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

Winter, with that certain slant of light

The pristine beauty of a new snowfall doesn’t last for long in New York City. But on Tuesday, Feb. 4, while Monday's stormy excess was still in its prime, photographer Dana Maxson captured the moment on Fordham's Lincoln Center campus--presented here as fine art.

(Photos by Dana Maxson)

Media Clip of the Week: Father McShane in Crain's New York

Father Joseph McShane, S.J.

Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Crain's New York recently published an education report that included "People to Watch in Higher Education." Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, made the list.

The leaders profiled "play a critical role in the city's culture and economy," it said in the Oct. 14 issue.

Crain's writer Judy Messina described Fordham's growth strategy as ambitious.

"Under its president, the Rev. Joseph McShane, 64, Fordham is in the middle of a $1.6 billion, 25-year effort to expand its Bronx and Lincoln Center campuses. It is part of a larger strategic plan to raise the rankings of its graduate programs, attract a more national and international student body and turn the 172-year-old institution into the country's pre-eminent Catholic university. 

"We want to be a destination for the brightest kids in the country, Catholic and not," Father McShane said.

The article pointed out the "growing allure" Fordham's location in the heart of New York City.

"Our mission is to graduate students who are going to be the leaders in American society, and New York is a laboratory that makes it possible for us to deliver on that promise," Father McShane said. "Notre Dame has the money and the name. I've got New York City." 

Read the piece here (subscription may be required) or pick up the issue in news stands.

-Gina Vergel 

UPDATE: Christiana Peppard, Paul Levinson to speak at NY’s Comic Con

Paul Levinson and Christiana Peppard

* This post was updated on Oct. 11. See updates at the asterisks. 

Fordham professors speak at several conferences throughout the year, and sometimes they’re high up on the pop culture scale.

Last May, for instance, Thomas Beaudoin, Ph.D., associate professor of theology at Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, gave a presentation on “Secular Music as a Quest for More” as part of a panel at the very buzzworthy South By Southwest (SXSW) tech and music conference in Austin, Texas.

This Saturday, Oct. 12, Christiana Peppard, Ph.D., professor of theology, science, and ethics, will join a panel at New York’s Comic Con. *Paul Levinson, Ph.D., professor of communications and media studies, has recently been added to the panel. 

Hosted by Academy Award-nominated actor, James Woods, the panel will focus on “Tech Toys from the Future.” It is presented by Futurescape, a six-part series on the Science Channel.

According to show organizers, this “tech road show from the future” will feature notable “‘rock stars of the gadget world’ as they unveil the ‘latest and greatest’ in the world of technology.”

Attendees will also see exclusive footage from the upcoming season of Futurescape with commentary from the producers.

“Each episode of Futurescape will look at one idea or discovery that will critically alter life as we know it: Synthetic Biology, Predictive Analytics, Habitable Planets, Nano Technology.

“Woods will ask the big questions, ignite debate and reveal a stunning image of the future.”

That’s where Peppard will come in, as she’ll discuss some future aspects of synthetic biology. *Paul Levinson will discuss the civil rights of robots. (Yes, you read that right.) Here's how describes it:

"We invent robots to be our servants -- to do dangerous or tedious jobs that we would rather not do," Levinson says. "We try to make them more and more intelligent, so they do their jobs better. What happens when we make our robots so intelligent that they are sentient beings? Are we morally entitled to continue treating them as slaves? Or will our future robots be entitled to civil rights?"

Two Fordham professors and an Academy Award-nominated actor discussing the future? Sounds good to us!

New York Comic Con is the East Coast's biggest popular culture convention. Its show floor plays host to the latest and greatest in comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies and television. 

-Gina Vergel

Fordham helps host 'Festival de la Palabra'

(R to L) Pedro Antonio Valdez, Luis Negron and Anna Lidia Vega Serova / Photo by Gina Vergel

Fordham recently played host to the third annual Festival de la Palabra / Festival of the Word—an event that celebrates Spanish language writers.

The event began on Oct. 4 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It continued with more than 30 diverse writers from Spain and Latin America at various venues across New York City from Oct. 8-11.

La Festival de la Palabra is an international literary festival that brings together some of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in Spanish with diverse academic and non-academic community audiences to debate, explore, and celebrate writing from Latin America, Spain and its Spanish-speaking diasporas, including the United States, said Mayra Santos-Febres, a Puerto Rican author, poet, novelist, professor of literature, and literary critic who has garnered fame at home and abroad for her first two collections of poetry, Anamu y manigua and El orden escapado.

“We know Puerto Rico is a natural destination for so many kinds of tourism,” she says. “Three years ago we asked ourselves, why not host a literary festival in order to attract even more people?”

This year’s festival included writers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guadaloupe-France, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Spain to New York City to participate in readings, presentations, for a, debates, and workshops.

At Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on Oct. 11, there were readings and discussion on, “Writing (in) the Hispanic Caribbean,” with Anna Lidia Vega Serova of Cuba, Pedro Antonio Valdez of the Dominican Republic, and Luis Negron of Puerto Rico. The event was hosted by the Department of Modern Languages and Literature.

Dominican writer, Valdez, said people have accused be of being too Dominican in his work. Responding to a student question about the inspiration for his stories, he said, “I want to tell the stories of my barrio. I want to impress what it is like to my readers.”

Writer Charlie Vázquez, author of the novel Contraband (Rebel Satori Press, 2010), and the bilingual poems Meditations, coordinated the New York City portion of the festival and helped choose the writers along with Febres and a colleague in Lisbon.

As an active writer, Vázquez says he felt honored to invite friends who are actively writing and publishing to participate in the festival.

“And they, in turn, get to meet writers from around the world,” he said, adding that the festival has inspired him to start writing in Spanish.

“I was educated in English in New York City public schools and brought up in bilingual homes where some of my older relatives only spoke Spanish. One of the things I’ve learned as a result of all of this is that Spanish is more than just a beautiful and popular and inherently poetic language, it’s also a passport to a large portion of the Earth’s readers, on different continents. I have grown as a writer because of it, and that, in itself, is a priceless education,” Vázquez said.

-Gina Vergel