In an email last week to students and colleagues, May Adrales, director of the Fordham Theatre program, called Jenness’ death an “enormous loss for Fordham, for the theatre community, and for the world at large.”

“Many playwrights and directors working today can trace their beginnings in American theatre back to Morgan,” said Adrales of Jenness, who used they/them and she/her pronouns. “Their support didn’t end with encouragement; Morgan championed the work they believed in, often connecting creators with exactly the right collaborators to bring bold theatrical visions to life.” 

A Powerful Mentor to Young Playwrights

Fordham graduate Morgan Gould, FCLC ‘08, credits Jenness—who Gould described as her “professor/mentor/kooky aunt/mom/theater doula”—with where she is today: a published playwright, director, and writer for television shows such as A League of Their Own. 

“She treated every student as if it was only a matter of time that you were going to be a world-famous auteur. She would drag me to every kind of theater opening and introduced me to everyone as a young director. Having someone so sure that it will happen is something you never forget, and for so many of us, she was the first person to do that.” Today, Gould said, “I make my living only in the arts. Morgan was a huge part of making that possible.”

Another former mentee of Jenness’, Peter Gil-Sheridan FCLC ’98, said that countless Fordham friends reached out to talk about Jenness’ impact on their lives.

“Morgan left the world a better place than they found it,” said Gil-Sheridan, a former Fordham adjunct professor who is now assistant professor of playwriting at Vassar College. “Their passing is seismic in the theatre community. But so is their impact. I am so proud to be one of the students that was so deeply held and felt by my dear teacher. We can all honor them by continuing to demand more of our selves in our work, to see the theatre as a space for activism, cultural critique, and radical love.”

Uplifting Playwrights 

Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, said that Jenness helped redefine the role of a dramaturg, who is traditionally called upon to aid actors, directors, and playwrights in their understanding and presentation of a play. 

“Morgan was one of the first generation of people who were defining what a new play dramaturg was: the midwife and support system of a playwright,” he told The New York Times, whose obituary noted Jenness’ impact on the careers of successful playwrights, including MacArthur “genius” grant winner Taylor Mac and David Adjmi, who wrote the 2024 Tony Award-winning play Stereophonic.  

“Countless” artists “across all generations” felt “seen and loved” by Jenness, said Fordham’s former head of playwriting, Daniel Alexander Jones.

“In everyday conversation, she would lift the names and works of artists and advocate for them constantly. Carl Hancock Rux, Erik Ehn, Luis Alfaro, Taylor Mac, Bridget Carpenter, Marcus Gardley, Keith Josef Adkins, David Adjmi, and Alice Tuan are the first names that come to mind when I turn on the spigot of those early memories of time with Morgan. … When she taught, she carried us into the lesson plans, alongside those departed luminaries whose beacons she also tended.”

Jenness is survived by a brother, four nephews, and two nieces, one of whom, Martinique Gann, is quoted in The New York Times about Jenness’ dedication to students and the theater. 

“There was no stopping my aunt for anything,” Ms. Gann recalled. “She picked me up in a cab from the airport. And right away, with my two suitcases, we drove straight to Fordham University to see a play one of her students had written.”

1. Self-Care City Scavenger Hunt

Lately, self-care has been top of mind for all of us. Try a fresh approach to personal wellness with this self-guided scavenger hunt! With fun, interactive tasks, you’ll explore essential areas of wellness—physical, emotional, and spiritual. It’s the perfect way to recharge before the holiday rush. Do it solo, or bring a few friends along!

Multiple dates in November, 1 – 5 p.m.; 1950 Lafayette Avenue, The Bronx

2. Canstruction 2024

As we look for ways to give thanks and give back this Thanksgiving season, Canstruction is the perfect place to start. The event raises awareness of food insecurity by showcasing sculptures made entirely from canned food, created by architects, engineers, and volunteers across 100 cities. Visitors can view these works of “CanArt” and contribute non-perishable items. At the exhibit’s end, all food is donated to local food banks, helping to feed those in need during the holiday season. 

Through, Nov. 11, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; 230 Vesey Street, Manhattan 

3. A Celebration of Hip-Hop

Did you know November is Hip-Hop History Month? What better way to celebrate than at an exclusive event for the soon-to-be-open Hip Hop Museum! Join co-founder Rocky Bucano as he takes you through the genre’s journey from its birthplace in the Bronx to the worldwide stage. He’ll share stories of hip-hop’s roots and impact, and talk about the museum’s mission to honor and preserve this legacy in a vibrant new space opening in 2025.

Thursday, Nov. 21, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.; The National Arts Club, Manhattan 

4. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

It’s a New York City rite of passage—everyone’s got to experience it at least once! Whether you’re braving the crowds on 5th Avenue Thanksgiving morning or watching from the cozy comfort of your couch with a cup of coffee, don’t miss the iconic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Thursday, Nov. 28, 8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.; Starting on West 77th Street and Central Park West

5. Bronx Holiday Market

Holiday treats, one-of-a-kind gifts, and a festive atmosphere—we can’t think of a better way to kick off the holiday season! Be sure to check out the Bronx Holiday Market right outside our Rose Hill campus to celebrate the season and support some local artists. It’ll be a day filled with handmade treasures, seasonal flavors, and festive fun for the whole family!

Saturday, Nov. 30, 7 p.m.; Fordham Plaza, The Bronx

The 11 new items include antiquities from Roman Spain—a fascinating and under-studied area of the ancient Mediterranean basin, according to the museum’s curator, Jennifer Udell. There are also new pieces of Greek and Roman sculpture from the Brooklyn Museum.

A Welcoming Space for All  

Udell said the museum has attracted some “regulars”—students who stop by often and help out around the space. Some have even helped to install the objects, getting the rare opportunity to unbox and arrange pieces of pottery and glass created by human hands thousands of years ago. 

One such student is senior Grace Monteith. When the museum reopened in 2022 after the pandemic, she helped with the reinstallation. “The unpacking was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Dr. Udell took a picture of me and it’s everywhere on my social media. It’s the coolest,” she said. 

First-Hand Encounters with Antiquities

The museum is a teaching collection that creates unique experiential learning opportunities. Professors in several academic departments bring their classes to the museum, and Udell herself teaches courses in museum studies and other subjects. Like business students who gain experience on the Gabelli School trading floors, students who take a museum studies class with Udell get to work with the objects, make decisions about how they’re presented, and curate a group exhibit at the end of the semester. 

One group of students, Udell’s interns for this semester, are at work on an interactive new development: a mobile app through Bloomberg Connects that will offer museum visitors a guided tour of the collection. They’re putting together audio and video content that will provide historical context and highlight points of interest. 

Udell says the tour will not just be for art history students. The app will have information about theatrical masks for theater majors, ancient glass objects for those interested in organic chemistry, and even something for students studying finance. “We have a cuneiform tablet that’s a receipt for a bundle of reeds. It’s not crypto, but it is ancient economies,” she said. 

New Wonders with Each Visit 

For senior Ryan Moore, visiting the museum never gets old. “Every time I come I notice something new that I’ve never seen before,” said Moore, who helped to reinstall the objects for the reopening in 2022. He pointed to a case he’d helped to arrange, noting the way a sculpture’s wings parted to create the perfect opening through which the object in the background could be seen unobstructed. 

“That’s an arrangement I happened on by chance,” he said. “It’s something I’m still proud of to this day.”  

They both appeared at the annual On the Record gala hosted by Fordham’s public media service, WFUV, to receive awards named for alumni who learned their trade working at the station as students.

Chung received the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, named for the beloved CBS News broadcaster who died in January. “May I say to the Osgood family, I knew Charlie so well and loved him so dearly,” Chung said in accepting the award. 

“I’m very, very thrilled to have this wonderful honor in Charlie’s name.” (She was introduced by her husband, television host Maury Povich, who told a familiar story about once being referred to as “Mr. Chung” by a hotel doorman during a visit to New York.)

Chung was in the midst of a tour to promote her new bestselling book, Connie: A Memoir. Visser received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting, named for the acclaimed announcer for the L.A. Dodgers, who died in 2022. She began by lauding Scully for his “humility and passion and professionalism” and joked with Scully’s family members, who attended. “To hear that voice coming across the breakfast table, not out of the TV? I can’t imagine. You’re so spoiled!” she said, to laughter.

She gave shout-outs to colleagues in attendance, including those who work on her weekly sports show, We Need to Talk. “We are the only all-sports network talk show produced, directed, and hosted by women, and you’re all here!” she said.

At the event, attendees viewed a video about the WFUV student journalist experience—ranging from news and public affairs reporting to sports journalism, audio production, and more.

Jenn Lilly, Ph.D., and Rose M. Perez, Ph.D., both of the Graduate School of Social Service, have dedicated large parts of their careers to studying the emotional and psychological complexity of Latin American communities. Their findings inspired their respective film projects: one highlighting the unique grief of Cuban Americans who’ve left behind their homeland, and the other exploring the mental health challenges faced by many young Latinas. 

Longing for a Lost Homeland

Perez’s film, Cuba es Mí Patria: The Homeland I Keep Inside, explores the experiences of the Cuban diaspora through the framework of “ambiguous loss,” a theory she’s researched extensively. Unlike other forms of grief, ambiguous loss can lack closure and keep the “lost object” psychologically present indefinitely. 

According to Perez, the experiences of the film’s interviewees who left Cuba after the 1959 revolution exemplify this phenomenon. Like a ghosted lover or the parents of a missing child, many Cuban Americans live with unanswered questions that can make letting go impossible, like: Will I ever see my relatives again? Will Cuba’s political and economic situation ever improve? And, will I ever be able to return? 

The conversations were often emotional, especially the interview Perez’s colleague conducted with her father. Perez and her family left Cuba in 1971. “He was so teary throughout the interview that it was really hard to edit his piece,” she said. 

The film appeared in several national and international festivals and won the Best Original Story award at the Touchstone Independent Film Festival in July. Locally, the next screening will be at the AMT Film Festival in Hell’s Kitchen Nov. 8-10. 

Perez says Cuba es Mí Patria is an excellent tool for educators, and will be relatable to anyone from an immigrant background. She hopes viewers will walk away with a “greater appreciation for the hidden trauma people don’t know we carry.”

Speaking Up about Latina Mental Health

In the short film Nuestro Apoyo (Our Support), which Lilly wrote with a group of young Latina collaborators, the drama on screen reflects a culture of silence around mental health issues in many Latin American families. With insights taken from Lilly’s academic research on Latina mental health, the short film depicts a young, first-generation woman’s struggle to bridge a generational and cultural divide with her parents and discuss her thoughts and feelings. 

To create the script, Lilly brought together a group of five young Latina writing partners — all Fordham students or alumni — and drew inspiration from their personal experiences. 

“One of my biggest takeaways was that this new generation is very aware of mental health and interested in preventive behaviors, but they’re encountering some difficulty in reconciling that with their families or their cultural views, which are often about keeping things within the family and not discussing things that could bring stigma,” said Lilly. 

Post-production work on the film wrapped in late September. Lilly plans to submit Nuestro Apoyo to some film festivals and then seek a distributor. Whatever happens next, she already experienced a moment of victory watching the film over Zoom with the five young writers. 

“It was really fun to see their reactions, especially when their names appear in the credits,” she said. “We all felt very emotional by the end. It was maybe the highlight of my career.”

1. Brooklyn Flea 

There’s nothing like a Sunday spent exploring a new borough! Head over to the Brooklyn Flea, located in the DUMBO neighborhood, directly under the Manhattan Bridge. It’s the perfect spot to get some iconic photos and check out a unique mix of vintage clothing, jewelry, art, furniture, and more from local artisans and designers.

Sunday, Oct. 6 through Dec., 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; DUMBO, Brooklyn

2. Soup Dumpling Festival 

As the fall weather settles in, there’s no better way to warm up than at the Soup Dumpling Festival! Hosted by the iconic, Michelin-recommended Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao, it’s every foodie’s dream. Don’t miss out on the ultimate comfort food experience! 

Sunday, Oct. 6, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Sixth Ave. between W 31st and W 32nd St., Manhattan 

3. Open House New York 

Unlock all the hidden wonders of NYC! For one weekend only, Open House New York offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at over 250 of the city’s most legendary spots. The Nitehawk Prospect Park Rooftop, the NYC Municipal Archives, and the Colossal Media Paint Shop are just a few of the places that you’ll get exclusive access to!

Friday, Oct. 18, through Sunday, Oct. 20; Various locations throughout New York City

4. Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade

Dogs in costumes. Do we have your attention? Bring your own pup to the 33rd Annual Tompkins Square Pet Parade or grab some friends to cheer on the furry contestants. It’s a paw-fect way to get into the Halloween spirit!

Monday, Oct. 21, 1 – 3 p.m.; Tompkins Square, Manhattan 

5. Bronx Halloween Parade

A spooky spectacle awaits you at the Bronx’s 39th Annual Halloween Parade! This year’s theme is zombie apocalypse, so round up your crew and dive into the fright-filled fun!

Saturday, Oct. 26, 12 – 3:30 p.m.; Westchester Avenue and Southern Boulevard, Bronx

“This memoir stands out for a particularly gripping kind of sentience in the storytelling,” said Amy Aronson, professor of communication and media studies and director of the Sperber Prize. “Ferguson knows how and when to report the cruel, jagged facts of conflict and when to insert herself into the experience of confronting them, humanizing the stakes, bringing us in.”

The prize honors the late Ann M. Sperber, who wrote Murrow: His Life and Times, the critically acclaimed biography of journalist Edward R. Murrow. One edition of that work was published by Fordham University Press. The $1,000 award was established through the generous support of Ann’s mother Lisette Sperber to promote and encourage biographies and memoirs that focus on journalism and media. Fordham University’s Department of Communication and Media Studies has presented the award annually since 1999.

Jane Ferguson is an international correspondent for PBS Newshour and a contributor to The New Yorker who has reported from nearly every war front and humanitarian crisis of our time. As a journalist, she lived in Beirut and other cities in the Middle East for 14 years, reporting from the heart of conflicts in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Sudan, and Gaza. She reported from Yemen as protests grew into civil war during the Arab Spring. She was smuggled into rebel-held Syria as revolution became all-out war, traveling alone to film and document the Assad regime’s crackdown on its own people. 

Ferguson traveled to South Sudan in 2017 to cover the complicated conflict and humanitarian disaster engulfing the country, reporting on the widespread famine and horrific war crimes that were causing droves of people to flee. When the Taliban claimed Kabul, Afghanistan in 2021, she was one of the last Western journalists to remain at the airport to cover the United States’ withdrawal from the country.

As a Protestant who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles in the 1980s and 1990s, Ferguson is no stranger to sectarian violence. Journalism became a calling that could provide a small measure of justice. She previously received the prestigious George Polk Award, an Emmy Award, and an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award. 

Ferguson joins a storied list of previous Sperber Prize winners, including Robert Caro, Charles M. Blow, and Seymour M. Hersh. 

The award ceremony is Nov. 11 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus at 6:00 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

According to professor Jordan Alexander Stein, Ph.D., there are deeper truths left to explore through the lens of fantasy: Simone’s fantasies about herself, as well as those residing in our cultural imagination. 

“Fantasies always express something that is at some psychic level genuine to the person expressing them,” writes Stein in his new book, Fantasies of Nina Simone (Duke University Press, September 2024). The book is an exploration of Simone’s life and work, and the ways she constructed her artistic persona to claim race and gender privilege that weren’t available to her otherwise. It’s also an exploration of the public’s relationship with Simone, and how we’ve lost some of her complexity in making her an icon. 

A professor of comparative literature in Fordham’s English department, Stein draws his conception of fantasy from psychoanalysis, which holds that, like free association and “Freudian slips,” our idle daydreams offer insight into the unconscious mind. 

“Yes, fantasies can contain lies, falsehoods … and any number of other conscious or unconscious delusions,” Stein writes. “Yet the appearance of these dishonesties … tends very much to reflect things we honestly wish or desire.”

Breaking Barriers

According to Stein, who drew upon a vast archive of her performances, images, and writings for the book, we can find clues to Simone’s desires in her subtle artistic choices. The way she injected a word with unexpected melancholy, or the songs she chose to cover and the way she chose to cover them, often point to a wish to rise above the confines of her marginalized identity as a Black woman.

For example, Stein notes, when Simone covered Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan, she rarely switched the pronouns from “she” to “he” when singing about a love interest, as many singers do. Her choice to cover these white male artists at all is notable. Through her music, “she’s claiming certain kinds of race and gender privilege that weren’t afforded to her in other ways,” Stein said. 

A One-of-a-Kind Icon

So, why choose Nina Simone’s music for this exploration? Because, Stein said, “There’s nothing like it.” 

He related a story about ’90s musician Jeff Buckley covering “Lilac Wine” and calling it a “Nina Simone song” without seeming to realize he was covering a cover. “[Her music] is so unique and beautiful that people don’t even understand this is secondhand material. She’s so thoroughly made it hers. It’s a power that some artists have, but not many,” said Stein. 

And what about our collective fantasies of Nina Simone? Psychoanalysts might say she’s reached archetypal status, a shorthand for Black female genius, empowerment, and transcendence. Stein notes that it’s easy to forget she never got to view herself from our future vantage point, a distance that blurs much of the messy nuance of an extraordinary life. 

He hopes to restore some of it. 

“The reputations people have after they die are not always the complexity they lived in,” he said. “To honor both things and not collapse them into each other is part of the project of the book.”

They are: Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette’s Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists (MIT Press, 2023); Santi Elijah Holley’s An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created (Mariner, 2024); Jane Ferguson’s No Ordinary Assignment: A Memoir (Mariner, 2023); Alan Philps’, The Red Hotel: Moscow 1941, the Metropol Hotel, and the Untold Story of Stalin’s Propaganda War (Pegasus Books, 2023); and Ari Shapiro’s The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening (HarperOne, 2024). 

Honoring a Storied Biographer

The Sperber Prize is given in honor of the late Ann M. Sperber, the author of Murrow: His Life and Times, the critically acclaimed biography of journalist Edward R. Murrow. One edition of that work was published by Fordham University Press, connecting the Sperber family to the university.

Through the generous support of Ann’s mother, Lisette, the $1,000 award was established to promote and encourage biographies and memoirs that focus on a media professional. It has been presented annually by Fordham University’s Department of Communication and Media Studies since 1999. 

Professor of Communication and Media Studies Amy Aronson, Ph.D., director of the Sperber Prize, said the five finalists emerged from a pool of 48 titles considered for this year’s award. The winner will receive a $1,000 prize and be invited to keynote a public award ceremony held at Fordham’s Manhattan campus on November 11. The 6 p.m. event is free and open to the public.

“Our finalists take readers to profound encounters in less-traveled corners of the U.S. and the world,” Aronson said. 

“They take us behind the front lines in dangerous conflict zones, reveal hidden stories of journalistic risk-taking, and into carefully researched biographies of public visionaries.  All show us the vital importance of journalists and media voices in the world today.” 

Previous winners of the Sperber Prize include Working by Robert Caro, Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow, Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley, Lives of Margaret Fuller by John Matteson, Reporter by Seymour M. Hersh, The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century by Alan Brinkley, Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb, and All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone by Myra MacPherson. The most recent winner was The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler by Kathryn Olmsted. 

The Finalists

LaFollette’s Writing for Their Lives profiles the first generation of women reporters who worked for Science Service, the first news organization in the country dedicated entirely to scientific journalism.  LaFollette, author of Science on American Television, reveals that when the Service began in 1921, very few journalism organizations covered science at all, and those that did treated the subject cavalierly, putting any science hobbyist already on staff onto the rare stories deemed important enough to cover. They were all male hobbyists, of course. LaFollette explores how an aspiring and ambitious group of women writers confronted pervasive sexism and gender discrimination to create meaningful careers for themselves while developing a new and increasingly crucial journalistic beat.

Tupac Shakur, the late rapper who was killed in 1996 at the age of 25, was the “spark” for Holley’s An Amerikan Family, which explores the story of the Shakur family and their work for Black liberation in America. Some may be familiar with the rapper’s mother, Assata Shakur, the activist and writer for the Black Panther Party newsletter, living for three decades in Cuban exile, and many have come to know at least something about the iconic Tupac, her son. But Holley, a writer published in the Atlantic, New Republic, Economist, Guardian, and Washington Post, reveals that the branches of the Shakur family tree spread widely and ran deep into the underground of the civil rights struggle. The book is both a family genealogy and a larger story of one community’s struggle for racial justice, taking extreme, unconventional, and often perilous measures in that quest. 

Ferguson’s No Ordinary Assignment is the memoir of a journalist who has covered nearly every war and humanitarian crisis of our time. A correspondent for PBS NewsHour, Ferguson was in Yemen for the Arab Spring. She managed to report from rebel-held Syria during its civil war despite the ban on foreign journalists. She was one of the last reporters to remain in Afghanistan when the Taliban claimed Kabul in 2021. Born and raised a Protestant in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Ferguson is no stranger to sectarian violence or grave suffering. Her debut book chronicles the story of a remarkable woman coming into her own in the world’s most perilous and devastating circumstances as she dares to tell the hardest stories on earth as an act of justice.

Philps’ The Red Hotel takes readers inside the experiences of a cadre of American, British, and Australian journalists who reported from Moscow when Hitler invaded Russia in the summer of 1941. They were allowed to stay and report on the war at the Eastern front – as long as their stories were flattering to the Stalin regime. To help ensure this impossibly good press, they were billeted at the luxurious Metropol Hotel and supplied with bottomless vessels of vodka, lavish banquets, and young Russian secretaries and translators who were spies and sometimes prostitutes. Philps, who served as Moscow correspondent for Reuters and foreign editor of the Telegraph, reveals that while many of the translators conveyed Kremlin disinformation, some were dissidents who whispered to reporters about the truth of Soviet life and Stalin’s lies. 

Shapiro’s The Best Strangers in the World takes readers around the globe to reveal the stories behind the sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking narratives he reports to his listeners. The co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, this book, his first, takes readers from Turkey to Ukraine to Indonesia to Northern Iraq; from drag shows in Florida to the corridors of power in Washington, DC; from war-torn locales in the Middle East and Africa as he follows the paths of refugees fleeing conflict to big cities and small towns.  The result is a memoir-in-essays that is a love letter to journalism and a look at scores of individuals who not only refuse to break but also manage to confront life’s ugliness with beauty, meet horror with humor, and smile in the face of whatever might come next.  

For additional information, questions, or press inquiries, please contact Amy Aronson at [email protected].

Check out our list of things to do in NYC!

1. Bronx Zoo: Free Wednesdays

Check out the largest urban zoo in the United States, just steps from our Rose Hill campus! The Bronx Zoo has more than 10,000 animals—and you can visit for free on Wednesdays. Just reserve tickets online after 5 p.m. on Monday. 

Every Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; The Bronx Zoo

2. West Side Fest 

What can we say? Manhattan’s West Side holds a special place in our hearts. Explore the area’s vibrant arts and culture with free festival access to museums and special events at Little Island, the Whitney Museum, Poster House, and more.

July 12 – 14; Various locations on the West Side of Manhattan 

3. Sunset Wednesdays at Wave Hill

Picture this: you, your besties, a picnic basket, and a view of the Hudson River at sunset. Wave Hill’s annual summer tradition brings exciting performances to their Great Lawn every Wednesday evening in July. 

Every Wednesday in July, 7 – 8 p.m.; Wave Hill, Bronx

4. Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Series 

Experience the magic of Lincoln Center all summer long! From swing dancing to musical theater storytime to performances for India Week, there’s something for everyone right next door to our Lincoln Center campus. Check out the schedule.

Various events through Aug. 10; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Manhattan 

5. Salsa Sundays at Orchard Beach

Did you know the Bronx is known as “El Condado de la Salsa” (The Borough of Salsa)? With a deep history in salsa and Latin jazz, there’s no better place to grab a few friends and practice your salsa moves. Head to the beach and dance the day away!

Every Sunday until Labor Day, 12 – 5 p.m.; Parking Section 5, Orchard Beach, Bronx

Dede Ayite, an adjunct professor in the Fordham Theatre program, became the first Black woman to win Best Costume Design of a Play for her work on Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. It was her first Tony award.

“Thank you to all of the costume shops and makers who truly move the needle in terms of getting the glitz and the glam onstage,” she said in an acceptance speech that also credited family and friends from her native Ghana.

“Without them, I would not be here. The show would not look as amazing as it does.”

Ayite, who teaches the Costume Design course at Fordham, was nominated in two Tony categories for her work on three productions—Best Costume Design of a Play for both Appropriate and Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and Best Costume Design of a Musical for Hell’s Kitchen. 

Johnson, an adjunct professor who teaches the Creative Producing course for Fordham Theatre, also took home a Tony for his role as producer for Stereophonic, which won for best play.

It was Johnson’s ninth win since 2013, when he won his first Tony as a producer for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. 

Stereophonic, which follows a fictional 1970s rock band on the cusp of superstardom as they struggle through recording their new album, won four other Tony Awards. 

Fellow Fordham graduate Tom Pecinka, FCLC ’10, who made his Broadway acting debut in Stereophonic and was nominated for a Tony for his performance, joined Johnson on stage at the Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater with the cast and crew.

Including Ayite and Johnson, eight members of the Fordham community were nominated for Tony Awards this year.

Watch below as Frank DiLella, FCLC ’06, host of the Spectrum News NY 1 show On Stage, interviews Pecinka on the red carpet before the show.