Fordham Professor Crunches Election Numbers

Guest Post:

Janet Sassi, Staff Writer
Inside Fordham

If current presidential polls hold steady for Sen. Barack Obama, Monika McDermott, Ph.D., may be looking at an early night on Nov. 4. But given the historic volatility of the final weeks of a presidential campaign, and with the issue of race a still wild card, the associate professor of political science is not going to hedge her bets.

McDermott is an expert in political psychology and voter behavior who moonlights as a CBS election exit poll consultant. After crunching the numbers on Election Night, McDermott’s analysis of who voted for whom, and why, will assist news anchors in explaining why Obama or McCain won or lost a state or region. Election 2008 marks McDermott’s fourth presidential election behind the scenes.

“Exit polls are one of the few times where you know you are actually talking to people who have voted,” she said. “[Exit voters] are also more likely to be enthusiastic and give honest answers, more honest than someone you just interrupted during dinnertime with a phone call."

Although pre-election polls suggest a win for Obama, McDermott believes that the presidential election is still in uncharted waters. “This race has more dynamics than any other at the presidential level, and so many unknowns,” she said.

The complete interview with McDermott appears on Fordham’s main page. McDermott will also be a guest on Fordham Conversations this Saturday, Nov. 1 at 7 a.m. on WFUV-FM (90.7) or www.wfuv.org

Fordham Turns Seventeen

Fordham Notes welcomes Freshman Sharai to the ranks of the digitally literate. The commuter student is blogging about college life on Seventeen.com, one of the Freshman 15 at the magazine. She calls the debut of her blog "extremely weird and exciting all at the same time."

The student bloggers, Sharai among them, were announced in the November issue of the print edition ("with Ashley Tisdale on the cover" Sharai writes).

Fordham Faculty “Get Funded!”

Guest Post:

James S. Wilson, Director of Faculty Development
Office of Research

On Wednesday, Oct. 22, 100 Fordham faculty came out with their co-researchers, community collaborators and graduate students to “Get Funded!”

A full day of skills based workshops led by Michaela Kiernan, Ph.D., of Stanford University, “Get Funded!” gave attendees the opportunity to hone their research writing, graduate from mere grant submission to grantsmanship, and in so doing consciously create their career path rather than follow each foot as it falls.

“This is a tough funding environment,” Kiernan coached our colleagues, “but my position at Stanford is 100 percent soft money—if I didn’t do research, if I couldn’t get grants, I wouldn’t have a job. It can be done. You can do this!”

Kiernan covered concrete steps to convert one’s writing into the format and style grant reviewers prefer to receive. Grant and fellowship applicants don’t fully realize how critical this is to getting funded until they understand the review process.

“Because of sheer volume, your first audience will be a computer. If you haven’t taken the care to ensure that your proposal meets an agency’s criteria—for length, number and type of documents, the form of attachments—all your hard work may never be read,” Kiernan warned. “Once your proposal does go before a human being, your initial reviewers will probably have no more than ten minutes before they need to make a decision whether to send your proposal forward for further review.”

To learn how to capture and command reviewers’ continued attention, Kiernan advocates:

• using her six steps to conciseness and clarity;
• serving on an agency’s grant review committee;
• forming peer groups within and across disciplines in order to critique each other’s abstracts; and
• relying on Fordham’s Grant Officers to be a critical second set of eyes from outside their field of study that are focused solely on a proposal’s preparation.

To do all that on top of teaching and administrative duties is a challenge, but one that was both recognized and addressed in the afternoon’s final workshop: “Developing Your Academic Plan.”

“I anticipated feeling anxious about all I haven’t done, but the workshops weren’t that way at all,” one Fordham faculty member commented, a sentiment echoed by her colleagues: “presenting general strategies rather than just descriptions of grants was particularly helpful,” “very motivating” and “Kiernan is excellent!”

Make getting funded part of your academic plan—please contact James Wilson, director of faculty development, at ajawilson@fordham.edu or (718) 817-4964 and “Get Funded!”

Student Discounts to Academy of American Poets' Forum

Sarah Gambito, assistant professor of English and the new director of creative writing, is a featured participant in the Academy of American Poets' Poets Forum, which is offering Fordham students discounted tickets because of Gambito’s participation.

“If you're an MA/creative writing, please clear your calendar for this. If you're a scholar interested in modern poetry, ditto. And anyone else interested—please take advantage of this great opportunity!” writes Mary Bly, associate professor of English.

Fordham University students interested in attending the Forum, November 6 to 8, 2008, should contact Emily Hunt at (212) 274-0343 ext. 10, or ehunt@poets.org. Students interested in attending all of the events, including the Poetry Walking Tours reserved for All-Events pass holders, can purchase an All-Events Pass at the discounted student price as well: $85. There are a limited number of these special student tickets available, and they are selling rapidly.

Poets Forum Reading
Thursday, November 6, 2008 | 7 p.m.
The Times Center, 242 West 41st St., New York City
Some of the most acclaimed poets of our day read together on one stage. Participants include Frank Bidart, Victor Hernández Cruz, Louise Glück, Lyn Hejinian, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gary Snyder, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Ellen Bryant Voigt, C.K. Williams, among several other highly acclaimed poets.
$10.00

Poets Awards Ceremony
Friday, November 7, 2008 | 7 p.m.
Tishman Auditorium, The New School
66 W. 12th St., New York City
Celebrate contemporary poetry and the recipients of the premier collection of awards for poetry in the United States. The night will include readings and presentations by Lucie Brock-Broido, Henri Cole, Louise Glück, Eamon Grennan, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly.
Free

Poets Forum: Discussions of Contemporary Poetry
Saturday, November 8, 2008 | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, New York University
60 Washington Square South, New York City
Some of the most important poets of our time explore questions central to poetry today. Participants in the four intimate panels will include Frank Bidart, Victor Hernández Cruz, Louise Glück, Lyn Hejinian, Sharon Olds, Ron Padgett, Carl Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Kay Ryan, Gary Snyder, Gerald Stern, Susan Stewart, Ellen Bryant Voigt, C. K. Williams, and moderators Timothy Donnelly, James Longenbach, Maureen McLane, and Tree Swenson.
$60.00 only $35.00 for students!

American Poet Launch Party
Saturday, November 8, 2008 | 7 p.m.
The New School, Wollman Hall
5th Floor, Room 550, New York City
Reading and reception for the new fall issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets. Charles Bernstein, Major Jackson, and Cecily Parks will read from their work.
$5.00

Fordham in Top Tier of Fulbright Producers

Fordham is ranked among the top 30 research universities nationwide for the number of Fulbright awards to U.S. students in 2008-2009, and has a higher ratio of awards to applicants than Harvard, Columbia and New York Universities.

Fordham students received 11 Fulbrights this year, from a pool of 32 applicants. The top producer of Fulbrights, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, had 31 Fulbrights from a pool of 144 applicants.

Approximately 1,500 students and 1,300 scholars from the United States and abroad are studying and working on Fulbrights this academic year. The program, begun in 1946, offers grants by bi-national Fulbright commissions and financed by the U.S. government and the government of each country in which the awards are available.

Look for full coverage of Fordham’s Fulbright achievements on the home page this week and in an upcoming issue of Inside Fordham.

Update Oct. 29: Fordham actually has 11 Fulbright awards (out of 32 applicants), not 10 as previously reported.

Homecoming: Damp Weather, High Spirits

Fordham's Homecoming took place yesterday with the tents on Eddie's Parade, a break from past years on Martyrs' Lawn and closer to Jack Coffey Field.

Coach Tom Masella called the Rams' 48 to 13 loss frustrating, but neither the persistent drizzle nor the Leopards' victory appeared to have much effect on the enthusiasm of the attendees. We'll have to wait for Alumni Affairs' official tally, but the crowd seemed bigger this year. You could hear the convival rumble of the crowd in the tent from all the way back at Spellman, and the returning alumni were full of compliments for the state of the campus and the University.

This year, the staff of the News and Media Relations Bureau fanned out with digital recorders to capture the memories of alumni for our Fordham Stories project, an audio archive of campus life that will eventually be available on the eNewsroom. Homecoming was a test of the technology—though we'll eventually post the best of those clips, too—Jubilee will be the first real effort to chronicle campus life through oral history.

More Homecoming coverage will be available on the Fordham home page on Monday.

Blind Item: Which Jesuit knows his way around a stove? His mother's recipe was the perfect sendoff on Saturday.

Art Professor "Speaks Out"

Abby Goldstein, associate professor and head of the design concentration at Fordham, is the guest curator of Speak Out: Art, Design & Politics, opening on Saturday, November 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 516 Arts, Albuquerque, N.M.

Speak Out is "a provocative two-floor exhibition featuring artists from across the country and the world who are not afraid to speak out.... This exhibition showcases artists and designers who have taken on the challenge of creating socially and politically charged messages that are responses to and meditations on injustices and atrocities around the globe."

Fordham Debuts eNewsroom

This week the News and Media Relations Bureau launched its eNewsroom, the one-stop source for University information and contacts. The first stage of the launch, consolidating news, video and contact links in a single location, has been completed. Over the coming months look for the rollout of more features, including:

• Faculty Experts Database
• RSS Feeds
• Blogs
• Photo Gallery
• Audio Library

We'd like to thank Fordham IT, especially the Webgroup, and the staff of Marketing and Communications, for launching the eNewsroom in what has been a long and grueling week—the culmination of months of programming and design work.

We'd like to hear your thoughts on the eNewsroom: especially what features you'd like to see added in the future. You can comment here or write to us privately at: fordhamcoms@gmail.com.

All the President's Faculty

A reception and panel discussion with Fordham faculty on the historic 2008 presidential election, as they offer advice for Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

WHO: Fordham University Faculty
WHAT: Shadow Cabinet for Senators McCain and Obama
WHEN: Tuesday, 28 October 2008 | 6 p.m.
WHERE: 12th-Floor Lounge | Lowenstein Center | Lincoln Center campus
RSVP: www.fordham.edu/alumnievents

Free and open to all students, alumni, faculty and staff.

For more information, contact Nicole Moore at (212) 636-6528, nmoore@fordham.edu.

Panel on Women in Leadership Positions

Women are underrepresented in management in part because they are faced with a no-win conundrum which has not changed since the 1970s, according to Roslyn H. Chernesky, D.S.W., professor of social service at Fordham.

Chernesky, along with Ruth Brandwein, Ph.D., professor of social policy and director of the Social Justice Center at the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare, will talk about the glass ceiling in a panel “The Conundrum of Women in Leadership Positions,” sponsored by Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service’s Institute for Women and Girls on Monday.

WHO: Roslyn Chernesky, D.S.W., and Ruth Brandwein, Ph.D.
WHAT: The Conundrum of Women in Leadership Positions
WHEN: Monday, October 27, 2008 | 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Pope Auditorium, Lincoln Center campus
RSVP: Priscilla Dyer (212) 636-6623, dyer@fordham.edu
The panel is free and open to the public.

Trick or Treat? Mostly Treat.

Jean Marie McCormick, a 2001 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill, will be a contestant on the popular ABC program Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, on the episode airing on Halloween. McCormick is the daughter of the delightful Linda McCormick, confidential secretary to Father McShane, in the Office of the President at Rose Hill.

WHO: Jean Marie McCormick
WHAT: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
WHEN: Friday, Oct. 31, 2008 | 12:30 p.m.
WHERE: WABC TV—Channel 7 (Tri-State Area Only: Elsewhere Check Local Listings)

McCormick the Younger reports that it will be strange to watch her 20-minute segment, given that she devoted an entire day to the taping. Sadly no word on whether she is, in fact, a millionaire.

Things We Should Have Thought of Sooner

Visitors to Fordham's home page, www.fordham.edu, will have noticed that the IN THE NEWS and INSIDE FORDHAM links default back to the home page. Likewise, the headlines haven't been updated on the home page since Friday, October 17. Our IT staff is in the process of rolling out an eNewsroom and adding new functions to the home page: these will be a big improvement for users of the Fordham site, and for news media. Meanwhile, however, the news content is unavailable.

It should have occurred to us to post a notice on the home page before we began the process. We hope to restore full functionality, as the IT folks say, soon.

Young Alumni Gatherings

“WAITING WITH JOYFUL HOPE . . .”

Advent Evenings of Reflection for Fordham Young Alumni

The Office of the Vice President for University Mission and Ministry, and Campus Ministry, invite Fordham’s young alumni to attend with a classmate, meet old friends, catch up with their inner selves and catch up with happenings at Fordham.

Enjoy a pre-dinner social, dinner and post-dinner reflections on “The Meaning of Advent Today.”

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
6 p.m. | O’Keefe Commons, Rose Hill campus
RSVP by Nov. 14: (718) 817-4501
$10 per person

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
5:15 p.m. | Lowenstein 217, Lincoln Center campus
RSVP by Nov. 30: (212) 636-6267
$10 per person

Filmmaker Michel Auder Lectures at Fordham

Senior Seminar Lecture Series

Filmmaker Michel Auder talks about his work and his career of more than 40 years. A member of the 1960s Zanzibar French filmmaker collective, and married to Warhol superstar Viva and later to Cindy Sherman, Auder has spent his career voyeuristically documenting his own life and the downtown New York art scene with both poignancy and irony. Auder's work has been included in numerous prestigious film festivals and collections and has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, the Anthology Film Archives, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Free and Open to the Public/All Students
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
6 to 7:30 p.m. | Room SL24H, Lowenstein Center, Lower Level

Softball Team Battles Breast Cancer with $6,315 Walk

The Fordham Softball team walked in the American Cancer Society Walk for Breast Cancer on Sunday, October 19, in Central Park, raising $6,315.00 in donations for completing the five-mile walk.

The event was co-chaired by Coach Emily Friedman and Sarah Campbell, a senior, according to Bob Baxter, the assistant softball coach. Baxter also thanked all those helped with donations. Altogether, Fordham raised more than $17,000.

The team's photographer, Tom Wasiczko, walked with and supported the team and documented the event.

The Art of Direction

We have often come up out of a subway station in an unfamiliar neighborhood and been confused (yes, yes: more confused). Help, it appears, is on the way: Fordham Visual Arts students are taking part in the Compass Decal Design Exploration sponsored by the New York City Department of Transportation.

The competition is soliciting design proposals for orientation elements to point pedestrians toward their destinations as they exit from below-grade subway stations or descend to the street from above-ground platforms at 16 locations in The Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. The proposals will include a full-scale mock up; a site plan illustrating the proposed location; visual documentation (drawings, renderings, photographs or footage of proposal located at site); and research, including a description of site and community and copies of any surveys or interviews.

Between 6 and 10 students from the “Graphic Design II” class will have their proposals ready in November, says Abby Goldstein, associate professor and head of the design concentration at Fordham. The project started in Goldstein’s “Graphic Design III” and Colin Cathcart’s “Design and the City” classes last fall. There will be an exhibition of the proposals, and they will be judged by some of the most prestigious designers in New York, according to Goldstein.

Fordham is the model for the project, Goldstein says, and is one of the few Universities invited to participate. In November 2008 the top proposals will be reviewed, and winners selected, by officials from the Business Improvement Districts in which the 16 subway stations are located. The temporary compasses are scheduled to be installed sometime in spring 2009.

Business Leadership: A Lesson in Kindness

One of Fordham’s newest faculty members, William F. (Bill) Baker, Ph.D., University Professor and Journalist in Residence in the Graduate School of Education, will be airing a new program on Thirteen/WNET New York And WLIW21 New York, Leading with Kindness, an inside look at successful organizations and their leaders.

An expanding group of innovative executives have discovered a new and unusual way to increase profitability and productivity among their workers. The secret? They are leading their employees with kindness, as detailed in Baker and Michael O'Malley's book, Leading with Kindness: How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results (AMACOM, 2008).

Leading with Kindness
Sunday, October 19, 10 p.m. | WLIW New York
Sunday, November 23, 10 p.m. | Thirteen/WNET New York.

To dispel the notion that a boss has to be imperious to succeed, Thirteen/WNET president emeritus Baker and co-author O'Malley bring their book to public television viewers in the new one-hour special by the same name. The program, hosted by Baker, interviews executives of Google, Eileen Fisher and Pitney Bowes, among other leading firms. In addition to interviews with executives, the program features company profiles and expert commentary provided by O'Malley, and shows how leadership traits and business practices common among top executives have led to their company's growth and success.

Baker is president emeritus of Thirteen/WNET and executive in residence at Columbia University Business School. Michael O'Malley is senior editor for business, economics, and law at Yale University Press and adjunct professor at Columbia University Business School.

KPMG Taps CBA Junior, GLOBE-trotter for Prestigious Internship

Regis Zamudio a junior at Fordham's College of Business Administration, has been chosen for KPMG's 2008 Future Diversity Leaders (FDL) class. Zamudio is one of only 51 students nationwide who were chosen and participated in the FDL, selected for their commitment to high academic achievement, community and campus involvement and active participation in diversity organizations.

Zamudio, a finance major, is currently studying Chinese culture in Beijing, and is working with the Global Learning Opportunities and Business Experiences (G.L.O.B.E.) program to receive his international business certificate. He has studied Mandarin Chinese at Lincoln Center for the past two years and is continuing his language studies in China.

Before he departed for the Middle Kingdom, KPMG flew Zamudio to Hollywood, Calif., over the summer for a two-day training session about the firm and the opportunities it offers.

"We learned some great managerial techniques which taught us how to effectively manage, be managed, and perform under pressure situations," Zamudio writes from Beijing. "Communication skills and problem solving skills were a few of the materials we discussed and practiced. I thought the program was great. I was able to meet some terrific people who shared my similar interests and who are doing amazing things. I especially loved our discussion on the global markets and KPMG's role in the global economy. The partners we met were phenomenal and all of them were approachable and ready to answer difficult questions. The managerial leadership tips that KPMG showed us gave me better insight into how to manage properly and I'm sure I will carry that information with me for the rest of my life."

KPMG launched its FDL program a year ago, with the first group of 50 students providing leadership training and financial support for outstanding minority undergraduate business students, in its continuing effort to increase and support minority representation in the accounting profession.

Zamudio returns to New York in January. Next summer he will be working with KPMG as an intern, either at their New York office or, he hopes, back to Beijing. (There is a long and distinguished history of Jesuit education in China.) The internship prior to the senior year is a "practice internship," in which participants gain hands-on experience with clients in their chosen business area. In addition to gaining work experience, Zamudio will be mentored by a FDL faculty advisor and KPMG professionals.

"I am really hoping to return to China," Zamudio signed off his e-mail, "especially with an exciting and diverse company like KPMG."

Public Forum: Torture and American Culture

The photographs that revealed the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib shocked the world. Further revelations of CIA rendition policies, deaths in custody, Guantanamo detainees and government secrecy raise critical questions about U.S. culture and what conditions fostered a climate in which torture is condoned, and even encouraged.

WHO: Fordham Center on Religion and Culture
WHAT: Public Forum: Torture and American Culture
WHERE: Fordham University, McNally Amphitheatre, 140 W. 62nd Street
WHEN: 1 to 5 p.m. | Tuesday, October 21, 2008
RSVP: Free and open to the public CRCevent@fordham.edu, (212) 636-7347

What in U.S. popular culture may have predisposed leaders to authorize torture or the public to tolerate it? Do TV shows, such as Lost, 24, The Wire and Sleeper Cell legitimize torture and promote it as an effective tool? What strengths and weaknesses have American leaders in law, the military and intelligence communities, religion and psychology exhibited in responding to the current controversies over torture?

On a panel discussing graphic representations of torture and violence on TV and in other media, David Danzig, director of the Public Programs Department and Primetime Torture Project at Human Rights First, will discuss his experience with television producers and writers, along with Commonweal movie reviewer Richard Alleva and Columbia Journalism School media critic Todd Gitlin. Moderator for the discussion will be Bill McGarvey, musician and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Busted Halo.

A second panel examining the responses of American elites will feature William Treanor, dean of Fordham School of Law and former Justice Department official, discussing the legal profession; Patrick Lang, retired military intelligence officer, discussing the military and intelligence communities; Stephen E. Behnke, director of ethics for the American Psychological Association, discussing psychology; and Drew Christiansen, S.J., editor of the Jesuit weekly America, discussing religious leadership.

Panel: Popular Culture, Graphic Representation of Torture and Violence
1 to 2:15 p.m.
• Bill McGarvey, editor-in-chief of Busted Halo, and songwriter and performer; he recently released his second album, Beautiful Mess.
• David Danzig, director of the Public Programs Department and Primetime Torture Project at Human Rights First.
• Richard Alleva, film reviewer for Commonweal Magazine.
• Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, and author of Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.

Panel: American Elites and Their Response to Torture
2:30 to 3:45 p.m.
• Frederick J. Wertz, professor of psychology, Fordham University.
• William Treanor, dean of Fordham University’s School of Law, former deputy assistant attorney general, Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel.
• Patrick Lang, longtime director, Human Intelligence Collection, Defense Intelligence Agency, and defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism.
• Stephen H. Behnke, director of ethics at the American Psychological Association, has degrees in law and clinical psychology from the University of Michigan.
• Drew Christiansen, S. J., editor in chief of the Jesuit weekly America, former director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the United States Catholic Conference and counselor for international affairs to the conference.

Panel: Panelists in Conversation and Audience Questions
4 to 5 p.m.
(All Panelists)

Blood Center Thanks Fordham

Dear Fordham University Students, Faculty and Staff:

I would like to thank the students and faculty at Fordham University for their blood drive with New York Blood Center (NYBC) on Friday, October 10. We registered 60 people and collected at total of 63 units of blood, including 55 pints of whole blood and 8 units of red blood cells. This is capable of saving the lives of more than 165 people! Thank you again for helping the people of New York, and for giving the gift of life.

Respectfully,

Rob Purvis
Executive Vice President
New York Blood Center

Top Firms Turn to Fordham Law for New Associates

Where do the most elite law firms in the United States go to hire new lawyers? According to a study released on October 13, Fordham Law School is among the 15 law schools that leading law firms turn to most often when they hire new lawyers.

Using Vault.com’s list of the most prestigious law firms in the U.S., Professor Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago identified the 15 top law firms whose search engines permitted efficient identification of where their associates went to law school and prepared a report comparing how leading law schools fared at these firms. Fordham Law ranked 15th among law schools nationally. The results are posted at www.leiterrankings.com.

Professor Leiter, whose law school rankings website is an influential source of analysis of the comparative strengths of leading law schools, described Fordham as “long a favorite with New York firms.” He attributed Fordham’s presence among the top 15 sources for elite law firms, in part, to its New York City location. New York is home to more elite law firm headquarters and branch offices than any other American city. “Fordham’s presence in New York, the superb quality of our education, and our fiercely loyal alumni combine to give our graduates virtually unrivaled career opportunities,” noted Fordham Law’s Dean William Treanor.

This new ranking is the latest measure of the extraordinary strength of Fordham Law School and a Fordham Law School education. For example, Fordham Law is one of the 15 most selective schools in the nation, measured in terms of the LSAT scores of the most recent graduating class, six of its programs are rated among the top 20, and it is one of the top five law schools, measured in terms of the number of attorneys working at the top 30 law firms. For more information about Fordham Law’s strengths, go to the Fordham Law Facts Page.

Update Oct. 16: Ranking site down due to spam attack, according to Leiter's blog.
Update Oct. 18: www.leiterrankings.com is back up.

GSS Students Carry Off High Honors Two Years Running

Anthony David, an advanced standing student in the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), has been named the MSW Student of the Year by the New York State Social Work Education Association. This marks the second year in a row that a Fordham GSS student has been chosen for this award: last year’s winner was Maya Tsekenis.

David earned a BSW from Concordia College in 2007 and is currently completing his field work placement at the White Plains Youth Bureau. Tsekenis did her field placement at the United Nations with the International Federation of Social Workers a non-governmental organization that represents over 500,000 social workers in 83 countries.

Recipients of the Student of the Year award must demonstrate social work leadership skills and significant contributions through involvement in the social work program, campus activities, service to the community, or scholarly activities, and must have good academic standing

The New York State Social Work Education Association is a statewide organization whose purpose is to provide a forum for social work faculty, deans and directors, field instructors, students, practitioners and administrators to exchange information about social work education and related issues; to identify needs, issues and concerns central to social work education, and the appropriate responses to those needs; and to advocate on behalf of the social work education community.

What University Will Have A Contestant on Jeopardy?

Edith Kealey, a Ph.D. student (and adjunct faculty member) in the Graduate School of Social Service, will be appearing on Jeopardy on October 31. Kealey, the wife of Joe DiBari, Fordham's sports information director, was in Los Angeles in September to tape the show. Both Kealey's brother and sister are Fordham alumni, and she and DiBari met on campus for one of their first dates.

Technical Note

On October 7, we received a "potential spam blog" notice from Google Blogger, and users coming to the page had to navigate past a warning screen. Apparently we passed the Turing Test, because by this morning the warning screen (and notice on the Blogger dashboard) had disappeared.

Tick, Tick, Tick Index

The University’s Tick Index was created and is maintained by Tom Daniels, Ph.D., of the Vector Ecology Laboratory. The index is an estimate of the risk in Westchester County of being bitten by a nymphal or adult deer tick, both of which are carriers of Lyme disease.

After several weeks of low risk, the index begins to climb again this weekend as the adult ticks emerge. There are three stages in the tick life cycle: larvae, nymph and adult. The nymphs peak in June and July and cause the largest number of Lyme disease infections because their greatest numbers coincide with increased activity of lightly dressed humans in the woods, and because the nymphs are much smaller than adults (about the size of a poppy seed) and so are harder to spot.

Adult ticks are active in the fall. Risk of infection from adult ticks will diminish and eventually fall to zero once average temperatures consistently fall below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. For this weekend’s index, go to: www.fordham.edu/tick.

The Vector Ecology Laboratory is housed at Fordham’s Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.

War & Peace & War

Robin Anderson spoke on a panel, "Christians in a Warmaking State: Fighting for Peace in Vietnam and Iraq," at Boston College last week 0n the 40th anniversary of the trial of the Catonsville Nine. Led by Catholic priests Daniel Berrigan, S.J., and his brother, Rev. Philip Berrigan, the Catonsville peace activists sparked movements for civil disobedience against the U.S. invasion of Vietnam and are a source of inspiration to activists seeking to end the war in Iraq.

Andersen, director of the the Peace & Justice Studies Program at Fordham, is co-editor of the Berrigan play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine.

A Matter of Course

Fordham Westchester is offering a new course, "Conquering the Course: Maximize Your Business and Golf Performance," through the Executive Education Program. Patrick Montana, Ph.D., is the instructor.

"There are many similarities in management and golf, as well as in teaching management and golf. Both require strategic thinking, planning, execution, control, evaluation and feedback. Given golf's popularity and global reach as well as its multibillion dollar market, we are constantly seeking ways to nurture this vibrant sport and make it and our business more efficient and effective."

Patrick Montana, Ph.D.

See the Web release for more details on the course.

Fordham in the News

Several Fordham faculty were in the news yesterday. We see four or five faculty mentions on an average day. Many of our faculty are bloggers, as well, and we'll be adding links to those as we go along. Fordham faculty who'd like to see there blogs listed here should e-mail us at fordhamcoms at gmail dot com.

SCHOOL OF LAW FACULTY

PAUL RADVANY
Lehman CEO under scrutiny for investor statements
Reuters 6/10
“I think what is going to be looked at very closely by the government is what statements were made to the public, by whom, and whether those statements differed materially from what those people thought was actually the case," said Paul Radvany, a law professor at Fordham University in New York and a former federal prosecutor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7845350

ARTS AND SCIENCES FACULTY

PAUL LEVINSON
McCain, Obama headed to town hall
The Hollywood Reporter 6/10
"The town hall debate is McCain's best debate format," said Paul Levinson, a professor at Fordham University in New York. "Obama ... clearly is a much better speaker to a huge crowd or an interviewer (than he is at a debate)."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ieb736b6e0cb660259cdf25ffc4e9326c
AND
Multiple stories on this topic

Teething Pains

We received this little billet doux this morning from Google Blogger: "Your blog at: http://fordhamnotes.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at http://etc…"

So for those of you who've had to click past a warning screen this morning, we apologize. We'll resume our regular programming as soon as Google wetware gets to our account.

How Green is My University

This week Fordham launched its Sustainability page with information on reducing our carbon footprint, University recycling initiatives and green building plans.

In 2007, Fordham joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s challenge to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent over the next decade.

Fordham, FBI Team Up on Cyber Security

ICCS 2009

www.iccs.fordham.edu

A MEETING OF LAW ENFORCEMENT, INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIC EXPERTS

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has teamed with Fordham University's Department of Computer and Information Sciences to bring together global leaders in emerging cyber threat analysis and enforcement. In January 2009, the two institutions will launch the first International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS 2009) in New York City, the information center of the world.

With the number of cyber threats escalating worldwide, the need for comprehensive security analysis and solutions has reached a critical juncture. Join us at ICCS 2009 for a first-hand opportunity to discover and share critical intelligence on issues shaping the future of cyber security.

ICCS 2009 will feature distinguished speakers, presentations and vendor exhibits. This gathering of international cyber security experts will host more than 300 delegates from around the world. The world's foremost experts in cyber threat analysis and enforcement will engage in a dialog and develop strategies for combating cyber threats across the globe. With shared expertise and insight into a myriad of cyber security trends, tools and techniques, this conference will create an unparalleled opportunity for the international advancement of cyber threat analysis and enforcement.