An invitation to a private baptism and communion from a close family friend not only led the Puliafito family to the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis resides, but to an encounter with the Pope himself.

Puliafito said her friend Adrian Pallarols had met Pope Francis when the pope was still serving as a cardinal in Argentina. A silversmith by trade, Pallarols had worked for then-Cardinal Bergoglio and has since crafted all of the pope’s chalices. They have remained very close, making the pope a father figure in Pallarols’ eyes.

Typically, the Domus Sanctae Marthae has high security measures, not even allowing visitors to bring in a bag. However, in a room of about 14 people, Puliafito said she had a different experience.

“I was allowed to bring my stroller in, and the kids were using the hallway as their own personal play area,” she said. “It was surreal.”

Puliafito was hesitant to allow her son, Loual Jr., to roam free in the beloved room, but decided it would be fine once she saw how “warm and grandfather-like” the pope was.

“As soon as I put my son down, he started crawling up to the altar and looked up at him. My son was very calm, and Pope Francis definitely has a spiritual aura. It was a sweet moment to experience.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, had given Puliafito some books which were received and blessed by the pope. He gave everyone an individual blessing and blessed anything that the visitors had chosen to bring with them—from pins to crosses to everything in between.

The group communicated in Spanish, said Puliafito. “My husband had a beautiful speech prepared, but all I managed to get out was ‘I pray for you’—to which the pope responded ‘Good. I need it.’”

From hearing about the times Pope Francis would enjoy tea and cookies with his friend Adrian when they were both in Argentina to seeing him interact with the children, Puliafito left Rome viewing Pope Francis as a true pastor.

“He’s a pope of the people,” she said.

— Veronika Kero 

Horrors of War: From Goya to Nachtwey showcases the classic work of 18th-century painter Francisco de Goya y Lucientes aside modern-day photographer James Nachtwey. The work will be on display in in Canisius Hall through the end of the fall semester.

“In these photographs and in the face of isolation, there is presence and compassion,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “That is what the institute is about.”

Nachtwey said he was honored to place his photographs alongside the work of the painter Goya, who he called the “first war photographer.” Together, the works highlight both the darkness and the hope found in the tragedies of war. 

Goya’s work is from his Los desastres de la guerra [The Disasters of War] series. The series consists of  82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 showcasing the conflict between Spain and France. Seventeen out of the 82 prints were reproduced from originals that are held in The Hispanic Society Museum and Library.

Nachtwey’s work captures scenes through the eyes of humanitarian crisis workers and their subjects. Among the images in Horrors of War are a mother clutching her child amidst a debris-strewn landscape; a young woman lying in a hospital bed; and a man, who’d lost a leg in conflict, attempting to mount a surfboard.

“These are not easy to look at and yet difficult to look away from,” said IIHA Executive Director Brendan Cahill.

“A lot of times humanitarian workers are unable to process what they see on a daily basis, so these images bring their reality to life for someone who may never find themselves in that circumstance,” said Angela Wells, IIHA communications officer.

The exhibition is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

-Veronika Kero 

Celia B. Fisher, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
Marie Ward Doty professor of psychology and director of the Fordham Center for Ethics Education, received an award from the American Psychological Association for Outstanding Contributions to Ethics Education in August 2017.

Heather Gautney, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
associate professor of sociology, is currently serving on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee as a senior policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, the Committee’s ranking member.

Sister Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., ADM,
research associate for the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society, was honored by the House of Delegates of the New York District Kiwanis International in Lake Placid, NY for her work on the $110 million global campaign to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in August 2017.

Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
associate professor of biology, has assumed the role of Fordham’s Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA, replacing David Glenwick, professor of psychology, who completed his 3-year term over the summer.

Haruka Minami, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
assistant professor in psychology, published “Ecological momentary analysis of the relations among stressful events, affective reactivity, and smoking among smokers with high vs. low depressive symptoms during a quit attempt: Affective reactivity during a quit attempt”, along with “Development and preliminary pilot evaluation of a brief tablet computer intervention to motivate tobacco quitline use among smokers in substance use treatment: Brief Tablet Intervention to Motivate Quitline Use” in American Journal on Addictions in August 2017.

Francis Petit, Ph.D., GABELLI,
associate Dean for Global Initiatives and Partnerships, was recently interviewed on The Deming Institute Podcast on “West Meets East -JUSE Trip Report” which discussed Fordham’s Executive MBA recent site visit to Japan’s Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) in Tokyo in April 2017.

Barry Rosenfeld, PH.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
professor of psychology and department chairperson, published “Confirmatory factor analysis of the Beck Depression Inventory–II in patients with advanced cancer: A theory-driven approach” in Palliative and Supportive Care in August 2017.

Tiffany Yip, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES,
professor of psychology and director of Applied Developmental Psychology Program published “Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences” in August 2017.

The achievements and “spiritual” impact of his music is why he was the subject of a conference, Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred, held in May at McNally Amphitheatre, said Holsberg.

The conference was the result of a collaboration between the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham and the Sacred Arts Initiative of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. It sought to gain new answers as to how Pärt’s music affects the spiritual nature of humans.

The dual focus of the conference, that of sound and the sacred, sparked discussion on the duality of his music.

“The conference made real gains in furthering Pärt studies, moving them from exclusively musicological discussions to engaging perspectives from philosophy, theology, cultural history, performers, and others,” said Holsberg, “Pärt’s music affects not only listeners in the seats of concert halls, or those listening with earphones in the comfort of their homes, but the musicians who listen as they also bring the music to life.”

The four-day conference included keynote addresses, a special performer’s panel, and a public concert held at Holy Trinity Church featuring the Goeyvaerts String Trio, Andrew Shenton, and Yousif Sheronick.

The performer’s panel included Juilliard conductor Joel Sachs, and the recording and performance artist Laurie Anderson.

Two Fordham professors, Andrew Albin, Ph.D., and Sevin Yaraman, Ph.D., were among those who delivered addresses.

Using the the medieval chant traditions that can be found in Pärt’s work, Albin illuminated how sound works in distinct ways in the poetry of Richard Rolle and in the work of Arvo Pärt.

Yaraman gave the listeners a sense of how “sound” and “the sacred” in different faith traditions can still fundamentally function at similar levels.

“For the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Arvo Pärt represents in many ways the musical embodiment of the center’s ecumenical nature,” said Holsberg.

-Veronika Kero 

Leonard Cassuto, Ph.D., professor of English and American Studies and author of The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (Harvard, 2015)

“At the top of my summer book stack is Laura Kipnis’ new book,  Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus (Harper, 2017). Kipnis’ investigation of the Title IX excesses on many American campuses has a personal side: When she wrote an article about a Title IX investigation at her own university, she found herself the subject of an investigation, too–and that inquiry helped to inspire this book. This is a book about current events, indeed.”

Bill Baker, Ph.D., director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy, and Education

“My summer reading gets a double dip as I read sitting in the lantern room of a lighthouse we care for in Nova Scotia (Henry Island). This year I’ll be reading Enough Said (St. Martin’s Press, 2016) by Mark Thompson, the New York Times Company president and former BBC Director General. He has written a powerful book about what’s gone wrong with the language of politics. I’ll also be reading The Naked Now (The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009) by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who writes some of the most powerful meditative philosophy I’ve ever read. A lighthouse is a good place to read about God and the spiritual light.”

James McCartin, Ph.D., associate professor of theology

“As a father of three young kids, I’ve grown to appreciate books that offer a window into how children see the world–maybe in an effort to figure out my own kids. Therefore, my summer reading season begins with two childhood memoirs. The first is Maurice O’Sullivan’s Twenty Years a-Growing (J.S. Sanders Books, 1998), set on a remote island in the southwest of Ireland a century ago, and the second will be Carlos Eire’s Waiting for Snow in Havana (Free Press, 2004) which narrates his story as an immigrant growing up between Cuba and the United States in the 1960s. Then, I’ll pick up a book I started last summer but put down as the school year began, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. As to Dostoyevsky, I’ve long been embarrassed to say that I’ve never read him, so now’s my chance to put the embarrassment behind me.”

Heather Dubrow, Ph.D., John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in Poetic Imagination and the director of Poets Out Loud

“A growing pile of books in my field has been staring at me balefully from my night table for some time, and before they topple over I hope particularly to read more  sections of two of them that I have dipped into only briefly before: Brian Cummings’ The Literary Culture of the Reformation (Oxford, 2002) and Reuben Brower’s Fields of Light (Greenwood Press, 1980). I am in the middle of an extraordinary magical realist novel, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House, 2017), as well as some volumes of poetry, such as Alicia Ostriker’s latest, Waiting for the Light (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).

Christina M. Greer, Ph.D., associate professor and associate chair of the political science department

“Since I am preparing to write a lot this summer, I tend to read fiction to help me ‘hear’ language better. Right now I am finishing a series of short stories by Mia Alvar, In the Country (Oneworld Publications, 2016) about Filipino migrations and relationships. I plan on finishing Luther Campbell’s’ memoir The Book of Luke: My Fight for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City (HarperCollins, 2015) about Liberty City, Miami, Florida. He’s a controversial figure, but his analysis of residential racism and segregation in Miami is fascinating. I am also going to read Underground Airlines (Random House, 2016) by Ben Winters, an alternative history of life in the U.S. had the Civil War never happened. [And] since I am teaching Congress in the fall, I’ll likely begin rereading Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate (Vintage Books, 2003), about my favorite president and brilliant congressman, LBJ.”  

Barbara Mundy, Ph.D., professor of art history

“My summer reading list is heavy with books on cities, a topic I’ve written a lot about. At the top is Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach (Simon & Schuster, 2017), a novel set in New York in the 1940s, and I’m getting ready to devour it as soon as I get through my end-of-year reports. David Lida is a Mexico-City-based writer; I can dip into his book of short essays, Las llaves de la ciudad (Sexto Piso, 2008) [Keys to the City], whenever I need to be transported to one of my favorite cities in the world. And then there’s Small Spaces, Beautiful Kitchens (Rockport Publishers, 2003) by Tara McLellan; I’m downsizing to an apartment and trying to figure out how to cram all my cooking gear (fermentation is much on my mind) into a smaller space.”

Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center

“The number one book on my summer reading list is Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved By Beauty (Scriber, 2017), by Dorothy Day’s granddaughter Kate Hennessy.  When I was a high school student at Xavier, we sometimes went to the Catholic Worker House on the Lower East Side, and I had the honor to meet Dorothy Day a couple of times.  When Kate Hennessy spoke at the Fordham Rose Hill campus this year, I was unable to attend, so I’ll make up for missing that event with reading her book.”

Laura Wernick, Ph.D., professor of social work in the Graduate School of Social Service

“Given our political climate and the rise of the alt-right, coupled with ongoing investigations and hearings surrounding Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign, my reading list is focused upon understanding this context and history. Having just read Dark Money and Trump Revealed (Doubleday, 2016), my summer reading list has included All the President’s Men (Pocket Books, 2005) and The Final Days (Simon & Schuster, 2005), along with Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face (Riverhead Books, 2012), a critical read to understand the rise and power of Putin. I plan on following this with a series of edited volumes about hope and moving forward from the resistance movement.”  

Mary Beth Werdel, Ph.D., associate professor of pastoral counseling and director of the Pastoral Care and Counseling program at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education

“I will be reading The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015) by Bessel van der Kolk. The book examines holistic approaches to trauma work. I’m interested in the way that spirituality relates to stress related growth, which is the examination of positive psychological consequences of moving through stress. I have a book contract related to the topic. This book touches on related themes of trauma and whole body healing.”

–Veronika Kero

Gary Keenan, a New York City poet who was chosen as the POL prize winner for his manuscript Rotary Devotion, and New Englander Michael Snediker, winner of the Editor’s Prize for his manuscript The New York Editions, who is currently teaching in Houston. Next fall Fordham University Press will publish the winners’ submissions, and a book launch will be held.

After the sudden and tragic death of the poet C.D. Wright, who had been chosen to decide this year’s POL prize winner, fellow poet Alice Fulton was asked to step in as a judge. On Keenan’s Rotary Devotion she wrote: “Rotary Devotion is deeply attentive to the rigors and joys of being alive, and it conveys this consciousness with delicacy and wit.”

POL co-director Elisabeth Frost, Ph.D., who edits the book prize series, selected Snediker as the Editor’s prize winner and wrote: “I am familiar with no other poet who creates such a sensual and embodied language, while at the same time providing such intellectual richness.”

Founded in 1999, the POL book prize series selects between hundreds of entries each year. Two are published. “We receive manuscripts of extraordinary quality and beauty,” writes Frost. “We truly regret that our resources do not allow us to publish more volumes.”

POL co-director Heather Dubrow, Ph.D., assisted in the competition as a preliminary reader, and screened over 25 entries. “Any screener of these manuscripts realizes how much first-rate poetry there is out there, and hence what an honor it is to win or be listed as a finalist,” she said. “The prize books bring national visibility to the POL program.”

In 2017 the Poets Out Loud reading series will celebrate its 25th anniversary. The series hosts free public readings at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, wherein poets are invited to read their work to an audience. You can learn more about these events here.

– Kiran Singh

Pinsky, a former saxophonist, has said the excitement and tension of jazz still inspire him as a poet. He said he writes with the audience as his medium, and he believes his work will not live until it’s read in someone else’s voice, and given volume. In the same sense then, it can be said that Pinsky has allowed Dante’s Inferno to live a little louder in his American translation.

As to his unique opinions on the poem, Pinsky had this to tell his Lincoln Center audience: “This is not a poem about punishment, but the sin of despair… the agony of feeling defective and being defective… I believe Inferno is the best book ever written about depression.”

The Fordham Reads Dante initiative meets once a month to read and discuss Dante’s Divina Commedia. Their next discussion will be on Sept. 22, at 5:30 p.m. in Faber Hall 568 on the Rose Hill campus.

– Kiran Singh

“I admire actors so much. They bare their soul. They rip their skin open, take their heart out, and go like this—” said JoAnne Akalaitis, her hand outstretched. “Night after night after night. It’s amazing what they do.”

The significance of one’s own story is at the core of this year’s advanced acting class, thanks to the leadership of Akalaitis, the fifth Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre.

“I think the bottom line with acting is emotion,” said Akalaitis, an award-winning director. “What an actor uses is his or her imagination and personal history—especially that history—to invent their characters.”

A “giant in American theater,” as Fordham Theatre program Director Matthew Maguire described her, Akalaitis is the second director to be named to the chair, following Kenny Leon in 2014. Over her decades-long career, which includes five Obie Awards and a Drama Desk award for direction and sustained achievement, Akalaitis has become renowned both for her original work and for her reimagining of classic works by Euripides, Shakespeare, Beckett, and others.

Creating a character

In her class, Creating a Character, Akalaitis is helping Fordham acting students delve deep into their art. The students work together on scenes from plays, paying special attention to believability, honesty, understanding storyline, and being in touch with both one’s body and one’s emotions. To do this, actors must go back into their own past experiences. By drawing on real emotions, actors can truly empathize with their characters, rather than merely impersonating them.

“If you’re 18 years old, you’ve got 18 years to work with,” Akalaitis said. “A lot can happen in 18 years.”

Before becoming a director, Akalaitis spent 22 years as an actor. She studied with the Actor’s Workshop in San Francisco, the Open Theater in New York, and with acting virtuoso Jerzy Grotowski. From Grotowski she gained her appreciation for the “medium” actors use to create their art: namely, their personal histories.

Eventually, though, Akalaitis realized that she did not want to spend her career relentlessly revisiting the past—nor did she like acting very much.

“I only liked rehearsal, not performing,” she said. “I was interested in the process, not in repetition.”

Still, her work as an actor became the foundation of her ethos as a director. Theater, she believes, is an “unlonely pursuit.” It is unique in the sense that it is a collaborative process. Each stakeholder in a play—from directors, to playwrights, to actors—has an equally important role in bringing the story to life.

It was this philosophy of collaboration that she had in mind when she founded the critically acclaimed Mabou Mines theater company in 1970 with her ex-husband, composer Philip Glass. Located in New York City’s East Village, the company is an artist-driven coalition dedicated to experimental theater.

“Actors could become writers, writers could become directors, directors could become designers,” she said of Mabou Mines, where she remains a mentor in the resident artist program. “We supported each other in a way that was very unusual. I didn’t ever have to ‘break into’ any [new undertaking]. It was there for me.”

Teaching the next generation of characters

Akalaitis has had scores of young actors under her tutelage. Before occupying the chair endowed by Fordham alumnus Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, Akalaitis has done workshops and taught at various universities, including Yale, Harvard, and her alma mater, the University of Chicago. She also holds two named professorships—the Wallace Benjamin Flint and L. May Hawver Flint Professor of Theater at Bard College and the Andrew Mellon Co-chair of the Directing Program at Juilliard.

“I like being in urban universities. It feels as if the world is passing through,” she said.

Her stint at Fordham marks her first experience at a Jesuit school (“Though, [in high school]I was an incredible fan of the St. Ignatius basketball team on the west side of Chicago,” she noted), and she says she can appreciate the differences.

“I’m impressed at the diversity here [at Fordham],” she said. “There’s a variety of types and styles and ways of thinking. It feeds into a very refreshing creative energy… And the camaraderie between students in the theatre program is inspiring.”

Meanwhile, Akalaitis is also working on a play she has called Bad News! i Was There…, a compilation of messenger speeches—the bearers of bad news—from classical plays.

It’s the sort of pursuit that she wouldn’t be able to turn down even she wanted to.

“Every once in a while I make these announcements that I’m giving up theater for good,” she said. “I call people and tell them I’m giving it up, but no one takes it that seriously.”

“So, [in the case of Bad News,]about two years ago I’d given it up again when someone from Poets House called and asked me to do something for the River to River Festival. I said, ‘No, I’m not in the theater anymore.’

“But then I had an idea for a new show.”

Cross Country
The men’s cross country team capped the season by winning the 2006 IC4A University Division team championship on Nov. 18, taking first out of 19 teams to win its second ever IC4A championship on the five-mile course. The Rams were led by Matt Lowenthal (26:14.5), Tom Finnerty (26:16.3), and Frank Corrigan (26:16.7), who finished 9th, 10th, and 11th, respectively.

Women’s Soccer
The Fordham Rams defeated La Salle (3-2) and Charlotte (2-1) in the first two days of competition to advance to the 2006 Atlantic 10 Women’s Soccer championship game for the first time in school history. Unfortunately, the Rams fell to the host team, Saint Louis, 2-1, in the final. Elisabeth Roald, Alexis Ribadeneyra, and Catherine Huvane were named to the Atlantic 10 All-Championship team as the team finished with a 14-7 record, the most wins in school history.

Men’s Soccer
The Fordham men’s team just missed out on making the Atlantic 10 Championships, finishing with a 9-3-5 overall record, 3-3-3 in the Atlantic 10. Junior midfielder Kevin Meyer was named Second-Team All-Atlantic 10 while senior forward Omero Rozen and sophomore defender John Pardini were each named Honorable Mention All-Conference.

Football

The Rams closed out 2006 with a 3-9 record, capping the season with a 38-30 win over Georgetown. Three Rams were honored by the Patriot League upon the conclusion of the campaign, with Marcus Taylor named the 2006 Defensive Player of the Year and junior punter Benjamin Dato and senior defensive lineman Jay Edwards earning First- and Second-Team All-League honors, respectively.

Volleyball
The Fordham Volleyball Rams closed out the season with a seven-game winning streak, which propelled them into the Atlantic 10 Championships for the first time in school history. But the Rams’ stay at the championships was short, as they fell to eventual tournament winners, Saint Louis, 3-0. The Rams had four players receive postseason awards: seniors Tasha Johnston and Marija Markovic were selected Second-Team All-Atlantic 10, while seniors Jamee Stimson and Kealia Ieremia were named Honorable Mention by the conference.

Water Polo
The polo Rams closed out the season with an 11-11-1 record, the first season of .500 or better since the mid-1980s, and finished in fifth place at the Northern Division Championships. Sophomore Todd Conway was named First Team All-Conference by the Collegiate Water Polo Association. This is the second straight season a Fordham water polo player has been honored, as Paul Shrewsbury garnered Second Team honors last season

Men’s Basketball

After a season-opening win over Sacred Heart, the Rams traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to participate in the 2006 Preseason NIT. The Rams opened the tournament by giving 25th-ranked Tennessee all they could handle, valiantly falling to the Vols, 78-71. Fordham then dropped the regional consolation game to Belmont, 56-49. After a 12-day layoff, the Rams came back to defeat St. Francis at home, 76-49.

Swimming
The Fordham women’s swimming squad is off to a 5-1 start while the men stand at 3-3. The women have also been busy setting school records, the latest coming in the Rhode Island/Duquesne tri-meet on Nov. 18 when freshmen Caitlin Napoli set two new standards. She started the day by breaking Fordham’s 200-yard freestyle record with a time of 1:52.97, besting Katie Greiner’s record of 1:53.84 (set in 2004). Napoli then broke her own 200-yard butterfly record with a 2:04.60 clocking, besting her own mark of 2:06.05 set earlier this year.

This winter feels colder than ever,
or maybe I’m just more sensitive
these days,
when the wind is
a fire engine
and the moon is sinister
and blue.

– ©Dorothea Gross, 2011

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