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

Fordham Students Earn Spots in Prestigious Summer Program in Athens

Facade of the Gennadius Library
(Photo via www.ascsa.edu)

Two Fordham doctoral students have earned full scholarships to a distinguished summer program at the Gennadios Library, which is part of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students Matt Briel and Jon Stanfill were the only two students who received scholarships for the entire program, said Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of GSAS and Chief Research Officer/Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs for Fordham.

“It is the most prestigious opportunity to study Medieval Greek,” Busch said.

In the month-long Medieval Greek Summer Session, Briele and Stanfill will partake in daily analysis and translation of Byzantine texts; paleography; introduction to the bibliography of Byzantine philology and collections of the Gennadius Library; visits to area museums, libraries, sites, museums and monuments outside Athens. The pair will also get individual tutorials and assignments determined by their specific needs and field of study.

The objective the summer session program is to familiarize students who have a sound foundation in Classical Greek with Medieval Greek language and philology by exposing them to primary sources, different kinds of literary genres and electronic tools, drawing on the resources of the Gennadios Library. The library houses 117,000 volumes and archives and is devoted to post-classical Hellenic civilization.

—Gina Vergel

IPED Alumna Takes Post at Japanese Development Agency

Mayu Sakagauchi, GSAS ’11, has been appointed to the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Sakagauchi is an alumna of the graduate program in International Political Economy and Development (IPED). Sakagauchi graduates in May. Following the completion of four months of orientation in Japan, she will begin a two-year assignment to the African nation of Malawi. While in Malawi she will represent the Japanese government as a community development officer and will work closely with the Malawi Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

While at Fordham’s IPED, Sakagauchi specialized in international and development economics with a focus on project management. Her initial interest in Africa came from her participation in IPED’s summer study tour of South Africa.

Fordham Research Asks: Are The Kids Alright?

On Wednesday, Feb. 9, three of Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences faculty—one psychologist, one theologian and one sociologist -- presented their original research around the issue of children and their mental and physical well being.

The event, “Are The Kids Alright?” was coordinated by the Office of Research to help showcase the growing research among Fordham faculty.

Laura Sosinsky, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, (center) presented an ongoing longitudinal study on how a cohort of first-time Bronx mothers are choosing childcare before and after the birth of their child. Sosinsky said her study was inspired by the fact that, while rates of new mothers returning to the workplace has risen, the child care choices for women have not kept pace.

Matthew Weinshenker, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, (left) presented his research on “Evening Dads, Couch Potatoes and Others,” a look at fatherhood in the United States and how different categories of fathers engage with their children. He said he hopes the study promotes a better understanding of what behaviors promote father-child involvement.

Charles Camosy, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology with an emphasis in Christian ethics, (right) presented research on neonatal ICUs and the financial and moral cost of saving young lives. Camosy recently published a book, Too Expensive to Treat? Finitude, Tragedy and the Neonatal ICU (Eerdmans 2010), which explores the moral issues of health care rationing in the United States.

All three presenters were recipients of Fordham Faculty Research Grants.

—Janet Sassi

Bronx Youths Let the Beat Drop in Berlin

Fordham GSAS sudent Kathleen Adams, left, in Berlin with students from CUNY Prep
(Photo courtesy of GangwayBeatzBerlin)

Youths from the Bronx will experience hip-hop culture in Berlin as part of a trip organized by a Fordham professor.

Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of African and African-American studies, and about 10 students from Bronx-based CUNY Prep are in Germany’s largest city this week for the final leg of Bronx-Berlin Connection—a transatlantic hip-hop project.

Hosted by GangwayBeatzBerlin, a music association in which young people experience hip-hop culture on the streets of Berlin, the Bronx-Berlin Connection engages young people from Bronx and Berlin in a year-round cross-cultural exchange program. They use music—particularly, rap and hip-hop—to explore and express the experiences of urban youths globally, the critical challenges they face and the solutions necessary to enact change in their communities.

The project will culminate in a full-length, multi-lingual, cross-cultural rap album to be released later this year.

An online diary by GangwayBeatzBerlin mentioned, “The crew from the hip-hop capitol of the world arrived today,” referring to Naison, Fordham Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) student Kathleen Adams, three CUNY Prep teachers and, of course, the students.

Likewise, Naison is reporting on the experience through the social media. In a Facebook message posted on Saturday, he wrote, “We are having an amazing time in Berlin! We met up with people from GangwayBeatzBerlin, who took us to dinner at a great Turkish restaurant and then took us to a community hip-hop jam in Wedding, an immigrant neighborhood in Berlin, where our kids produced a freestyle cipher. Great chemistry between GangwayBeatz and the CUNY Prep kids.”

A “cipher” occurs when two or more rappers freestyle together in an informal context. But hip-hop is not all Bronx youths have in common with their Berlin counterparts, Naison explained.

“Kids from the Bronx think that their situation is unique. When they get to Berlin, they’ll see lots of kids from immigrant families experiencing similar things—employment struggles, family problems, race issues—and who look at hip-hop as a way to express their feelings about the world they are in,” he said.

Immigrants in Berlin hail from Turkey, the Middle East and various parts of Eastern Europe, said Naison, who previously traveled to Berlin to lecture on the “Multicultural Roots of Bronx Hip-Hop.”

Thanks to GangwayBeatzBerlin, youths from Berlin visited Fordham and the New York City area in November 2008 and again a year later. Many of the young poets and rappers performed at Rose Hill.

“The students for CUNY Prep are going to think they are in the Bronx when they arrive in Berlin. They’ll see ethnic enclaves, graffiti, street food vendors and, of course, hip-hop music,” Naison said before he left.

The trip was subsidized by donations, many which came from Fordham alumni.

“We had an amazing outpouring of support from alumni. Without it, this trip wouldn’t be taking place,” he said.

The CUNY Prep students will perform on Sept. 13 at the United States Embassy in Berlin. They’ll visit and be interviewed at radio stations and a television news crew will be following them as they visit clubs and community centers, Naison said.

GSAS student Kathleen Adams is accompanying the group as a chaperone. A student in the urban studies master’s program, Adams said she hopes to teach youths in Berlin about women in hip-hop, which she researched for her thesis as an urban studies undergraduate at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

—Gina Vergel

Thomas De Luca Made Honorary Professor by Chinese University

Sun Yat-sen University, one of China’s premier schools, awarded Dr. Thomas De Luca the position of honorary professor of government, 2010-2012. The honor was bestowed upon De Luca during the annual short-term study abroad course De Luca leads for Fordham students each year, “China and the U.S. in the Era of Globalization.” The award was presented by Chengda Mei, director of the School of Government’s executive board.

At the May 25 award ceremony, Mei said of De Luca: “Given his academic achievements and enormous contributions to the School of Government, we are very pleased to appoint him as an honorary professor of government.”

This is the second time De Luca has been so honored by a major Chinese university. In 2008, he was appointed honorary professor of political science, 2008-2010, by China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) in Beijing, one of China’s most renowned law schools and academic centers for the study of political science.

De Luca has been actively engaged with Chinese universities since he first served as a senior Fulbright Lecturer at CUPL from 1999 to 2000. Since then, he has lectured and researched, and organized a conference on democracy, in China. With Fulbright and Fordham support, he also directs an academic exchange program through which Fordham professors have lectured in Beijing, and CUPL professors have reciprocated in New York.

In 2007, in collaboration with professors Thierry Meynard and Hector Lindo-Fuentes, then associate dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, De Luca initiated the current study abroad course. In that course, students travel to Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, study in classes with Chinese students as Sun Yat-sen University, visit historic sites, travel to rural villages, tour factories, and meet with journalists and U.S. consular officials, among other activities.

“I look forward to leading Fordham students to China for the fifth time next year, and to continuing to collaborate with the two Chinese universities that have honored me,” said De Luca.