As of May 18, Fordham undergraduates, graduate students, and alumni have received 62 prestigious awards this year, including three Fulbrights, a Critical Language Scholarship, 10 Excellence in Broadcasting awards, three Gates Millennium Scholarships, a Ford predoctoral fellowship, a Marshall award winner, three National Science Foundation fellowships, a Soros fellowship winner, a prestigious DAAD Long-Term Research Grant, and an internship in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In addition to the winners, two scholars were named as finalists for prestigious awards, including a Coro fellowship finalist, and 21 were named as semi-finalists.

“Despite the many challenges that the global pandemic presented, the Campion Institute saw a record number of applicants who persevered through a rigorous application process and learned a lot about themselves, their values, and the contribution they hope to make to the world,” said Anna Beskin, Ph.D., interim director of the Office of Prestigious Fellowships. “We couldn’t be prouder of all of our applicants!”

Alejandra Garcia, FCLC ’21, who majored in visual arts and English, won a U.S. Fulbright Student Arts Program award to France. Garcia, who grew up in San Diego, near the U.S. border with Mexico, said a lot of her painting and drawing has focused on migration and immigration, something she hopes to explore more in France.

“I’m pretty interested in the different or similar attitudes towards migration—I’m from a border city—and I think I have a very particular view of my own experiences with xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments and things of that sort. And I am very curious to learn about how that is handled in France and in Europe,” she said. “I really want to work with immigrant communities there rather than just learn about it from an outsider perspective. I want to be integrated and hear from those actual voices.”

Garcia said she’ll be working on her immigration studies with the Paris College of Art, and, hopefully, the National Museum of History of Immigration. She’ll also be working with the Paris College of Art on their “Drawing is Free” program, which invites the public in to use their resources and create art.

“That was something that I was really attracted to, because something that I really believe in is expanding artistic accessibility to other people,” she said.

Garcia said her goal is to pursue U.S. artist-in-residence opportunities after her Fulbright and pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in a few years.

Matias Ayala, PCS ’21, won a U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs IT Fellowship. Ayala, who came to Fordham after serving in the Marine Corps, said his time in the military made him interested in cybersecurity and information technology.

“I started hearing a lot about cybersecurity, mainly in our deployment briefings. We heard a lot about how to remain secure and make sure that we’re not exposing ourselves from a cyber standpoint,” said Ayala, who is graduating with his bachelor’s degree in information technology and systems.

Ayala said that Fordham’s program is a good fit for veterans.

“They’ve been targeting veterans because of our experience—we have a certain mindset that’s very good within cybersecurity, being able to analyze it and act on intelligence,” he said, adding that Fordham’s location was also ideal for him. “I have family here in New York City, so I figured that was a good transition—I could move in with family while I got my feet back under me.”

The fellowship, which Ayala will complete while pursuing a master’s in information technology at Fordham, will expose him to different areas of the State Department and allow him to gain experience through two summer internships. After the fellowship ends, Ayala said he would be offered a five-year contract to continue working at the State Department.

Ayala credits Fordham’s Veterans Center and his internship with the University’s Information Security Office for helping him earn this fellowship.

“Fordham gives us the tools to make sure that our veterans that are transitioning from the military to the civilian sector are able to get a good job and be successful,” he said.

When Alison Rini, FCRH ’21, was in high school, she participated in a two-month high school exchange program in Spain, staying with a family about 30 minutes outside of Madrid. That experience made her fall in love with Spain, so when she was applying for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, she applied for one there. Her bid was successful, and the English and Italian Studies major said she’s excited for the opportunity to teach students about American culture and immerse herself in the Spanish capital’s “Global Classrooms” program.

“In Madrid, there is the Global Classrooms program, which is essentially Model United Nations. I do Model U.N. at Fordham, I did it in high school. And so I was really excited about the possibility of teaching Model U.N. to a ninth-grade class,” she said, adding that she would help them compete with other students and get the chance to travel to New York.

Rini, who served as a researcher in Fordham’s Bronx African-American History Project, Bronx Italian-American History Initiative, and Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project, said that she’s going to use this opportunity to explore teaching as a career and reconnect with her classmates from her high school exchange program. A former intern in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rini is also considering a career in the federal government.

Seana Epley, GSAS ’21, won the Critical Language Scholarship in back-to-back years in 2020 and 2021 to study and learn Swahili, initially in Tanzania, but now virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Epley, who is getting her master’s in humanitarian studies after earning an undergraduate degree in disaster response and emergency management from the University of North Texas, said she always had a desire to work on the African continent, which is what inspired her to pursue Swahili.

The program will run virtually over the summer for eight weeks and Epley said she plans to try to immerse herself in the language as much as possible to help her apply to nonprofits who are working on disaster response in the region.

“I felt like I could be of more use if I had a language that was applicable,” she said.

Epley said that while the phrase “build back better” has become cliche, she does want to do work that helps communities be stronger after a disaster.

“If you’re going into a community that’s been impacted by a disaster, you don’t want to build to the exact same standards, … because that’s just asking for more damage next time,” she said. “The ultimate goal of most humanitarians is to not be needed someday…I’d like to work with an organization that supplements those [community]specific skills and doesn’t just come in and take over.”

As of May 18, prestigious awards received this year include:

• Gates Millennium Scholars: Adiza Awwal, GSAS ’25; Mary Bookman, FCLC ’24; Arely Garcia, GSE ’25
• Marshall Award: Kayla Matteucci, FCLC ’18
• Ford Predoctoral Fellowship: Obianujunwa Anakwenze, GSAS ’24
• Soros Fellowship: Nikolas Oktaba, FCLC ’15
• Tibor T. Polgar Fellowship from the Hudson River Foundation: Royall McMahon Ward, FCLC ’22
• DAAD Long-Term Research Grant: Kathryn Bresee, GSAS ’23
• Awards for Excellence in Broadcasting: Anthony Alaimo, FCRH ’23, and Rebecca Gutierrez, FCRH ’22, in the Professional Category for Outstanding Podcast; Emmanuel Berbari, FCRH ’21, for Outstanding Podcast; Dominic Capone, FCRH ’20 and Devin Clementi, GABELLI ’20, in the College Radio Division for Outstanding Sports Coverage; Carmen Collins, GSAS ’20, Nicholas DeLuca, FCRH ’22, in the College Radio Division for Outstanding Podcast; Evan Jaenichen, FCRH ’20, in College TV Division for Outstanding Series or Documentary; Charles Maisano, FCRH ’20, in the College Radio Division for Outstanding Sports Coverage; Eliot Schiaparelli, FCRH ’21, in College Radio Division for Outstanding Newscast
• Alliance for Women in Media Foundation 2021 Gracie Award: Carmen Collins, GSAS ’20, Nora Thomas, FCRH ’21
• New York Press Club Award: Brianna Leverty, FCRH ’20
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program: Daniel Alonso, GSAS ’30, April Rich, FCRH ’19; Micah Savin, GSAS ’28
• United States Department of Treasury Summer 2021 Internship in Washington D.C.: John Brower, GSAS ’25
• Civil Rights Fellow at the National Education Association: Laura Petty, LAW ’21
• Public Service Fellow to the U.S, Mission to the United Nations: Adam Brasher, GSAS ’25
• Panda Cares Scholars: Baghdad Numi, FCRH ’23; Annie Qiu, GABELLI ’24

One of the First Black Women Admitted to the New York Bar Graduated from Fordham Law

In 1921, Ruth Whitehead Whaley became the first black woman to enroll at Fordham Law School. She graduated at the top of her class in 1924 and, one year later, became one of the first black women admitted to practice law in New York.

Fordham Had the First Female Dean of Any U.S. Jesuit University

In 1939, Fordham chose Anna E. King, Ph.D., to be dean of the School of Social Service. King became not only Fordham’s first female dean but also the first female dean at any Jesuit university in the country. In 1945, she was elected president of the American Association of Schools of Social Service. That same year, she initiated the school’s first master’s degree program. She served as dean until 1954.

The First Black Woman in the Coast Guard Later Taught Psychology at Fordham

As a young girl in Oklahoma, Olivia Hooker, Ph.D., survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, hiding under her kitchen table as white men burned down her affluent black community. Twenty-four years later, she became the first black woman to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard. She taught psychology at Fordham from 1963 to 1985. In 2015, shortly before celebrating her 100th birthday, she reminisced about her time at Fordham: “Everybody helped each other and thought highly of each other and loved to be there.”

The Geraldine Ferraro Rose Grows on Campus

In 1984, Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee for president, selected New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, LAW ’60, as his running mate—the first time a national party nominated a woman for vice president of the United States. “There are no doors we cannot unlock,” the Fordham Law alumna said during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The ticket lost, but Ferraro helped place a new generation of women on equal—and more secure—footing with their male counterparts.

In 2007, Fordham honored her by hosting the ceremony introducing the Geraldine Ferraro rose. Sales of the hybrid tea rose funded studies and treatment of multiple myeloma, which Ferraro lived with for more than a decade before her death in 2011. The University planted the rose on the Lincoln Center campus.

Women Had Their Own Undergraduate College for 10 Years

In fall 1964, the University opened Thomas More College, an undergraduate school for women. Though women had been earning Fordham degrees in law, education, and social service for decades, the Thomas More students initiated a profound cultural shift. “It was a man’s world when we got here, but I think we quickly changed that,” Margaret Bia, M.D., TMC ’68, a member of the school’s first graduating class, recalled in 2014. The college closed in 1974, after Fordham College at Rose Hill began accepting women.

The Pioneer of Psychometrics was a Fordham Professor

Anne Anastasi, Ph.D., received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Prior to that, Anastasi taught psychology at Fordham from 1947 to 1985, and also chaired the department. Nicknamed the “test guru”, Anastasi wrote a textbook, Psychological Testing, in 1954 that is considered by many to be the definitive text in the field of testing. The book is in its 9th printing.

In 2008, Fordham created the Anne Anastasi Chair in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology in her honor; David V. Budescu, Ph.D., is the holder of the chair.

What many people don’t know about pigeons, says Carlen, a doctoral candidate who researches urban ecology and evolutionary biology, is that pigeons mate for life. Moreover, they work hard to keep the romance alive. When you walk down the street and see one pigeon fluffing its feathers and chasing after another, this is not a hapless bachelor pursuing an uninterested mate; this is a sign of a committed relationship.

“They constantly do their mating dance,” said Carlen, who was featured this morning on WNYC. “That’s one way they keep up their pair bond.”

Find the full WNYC story—which also discusses pigeons’ surprising ability to distinguish Monet paintings from Picassos—here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Scully, legendary Dodgers broadcaster and 1949 Fordham graduate, will receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom in a special ceremony at the White House this afternoon. The medal is presented to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

Scully joins an illustrious list of recipients, including philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates; basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; NASA scientist Margaret H. Hamilton; and actor Tom Hanks.

“The Presidential Medal of Freedom is not just our nation’s highest civilian honor—it’s a tribute to the idea that all of us, no matter where we come from, have the opportunity to change this country for the better,” President Obama said in a statement.

“From scientists, philanthropists, and public servants to activists, athletes, and artists, these 21 individuals have helped push America forward, inspiring millions of people around the world along the way.”

Watch the live ceremony starting at 2:55 p.m.

Masterson, a sophomore marketing major at the Gabelli School of Business, is the creator and owner of SNOX, a company that sells non-slip, non-skid grip socks and donates 100 percent of profits to charity.

“The socks are similar to what they have in hospitals, but it’s also a product everyone can use,” said Masterson, a Rhode Island native. “They’re great for yoga or Pilates, wearing around the house, or just using as regular socks.”

The idea for SNOX came when at the age of 14 Masterson developed a four-inch blood clot in her arm. She was admitted to the hematology floor of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), California, where most of the other patients were battling blood cancers.

She vowed that when she got better she would find a way to give back to the hospital and its young patients.

With the encouragement of her parents, who are both entrepreneurs, Masterson opted to launch a company so that she could donate on a regular basis. She thought back to the non-slip (“really unattractive”) socks that the hospital issued to all of its patients, and decided to make a more child- and teenage-friendly version.

“My parents raised me to be socially conscious, and we always did a lot of volunteer work,” she said. “At the time, I didn’t need an income for myself—I babysat, and it’s not as though I needed for anything—so I decided to give 100 percent of the profits away.”

Since launching SNOX (the combination of “sneaker” and “sock”), Masterson has donated nearly $9,000 to charities including CHOC, Teach For America, Water Aid, Rotary International, Action Against Hunger, and Hope For the Warriors. She uses the website Charity Navigator to ensure that she donates to only the most reputable organizations.

Last year she was one of 15 freshmen fellows in Fordham’s chapter of Social Impact 360 (formerly the Compass Fellowship). She participated in the fellowship’s national competition in Washington, D.C. and won a national Kenneth Cole Foundation grant. The $2,500 grant has helped her boost her inventory for the upcoming Christmas season.

This year, she is mentoring younger Social Impact 360 fellows and was also accepted to the Fordham Foundry, where she will continue to learn about growing her company.

“Currently, the socks are made overseas and then shipped through Amazon, since I can’t really be shipping out of my dorm room,” she said. “But I would love to start manufacturing in the United States, which I couldn’t do at first because it would have spiked the cost of my socks. I would also like to come out with more styles.”

She is particularly looking forward to using what she’ll learn in her businesses classes this year to help expand SNOX further.

“I’m taking financial accounting, marketing, business communications—all of the basics,” she said. “I love the mentorship and my professors are amazing. I’m really excited to start this year off well.”

The funding will allow the two schools to develop courses and workshops at the intersection of business and law—fields that are inextricably connected in the real world. It will also expand the Fordham Foundry—Fordham’s small business incubator—to the Lincoln Center campus.

“The world is multidisciplinary—education cannot happen in silos,” said Donna Rapaccioli, PhD, dean of the business school. “To be successful in just about any career, you have to be able to consider things from multiple angles. Our hope with this grant is that both business and law students can take advantage of these resources and networks.”

The Foundry’s new Manhattan location will generate internships, Rapaccioli said, and help students at both schools to understand the legal and entrepreneurial aspects of launching a business.

“We are delighted that the Nasdaq grant will support the collaborative efforts of the law school and Gabelli School,” said Matthew Diller, dean of the Fordham School of Law. “It will provide important, practical opportunities for law and business students to learn about entrepreneurship—and how the tools of entrepreneurship can advance social justice.”

The grant marks another milestone in an ongoing relationship between Nasdaq and the Gabelli School, Rapaccioli said. This spring, Nasdaq’s educational exchange program brought Fordham students to its entrepreneurship center in San Francisco for 10 days of workshops, Silicon Valley corporate site visits, and networking.

The business school received a second grant early this summer. Coordinated by Greer Jason-DiBartolo, PhD, senior assistant dean for undergraduate studies, and Carey Weiss, director of sustainability initiatives, the $480,000 grant from Verizon Corporate Resources Group funded an on-campus entrepreneurial experience for high school students from under-resourced neighborhoods around the United States.

In the three-week-long program, students lived in Rose Hill campus dorms and attended workshops with Gabelli School faculty and visiting professionals. They also traveled into Manhattan for on-site visits at companies.

“The program offers a window into not only what the business world is like, but also what college life is like,” Rapaccioli said. “Some of these high school students would be first-generation college graduates, and the idea of the program is to inspire them to want to go to college. It’s allows us at the Gabelli School to play a small role in potentially transforming these young people’s lives.”

On the heels of Abounding in Kindness: Writings for the People of God (Orbis Books, 2015), comes Johnson’s new book, The Strength of Her Witness: Jesus Christ in the Global Voices of Women (Orbis Books, 2016), an anthology of essays by women theologians.

“The 25 authors in this book speak out boldly about the significance of Jesus, but from very different perspectives,” said Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Theology. “The point brought to the fore is that women in different cultures have their own faith experiences, and when Jesus is seen with the female gaze, powerful new insights break forth.”

While Johnson has long called for a greater inclusion of women’s voices in theological discourse, the book was inspired by pragmatic reasons, as well.

“When teaching courses on ‘Christ in World Cultures,’ I became frustrated by the fact that the good standard books were written almost exclusively by men scholars,” she said. “Using the library reserve system I was forever supplementing these materials with essays written by women in various countries.”

The title of the book is an allusion to chapter four of John’s gospel, which tells the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. In the story, the woman has a lengthy conversation with Jesus and is moved so deeply that she leaves her jug at the well and returns to town to tell everyone about her encounter. Her testimony leads many people to believe that Jesus is the messiah.

Like the Samaritan woman, the authors featured in The Strength of Her Witness testify to the significance of Jesus, Johnson said, offering diverse perspectives on critical contemporary issues, such as racism, sexism, poverty, and the exclusion of LGBT persons.

The authors have clear recommendations for these issues: amidst racism, Christ’s message includes a “profound endorsement” of black women’s human dignity; amidst sexism, Christ’s first appearance to Mary Magdalene and his instruction to “Go and tell” provides grounds for women’s public leadership today; amidst poverty, working for justice provides a liberating force.

“The authors in this book signal the dawn of a new historical era,” Johnson said. “Their work, by turn challenging, comforting, and creative, makes clear the rich contributions that flow when women are empowered, both personally and structurally. It also demonstrates how much poorer church and society remain when only one gender speaks and decides.”

In addition to prioritizing women’s voices, the book is intentional in its inclusion of authors from around the world, Johnson said. This geographic diversity illustrates that the significance of Christ is not limited to American theology or to the Western world, but arises in and belongs to all cultures and nations.

“To bring women’s voices into a long-standing male conversation is one important effort of this book. To emphasize different cultural circumstances adds even more complexity,” she said.

Both the content of the book and its editorial arrangement have a clear implication: The message, though delivered by women, is meant for all people.

“The Samaritan woman of this book’s title did not address her words to women only, but to the whole town… women and men alike,” Johnson said. “Everyone can benefit from listening to wisdom, whatever the source. The riches in this book are not for women only, but for all who seek to immerse themselves more deeply into the meaning of Jesus Christ.”

More than 300 students—including new freshmen, transfer students, exchange students, and American citizens who went to high school abroad—participate in the Global Transition program.

“It’s a great way to get to know the campus and other people, and to get help with all sorts of questions, such as immigration and visas,” said student leader Gladys Bendahan, a rising sophomore who participated in the program last year when she arrived from the Canary Islands.

“We are here to tell them that we all go through the same situation, that it’s normal to be nervous or to be homesick,” she said. “And to let them know they’re going to have an amazing experience.”

Of the total Global Transition participants, 207 are new freshmen members of the Class of 2020, making for the largest cohort of international incoming freshmen in Fordham history. As the University welcomes increasingly more students from around the world, the program is critical to helping students make the move to Fordham, said Monica Esser, director of international enrollment initiatives.

“We encourage the new international students to feel confident in their new surroundings, step out of their comfort zones and take advantage of all the opportunities Fordham has to offer,” Esser said. “Global Transition helps to create a supportive set of social connections for students to do all this—and to fully embrace the Fordham experience.”

The initial day of Global Transition was dedicated to moving in and helping the students get to know one another. In the following days, the group attended information sessions on topics such as cultural adjustment, health and wellness in the U.S., and Jesuit mission and identity.

There has also been plenty of time for fun, however—the group has taken trips to various New York City sites and participated in a scavenger hunt around the Lincoln Center campus.

“I don’t know if I’m just feeling this way now, or if the homesickness will hit later, but I feel like we’re already home,” Paula Najas, a new first-year student from Ecuador, said shortly after her team won the campus scavenger hunt.

Her teammate Jaissal Shalgolsen, from India, agreed.

“I always thought New York was a busy city and people had no time for each other. But here there’s been a community already set up and they’re here to welcome us and it feels like home already,” he said. “I was a tourist before, but now I’m settling down here and Global Transition has helped me to settle down really fast.”

An important component of Global Transition, said Esser, is the Global Transition Parent Program, which invites the families of international students to participate in a variety of activities while the students are orienting. Activities include a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Fordham faculty and a reception with Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“We found the families of new international students—who may only travel the often long distance to Fordham for move in and commencement—eager for interaction with each other and the Fordham community,” Esser said.

“Of course, dropping your child off across the world feels better when you know members of their community and the families of their new friends.”

The undergraduate students—Alexandra Bandea, Andrew DiSalvo, Marisa Folsom, Phillip Gregor, and Erin O’Flynn—spent the month of July in Rome for a Department of Visual Arts course, Photography in the Documentary Tradition. The group visited ancient architectural sites, museums, neighborhoods, and other sites throughout the city practicing basic and advanced techniques of image production. In particular, the students focused on how to craft documentary photos of the people, architecture, and culture of Italy.

“[They learned to] observe, process, and translate life into a rectangular image,” said course instructor Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, the visual arts program’s artist-in-residence. “They considered everything as potential photographs, from the glorious Sistine Chapel, to the not-so-glorious Fiumicino Airport.”

The students’ photographs were then compiled into a 68-page book, Documentary Photography: Italy 2016, published earlier this month.

“If most photographs are exposed somewhere around 1/125th of a second, then collectively the exposure time of the images in this book adds up to barely a single second,” Apicella-Hitchcock said. “However, the impressions, both sacred and profane, that Italy has made on the group will certainly last for much longer.”

August marks one year since students from the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program (BSMP) arrived on campus. Run by the Institute of International Education and supported by the Brazilian government, BSMP places top-achieving junior and senior students pursuing STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) at U.S. colleges and universities to gain global experience, improve their language skills, and increase international dialogue in science and technology.

The Fordham cohort—Aryadne Guardieiro Pereira Rezende, Tulio Aimola, Caio Batista de Melo, and Dicksson Rammon Oliveira de Almeida—have spent the year studying and researching alongside Fordham students and faculty.

“Fordham is a wonderful university. It teaches you to grow not just as a professional, but also as a person. I loved my semesters there,” said Guardieiro, a computer science major from Uberlandia, Minas Gerais.

Guardieiro worked with Damian Lyons, PhD, professor of computer and information science, on the use of drones to hunt and kill Aedes aegypti mosquitos, which spread diseases such as dengue and Zika virus, both of which are significant problems in Brazil.

“Different fields were available to research here,” said Batista de Melo, a computer science major from Brazil’s capital, Brasília. Batista de Melo researched with Frank Hsu, PhD, the Clavius Distinguished Professor of Science and Professor of Computer and Information Science, in Fordham’s Laboratory of Informatics and Data Mining.

“Our project used IBM’s Watson, which might not have been possible to use in Brazil, since it is such a new technology.”

The program has benefitted both Fordham and Brazilian students alike, said Carla Romney, DSc, associate dean for STEM and pre-health education, who oversaw BSMP at Fordham. Because it’s difficult for science students to devote a full semester to travel, the experience served as a sort of “reverse study abroad” for Fordham students.

“Having international students in the classroom has been an amazing internationalization experience for Fordham students, too,” Romney said. “It brings a different atmosphere into the classroom when you have students with widely divergent viewpoints and experiences. You get to know other cultures, other worlds.”

BSMP students complete two semesters of academic study at an American institution, followed by a summer of experiential learning in the form of internships, research, volunteering, or other types of “academic training.”

Earlier this summer, the four were joined by an additional 17 BSMP students who had been at other American colleges and universities and who took up residence at Fordham to undertake internships and positions at various New York City companies and organizations.

The experience was challenging both academically as well as personally, said Oliveira, a computer science major from Recife, Pernambuco who researched smartwatch applications in the Wireless Sensor and Data Mining (WISDM) lab with Gary Weiss, PhD, associate professor of computer and information science.

“The cultural shock was really unexpected, and for several months it made me feel uneasy,” Oliveira said. “Over time, I learned to overcome it. Being from a predominantly tropical country, I considered the winter to be the greatest challenge of all.”

In addition to culture shock, there was the inevitable loneliness, which Guardieiro said she felt deeply at times. However, she felt supported by her academic adviser and fellow students, and eventually came to love her newfound independence.

“I learned to never lose an opportunity to do what I needed or wanted to just because I did not have company to do so,” she said. “I learned to expose myself to new—and not always comfortable—experiences, and I was amazed with the results I got. I took dancing classes with great teachers, visited places like Wall Street companies and all kinds of museums, and visited many states by myself.”

The Brazilian government recently put a one-year moratorium on the scholarship exchange program, but Romney said Fordham would continue its partnership with the program when it resumes.

When it does, Guardieiro has advice ready for future Fordham-BSMP students:

“Don’t be afraid to do everything you want to… This kind of experience is given to us to learn as much as we can.”

Fordham is one of 28 colleges and universities to win a Next Generation PhD matching grant, which aims to overhaul doctoral programs in the humanities to better prepare students for 21st-century job prospects within and outside of academia.

“The future of doctoral training in the humanities depends on innovative models that will deliver the competencies and skills that doctorate holders need to succeed in a variety of career pathways, in addition to traditional faculty lines,” said Eva Badowska, PhD, dean of GSAS and grant director, alongside co-director, Matthew McGowan, PhD, associate professor of classics.

“As a graduate school within a Jesuit university recognized for its strengths in the humanities, GSAS is uniquely situated to ask what it means truly to prepare our doctoral candidates for the fast-changing world of higher education and for the new knowledge economy,” Badowska said.

Historically, doctoral programs have prepared graduates solely for work in academia. However, with a 30 percent decline in academic job postings in the humanities since 2008, this singular focus is no longer realistic for students graduating from these programs.

“Thousands of professors are currently in the business of preparing thousands of graduate students for jobs that don’t exist,” Leonard Cassuto, PhD, professor of English and a collaborator on the project, said in his recent book, The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (Harvard University Press, 2013).

The $25,000 planning grant, to be matched by an additional $25,000 from GSAS, will not only propose rethinking Fordham’s five doctoral programs in the humanities (classics, English, history, philosophy, and theology), but will also examine what a 21st-century PhD program at any institution should encompass. For instance, what advanced transferrable skills should be taught at the doctoral level? Should skills such as collaborative teamwork and advanced digital proficiency be treated on a par with traditional emphases, such as mastery of field-specific knowledge and independent research skills?

In addition to Badowska and McGowan, the project includes a Core Planning Group and Constituent Advisory Group comprising GSAS faculty, current doctoral candidates, alumni, and community leaders who would benefit from hiring graduates with doctoral-level expertise.

At the end of the academic year, the group will produce a white paper detailing the proposed model.

“We want to rethink how we deliver the PhD at our University, but also make it scalable to other institutions and humanities programs,” said Melissa Labonte, PhD, associate dean of GSAS and associate professor of political science. “To do right by the students in these programs, we need to rethink the entire model. This planning grant will allow us to begin this process.”

A key part of the grant will address making doctoral programs in the humanities more inclusive of underrepresented, underserved, and marginalized communities, Labonte said. Within these groups, the percentage of students who enroll in a doctoral-level program has dropped precipitously in recent decades.

“We’re trying to find ways to counter this trend,” Labonte said. “This part of the grant falls very much in line with Fordham’s mission. If we’re going to embrace progressivism and social justice models, then we have to think about how PhD programs in the humanities will address the needs of people from underserved communities.”

The NEH announced the Next Generation PhD grants winners on Aug. 9 as part of $79 million in grants for 290 humanities projects and programs across the country, an initiative the group undertook to mark its 50th anniversary year.