of visitors to the Bronx Zoo on Wednesday, Sept. 10, were brought face-to-face with some of the latest research taking place in the Bronx.

The Bronx Science Consortium, of which Fordham University is a member, presented student science research to the Zoo's visitors at its second annual poster symposium, which took place in the Dancing Crane Pavilion. Several Fordham students participated.

Topics were both contemporary and cutting-edge: from the Ebola virus and HPV to breast cancer and hospice care; from the West Nile to the Neotropics to Brooklyn; and from bog turtles, mosquitos and langurs to invasive plants and coconuts.

While explaining university-level research can be daunting, translating it into layperson's language was one of the challenges for the 24 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students from Fordham, as well as reps from the other institutions (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Bronx Zoo/WCS, Montefiore Hospital, and the New York Botanical Garden.)

"The research projects that the doctoral and master’s students contributed are publication-quality," said Amy Tuininga, Ph.D., acting chief research officer at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and co-director, Bronx Science Consortium Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, Partnerships and Assessment. "The undergraduate research was equally impressive, and the high school students presented were creative works that interpreted their science for general audiences. Altogether, the presentations represented an unprecedented combination of excellent scientific work initiated in the Bronx."

You can read more about the Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium here. This year's presentation was underwritten by EmblemHealth.

-Janet Sassi 

Honoring a Sister in the Fordham Family

It’s not farfetched to say that Fordham is part of Sister Monica Kevin’s DNA. The associate professor emeritus of biology began teaching at Fordham in 1967. She also served as dean of summer session for nearly two decades, as president of the faculty senate, as director of the pre-med and pre-dent programs, and as a member of various University committees (Internal Review Board, faculty salary and benefits committee, tenure review committee….)

Sister Monica with Father McShane, 2007.

Sister Monica is a two-time Bene Merenti medal winner, receiving her 40-year medal from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, in 2007.

And Sister Monica is a proud alumna, graduating not once, but three times. She earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1948, a master’s in biology in 1961, and a doctorate degree in 1964 (with a dissertation in cytology/cytogenetics).

She retired from her last position as counselor to retired faculty in June of 2013, but remained connected to the community, living at the Rose Hill apartments and attending university events through mid-April 2014.

On Palm Sunday this past spring, Sister Monica suffered a stroke while attending mass at the University church. She has been living since then with her religious community, the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk in Blue Point, Long Island.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, the Ursuline community is honoring Sister Monica with a special ceremony. The event is open to any and all who knew or worked with her, and members of the Fordham community can contact Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse at x-4746 or visit the Facebook page here  for more information.

“She was a very longstanding presence on campus, and we want to reach any retired faculty who may not know,” said Sister Anne-Marie. “The event is her community’s small-scale version of our Fordham Founders day, where we honor longstanding members of our community.”

New Coordinator and New Space Greet Incoming Vets

Vets take in the information at the orientation.

In an effort to coordinate disparate veteran groups from across the University, the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) has hired a Veterans Coordinator and has set aside space for the vets to meet, hang out, study, and organize events. The space will be staffed with student vets hired through the Veterans Administration’s work-study program.

The initiatives were announced last Thursday when Fordham welcomed dozens of veterans to an orientation at the Law School’s sleek new mock courtroom.

For several years, the Fordham vet community has been nurtured by Michael Gillan, Ph.D., and James Hennessey, Ph.D., through the Fordham Veterans Initiative. But with Gillan recently retired as associate vice president of Fordham Westchester, the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) Dean Isabelle Frank, Ph.D., has assumed the role of co-chair alongside Hennessy, who is dean at the Graduate School of Education.

Fordham Student Veterans Association President Pat Hackett and B-Vets President Chris Maloney give vets the lowdown. 

“We have the largest number of vets by far at PCS, so it was a very natural transition for us,” said Frank. “We have great hopes that the school will be able to help vets University wide.”

The need for coordination is clear. Each school at Fordham has its own veterans group; PCS’s Armed Forces of Fordham is the largest with 300 members. Then there’s Graduate School of Business Administration’s B-Vets, and the Graduate School of Social Services’ GSSVets, with about 30 members each. SERV, at the Law School group, has 15 members. The University is also affiliated nationally through the Student Veteran’s Association; there are at least 1,000 members of Fordham Veteran Alumni; and several veteran organizations partner with Fordham.

Luis Garcia and fellow vets met up at the Law School's new digs.

“This is something we started talking about last year,” said Pat Hacket, a PCS senior and president of Student Veteran’s Association at Fordham. “We figured we could tackle multiple issues, multiple problems, from multiple venues, with everyone coming to one place.”

Mike Abrams, who teaches a seminar to the vets on career transition leadership at PCS, has assumed the role of coordinator.

The new veterans space is in Room 839 at the Lowenstein Center.

Several events have already been planned for the school year, some in coordination with other veteran groups and schools, like tonight’s Ruck March at Merchants' Gate Plaza, the entrance to Central Park at Columbus Circle at 6:30 p.m. The Fordham Vets will meet with vets from around the city in an effort to raise consciousness of veteran suicide.

Other events on the docket include the 9/11 Heroes Run on Randall’s Island on September 6, the Veterans Day Parade on November 11, and a gala benefiting Toys for Tots on December 13.

-Tom Stoelker

Executive MBA Students Give Rio Businesses an NYC Perspective

Fordham Westchester's Executive MBA Program take on Rio.

Last week students from Westchester’s Executive MBA program presented findings from a survey of New Yorker’s perceptions of Rio de Janeiro to the Rio Visitors's Convention Bureau in Brazil.

The consultation was the capstone project of a summer session led by Professor John Hollwitz, Ph.D. The consult focused on how Rio could increase visitors through tourism and business development. Students presented their findings and a strategic plan on August 20 to professionals from the Visitors and Convention Center system, which included representatives from Rio and several other Brazilian cities.

The legwork for the project was done in New York as preparations for the World Cup were well underway. Students found that while New Yorkers are open to traveling to new places and learning about different cultures, there is substantial reticence of going to Rio due to personal safety concerns.

However, EMBA student Joseph Pirraglia said of 150 New Yorkers the group surveyed, most of those who’d already travelled to Rio would recommend visiting the city and would also like to return for another visit.

In a telephone interview from the conference, Pirraglia said that as a first time visitor to Brazil, he too would like to return. He added that he found Rio’s personal safety issues similar to those in New York.

“You have to watch yourself when you walk around New York at night and that’s pretty much the same in Rio,” he said.

Pirraglia said the group advised the Visitors Bureau that they should attempt to draw parallels between two cities whenever possible and to promote the aspects of the city that New Yorkers might not be aware of.

“Like New York, the community in Rio is more open to people of different nationalities and sexual orientation,” he said.

He said that Rio’s open-minded atmosphere creates niche business opportunities that city should take advantage of, like marketing to the gay and lesbian community.

The study more or less confirmed the findings of previous research.

“The overall impressions I got from many people, including the hotel managers, is that although we were telling them some things they already knew, it was helpful to hear it from a New York perspective,” said EMBA student Kirsten Hase.

Others were impressed that students who had never been to Rio provided such spot-on analysis.

“For a consulting group who is foreign to Brazil, the research and recommendations presented by Fordham were of professional quality and demonstrated a through analysis of the situation we are facing,” said Milton Longobardi, chairman of the Latin American Advisory Board for the Chief Marketing Officers Council.

New Social Work Journal Takes Cross-Disciplinary Approach

Social workers often find themselves on front lines of where the hard numbers of economics meet people's complex social and emotional needs. Yet, many students venturing into the field of social services often eschew the literature of other disciplines, like economics, that directly affect their clients. Now, a new journal supported by the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), titled 21st Century Social Justice, seeks to merge social work research with that of neuroscience, economics, and law.

“During my research into social work, I have found it impossible not to wander into the literature of other fields,” said Zachary Alti, GSS ’14, the founder and editor of the inaugural issue.

“But neuroscience can seem intimidatingly scientific, and the cold realism of economics can be perceived as antagonistic to social justice.”

Alti approached Tina Maschi, Ph.D., an associate professor at GSS, with his concerns that there was a knowledge gap in social work research that needed to be filled. With the support of Fordham University Libraries, Maschi helped facilitate the message and the mechanics, while Alti recruited fellow students.

He issued a call for papers and wrote the opening statement. An editorial board of fellow students was formed so that papers could be peer reviewed. Maschi said that developing a student-led journal was already a goal at the school, but it was Alti’s initiative that brought together a “convergence of ideas.”

“This is a beyond the classroom learning experience,” she said. “Students need to realize their  own knowledge and their power, and know  that they have something to offer the other sciences. They’re the scholars. They have a valid, expert role in sharing their views with these other fields.”

Getting the various disciplines to join a scholarly endeavor led by social workers can to be a challenge, she said. But she added that social workers play a vital role in translating the science and economics to communities that are directly affected.

“Social work is a psycho-social-spiritual medicine,” she said. “It’s important to recognize that social work plays a primary role in preventing illness and promoting health and well being. The journal is just another step towards social workers being accepted as full and equal partners in knowledge generation.”

The inaugural issue highlights several topics, including little known social problems related to families caring for a fragile infant, breastfeeding women in the workplace, conditional cash transfers among women in Columbia, and the effect of climate change on vulnerable populations.

“Psychologists are often perceived as the industry standard for therapy,” said Alti. “I wanted to strengthen the view of social work as different from psychology, in that it has a distinct framework. We’re a much more externally oriented field, always looking at the environmental factors at play. We want the journal strengthening that distinction with knowledge from other fields.”

With Alti recently graduated and in private practice, student Merritt Juliano will take up the role of editor. Juliano is accepting papers for the next issue at mjuliano3@fordham.edu. All disciplines are welcome to submit.

-Tom Stoelker

Fordham professors on the World Cup, fan depression, & soccer in the U.S.

Photo: Deadspin.com

After a harsh and surprising loss to Germany, Brazil, the host country of the 2014 FIFA World Cup is out. Argentina narrowly beat the Netherlands and the world awaits the final game for the “World Cup” on July 13.

Throughout the one-month tournament, the professional athletes on the losing teams have walked off the pitch looking dejected. Some, even, in tears. The same could be said for their fans (especially Brazilian fans during the 7-1 beating they took at the hands of Germany). All of this emotion over a game? Why? We asked Fordham professor Paul Baard, an expert in sports psychology, to explain why it’s like this in the World Cup and various other sports, such as American football.

“The phenomenon is the over-identity of fans with their teams,” said Baard, a clinical associate professor of communication and media management. “In other words, a fan wants people to identify him/her with being the uber-’Patriots’ fan. When he walks into a bar, he delights in being sought out for his opinion on an upcoming game. He gets teased about being tried and true. He berates other team's fans. He ‘equals’ being a fan of said team.

“Just as having one's occupation become too much of an individual's identity (I work with professional athletes on this), they can also ‘fan out.’ A fan rooting for a favorite team should consider that role as a hobby, while it may be an important role for an individual. As in all of life, there are ups and down, especially in the clearly-defined win-lose world of sports.

“Hobbies can serve as relief from the pressures of day-to-day life, such as gardening, playing an amateur sport, etc.  Hobbies would seem best when they do not create anxiety, but relieve it.”

Here at Fordham’s Marketing and Communications office, a group of us went out to see the last game the U.S. Men’s National Team played in. (There was lots of sadness, but thankfully no tears, when they lost to Belgium.) Yet we were very aware of the enthusiasm for a game that hasn’t always gotten top-billing in our country. The place was standing-room-only packed with fans decked out in red, white, and blue. Is this an opportunity for Major League Soccer (MLS) to build on the seemingly-new fan base?

After all, the Big Apple's new Major League Soccer team, the New York City Football Club, has signed Atletico Madrid (one of La Liga's professional teams) player, David Villa, (pictured below) and reports say Barcelona star, Xavi, is next.

We asked a few Fordham professors, who teach in the Sports Business Concentration at the Gabelli School of Business, to weigh in:

Mark Conrad, associate professor of law and ethics, and director of the sports business concentration at Gabelli, said he wasn’t so sure that MLS can capitalize on the success of the World Cup, “at least not directly.

“It's hard to translate a once in four-year spectacle to a day to day league,” he said. “Witness the 1980 Olympic Gold Medal for the US Hockey team. It did not have much correlation to the National Hockey League (NHL).”

John Fortunato, a professor of communications and media management, and an expert in sports media and promotion, said he couldn’t see there being huge springboard opportunities for MLS because “many of these players play in European leagues.  

“MLS doesn't have the best players like the NBA or NFL or MLB. The gold medal hockey game a few years back between the United States and Canada did a great rating, but has had little impact on increased NHL ratings,” he said.

“This World Cup is doing great on television because the games are at great viewing times and because it is on ESPN, a network is promoting it a ton on Sportscenter. Next time (2018), it is in a more challenging time zone in Russia and is on Fox-- two big differences.”

Francis Petit, associate dean for academic programs at Lincoln Center, said the MLS should try their best given the changing demographics of our nation.  

“Unfortunately, for MLS, it will not capitalize on the World Cup to the extent it would like to due to various reasons including consumer options and professional soccer's historical insignificance within our country,” he said. “MLS will never be the National Football League, but it can certainly become a threat for leagues such as the NHL and the slow and tedious Major League Baseball games/product.”

-Gina Vergel

Sustaining a Fragile Past

Saturday, June 28, marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Austria's Archduke Ferdinand, an event that triggered what would come to be known as World War I. One of the treasures that the Fordham University archives retains from that era is a 97-year-old flag of Fordham maroon honoring the Fordham Ambulance Corps that served in the war.

In spite of the flag’s fragile condition, the archives recently opened up the flag for photographing. Now, archivists are debating whether to display it in a case (in its folded condition) when a new library exhibit on Fordham and World War I opens next month.

Each time the flag is handled, small bits of the fabric flake away, where they disintegrate into a maroon powder when picked up and held.

Patrice Kane, head of Fordham archives and special collections, says the archives is hoping to re-pack the folded flag into a roll with acid-free paper and perhaps someday consider a full restoration.

"If it were to be restored, it would be nice to display it open," said Kane.

In the meantime, the folded flag has been "preserved" through photography (below). Stay tuned to FordhamNotes for an announcement of the opening of the Walsh Library exhibit next month.

--Janet Sassi

The Homegrown Impressionism of George Thompson, FCRH '56

If you haven't had a chance to swing by the William D. Walsh Family Library in the last couple of months, now is the time to head on up to the Rose Hill campus.

A selection of paintings, drawings, and sketches by the acclaimed pastel artist George Thompson, FCRH '56, are on display for just one more week on the library's main floor. They are a permanent part of the library’s special collection, but don’t often get shown as a group. Thompson has been called one of the 45 master pastelists in the world, and much of his work focuses on the Bronx, where he was born and raised, and on other urban spaces. 

For a taste of Thompson, see the video:

http://digital.library.fordham.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/VIDEO/id/594/rec/203 

Fordham, as Seen From the Archives

William Fox was a freelance photographer who worked in the 1930s and 40s for Fordham during the Robert Gannon, S.J. administration, for upwards of 20 years. He left all his negatives and photographs to Fordham's library decades ago--coverage of commencements, campus architecture, student life, and more. His most famous photos are arguably the Lombardi, Seven Blocks of Granite photos. 

But some of the lesser-known works will be on display starting tomorrow in the Ildiko Butler Gallery on Fordham's Lincoln Center campus. 

From the Archives: Photographs by William Fox from the Fordham University Archives and Special Collections

Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

The Ildiko Butler Gallery

Fordham University at Lincoln Center

113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue

New York, NY 10023

Exhibition dates: June 6 – July 18, 2014

Website: http://fordhamuniversitygalleries.com

The images that Apicella-Hitchcock has chosen to display were all created between the years of 1940 and 1941.

University archivist Patrice Kane said that most of the photos and negatives were stored in the archives in the administration building basement until the archives were relocated in the 1990s in the new Walsh Library. Most of them, which Fox stored in the original glassine envelopes, survived and are intact; however, for some years the negative emulsion, some of which was of unstable material and experienced  some fluctuations in temperature and humidity, have tended to "separate and bubble," she said. Kane's office transferred them to archival housing in the new Walsh Library. 

The exhibit, according to Apicella-Hitchcock,represents "the beginnings of Fordham University’s self-awareness, from a publicity and photographic point of view." Those that were chosen display some of the slightly-flawed negatives (like the image below of Duane Library). The fissures and patterns create an eerie dimension to the images, which Apicella-Hitchcock hopes "intentionally highlight the flaws of the analog process for their mystery and visual beauty, in contrast to our digital age of precision and perfection."

GBA Takes Home Several Springtime Wins

Now that the celebratory dust surrounding commencement is finally settling, the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA) deserves a shout-out for some impressive recognition it received recently.

Each year Fordham’s Executive MBA program is recognized by Poets and Quants magazine, as the program climbs its way up the magazine's ranking of rankings list.

“It’s based on performance on other rankings so it’s very interdependent,” explained Francis Petit, Ph.D., associate dean of executive programs. “So if you keep doing well on other rankings, like Financial Times or Bloomberg, it'll have positive effect.”

Poets & Quants ranked the program 39th worldwide, up from 41 in 2013, and 42 in 2012. Petit cited the program’s international emersion elective as key to its success.

In addition, CEO Magazine ranked Fordham’s EMBA as a tier one program.

Another big win for GBA came directly from one of its students. MBA student Michael Hartigan took first place in this year’s All-America Student Analyst Competition sponsored by Institutional Investor magazine.

The competition brought together more than 2,100 students from over 81 universities, to trade $100,000 in virtual money. The four-month contest scored students in the same manner as any major investment house would to assess their own employees.

“Michael took a very solid approach from constructing a sound portfolio of three stocks that he felt were uncorrelated and took calculated risks,” said Robert Fuest, an adjunct professor at Fordham and the faculty advisor for students in the competition.

“He understands the difference between a good company versus a good stock; sometimes it could be a good company, but it’s a bad stock. And he gets that.”

In addition to Hartigan, seven other MBA students made it into the top 100 contenders, making Fordham the leading school in the competition.

“Part of what we’re doing is giving students practical experience and discussing business as it is in real life, not just theoretical,” said Fuest, who is also the COO of Landor and Fuest Capital.

“I think that taking a clinical aspect to learning is critical. They do it in law, they do it in medicine, and they do it in some business schools. This competition helps us to do that here.”

#Fordham2014 Commencement on Storify

A Fordham Commencement Tradition

Archbishop Hughes receives his diploma.

Our Students in Havana

From March 14 to March 22, 19 Fordham undergraduates (pictured above) joined art history professor Barbara Mundy and anthropology professor O. Hugo Benavides, for a weeklong course in Cuba through the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies. 

Above, the students are at the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte. From left, they are: Kedwien Valdez, Manuela Rodriguez, Jeandery Suarez, Yani Pena, Alessandro Monetti, Patryk Tomaszewski, Kristine Mijatovich, Allison Pfingst (seated), Amalia Vavala, Sean Coari, Vince Favetta, Pasquale Gianni, Tim Bouffard, James Lassen, Qinrui Hua, Dezsi Desmond, Echo Zhou, Allie Burns, Lauren Kawulicz. The sculpture behind them spells out the word EXILE, which Mundy calls "an appropriate reminder of the complex cultural, linguistic, historical and political moments that Cubans--like so many other Americans in the continent--are living on both sides of the border."

Photo: Allison Pfingst

The weeklong course focused on art, architecture, and life in both pre-Revolution Cuba and now. Casa de las Americas, Cuba's premiere cultural institution, was Fordham's partner in organizing the course. Through the Casa, they were exposed to contemporary Cuban cinema and music. The trip also took them to Havana's Museo de Bellas Artes, where they saw the surrealist-and-santería inspired paintings of Wilfredo Lam and discussed work by contemporary artists as well.

A simple walk in the streets brought students face-to-face with Havana's urban architecture, much of which dates from before 1960.

The class trip culminated in a visit to Havana's National Schools of Art, first envisioned, said Mundy, "during a Che-Fidel golf game in an enthusiastic surge following the Revolution." The Schools' architects used the materials then available (concrete, brick, tile) and pushed the technology of the Catalan vault to new heights, said Mundy.

Mundy described the trip as "an extraordinary experience for us all," in which students and faculty both took advantage of Havana beyond their course activities.

"We listened to Cuban jazz, saw Flamenco dancers, swam in turquoise Caribbean waters, and cheered on Havana's baseball team in a playoff victory (Industriales 9, Santiago de Cuba, 7). Day in and day out, we were able to meet and talk to Cubans, to learn about their experiences living in a country so changed by the Revolution and to share hopes for the future.

"Such encounters are transformative, in that they allow one to see oneself and one's accepted way of life through the eyes of another," said Mundy. (See student and faculty photos  below.)

Photo: Barbara Mundy

Photo: Allison Pfingst

Photo: Lauren Kawulicz

Photo: Lauren Kawulicz

Photo: Tim Bouffard

Photo: Barbara Mundy

Fordham Founder's Award Dinner and Campaign Close Celebration

The Thirteenth Annual Fordham Founder's Award Dinner

and Campaign Close Celebration

March 31, 2014

Founder's Award recipients Linda and Bill Stavropoulos

Founder's Award recipient Judy Livingston Moore with her son, James Moore, LAW '15; Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President of Fordham; and Bob Daleo, chair of the University's Board of Trustees

Pat and Jim Houlihan

David S. Ciancimino, S.J.; His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan; Father McShane; His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan; Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America; the Most Rev. William Francis Murphy, Bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre

Emcee Bill Baker and Charles Osgood

Tom Salice and Susan Conley Salice

Father McShane poses for a selfie with scholars Alexandria Johnson, FCLC '14, Sal Cocchiaro, GSB '17, Robyn Ayers, FCLC '16, Gabriela Cinkova, GSB '15, and Christopher Wilson, FCLC '17

Cardinal Dolan with former Fordham Board of Trustees chair John Tognino

Maureen Callanan, left, Peggy Hassett, right, and Jack Kehoe, center

Jim Buckman and Stephanie Gaitley

Cardinal Dolan with Tom Kavaler and the Honorable Loretta Preska

Peggy Smyth and Sly McClearn

Ed O'Brien, Jr., Ed O'Brien, Sr., Jack Kehoe

Barbara Costantino, Mo Cunniffe, Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, John Costantino

Emcee Bill Baker, center, with Founder's Awards

Regina Pitaro and Mario Gabelli

Cosette Carlomusto, FCLC junior and choir soloist

Darlene Luccio Jordan

Mary Higgins Clark

The evening's spread

The Fordham Founder's Scholars

Founder's Scholar Alexandria Johnson

Father McShane announces campaign close

Hail Rams of Fordham

Fordham senior Max Williams joins Father McShane in song

An overview of the festivities