A Nice GSS Christmas Story

Since 1989, the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) has been running a program that helps those Bronx schools showing high dropout rates to keep “at risk” students in school.

Known as the Liberty Partnerships Program (LPP), the dropout prevention initiative liaisons with I.S. 254 (just two blocks from the Rose Hill campus) to offer more than 80 students in grades six through eight tutoring, mentoring and social and emotional counseling.

Fordham’s GSS students do the counseling as part of their field placement curriculum. They spend 21 hours a week doing both one-on-one and group counseling with underrepresented students who might otherwise fall through the cracks in an already-taxed school system.

Part of the GSS’ larger curriculum, however, is also being mindful of social justice issues. So it was with great enthusiasm that GSS interns devised a friendly contest among the I.S. 54 classes to gather canned goods for needy families around the holidays.

Throughout the month of November the interns worked with the school’s parent coordinators to set up the class competition. Each day the middle school students charted the number of cans brought in by class members on a colorful graph on a hallway wall.

When the contest was complete, the school’s youngest sixth grade class, Class 601, was the winner. All in all, the students gathered more than 600 cans.

“They are really proud of themselves,” said Shelly Topping, LMSW, LLP’s program director. “They were very excited that the donations were going to families in need.”

As evidenced above, the winning class was also very excited to take a photo in front of the City Harvest truck, which picked up the donations for distribution on Dec. 15th. (photo by Benia Thomas)

--Janet Sassi

GSE and Bloomingdale’s Team Up to Help Promote Catholic Schools

Schools exist to educate students, open their minds to local and global issues and prepare them to be citizens of the world.

None of that is possible, however, if a school cannot draw students in the first place.

To address this basic challenge, the Center for Catholic School Leadership and Faith-Based Education, part of the Graduate School of Education, and Bloomingdale’s co-sponsored an in-service training session on Dec. 20 regarding the marketing of schools.

Thirty Catholic elementary school principals from the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre gathered at Bloomingdale’s corporate headquarters to gain entrepreneurial and marketing skills geared toward promoting their schools.

“School leaders in the 21st century not only have to be competent instructional leaders, but in Catholic schools they need to develop an entrepreneurial spirit as a core competency as well, so that they know how to promote their schools,” said Patricia Kelly-Stiles, Ed.D., associate director of the center.

“As a result of demographic changes, Catholic schools throughout the New York City metropolitan area are challenged to recruit adequate numbers of students so that the schools can continue to thrive,” she said.

Led by Kelly-Stiles and Gerald Cattaro, Ed.D., executive director of the center, along with Bloomingdale’s Richard Pittelli, vice president of financial control, and Michelle Pogue, manager of education, communication and recognition, the training drew on the retail giant’s corporate models to give the principals tips on marketing their schools.

“It’s important for the principals because one of their main functions is to attract students to the schools,” Cattaro said. “They have a terrific product and the real challenge is to get the word out there… We can learn from business.”

The participating principals will assemble again in May to reflect on the strategies they implemented since the December training and how their schools have benefitted.

Moreover, Kelly-Stiles added, these strategies are essential not just for Catholic school administrators, but also for anyone who serves in an administrative role in education.

“[For] people studying for school leadership positions, knowing how to promote their schools is becoming more and more prevalent and I would anticipate seeing some of those elements infused into the existing courses,” she said. “Twenty-first century leaders have to have an entrepreneurial spirit whether they are in business, retail or education. It’s part of what one is called to do.”

-- Joanna Klimaski

In Order and Chaos, Faculty Art Revels in Color and Detail

Fordham’s Center Gallery has yet another fantastic show on display—this time featuring the very first exhibition of what will be an annual “Faculty Spotlight” show.

Three members of Fordham’s Visual Arts Department faculty are featured:

Abby Goldstein’s paintings reference ancient hand-drawn maps and satellite images (center), creating “fictional landscapes” that navigate unfamiliar territories in an orderly format;

Casey Ruble’s small-scale paper collages (top) have been influenced by minimalist literature, late-modernist cinema, documentary photography of the 1970s and true-crime television; and

Carleen Sheehan’s “Convertibles Series” (bottom) depicts fusions of built and natural worlds by combining a range of media into “open-ended narratives of distilled chaos and spectacular abundance.”

Goldstein is an associate professor and head of Fordham’s Graphic Design concentration. Casey Ruble and Carleen Sheehan are both artists-in-residence who teach painting, drawing and visual thinking within the department.

The show will be on display through January 30th, 2012, Monday to Sunday from 9 am. to 7 p.m. It is sponsored by Fordham’s Department of Theatre and Visual arts.

For more information visit www.Fordham.edu/visualarts


—Janet Sassi

IPED Student Wins Competitive Internship with State Department

Having landed a highly sought-after internship, John Casey, a graduate student in the International Political Economy and Development program (IPED), Class of 2013, will journey this summer from Fordham to Washington, D.C.

Casey recently was awarded an internship with the Office of Development Finance, of the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. At the forefront of international development, the Office of Development Finance works closely with the U.S. Treasury Department in assisting multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. It also supports the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a congressional initiative to improve the distribution of U.S. foreign assistance.

“It’s extremely competitive. I really wasn’t even giving it much thought that I even had a chance,” Casey said, “so I’m pretty excited.

Despite the competition, Casey’s “excellent academic and professional credentials, as well as strong references,” brought him to the fore, State Department officials wrote.

Among these numerous credentials were two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, where Casey helped to bring an innovative radio education program to rural villages that could not otherwise access a school.

“The Peace Corps has really opened up the doors for all of my prospects for careers,” Casey said. “It showed my ability to think outside the box and take responsibility on my own.”

Although Casey is not certain what his next step will be after the internship, he is interested in exploring the contribution that private organizations can make to development.

“I really feel that private corporations do a have a role to play in development. I don’t think it all has to be the government,” Casey said. “I feel that that’s been missing in development.”

Casey has a bachelor’s degree in finance from Indiana University. Currently, he is specializing in International Banking and Finance and in International Economics and holds an IPED Public Service Assistantship.

-- Joanna Klimaski

Fordham’s Student Health Services Receive Accreditation

After five years of data collecting and surveying, Fordham’s Student Health Services at Rose Hill and Lincoln Center was awarded accreditation from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), distinguishing Fordham as one of just four New York colleges and universities with accredited health services.

The accreditation guarantees that Student Health Services meets the criteria set by the AAAHC in areas including patient rights, administration, infection prevention and clinical records and health information.

“When parents are looking at schools for their children and they see that the health services are accredited just like a hospital, it shows that that health services live up to a certain standard of care,” said Kathleen Malara, FNP-BC, director of student health services.

“They can rest assured that the staff members there are listening to patient grievances, are looking at processes to make sure they’re being done correctly… and making sure our facilities in general are not only clean—but safe,” she added.

By receiving a three-year accreditation—the longest term any health center can achieve—Student Health Services demonstrated that the AAAHC had no reservations about the quality of care provided at the clinic.

“It’s a very stringent and a very arduous process,” Malara said. “You have to have a lot of information in place before you can even apply.”

Not only does the achievement offer an outward sign of Student Health Services’ sterling reputation, it has also caught the attention of other Jesuit schools, she said. She’s heard from Loyola University and Boston College seeking to find out more about the process.

-- Joanna Klimaski

Urban Studies Class to Present New Vision for NYC Suburb

If you had 43 acres of property on the Hudson River that afforded stunning views of the Palisades and the New York City skyline, what would you do with it?

Before answering, there’s a catch: The land is heavily polluted and the site is only accessible via a two-lane bridge.

That scenario is one of the challenges facing Hastings-On-Hudson, a village of 8,000 people 20 miles north of New York City.

At 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 14, students from the master’s in urban studies program at Fordham will present ideas for retrofitting the village.

Working from the notion that cities aren’t the only places where the principles of retrofitting—improved connectivity, public amenities, affordable housing options, mixed-use buildings, and congestion easing—can be applied, they will present their findings at the Hastings-On-Hudson Public Library, 7 Maple Ave., Hastings-On-Hudson.

The presentation is the final project for the class “The American Suburb,” which was taught by Roger Panetta, Ph.D., visiting professor of history at Fordham.

The students will address issues of governance, housing, the downtown, transportation, and food and community. Their recommendations will come from a larger collaborative project that entailed a semester’s worth of interviews, document analysis and site visits that can be found here.

For more information, call (415) 533-9665.

—Patrick Verel

Tongue Twister Wins FCRH Student Trip to Germany

What does it take to get a free trip to Germany? For Matthew Kasper, a sophomore majoring in German at Fordham College at Rose Hill, all it took was a few Z's. Thirteen of them, to be specific.

As part of an entry in to "German Jungle - Twist your tongue," a competition sponsored by the Goethe Institute, Kasper recorded the following video snippet:



For those un-versed in German, Kasper, who is also president of the Deutscher Klub, provided a little context:

"I said: 'Am zehnten zehnten zehn Uhr zehn zogen zehn zahme Ziegen zehn Zentner Zucker zum Zoo, which translates as 'On the tenth of the tenth (October 10) at 10:10, ten tame goats pulled 10 centers (that's an an obsolete measuring unit) of sugar to the zoo.

"This is why I had my watch in the video, why I "baaed" like a goat (probably the most embarrassing part) and then dug into a bag which said Zucker (sugar) on it to the zoo.

"At the end, I said 'Das ist nicht der Eingang!' which means 'That is not the entrance!'"

For his efforts, Matthew will go to Dresden, Germany, in January for a free language course, courtesy of the Goethe Institute. Whether he shows off his Z's to his German hosts, we'll have to wait and see.

—Patrick Verel

More Green, More Birds, More Diversity

Given his surname, Fordham graduate student Dustin Partridge admits to some amusement in his love of birds.

He studied birds and arthropods as an undergraduate and now does research in the laboratory of Dr. Alan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology. Recently the two of them collaborated on Urban Green Roofs as Migratory and Breeding Bird Habitat, funded by the New York City Audubon Society, Sigma Xi and Fordham.

The data collection, completed last spring, measured the frequency with which migratory birds land on green roofs while passing through the city on their southern route. Using Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs) to measure bird calls, Partridge recorded the amount of bird traffic on four green roofs (in three boroughs) against four traditional roofs of comparable size and elevation located almost directly across the street from each green roof. On average, up to three times more species and four times more birds were found to use the green roofs.

Of course, the data is hardly a surprise, said Partridge. What is surprising, he said, is the amount of benefit that cities and neighborhoods can take from installing more green roofs.

The first is diversity: the roofs attracted species that don’t show up on other rooftops—the raven, peregrine falcon, ruby-throated hummingbird, willow flycatcher, wood thrush, cedar waxwing and others. In an area like New York, which has a certain number of endangered species, these rooftops can only help to support biodiversity.

Secondly, roof greenery itself is not only sustainable but it helps with heating and cooling of the host building, as well as offering a place of refuge for the building occupants.

Thirdly, the roofs can provide additional needed refuge space for birds on the Atlantic Flyway, a migratory route that has increasingly limited habitat for the millions of bird species that use it each spring.

“I love birds and I love arthropods,” said Partridge. “It is my hope that our study will be used to fund more support for green roof installation in New York City. “

Partridge noted that 24 percent of Manhattan is rooftop, and only three percent of the borough is dedicated to natural green space.

“The benefits of green roofing are quite incredible for any city or neighborhood,” he said.

The study data was presented at an October conservation conference at the Museum of Natural History. Partridge took the photos of the green roofs (pictured) in lower Manhattan and in the Bronx (the large green roof is, in fact, the Bronx County Courthouse, said Partridge.)

—Janet Sassi

McGinley Chair Launches Course on Interfaith Dialogue

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, is expanding his efforts to promote interreligious dialogue.

Father Ryan and Rabbi Daniel Polish, Ph.D., adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, will team-teach a new course this spring that aims to create a literal as well as scholarly conversation between Judaism and Christianity.

The course, “Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” will examine the historical contexts of the two faiths to uncover areas of overlap and sources of difference.

“This course is good for Fordham students because it will help them reflect on the links that bind Jews and Christians in one of the major urban centers in the United States, where so many Jews and Christians live and work together,” Father Ryan said.

The course stands as part of Father Ryan’s larger mission to develop what he calls a “trialogue” among the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Father Ryan was appointed the McGinley Professor in 2009 after serving as Fordham’s vice president for University Mission and Ministry since 2005. For nearly half of his life as a priest, he held academic and administrative positions in Nigeria and Ghana.

Rabbi Polish is the spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Chadash of the Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. An eminent scholar in interreligious affairs, Rabbi Polish has published widely in the field and served as director of education for Inter-Met, an interfaith seminary in Washington D.C.

-- Joanna Klimaski

NASW Honors Dean Vaughan

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), will be honored on Thursday, Dec 1 with a National Association of Social Workers’ “Leader of the Profession” award, given a by the NASW’s New York chapter.

An active participant in the professional community, Dean Vaughan has worked on NY-NASW's strategic planning committee and served two terms on the Council on Social Work Education's Commission on Accreditation.

He will be among four persons being recognized at an annual dinner for their exemplary leadership qualities and their commitment to improving the profession and the community they serve; also being honored are Alma Carten, Ph.D., associate professor of social work at New York University; Larry Lee, executive director of New York Asian Women’s Center, and Nancy Wackstein, executive director of United Neighborhood Houses.

This is the organization’s fifth annual Leadership Awards ceremony.

Known as a collaborative leader, Dean Vaughan has headed Fordham’s GSS since October 2000. Under his guidance the school has advanced enrollment and expanded its curriculum to include a global services and a human rights focus. GSS is currently is ranked 18th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

Dean Vaughan also co-chairs the FordhamVEts Task Group.


—Janet Sassi

Fordham Jesuit’s Book Featured this Advent Season

Mark Mossa, S.J., recalls a profound moment he had while watching an Adam Sandler movie.

The movie, 50 First Dates, tells the story of a man, Henry, who falls in love with a woman, Lucy, whose handicap doesn’t allow her to remember things more than 24 hours. Every day she meets Henry again for the first time.

The author of Already There: Letting God Find You (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2009) Father Mossa calls the situation an “apt metaphor for our relationship to God.”

“Like Lucy, we treat God from day to day as if we’ve never seen God before. But like Henry, God keeps coming back, trying to get our attention in both ordinary and unexpected ways,” he said.

Father Mossa’s message about letting God find us will be the subject of this season’s Advent Book Club, led by Msgr. Joseph G. Quinn and held on all three campuses. The Lincoln Center book club will kick off the season with a discussion on Monday, Nov. 28 in McMahon 109 of the Lowenstein Center. For a full schedule of times and dates on all three campuses, visit the advent website. (fordham.edu/advent)

Father Mossa, who has taught a course on Catholicism and Popular Culture in America, will be in attendance with each campus book club to help facilitate discussion.

--Janet Sassi

Latina Performance to be Held at Rose Hill

O’Keefe Commons on Fordham's Rose Hill campus will be alive with readings and performances by three legendary artists on Thursday, November 17.

The 1 p.m. showcase will feature:

-Magdalena Gomez, author of Dancing in My Cockroach Killers and artistic director of Teatro V!da and a National Endowment of Arts master artist.

-Josefina Baez, author of Dominicanish and founder/artistic director of Ay Ombe Theatre Groupe.

-Alina Troyano, aka Carmelita Tropicana, author of I, Carmelita Tropicana: Performing Between Cultures (Beacon Press, 2000) and Obie award winner.

The performance, which is sponsored by the department of Modern Languages and Literature, is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. For more information, call (718) 817-2698

—Patrick Verel

'Groundbreaking' a New Fordham Website

By James J. Kempster

Soon after the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Fordham Law building last May, I went for a tour of the half-century-old current building on the Lincoln Center campus.

I was struck by the number of state-of-the-art services that have been squeezed into the tight, insufficient structure. It is not a comfortable fit. Equipment sticks out into halls. Floor plans meander like mazes and students congregate in lounge areas barely bigger than the elevators.

Glimpsing some of the original fixtures and molding, I easily imagined a time when the rooms housed only desks and chalkboards, when Mad Men-era faculty members and priests maneuvered the halls with the streamlined mid-20th-century polish of statesmen. However, the structure has clearly become insufficient for their 21st-century successors, and we are grateful that the new building promises to support services never imagined in the 1960s.

I have had a similar feeling when I roam the virtual hallways of Fordham’s website. Time collapses in virtual years. As technology has advanced, the University’s website, though visually redesigned only a few years ago, has not been able to incorporate new features and content easily. As with the websites of many academic institutions, the Fordham site has devolved into a cobbled-together group of services filling the immediate needs of schools and departments, without a cohesive system or guiding plan to unify them, enhance the user experience, or support the greater mission and goals of the University.

Our capable but small web staff often must first attend to users’ immediate needs and frustrations, without the time or support to focus on larger issues that would not only curb these frustrations, but improve the website for a broader group of users now and going forward.

The result is a website overdue for reassessment and redesign. Many important features are necessary to make a good website, but the following are perhaps most important, currently:

• support for video, social media, calendaring and user-provided content;
• intuitive navigation and structure that are clear to the user;
• design that unifies the Fordham look and message, while supporting the vast needs of the University;
• readiness for mobile and other future technological advances;
• data integration that directs information internally to serve school office procedures, while shaping content outwardly to suit the interests of each visitor;
• sufficient staff to support ongoing maintenance and development; and
• a cultural shift that puts web communication first, recognizing that our website is our single most important marketing tool.

A core steering committee of administrators and faculty members has met and is committed to shepherding this new website project. With the full support of the administration, we have begun planning a comprehensive strategy, based on good research and analytics, an extensive survey of the community, and sound technical, marketing and communications tactics.

From the start, a thorough assessment of our current online services, infrastructure and needs is crucial. The process must involve representatives from the entire Fordham community, including students, faculty members, alumni, administrators, supporters and friends. This requires assistance.

The steering committee is reviewing proposals from several outside firms to lead the assessment of the Fordham website and our needs. The finished assessment will include a report on the current state of our website and a plan for designing and implementing a new one. We estimate that the full process will require 18 to 24 months, though we expect the company with whom we ultimately work to provide a clearer timeline as part of its assessment.

Throughout the process, we will continue to keep the Fordham community informed of our progress. Over the coming months, we will publish a series of reports and articles about the project in Inside Fordham and on the Fordham Notes blog. From time to time, we will invite community members to participate in the assessment or share their thoughts as we proceed. Your support will ensure that what we develop in the coming months and years will serve the Fordham community well into the future.

James J. Kempster is the senior director of marketing and communications at Fordham.

Fordham Hosts Education Dean/New York Regents Meeting

The leaders of the institutions that train teachers came together on Monday, Nov. 7 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus to meet with Merryl Tisch, the Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents.

The meeting, which was attended by John King, the New York State Commissioner of Education and New York area deans of schools of education, was meant to address changes being proposed for teacher evaluation and preparation.

James Hennessy, Ph.D., dean of the Fordham Graduate School of Education, chaired the meeting along with Joan Lucariello, Ph.D., University Dean for Academic Affairs The City University of New York.

“We’re joined here today by members of board who really committed to understanding your issues. We would prefer that you lay everything out so that some fresh air can enter the dialogue between us. It is not helpful for us if you have your conversations by phone with each other,” Tisch said.

“As with anything, there will points that can be addressed, there will be points of commonality, and then there will be points of disagreement. But if everything’s not on the table, then the conversation continues to take place in the shadows. This is our opportunity to get it out of the shadows.”

The three and half-hour meeting was dedicated to addressing:

-Race to the Top;
-Assessment of Teacher Educator Effectiveness;
-The Adequacy and Use of Video in Performances-Based Assessment
-College and Career Readiness

—Patrick Verel

Fordham College at Rose Hill Dean to Host Breakfast

Attention Fordham College at Rose Hill alumni!

You're invited to the second annual State of the College Address, hosted by dean Michael Latham, Ph.D. Join us for breakfast from 8-10 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17 at the New York Yacht Club in midtown Manhattan. Click here to RSVP and for more information.

—Patrick Verel

Literature and Social Justice Make a Home

Fordham University has launched a national literary magazine.

The inaugural issue of CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, is now on line, with a print and kindle issue to follow in the spring.

The magazine will feature creative writing, visual art, new media and video in response to current news and themes of social responsibility. The theme of the first issue is “Home,” and proceeds from the project will go to support Covenant House, New York’s largest adolescent care agency serving homeless, runaway and at-risk youth.

Featured in the first issue are works by renowned writers Robert Bly, Lia Purpura, Evie Shockley, Rigoberto Gonzalez and Idra Novey, alongside that of Fordham graduate and undergraduate students.

CURA, says Sarah Gambito, assistant professor of English and the magazine’s editor in chief, acknowledges the marriage of literary publishing with Fordham’s mission of cura personalis, or nourishment of the whole person.

“What is unique is the idea of integrating a literary magazine with social justice,” said Gambito. “I think Fordham has created something meaningful in the literary community.”

And here are two excerpts from the inaugural issue.

Woman in Black
– Hamra Abbas –
























Climbing into Bed
– Robert Bly –

There's no end to the joy of climbing into bed,
And hearing your wife rustling about nearby;
There's no end to the delight of the huge covers.

There's no end to the delight of hearing your body
Rumbling, and night waiting to capture you,
And take you off to your childhood bed.

There's no end to saying there's no end,
No end to rubbing your feet after a run,
No end to the delight when the door closes.

There's no end to thanking Jesus for his words,
To pulling up the covers of a century
And stretching out your toes into the dark,
And saying goodbye to the world once more.


CURA is administered by Fordham faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. You can find the online magazine, including submission deadlines, here.

--Janet Sassi

At the Fordham-Army Weekend: Festivities, Football and a Freeze

Photos by Chris Taggart, Joseph McLaughlin and courtesy of the West Point Athletic Association.

Thousands of Fordham football faithful took to West Point last weekend expecting to see hard-hitting action. Little did they know that the hardest hit would come from Mother Nature, who dumped at least six inches of October snow on the Hudson Valley.

Despite the weather, members of the Fordham community who attended the weekend's festivities - which included self-guided tours of the Army Sports Hall of Fame, a gala dinner on Friday night with West Point alumni and tailgate party on Saturday morning - made the most of the unique experiences.

These images capture the wide array of events available to fans who traveled to support the team.

- Joseph McLaughlin

Lincoln Center Construction Progress

Progress on construction of the new Law School and residence hall at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus in October.

POL’s 20th Draws 300 for Evening of Exquisite Poetry and Music

(Above, POL's directors over the years, Elisabeth Frost, Frank Boyle and Heather Dubrow)

The lighting was subdued, the audience laid back, and the mood pitched from contemplative to sentimental to celebratory, as poetry lovers filled the Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 27 to celebrate 20 years of Fordham University’s Poets Out Loud.

Poets J.D. McClatchy and Julie Sheehan read their works for more than 300 attendees. A trio of musicians, led by Lawrence Kramer, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of English, performed his original composition Song Cycle both in spoken format and to music.

“At 20 years, this is just the beginning,” said POL Founder Frank Boyle, Ph.D., associate professor of English. “[We have] wild expectations for the future.”
(Photos by Michael Dames)






--Janet Sassi

Orthodox Christianity Scholar Wins Award for Research

In the old days, Jon Stanfill might have walked away with a sack of Byzantine coins for placing second in a competition sponsored by the Byzantine Studies Association of North America.

Times have changed. For the research and writing that he devoted to the paper “Baiting the Hook: John Chrysostom and his Barbarian Mission,” Stanfill, a doctoral candidate in Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Program, will have to settle for a $1,000 prize.

George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., co-director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program, said Stanfill’s award was notable because it’s the first time a Fordham student has won it in the 20 years the association has been giving it out.

“The award almost always goes to someone who is in the final stages of their dissertation and almost always to someone working in art history, which is a particular emphasis of the organization,” he said.

“Jon delivered this paper before he had even sat for his comprehensive exams, during the first semester that he was teaching on his own, and in the field of early Christian studies.”

Stanfill is currently revising the paper and will soon submit it to a top-tier journal for publication.

—Patrick Verel

Fresh Produce Draws Hungry Crowds at Rose Hill

Visitors to the McGinley Center at Fordham's Rose Hill campus on Monday were treated to visions of carrots, basil, apples, kohlrabi, radishes, lettuce, and grapes, all for sale by members of the student culinary council.

The market, which was open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., was sponsored by the council and Fordham Hospitality Services, which purchased the vegetables from farmers 150 miles from campus or closer.

Nell Roberts, FCRC ‘11, a sustainability intern at Sodexo Services, said the market, which was held in conjunction with “National Food Day” generated roughly $450, which will go toward Lot Busters, a local urban garden.

She said she hoped to educate people about the issues that affect farmers, distributors and consumers in the country’s current food system and get students and faculty members to think about where their food comes from.

“Sodexo believes it’s important to support small local businesses where the farmers get fairly compensated, so that's what we we're promoting,” she said.


Monday’s market was the second one organized on campus, after one on Earth Day in April. It drew undergrads who snapped up apples for mid-day snacks to well as those with greater ambitions.

Nicole Casey, a junior majoring in psychology at Fordham College at Rose Hill, was one of them. Living in Walsh Hall, she’s able to cook for herself, so she bought a butternut squash.

“I thought, instead of going off campus, this is easy, it's accessible, and all the money is going to Lot Busters, so I’m happy to do it,” she said.

“I’ll keep it around the apartment for a little bit, as decoration this weekend for Halloween, and then I’m hoping to cook a pasta with it. My mom has made it, so I’m going to call her and give it a shot.”

Nicole Casey and Rosanne Sarro, administrators at the Jesuit community at Loyola Hall, both came away with escarole.

Sarro planned to make it with beans, and although she doesn’t typically buy vegetables at farmers’ markets, she said she would if it was as fresh as what was on hand on Monday. Casey, a frequent Union Square Farmers Market shopper who also belongs to an organic food co-op, said she’s serious about food.

“I like fresh food, organic if possible,” she said. “I think this is a great idea for the kids here, because many of them have kitchens and they can pick up fresh produce and eat it. It’s healthy and I think it's fun.”

—Patrick Verel

GRE Honors 'Homeboy' Priest at Annual Sapientia

Gregory Boyle, S.J., and several others were honored on Oct. 21 for service to the church and to humanity at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education's (GRE) Sixth annual Sapientia et Doctrina event.

Pictured below are the awardees, including Father Boyle (top center) and Joseph O'Hare, S.J., president Emeritus of Fordham (to Father Boyle's left). Father Boyle is also pictured with Msgr. Joseph Quinn, vice president for mission and ministry.

Coverage of the event will appear in an upcoming edition of INSIDE FORDHAM.



--Janet Sassi

Young Scholars Meet to Merge Words and Music

Music and literature may seem to move independently from each other, but when one stops to look and listen, the overlap in their relationship makes for some fascinating scholarship.

If lectures on the Sonata and the Domestic Novel, or Tennyson’s Ambivalence & Strauss’ Revision, pique your curiosity, it’s worth checking out “Counterpoints: 19th Century Literature & Music,” being held this Oct. 21 and 22 at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus.

The event is sponsored by the university and the Department of English’s publication, 19th Century Music.

The two days of lectures by junior faculty and graduate students from North American universities will also give thought to the works of Oscar Wilde, Proust, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Baudelaire, and more.

Lawrence Kramer, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of English and Music, is the conference director.

On the evening of Oct. 22nd the event will have a fitting close, with a free piano recital honoring the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hungarian composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt.
You can find more information here.

--Janet Sassi

Men’s Basketball Scrimmage with Boomer and Carton on Nov. 2

Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, co-hosts on WFAN sports talk radio, will coach opposing teams for a November 2 intersquad scrimmage of the Fordham University men's basketball team. Proceeds from the special event will benefit the Boomer Esiason Foundation and its fight against cystic fibrosis.

The game is open to the public, and tickets can be purchased at the door. Students are invited to attend for free, and general admission tickets are $10. For $20, spectators can watch the game and attend a post-game meeting with Boomer and Carton, as well as Fordham Basketball Head Coach Tom Pecora.

What: Fordham Men's Basketball Scrimmage with Boomer and Carton
When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, at 7 p.m.
Where: Rose Hill Gym, Fordham University Rose Hill Campus - Bronx, N.Y.
Tickets: Purchase at the door (free for students; $10 general admission - game only; $20 - general admission and post-game event)

Disabled American Veterans Mobile Service Visits New York in October

The nonprofit Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Mobile Service Office will be at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center, 130 West Kingsbridge Road, in The Bronx, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, October 24 and 25.

Many veterans are confused about benefits and services they’ve earned, and there are changes from year to year. The DAV provides counseling and claim filing assistance free to all veterans and members of their families.

Other Dates and Locations

October 26, 2011 | 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Northport VA Medical Center,
79 Middleville Road, Northport, N.Y.

October 27, 2011 | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Northport VA Medical Center,
79 Middleville Road, Northport, N.Y.

October 28, 2011 | 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Disabled American Veterans Department of New York
162 Atlantic Avenue, Lynbrook, N.Y.

For further information contact Michael Mills at (212) 807-3157.

Fordham Theatre Student Shines in Global Humanitarian Competition

My name is Brandon Jackson. I am a sophomore theatre major at Fordham University. I was recently selected to participate in Faces of Transformation, a global humanitarian competition sponsored by Nations United, a Toronto-based humanitarian company.

The goal of Faces of Transformation is to raise awareness about humanitarian and developmental projects around the world and to move forward Nations United’s mission of bringing nations together through social media.

Participants were chosen from more than 6,000 nominations from 40 different countries based on previous humanitarian and developmental work. For the final rounds of competition, Nations United selected 11 men and women from 11 countries. I am honored to represent the United States. 


The program launched in September 2011 and will continue for the next six months.


Each month, Nations United gives participants a challenge, which is designed to benefit our individual humanitarian and developmental projects. At the end of each challenge, the participants with the lowest three scores are sent to the “Red Zone,” where online viewers vote on which red-zoner is allowed to return to the competition.

The winner of the contest will become the 2012 face of Nations United and help implement the project he or she developed during the competition.

Before the competition, Nations United asked me to focus my project on media. I am currently creating an interactive app tailored to children in early development that deals with collaboration and multiculturalism. Once complete, the app will serve as a tool for teachers and parents to make children more aware of the world around them and to show them how to become better citizens

I have worked in the humanitarian field since 2006, when I started as a fundraiser for the Hope for Honduran Children Foundation. I raised more than $200,000 for the organization. Since then, I have served in many advisory positions and have many projects in the works.

For more information about Face of Transformation, click here.

You can also join the Faces of Transformation in the USA Facebook group here. 


—Brandon Jackson

Fordham Freshman Learns From Wall Street Occupation

Rose Hill freshman Rachel Dougherty found a way to link one of her Fordham courses to the real world.

As a young person interested in social justice, Dougherty found herself interested in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Dougherty wanted to understand why people were so committed to taking a stand day after day in New York City’s streets, risking arrest and/or physical harm from police, uncomfortable conditions and a slate of negative publicity from some news outlets.

So Dougherty travelled down to Wall Street with a stack of note cards and handed them out to the protestors, asking them to write the words ‘I want’ followed by one thing that brought them to the occupation. Afterwards, she chatted with and photographed some of the respondents, making selected audio recordings. Her media project is on line at Fordham Rose Hill’s student publication, the paper, and is being worked into a class project in her Introduction to Sociology course.

“I felt the need to understand why people were there [and] I thought that my project would help me gain understanding and give me a way to enter into discussion with everybody,” said Dougherty, who is leaning toward being a communications major. “By engaging people, I simultaneously engaged myself, for I became more reflective of why I was there. Thus pushing me to be more passionate about the movement."

You can see more of Dougherty’s images below or by visiting the paper.

--Janet Sassi

Fordham's Feerick Center Hits Five

Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice celebrated its fifth anniversary on Sept. 26—five years to the day of its launch in 2006.

The center presented honored guest Senator George J. Mitchell (left above), a former visiting professor at the Law School, with the very first George Mitchell Lifetime Public Service Award, recognizing Mitchell’s social justice work in the Northern Ireland Peace Process and as Special Presidential Envoy for Middle East Peace.

Over 240 alumni and friends attended a reception at the headquarters of Mutual of America, raising almost $400,000 for the Center’s initiatives on behalf of poverty and consumer law, pro bono counsel initiatives and other social justice programs.

Robert C. Sheehan, former managing partner of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, was honored with the "Spirit of Service Award” and David Jones, president and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York, received the "Life of Commitment Award."

Attending the event were the center's founder and director John D. Feerick (right, above), former dean of the law school; University president Joseph M. McShane, S.J.; provost Stephen Freedman, Ph.D.; law school dean Michael M. Martin; former New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye, and Fordham president emeritus Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J.

Since its founding, the Feerick Center has been recognized for its outstanding work by the New York State Courts with their "Access to Justice Award," and by the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University with its "Bright Idea of 2010 Award".

Career and Internship Fair Scheduled at Rose Hill Campus

Fordham students majoring in the humanities, physical sciences, social sciences and business who are interested in learning about what opportunities await them after graduation can find out on Wednesday.

The office of Career Services is sponsoring a career fair that will feature more than 70 employers. The list of companies and groups that are confirmed include Aflac, Continuum Health, Federal Air Marshals, Hollister, MTV Networks, Pepsico and Teach for America.

The Career & Internship Fair will be held:
Wednesday, October 5 | 1 – 4 p.m.
McGinley Center Ballroom | Rose Hill Campus

For more information, visit http://www.fordham.edu/career

—Patrick Verel

Fordham GPS Addresses

If you are planning to use a GPS or other navigation system to visit either the Lincoln Center or Rose Hill campuses, please use the following addresses:

Rose Hill

2853 Southern Boulevard

Bronx, NY 10458

Lincoln Center

113 West 60th Street

New York, NY 10023

London Dramatic Academy Newsletter

The Fordham University London Dramatic Academy (LDA) Fall 2011 newsletter is out. Get to know LDA in pictures and text.

Contents

• LDA Fall 2011 Semester Commences
• Auditions and Masterclasses
• LDA Orientation In Pictures
• Important LDA Application Updates
• New Courses
• LDA Fall 2011 Novel Project Showing

Download Newsletter Here (PDF).