Alumnus Stages World Cup Festival in D.C.

 Hundreds of soccer fans gathered in Dupont Circle on June 12, 2010, to watch three World Cup matches on two giant TV screens. The event's principal organizer, Aaron DeNu, GSAS '06, is working with the German Embassy to put on a similar event on June 26, during the 2014 World Cup.

Eight years ago, Aaron DeNu, GSAS ’06, was living near Fordham’s Rose Hill campus when he saw how soccer fans’ passion for the beautiful game could enliven an already vibrant neighborhood.

“I was fortunate to be living on 187th Street during the 2006 World Cup,” he said. “What an amazing experience it was to be in the heart of Little Italy during the Italian national team’s march to the finals.”

DeNu helped some local merchants coordinate ad hoc viewing parties.

“TVs were pulled into the street, makeshift projectors showed replays at night on Arthur Avenue,” he recalled. “I knew that wherever I would be living during the next World Cup, I would try to re-create the energy I felt during that summer in Belmont.”

In 2010, DeNu made good on his goal.

By then he was living in Washington, D.C., having accepted a job at George Washington University, where he currently works in the student affairs division as associate director of technology, outreach, and events.

Prior to the 2010 World Cup, he and a friend secured the permission, funding, and equipment necessary to stage what they called Soccer in the Circle. The daylong World Cup viewing party drew a multinational crowd of hundreds to D.C.’s Dupont Circle to watch three games, including a U.S.-England match that ended in a 1-1 draw.

“Dupont Circle is right in the heart of D.C.,” DeNu said. “It’s only a few blocks from the White House and it’s surrounded by embassies, so it seemed a natural place to host a World Cup festival.”

So natural that four years later, as the 2014 World Cup is set to kick off in Brazil, DeNu is at it again. 

Aaron DeNu, GSAS '06

He recently secured the support of the German Embassy, which agreed to foot the bill—approximately $30,000, DeNu estimated—to host a one-day World Cup viewing party on June 26, when the U.S. national team will face Germany.

This time, DeNu has far more experience working with local and federal officials to plan free public events in the park.

Following the 2010 World Cup, he founded Dupont Festival, a nonprofit that organizes activities in and around Dupont Circle throughout the year. DeNu is the principal organizer, and there are three other people on the group’s board of directors.

“Since that first World Cup viewing,” he said, “we have hosted more than 40 public projects in the park.”

They’ve organized outdoor film screenings, showing movies on the National Film Registry such as E.T., Casablanca, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. And DeNu has exhibited a flair for promotion.

For a screening of Back to the Future, he rented a DeLorean similar to the one featured in the film, parked it in the park, and attracted passersby by blasting “The Power of Love” and other tunes from the movie on the iconic car’s stereo.

“I’ve had a lot of luck in finding the right mix of pop-cultural activities and tying events in to the calendar,” DeNu said. “On the summer solstice we show a movie. When the fountain is turned on in the spring, we have a fountain day.”

Early this year, DeNu campaigned to get Bill Murray, star of the 1993 film Groundhog Day, to take part in the Dupont Festival’s annual Groundhog Day celebration. “The D.C. Council even agreed to rename [the holiday] Bill Murray Day if he showed,” DeNu said. Although the actor did not respond, the Huffington Post published a piece about DeNu’s effort.

DeNu said the Dupont Festival’s events are about “creative placemaking,” leveraging arts and cultural activities to serve the community and transform the neighborhood around Dupont Circle.

“Our mission is to creatively animate public space,” said DeNu, who has been working closely with the National Park Service, the D.C. Council, the police department, and local businesses.

“We’ve been building trust with folks in town, and they fully understand what we’re trying to do,” he said. “They know that all of the money we raise goes directly to the events.”

The upcoming World Cup viewing party already has the community buzzing.

“Hundreds of people have RSVP’d already,” DeNu said, “so we’re expecting a nice crowd [for the U.S.-Germany match]. We’ll also be showing the Belgium-Korea match that afternoon. We have two large, super-high-definition LED screens that are glare-proof and weather-proof.”

Having the support of the German Embassy is especially satisfying for DeNu, whose paternal great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from Baden, Germany, and settled in Indianapolis.

DeNu grew up in Milford, Ohio, not far from Cincinnati. He was a record-setting striker on the Milford High School soccer team and went on to play for four years at Wilmington College of Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and history.

In 2004, he continued his interdisciplinary studies at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, focusing in particular on the effects of technology on human interaction.

“I specifically sought out Fordham,” he said, “for its interdisciplinary master’s degree program.”

DeNu also said his time in New York City inspired his interest in creative placemaking.

“Living in New York City accelerated that for me. Walking around the Rose Hill campus and seeing all the different activities there and in the Bronx and in Manhattan, going to events in Central Park and Bryant Park, that was a real inspiration,” he said.

“Being at Fordham and being able to see all that stuff and see how it works was a degree in itself.”

—Ryan Stellabotte

Alumni Relations Lecture Series Examines Political Unrest in Ukraine

Olena Nikolayenko, left, and Adriana Krasniansky 

Two members of the Fordham community gave context to the tensions in Ukraine at an April 15 installment of Fordham at the Forefront, which attracted more than 100 alumni, students, and friends to a panel discussion held at the New York Athletic Club.

Ukraine is often described as a hybrid regime, “a semi-authoritative country in which democratic institutions are formally present, but never effective,” said Olena Nikolayenko, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and a native of Ukraine.

When former Ukrainian President Yanukovych rejected a trade agreement with the European Union last November, tensions mounted and demonstrators gathered in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the central square of Kiev, she said. The protestors, who demanded “a cleansing of those who have slowed down the reforms of the country,” were met with police violence, resulting in dozens of wounded and countless arrests. 

In order to facilitate conversation between the West and Ukraine, native Ukrainian Adriana Krasniansky, a junior at the Gabelli School of Business, said she started a grassroots news organization called Group for Tomorrow’s Ukraine with five other Ukrainian-Americans—two others of whom were fellow panelists. The group aims to provide the fastest and most reliable information about the conflict in Ukraine by translating collected speeches, documents, and interviews for English-speaking audiences. 

Krasniansky visited Kiev, Ukraine, last fall, where she and Group for Tomorrow’s Ukraine member, Julian Hayda, spoke to citizens about how the unrest has affected their daily lives and did video interviews. With the goal to put a face to the Maidan protestors, the panelists showed several video clips of average Ukrainians, including a shop owner and an impassioned 80-year-old man.

Michael Fedynsky, left, and Julian Hayda

The biggest misconception about EuroMaidan, said Krasniansky, is that the protestors are disorganized and motivated by violence. In reality, she said “these people were incredibly organized” and even “started their own soup kitchens for the hungry.”

Krasniansky and her group have worked with National Public Radio and the U.S. House of Representatives to help relay what they see as the facts—that these demonstrations were “rooted in peace,” she said.

Panelist Michael Fedynsky, a former Fulbright scholar working at the National Democratic Institute, offered international context to the rising conflict. After spending a year in Ukraine, Fedynsky concluded that in order to move forward, Ukraine needed a more coherent and effective political system. 

Currently, the Ukrainian political parties are all “personality, regional, or identity-based rather than issue-based systems,”said Fedynsky. This varying political spectrum keeps power in the hands of oligarchs, he said.

“No matter who you vote for, someone rich is going to throw a million dollars at someone else, and your vote won’t matter,” he said. 

President Yanukovych was removed from power in February, and new presidential elections have been set for May 25. Ukrainians continue to protest in Maidan Square, and the whole world has eyes on the upcoming election as Russian troops threaten the nation’s borders.

“Ukrainians really want a change of life and they don’t trust the regime,” said Krasniansky. “The citizens—both young and old—are willing to sacrifice everything for hope.”

--Angie Chen, FCLC '12

Denzel Washington Returns to Broadway

On entering the Ethel Barrymore Theater on West 47th Street, an interview with playwright Lorraine Hansberry plays overhead and the poetry of Langston Hughes is projected onto a scrim. Before the curtain has even risen, theatergoers understand that what they are about to witness is steeped in history.

Hansberry’s groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun opened on the same stage fifty years ago, making it the first play by an African American woman produced on Broadway. A half-century later, the play is back with Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, as Walter Lee Younger, a role made famous on film by the great Sidney Poitier.

Officially opening on April 3, the play is still in previews. Last week, a group of over a hundred, alumni, trustees, and friends went to see the show. Many were participating in Alumni Relations’ Spring Culture Outing series.

Needless to say, Washington received a rousing ovation from the Fordham section of the theater. With respect to Poitier, Washington makes the role his own. For those who have only seen the film, seeing it on stage reveals Hansberry’s rhythmic writing and brilliant stagecraft.

What was perhaps less expected was the reaction to Latanya Richardson Jackson’s performance. Jackson, the wife of Samuel L. Jackson, took over the earth mother role of Lena Younger from Diahann Carroll, who dropped out of the production only last month. At intermission, several in the audience could be seen rifling through their programs to read up on this powerhouse performer.

Jackson is one part of a very tight ensemble that more than complements Washington. The limited engagement runs through June 15.

Alumni Relations next theater outing will be on June 10 to see Kenneth Branagh's Macbeth, English professor Mary Bly, Ph.D., will discuss the play at a dinner preceding the show.

-Tom Stoelker

Drinks, Darwin, and God

So, a nun walks into a bar… and asserts with great intellect and conviction that Darwin’s theories and the Catholic tradition are not mutually exclusive.

Though lacking a punch line, the Office of Alumni Relations' “Faith on Tap” event on Feb. 25 was hardly without mirth--thanks in no small part to the wit of speaker Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology.

The conversation centered on Sister Johnson’s new book, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (Bloomsbury, 2014).

The scene would hardly surprise those familiar with Fordham’s grand tradition of imbibing and discussing. Author Edgar Allan Poe called Rose Hill Jesuits “highly cultivated gentlemen and scholars” with whom he smoked, drank, and played cards.

What Poe probably didn’t gamble on was that tradition would evolve into a nun leading a Times Square discussion on Darwin’s On The Origin of Species (a book that had yet to be published when Poe lived in the Bronx).

Peter Wallace, FCRH’10, one of approximately 60 alumni in attendance, called the event "classic Fordham”.

From a chair in the middle of crowd, Sister Johnson described how her book explores respect for the environment though “our tradition”. Her research included close reading of Darwin, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope John Paul II, late twentieth century feminism, and scripture.

“I didn’t set out make up something that’s new,” said Sister Johnson. "We have the tradition, we just need to pull it forward and own it again. We need to be converted to the earth.”

Sister Johnson noted that in 1990 Pope John Paul II said that the “dignity of the human person must extend to all of creation.” She said that the church needs to expand its focus and tackle ecological issues.

“We are failing our kin right now in the way we are acting,” she said. “It’s not just a moral issue but a spiritual issue.”

Sister Johnson didn’t shy away from the fundamentalists versus scientists debate, noting that Darwin, too, was a man of faith who struggled with his scientific findings. Oddly enough, he faced most resistance from the scientific community.

Today, she said, reading the On the Origin of Species can help strengthen one’s faith in God, allowing one to see the natural world differently.

“If you have this idea of God as a monarchical—and let me say it—male God ruling over everything, then you when see something naturally happen, it threatens that idea of God,” she said. “But if you have an idea of God as a God of Love who is dwelling with, suffering with, and moving in, company with the evolving earth, than it's not a threat.”

"Faith On Tap" is sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations.

--Tom Stoelker

Alumni Spotlight: Decades of Continued Service to Fordham

It’s a winter of Fordham anniversaries for Nick O’Neill, FCRH ’55. In February, he and fellow classmate Bob Miller celebrate 20 years hosting their monthly Alumni Career Continuance Support Group meetings; and in March and April, O’Neill returns for his 30th year coordinating the annual alumni retreats.

In 1984, as president of the Fordham College Alumni Association, O’Neill was working with the Office of Alumni Relations on social and cultural programming for alumni, when he realized that a spiritual component was absent. “With their help, we set in motion the retreats,” he says, at Inisfada, the St. Ignatius Retreat House, and Mount Manresa Jesuit Retreat House.

The annual retreats, which are based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, provide alumni, family, and friends a quiet haven for contemplation, prayer, and fellowship. This year, the retreats will welcome alumni to the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, N.Y. (March 28-30), and Loyola House of Retreats in Morristown, N.J. (April 4-6).

“I’ve never had anyone say that it wasn’t worth it or anything negative,” O’Neill says of the retreats. “It’s always positive.”

Nick O'Neill, FCRH '55, and his wife, Pat O'Neill, GRE '90, share a moment with Father McShane at a luncheon celebrating the Alumni Career Continuance Support Group, which Nick and classmate Bob Miller co-founded in 1994.
(Photo by Bruce Gilbert)

The Long Island native, who commuted to the Rose Hill campus every day in the early 1950s to study economics, went on to a career in sales. For the majority of his career, he sold advertising time for many New York radio stations, including WNEW-AM and WINS. Later, O’Neill worked as a broker, selling group medical and life insurance, before retiring two years ago.

Along with spending time with his family—wife of 55 years, Pat, a 1990 alumna of the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, and their son, James, daughter-in-law, Ellen, and grandsons, Seamus and Liam—O’Neill finds much meaningful work in his retirement.

He participates in the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, which provides adults age 50 and older opportunities to grow in their Christian faith and work in the Jesuit tradition to serve people in need. For seven years, he’s volunteered twice a week to tutor students in English, math, and social studies at the De La Salle School, a Catholic middle school in Freeport, Long Island.

A devoted Fordham alumnus, O’Neill regularly returns to the campuses. He served as chair of his class’s 25th Jubilee reunion in 1980, and comes back to the annual reunion every five years. He is a season ticket holder for men’s basketball games, and a member of Maroon Club and Rebounders Club, two of Fordham athletics’ support groups. He also makes monthly visits to the Lincoln Center campus as co-founder of the Alumni Career Continuance Support Group.

O’Neill and co-founder Bob Miller, FCRH ’55, held the first meeting of the career group in February 1994, but the idea came to them the year before, when O’Neill, an independent insurance broker, was seeking a new job. He contacted Miller, a principal in a New Jersey-based career outplacement and consulting service, for help. After O’Neill landed a job, the two decided to form the Career Continuance Support Group to share their career advice and expertise with the Fordham community.

1955 FCRH classmates and co-founders
of the Alumni Career Continuance
Support Group, Nick O'Neill and
Bob Miller (Photo by Bruce Gilbert)

Over the many years, the two men have helped hundreds of Fordham alumni and friends who are out of work, contemplating a career change, or searching for more meaningful employment.

“When people come back and say, ‘I start my new job next week,’ that’s enough to say why we do it,” says O’Neill. “When we first started, I asked Bob, ‘How many people do we need to be successful?’ He said, ‘one.’ So if we can help one person, then we are successful.”

The group’s sessions, held on the last Saturday of each month, cover resume writing, interviewing, the role of the Internet, and many other topics. “Only one session canceled in 20 years,” O’Neill says. “Due to the weather.”

And save for another severe winter storm in New York City, they won’t miss a second session. The next one, on Feb. 22, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the group.

“It’s amazing to see the growth [of the University], and to still be a part of it,” says O’Neill.

“Fordham means a lot to me. I’ve tried to do my share of giving back.”

—Rachel Buttner

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