The need for such efforts is acute: “Well over half of the people at Rikers right now are suffering from some mental health issue that could be addressed,” said one speaker, Richard Alborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of NYC, referring to New York City’s Rikers Island prison.  

Of 6,700 inmates, an estimated 1,400 have severe mental illness, and 1,500 and 1,800 suffer from opioid and alcohol abuse, respectively, he said.

“Shame on us if we don’t address that,” he said.

Academics, experts in crime and healthcare, and elected officials—including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—spoke at the Jan. 16 Mental Health & Crime event, sponsored by Fordham, Northwell Health, and the Citizens Crime Commission.

Speakers focused on one of today’s most vexing challenges: the inordinate number of crimes committed by people who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse.

“Not everyone who has a mental health issue or confronts a mental health challenge commits a crime, and not every single person who commits a crime has a mental health challenge,” Aborn said. “Our job, if we’re going to be true to the goal of prevention, is to identify those intersections.”

A Case Study

The program was arranged to highlight a typical case as it winds its way through the system, from the first 911 call to the prosecution and sentencing of the accused. 

Speakers included members of the New York Police Department, such as Monica Brooker, Ph.D., assistant commissioner of the department’s Behavioral Health Division, as well as members of the judiciary, such as Matthew D’Emic, FCRH ’74, presiding judge for the Brooklyn Mental Health Court.

In a fireside chat with Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno, Bragg touted the proposal of a new law, known as the SUPPORT Act, which will mandate crisis intervention for mentally ill offenders who are accused of misdemeanor crimes but are deemed too unfit to stand trial. Currently, intervention is only mandated for those accused of felonies.

He praised New York Assemblyman Tony Simone and New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal for proposing the new law.

He also touted the success of programs designed to help stop the downward spiral of people suffering from mental illness. Neighborhood Navigator, launched last year by the NYC Office of Neighborhood Safety, employs outreach workers who approach people on the street who are in obvious distress and offer them everything from a cup of coffee to help with housing.

Bragg said Court Navigator, a similar program that connects criminal defendants with nonprofits such as the Fortune Society, is even more potentially transformative because of the way it helps address underlying causes of crime.

“My Spidey sense tells me this is going to be one that we’re going to want to double down on,” he said. “Just being in the courtroom, seeing workers interact with defendants, and seeing the results—this has real promise,” he said.

The Mental and the Physical 

Michael Dowling, GSS ’74, President and CEO of Northwell Health, lamented the traditional separation of mental and physical health. 

One of Northwell’s initiatives to address issues like the shortage of psychiatrists is a partnership with the City of New York to open a new high school dedicated to careers in mental health, radiation medicine, nursing, and physical health.

It’s an issue that affects Northwell monetarily, as he estimated that it costs the company $100 million annually to provide mental health care to patients, many of them on Medicaid. There’s also a moral imperative, though, because adolescents, in particular, have shown increases in depression and anxiety since 2012. 

“There is no health without mental health. People need to talk about it differently,” he said. “It’s changing, but it needs to change much, much quicker.”

John McDonagh, director of facilities operations at Lincoln Center, said Higgins was a natural-born leader who possessed a broad, expansive knowledge of the construction trades that he eagerly shared with others. 

“He always took control of a situation—emergencies, anything. If you had an issue, you called him, and he’d get it taken care of,” he said. 

“The guy knew everything from carpentry and plumbing to electrical and welding. His skill set was unrivaled.”

Higgins was born on October 27, 1970, to Tom and Gail Higgins and grew up in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx neighborhood of Silver Beach. He graduated from Monsignor Scanlan High School in Throgs Neck in 1988. 

He trained as a plumber and worked in maintenance and facilities positions for Maritime College and Mill Neck Manor School for the Deaf. He came to Fordham in 2016 after two years working as a plumber mechanic for the Hicksville School District in Long Island.

Just three years later, he was honored with a Sursum Corda award at the University’s annual convocation. He was lauded as one of the most valued members of the Facilities Department “because of his energetic approach to sharing his skills and knowledge with his colleagues.”

“Over the past few years, Jimmy has been at the forefront of several significant and unforeseen plumbing incidents, and it was his problem-solving abilities that were instrumental in helping the department in resolving those events,” his citation read. 

Higgins met his wife, Christine, a teacher at Mill Neck Manor, while supervising the construction of a new building there. She said she was attracted to him because of his troubleshooting skills, his sense of humor, and his “honest, true love of kids and people.” 

“He was a quiet genius when it came to fixing and building anything imaginable,” she said. “He was always kind, always helpful, and went out of his way for others.”

True to his maritime roots, Christine said he enjoyed fishing and relaxing with friends and family on boats, as well as bow hunting. Colleagues might not know that he was also an avid reader, she said.

She said she’d always treasure their time trekking up to a cabin in knee-deep snow in Hancock, New York, listening to Irish music on Sundays on WFUV’s Ceol na nGael, and listening to John Denver.

“He was a mentor to so many people without realizing it,” she said.

McDonagh, who attended high school with Higgins’s older brother Tom, considered him a friend for the past 30 years. He said he will miss the daily morning meetings where they’d discuss how to tackle the pressing project of the day on campus.

“Jimmy was a person who I could walk through campus and bounce technical ideas off of him,” he said.

“In our field, it’s a very precious thing to be able to trust somebody and have these conversations. That is something I’ll miss more than anything. I looked forward to those sessions every day.”

Higgins is survived by his wife, Christine, his first wife Karen, his brother Tom, his sister Ellen, and his children James and Jamie.

A wake will be held on Thursday, Jan. 16, from 3 to 7 p.m. at  Schuyler Hill Funeral Home, 3535 E. Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. A funeral Mass will be held on Friday, Jan. 17, at 10 a.m. at St. Frances de Chantel Church, 90 Hollywood Avenue.

The panel is an independent advisory body that synthesizes scientific information on climate change. Members advise city policymakers on local resilience and adaptation strategies that protect against extreme heat, heavy rain, coastal storm surges, and other climate hazards. 

“Much of New York City comprises islands. We must be prepared for the fact that we’re at risk of future hurricane landfall, we’re going to lose land to sea-level rise, and there will also be drought and temperature increases,” said Conte.

“I’m very excited to contribute knowledge that can be put to good use for a panel like this.”

Conte is the first Fordham professor to join the panel, which was first formed in 2009 and renews its membership every three years, tapping experts from government, non-profits, and academia. This appointment is not the first time the government has called on Conte for his expertise;  his research on climate change was cited in a major report issued by the White House. 

Learning from Past Climate Disasters

Each new panel is tasked with issuing a report at the end of its three-year term. Conte said that past panels have analyzed global climate models that had been recently released, downscaling them to show how they might affect New York City.

No new models have been released recently, so he said he expects this panel will dig deeper into the challenges that are already known–particularly those highlighted by recent disasters. The group will hold a series of public meetings this year to gauge the public’s interest in specific areas. 

Conte said the panel will provide important guidance during a critical time. 

“Given the outcome of the recent election, we expect that federal leadership in this area is going to be greatly diminished,” he said. 

“New York City is a high profile area, so this kind of assessment is important to maintain the focus on the challenges we face and show what can happen at the local level to reduce the impacts of climate change.”

Recent examples of extreme weather worth re-examining are numerous. Conte said the panel may determine what will happen to water supplies if droughts like the one that lasted nearly a month continue. Or it might try to quantify the risks that New Yorkers will be exposed to as a result of extreme bad air days caused by Canadian wildfires or those posed by brush fires that have been on the rise in the New York City area. 

“We’re also thinking about when the next Superstorm Sandy is going to come through and how we’ll have to deal with it,” he said. 

Conte, who has published research on outdoor air pollution in New York City, the challenges of managing tropical cyclone risk, and the impact of climate change on natural capital, hopes the panel will explore each of these topics.

The Everyday Costs of Climate Change

He’s also hopeful that as an economist, he’ll be able to help the panel illustrate the societal costs of climate change and pollution that are poorly understood by the general public. 

“One of the big challenges is that, as we just saw in this election, everyone cares about the price of milk, but we don’t have a price for clean air or a price for not having to miss work because of asthma or because it’s too hot,” he said.

“I’m hoping to provide literature that shows what types of policy interventions are successful when facing these challenges and what the difficulties are for policymakers in putting them into action.”

For over 25 years, Fordham has given them the skills they need to do that work safely and effectively. 

Through the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA), Fordham offers the International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (IDHA), a unique training program for humanitarian workers from all over the world.

The four-week residential immersion course is designed to train and develop those working for humanitarian aid organizations who are looking to advance their careers.

The Trainings

The 59th IIHA training session, which finished last month, took place in Amman, Jordan. The next one is scheduled for May 4 to 30 in Pretoria, South Africa. Trainings are now mainly offered in the Global South as part of an effort to empower aid workers who are closer to communities affected by war, famine, and natural disasters.

The goal of the training is to help students develop a holistic understanding of global humanitarian issues, as well as on-the-ground skills. That means learning about “big picture” aspects of the field, such as international humanitarian law and The Grand Bargain, a 2016 agreement between donors and humanitarian organizations. It also means learning and studying the fields of shelter and camp management and human trafficking, particularly during a humanitarian crisis. 

Staying Safe in Dangerous Times

Martine van der Does, the IIHA’s newly appointed Helen Hamlyn Humanitarian Fellow & Global Program Director, said that it is a sad reality that the training has become even more important as the field has become more complex and dangerous in the last few years. 

Van der Does, who oversees the IDHA, noted that last year, the United Nations reported that a record 281 aid workers were killed, of which 96% were local staff. 

“Humanitarian aid has become more complex, and there is far less respect for international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles,” she said. 

To that end, one full day of the program is devoted to key trends and threats to humanitarian workers, trauma first aid basics, personal health, and mental and physical resilience in humanitarian settings.

New Leadership

Van der Does, a former diplomat and regional humanitarian coordinator for the Netherlands government, is an IDHA alum, having completed the training in 2008. She earned a master’s in international humanitarian action from Fordham in 2017 and served as a tutor and course director for five recent IDHA training sessions.

“I always said if I could make a full-time job out of this, it would be my dream job,” she said.

The seamless bridge between fieldwork and academic theories taught in the classroom is a hallmark of the IDHA, and the reason Van der Does said she’s excited to have returned to lead the training. 

“Because of our network and our alumni database, we are able to bring in front-line aid workers complementing theory with the most recent realities on the ground,” she said, citing Gaza as an example. 

Graduates Hail from Many Countries, Work in Myriad International Organizations 

After graduating from the IDHA program, Van der Does joined Doctors Without Borders. She was sent to Niger, where she coordinated the construction of health centers and hospitals. Her experience was similar to other IDHA graduates, who have gone on to work in administrative and field positions at organizations such as UNICEF, Save the Children, International Committee of the Red Cross, and Jesuit Refugee Corps.

She said she thrived in part because of the experience she gained from working on IDHA assignments with classmates hailing from Iraq, Belgium, Italy, the U.S., and Sudan.

“One of my fondest memories from that time in Niger is the long days I spent traveling on hot, sandy roads to the various health centers we were working in,” she said.

“I sat in the front of a pickup truck with AS, who was my driver, and Ali, who was my construction assistant, discussing culture and politics while a desert landscape with camels and bedouins passed our window views. It was a perfect way to learn about the context I was working while also building  unforgettable friendships.” 

Since 1924, Jesuits and their lay counterparts have been measuring earthquakes in this one-story Gothic structure, which currently stands next to Edwards Parade on the Rose Hill campus. Its equipment detects temblors around the world, including the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled the area in April.

The observatory, which consists of an unassuming above-ground structure and a concrete vault 28 feet underground where the seismic instruments reside, is easy to miss. But it has played an important role in the advancement of seismology and physics over the years.

Stephen Holler, Ph.D., chair of Fordham’s physics department, who maintains the station, said it’s important to “keep an eye” on the planet and its rumblings.

“We’re always learning things about the Earth, and especially in the kind of high-density area that we’re in, it’s useful to monitor for earthquakes [and other tremors],” he said. “Maybe, in the event that something is happening or changing, we can potentially prepare for it.”

In the years that it has been operational, the station has recorded many earthquakes, including an 8.6 magnitude quake that struck Alaska in 1946 and a 7.7 magnitude quake that struck Taiwan in 1999. Holler is often called on by the media to discuss earthquakes when they strike the area.

Digging Deep

Fordham first got involved in seismology in 1910—along with nine other Jesuit colleges—through the Seismological Society of America, which had a Jesuit priest as one of its founding members. That year, a seismograph was installed in the basement of Cunniffe Hall. In 1920, Joseph J. Lynch, S.J., a physics instructor, took over the station. 

At the time, seismographs worked by utilizing a suspended mass—such as a weight—that remained relatively stationary, while the base of the instrument, which was fixed to the ground, moved during an earthquake. A recording of the relative motion between the mass and the base was recorded, providing a measurement of the ground shaking.

But the instruments worked best when isolated and in close contact with the bedrock. So in 1922, the University used stone acquired from a recent subway excavation to construct a building with underground space where they could operate with minimal disruption. It was originally built in the spot where Faber Hall now stands.

A Plaque From the Pope

Funding for the construction was provided by William Spain, whose son William, a physics student at Fordham, died that year. It was formally blessed by Bishop John Collins, S.J., Fordham’s 13th president, in a ceremony on Oct. 24, 1924. To honor the occasion, Pope Pius XI sent a bronze plaque with an image of St. Emidio, the divine protector against earthquakes, that is still embedded in the building’s exterior door.

In Pop Culture

Almost immediately after it opened, it became an object of fascination. A working model of the station was displayed at the 1939/1940 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens, and Fordham displayed an operational seismograph at the 1964/1965 World’s Fair as well. 

Father Lynch was routinely one of the first to report major seismic events around the world to media outlets. In April 1946, Life Magazine stated that the “Jesuit seismologist is America’s best-known interpreter of things that shake the earth, including milk trains, quakes, seismic waves.” 

The station even became a part of pop culture. In a 1974 episode of the television show M*A*S*H. (starring Alan Alda, FCRH ’56), Colonel Henry Blake joked that he snores so loudly that he “even got a fan letter once from the seismograph people at Fordham.”

A Revival

In 1970, Father Lynch published a reflection titled Watching Our Trembling Earth for 50 Years (Fordham University Press), which recounted the ways he and fellow Jesuits worked together to perfect the science of seismology. Among other anecdotes, he noted how one night in 1929, in the course of calibrating the station’s clock with one at the Naval Observatory in Arlington, Virginia, he stumbled on bootleggers who were bottling whiskey on campus. 

For several years after Father Lynch’s death in 1987, the station was either dormant or tended to by students who pursued seismology as a hobby. 

In 1996, physics professor Ben Crooker took over supervision of the student club that had been using the equipment. By then, the field had changed a lot with the advent of the internet and increased computer power. 

In 2001, thanks to a donation from an unidentified alumnus, Fordham was able to purchase a Guralp DM24 CMG3T machine, which combines the functions of a seismometer and digitizer. The University officially rejoined the international seismology community.

The Station Today

Today, measuring an earthquake now is akin to conducting a CT scan on the planet, with multiple stations—including Fordham’s—reporting observations from around the country to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) data repository in Boulder, Colorado. 

“Fordham’s station is like one cell in a giant camera,” Crooker told Fordham News in 2007, “used to build a seismic map of the Earth.”

The Guralp, which looks like a coffee can with wires poking out of it, sits on a concrete pedestal beneath a plexiglass box and a blanket, which keeps it dust free and at a constant temperature. The data it collects is sent to a computer in Freeman Hall, which then relays it to USGS.

The rest of the vault is occupied by dormant equipment once used by Lynch and his successors. Every year on the day before commencement, Holler opens up the station to graduating physics students who marvel at the antiquated instruments. 

“They’re kind of museum pieces, but they’re fantastic for quizzing the students on their physics fundamentals,” he said.

This was the first time the Gabelli School has been named in this ranking, and its inclusion reflects investments Fordham has made to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit, said Dennis Hanno, Ph.D., who leads the school’s entrepreneurship programming.

“We are gaining momentum,” he said. “We’re dedicating more resources both in our curriculum and in places like the Fordham Foundry,” Hanno said. He noted that the Foundry, which helps students and alumni start viable, sustainable companies, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. 

Hanno cited The Ground Floor course as one example of how first-year students are exposed to entrepreneurship. Every student who takes it pitches a new business idea to a panel of judges at the end of the semester.

The Princeton Review entrepreneurship rating follows other impressive rankings for Fordham’s business school. Poets & Quants ranked the school 21st among the best undergraduate business schools in the country for 2024. In September, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Gabelli School 77th in the country. It also singled out specific undergraduate business programs: The school ranked 13th for finance, 17th for international business, 14th for marketing, 21st for accounting, and 21st for entrepreneurship. 

Hanno also noted that entrepreneurship at Fordham extends beyond the Gabelli School. The Fordham Foundry, for instance, holds a separate pitch challenge that is open to all students.

“Whether you’re in business school or not, you’re going to have opportunities here from day one to connect with people who have been entrepreneurs and have worked with entrepreneurs of all different kinds,” said Hanno.

He noted that an expansive view of entrepreneurship can be seen in the work of faculty such as Gabelli School professor Michael Pirson, Ph.D., whose research encompasses humanistic management and sustainable models of business. 

“We embrace a broader definition of entrepreneurship to include social impact as a major focus of what we do,” said Hanno, who created a Fordham course called Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rwanda. He took a group of students to the African nation last spring. 

 “So if you want to change the world, Fordham is the place for you.”

Funding for the new outdoor play space was secured with help from Fordham’s Center for Educational Partnerships, a part of the University’s Graduate School of Education. The center partnered with MS 331 beginning in 2015, providing administrative help and assisting with tasks such as funding requests. GSE graduate Serapha Cruz is the principal of MS 331, which shares the complex with an elementary school, PS 306X. 

Anita Batisti, Ph.D. associate dean and director of the Center for Educational Partnerships, said that one of Fordham’s mandates is to improve the wellness and well-being of students and the community. Studies have shown that clean, well-kept playground equipment helps students feel more connected to their community while promoting exercise and play.

“It really was a natural progression for us to do this,” Batisti said. 

“With our skills for raising money and helping to prepare proposals and bids, we were able to move this process along through the various funding sources.” 

Fordham President Tania Tetlow joined Batisti at the Oct. 25 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 46,0000-square-foot play area. Also in attendance were GSE Acting Dean Ji Seon Lee, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres; Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson; Councilmember Pierina Ana Sanchez, who helped secure funding for the project; and representatives from the Trust for Public Land and the Department of Environmental Protection, which oversaw the design and construction of the space.

When work on the $2.85 million project began in 2021, the space in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx was a cracked, crumbling stretch of asphalt. It now features a full basketball court, a volleyball court, game tables, an outdoor classroom, a gazebo, and play equipment for younger children. There is also fitness equipment for older students and community members, benches, a running track, and a turf field for soccer and football.

Hoffman was widely respected at Fordham for her interdisciplinary expertise and collaborative spirit. 

Elizabeth Stone, Ph.D., a professor of English, said that despite their different fields of study, they grew to be fast friends.

“I always knew we spoke the same language. Decade after decade, our conversations about one another’s work were immensely gratifying,” she said.

Magda Teter, Ph.D., the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham, called Hoffman “a beloved member of Fordham’s Jewish Studies community” and said her work was marked by “great erudition and disciplinary depth.” 

“In her 1991 work on the Hebrew writer and Nobel Prize laureate S.Y. Agnon, she deployed a wide range of theoretical tools, ranging from psychoanalysis to feminist theory,” Teter said.

“She placed Agnon in conversation with other writers, such as James Joyce, Kafka, and Thomas Mann. … She was able to handle, with equal care and knowledge, traditional Jewish text and modern philosophy.

Hoffman was born on June 19, 1946, in New York City and grew up, along with her younger brother, David, in Brooklyn. She earned a bachelor’s in English and Comparative Literature from Cornell University and a master’s and Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. She was a special member of Columbia’s Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine.

She joined Fordham in 1979 and taught courses in Israeli literature and film as part of Fordham’s Middle East Studies program. In 1992, she created the annual Nostra Aetate Dialogue series, which brought together Jewish and Christian scholars to address questions pertinent to Jewish-Catholic reconciliation. In 2002, she also helped found Fordham’s Jewish Texts Reading Group, which still meets today. 

Hoffman was an accomplished painter. In 2015, she opened up about her creative process in a lecture at the Walsh Library. Last November, her art was displayed at Fordham’s Butler Gallery. 

Hoffman was known at Fordham as a skilled instructor and generous mentor. Fordham professor of biology Jason Morris, Ph.D., said she taught him how to be a better teacher.

“I learned so much from teaching with Anne. She appreciated nuance: she had a deep mistrust of facile answers and sharply drawn lines,” he wrote in an email.

“Her integrity and her empathy (and despite what she said, her expertise) came across in everything she said and did.”

In 2003, she was honored with Fordham’s Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities Award, and in 2019, she was recognized for 40 years of service at Fordham. She retired in 2023 and was named professor emerita.

Nikolas Oktaba, a 2015 graduate, took a class with Hoffman, and like many students, he kept in touch with her after graduation. He called her a “fount of tranquil wisdom.” 

“Not only did she put her students first, but she did so in a way that allowed them to see the perseverance, resilience, and strength that they already held within them,” he said. 

At the time of her death, in addition to her painting, she was teaching writing skills at the Fortune Society, teaching Freud at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and conducting friendship-focused writing groups at the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Bangladesh via Zoom.

Leon Hoffman, M.D., Anne’s husband of 57 years, said that he would forever hold onto a memory of the two of them walking together when she was an undergraduate and he was attending medical school.

“We had one of those adolescent discussions of the time: would we marry someone who was not Jewish? I responded very quickly, ‘That is an academic discussion because I am going to marry you.’ She was shocked, but the rest is history,” he said.

“We were not tied at the hip, but we were tied with our brains and our love.”

In an interview last year, Hoffman recalled what her late father-in-law said when she received her first summer grant to travel to Israel to explore Agnon’s archive. 

“He observed that it truly is the ‘goldeneh medineh’ (a Yiddish term referring to the U.S. as the golden land) when a Catholic university gives a Jewish girl money to go to Israel to work on Agnon,” she said. 

“Even more than the material support, his remark captures something of the openness and generosity that have been my experience of this university, my academic home for over 40 years.” 

Hoffman is survived by her husband, Leon Hoffman, M.D.; her children, Miriam Hoffman, M.D. (Steven Kleiner, M.D.) and Liora Hoffman, Ph.D. (Rob Yalen); her brother, David Golomb; her niece, Danielle Golomb, M.D.; her nephew, Jesse Golomb; and her grandchildren Shoshana, Elisheva, and Hillel Hoffman Kleiner and Greta and Max Yalen.

A memorial service open to the University community will be announced at a later date.

Designed for working professionals, the 30-credit degree will give students the scientific knowledge and technical skills needed to succeed in a growing field where groundbreaking developments such as gene editing and personalized medicine are advancing at a rapid pace.

The degree can be completed in one year and offers three tracks: The first, Business and Law/Regulatory, will start in January. Two others, Biochemical/Biomolecular Technologies, and Data Analytics/Informatics, will be open for enrollment in September 2025. A fourth, generalized track that allows students to personalize their interests will also be open in September.

Biotechnology Is a Growing Field

Falguni Sen, Ph.D., head of Fordham’s Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center, said hiring in the field of biotechnology is expected to increase.

“We see the potential for major growth taking place broadly in the life sciences areas, which includes biotechnology,” said Sen, who oversees the program.

Statistics paint an encouraging picture of the field. According to IBIS World Industry Reports, the market size of the U.S. biotechnology industry grew 7.7% per year on average between 2018 and 2023.

The industry, which combines engineering and natural sciences to create commercially viable therapeutics, is also important to New York City’s economy. In December, Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation offering tax incentives for growing biotech companies to create jobs in the city. According to the city’s Economic Development Corporation, an estimated 16,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the field by 2026.

What Can You Do with a Biotechnology Degree?

Sen said the specialization tracks were specifically tailored to the areas of the field where there are opportunities. A student who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and aspires to be a scientist or scientist’s assistant would benefit from the Biochemical/Biomolecular Technologies concentration. Someone who is already working in the industry and wants to include a focus on AI, on the other hand, might be drawn to the Data Analytics/Informatics specialization. 

“The informatics track allows you to become a specialist in the analytics side, but you’re not just a run-of-the-mill analytics person. You’ll be an analytics person who knows the biotech industry. That gives you a leg up,” said Sen.

Sen noted that because biotechnology is a fertile area for startup businesses, the Business and Law/Regulatory track was designed for anyone who is working in the industry and wants to strike off on their own.

“They might have a Ph.D. already, but they have an idea and really want to be an entrepreneur. They need to know what the regulatory system is, how to get venture money, how to do all of that,” he said.

Other fields graduates will be equipped for include finance, government, compliance, and biopharma. 

Practical Biotech Degree Offers Flexibility and Hybrid Learning 

Classes are a hybrid of in-person instruction and online learning, with flexible schedules designed for working professionals. 

Several new courses, such as AI in Biotech, Marketing in Biotech, and Strategic Entrepreneurship and Business Development, have been created specifically for the degree. 

“What’s wonderful about this degree is that there is a core of five courses that really give you a sense of how this industry is structured, how it makes money, what its peculiarities are, and all the possibilities that are out there,” said Sen.

“You can take all of this knowledge and harness it for whatever direction you want to take.”

The program is being offered through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and leverages the expertise of faculty from the GSAS, the Gabelli School of Business, and Fordham Law.

The College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, convened by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, will focus on three civic commitments: educating for democracy; preparing students for a vibrant, diverse, and contentious society; and protecting and defending free inquiry. 

Tetlow said the coalition’s work dovetails with the values of Jesuit universities like Fordham.

“For 500 years, Jesuit universities have taught not just knowledge but wisdom. We teach our values—empathy and openness, and our skills—critical thinking and active listening,” said Tetlow, who signed on to the initiative earlier this month.

“We encourage students to question assumptions, both ours and their own. We model for students how to argue with passion and logic, without attacking the motives of those with whom we disagree.”

The coalition’s civic commitments are woven into the work of Fordham’s FitzSimons Presidential Initiative on Civics and Civility—a yearlong project of education and engagement, offering a model for genuine, respectful dialogue among Americans and fruitful avenues for cooperation in creating solutions to common problems. 

Institute for Citizens & Scholars president Rajiv Vinnakota said that higher education has a responsibility to provide students with critical civic skills and knowledge to participate effectively in our constitutional democracy.

“College campuses are among the most diverse spaces in our country, and college is an important time for students to develop the habits, practices, and norms to live in a multicultural and interconnected democracy,” he said. 

“Doing so can create a ripple effect, making young people more optimistic and increasingly committed about their future and our nation.”

The University’s Internship Promise, unveiled this week, pledges that every undergraduate student from the Class of 2029 and beyond will have the opportunity to participate in at least one internship, research project, or other form of experiential learning.

“Learning by doing has always been part of the Fordham experience, as our students demonstrate every year through their internships and research in our hometown of New York City,” said Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow. 

With New York City as their launchpad, 90% of undergraduate students participate in at least one internship—and many enter the workforce with more than one on their resume. Unlike other locations, New York City offers internship opportunities year-round. 

Fordham students have interned at places as varied as Bloomberg, the Apollo Theater, the United States Tennis Association, EY, and Disney. They have been awarded research fellowships and opportunities stemming from unique partnerships, including those with NYC’s faith communities. Student journalists at Fordham’s WFUV have reported from the field at Yankee Stadium and gone on to intern at top news organizations like MSNBC.

Proven Benefits

Annette McLaughlin, director of Fordham’s Career Center, said students who participate in internships are more likely to receive offers for full-time employment, regardless of their field of study. 

“There’s great value in any type of hands-on learning experience, and we find that’s true even with students who do internships and then decide that it’s not the right industry for them,” she said.

“Internships are important for student’s career exploration and professional development, as well as giving them insight into the culture of an organization.”

A recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that employers rate internship experience within their industry as the top factor they consider when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified candidates. 

“In everything they study, students want to understand the ‘why.’ So when they can get hands-on experience through internships, they can connect what they’re doing in the classroom to the real world,” McLaughlin said.

Finding Internships at Fordham

The Career Center, which expanded its footprint in the Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Campus Center in 2022, hosts employers at several events each semester. In addition to holding nine career fairs annually, the center also hosts a fair devoted exclusively to internships, featuring employers such as Barclays, EssilorLuxottica, L’Oreal, Phillips Auctioneers, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, EY, LSEG, and Tapestry. 

Students can also access internship opportunities—86% of which are paid—through Handshake, the Career Center’s one-stop online career platform for students and alumni. Gabelli School of Business students have access to the Career Center’s resources as well as their school’s Personal and Professional Development Center, which has connected students to internships at companies such as Morgan Stanley, Estee Lauder, and PwC. 

Fordham students can also receive internships via Serving the City, a unique paid internship program that connects them to New York area nonprofits and cultural organizations. 

In addition to internships, learning opportunities such as research and fieldwork can be found University-wide. Fordham faculty oversee capstone projects, assignments, case studies, and research projects. Students can also gain experience with Fordham departments such as the Center for Community Engaged Learning, Marketing and Communications, and the Office of Information Technology.

Continuous Support

As they progress in their education, students are encouraged to connect with alumni mentors who can help them with career advice and utilize all the tools of RamConnect, the University’s online community for professional development. Career counselors also work with students all four years to help them improve their career readiness skills. 

“We are always looking to prepare our students for the future,” said McLaughlin. 

“Internships, research, experiential learning, and study abroad are key components to setting our students up for success.”