Photos by Argenis Apolinario, Bruce Gilbert, John Haubrich, and Chris Taggart

TYLER CRAWFORD, LAW ’19

In the criminal defense clinic, we represented a parole applicant who’d been incarcerated for over 20 years. He’d been denied parole five times. We worked on his case all semester, and there were a lot of hard questions about how to represent him. I’ll never forget, the day after Christmas, we found out that his parole application had been approved. This man suddenly had a second lease on life. It was partly because of the work we were able to do. That moment sort of justified law school for me.

LALA KUMAKURA, FCRH ’19, B.A. in International Studies and Humanitarian Studies

Sophomore year I was walking into the University Church for our first Global Outreach India meeting when I bumped into a few strangers who were also searching for the meeting space in the back. As we sat in a circle in the dimly lit room, I remember feeling excited and nervous. Today, those who were once strangers are my closest friends.

ELEANOR SMITH, GSE ’19, Ph.D. in School Psychology

On the day of the 2016 School Psych spring formal, several of my fellow grad students and I helped put last-minute decorations together. I will never forget the group of us gluing things together, drawing on posters, laughing and talking as we went. Later, walking down 60th Street, we laughed hysterically as we watched my friend Leeann try to manage at least 40 balloons! It was an incredible night. It was the first time I realized what a wonderful, supportive group of people I had around me amidst the stresses of grad school; they have become some of my dearest friends.

KYLE KILKENNY, FCLC ’19, B.S. in Political Science

Pope Francis came to the U.S. my first month at Fordham, and I won a contest for tickets to see him. I brought my brother Kris to Central Park, and we saw him in his white popemobile. There were cardboard cutouts of him all around campus, and I was like, “I’ve seen him in the flesh!” I think he just tries to remind us that we’re all part of the human race. As a queer Catholic, I see that he’s really elevated that acceptance. When I walk into sacred spaces like the University Church or the chapel in Lowenstein, it feels good to know that Francis cares about my humanity and sees me the way God sees me.

ALLISON MARINO, GSS ’19, M.S.W.

My first-year placement was for Legal Aid Society, and I had a client on Rikers Island. I had to take a bus over the bridge and another one to get to the jail. The meeting room was dark and claustrophobic. When I took the bus back toward civilization, the light blinded me and I was overcome with exhaustion. That’s when I realized I was a bridge between the people I’m serving and the entire outside world. The fact that it was a painful experience made me realize how seriously I need to take this work.

PIUS TO’OMAE, GRE ’19, M.A. in Pastoral Mental Health Counseling

Coming from one of the tiny countries surrounded by ocean [the Solomon Islands], I find interacting with my classmates from other countries brings about unity among diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences. We have Chinese priests in the program. We have priests from South America. We have priests from the Philippines—all over the world. This is for me the spirit of cura personalis—living memories I will bring home into the oceans. And like the dots on the cowry shells, they shine.

ERICA HARRELL, GABELLI ’19. B.S. in Public Accounting

The memory that stands out for me would be my experience on a Global Outreach trip to Rutledge, Tennessee. I got to learn more about the injustice that people face in rural areas rather than in urban areas. I also got to experience and be in solidarity with the community there, and I formed a strong bond with my Global Outreach teammates.

TYLER BROWN, PCS ’19, B.A. in Economics

I was master-at-arms for three and a half years in the Navy in nuclear weapons security. My best Fordham memory was the first time I walked onto the Rose Hill campus. It was like being in an oasis in the city. And just not seeing the bulletproof vests and the M16s every day really took me out of that militarized mindset. It definitely helped me clear my mind and focus on my schoolwork and the important tasks at hand.

ESTHER LIBERMAN CUENCA, GSAS ’19, Ph.D. in History

My greatest memory is really a series of moments with the Fordham students I’ve had the honor of teaching. I started out very inexperienced. It was through all of the years teaching undergraduate survey classes that I really learned what it is to be a teacher. Fordham students prepared me for my Ph.D. just as much as my adviser and my committee.

DOUGLAS QUIMBY, JR., PCS ’17, GABELLI ’19, M.B.A.

I especially remember my first interview with the admissions committee. I had this really sweet goatee—at least I thought it was. I nailed the interview, but later I worried that I hadn’t put my best foot forward in terms of appearance. I got through the program, though, and I’ve realized that in the M.B.A. program, and Fordham in general, we don’t judge who you are off the bat, but we look at the potential of what you can be. We have a really unique culture; there are no judgments here.

NICOLETTE YEE, FCLC ’19, B.A. in English 

Sophomore year I was an orientation leader, and the best part was the last day of orientation. We had Dance Underneath the Stars, where we danced in the plaza with a DJ. It was nice clear night and the stars were out—at least from what you can see of stars in New York City. It was just having a great night before school started, a great opportunity to be a college kid before everything got crazy, before class started the next morning, before the first syllabus, before homework, or projects, just one last chance to let loose.

MANNA SAMUEL, GABELLI ‘19 M.S. in Accounting

My iconic Fordham moment was discovering my role in sustainability. I was studying accounting, and I was truly interested in the field, but was unclear about its larger purpose. An invitation to join Fordham’s pilot research program with SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) introduced me to an industry I never considered being a part of. It shed a new light on how I understood environmental, social, and corporate governance matters in public corporations and financial reporting, and for the first time, it gave me a clear picture of how my skill set and education could meet my desire to be impactful in a tangible way.

YARELYN MENA, LAW ’19

Mine has to be this year’s Fordham LALSA’s 33rd annual student and alumni awards dinner. I started at LALSA (Latin American Law Students Association) as a 1L, and this year I was president. When I got to speak, I looked out, and I saw all my mentors that I had from before law school, during law school, and everyone who’s helped me these past three years. It was weird and to know that it was over, but I was also being inducted into this alumni family at the same time.

CHRISTINE KELLY, GSAS, ’19, Ph.D. in History, and new assistant dean for student professional development at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

What will always be memorable to me is the opportunity I was given to innovate existing programing to enhance the everyday lives of graduate students, and help them enhance their career readiness. This was something that became available to me through administrative leadership at the university, and that demonstrates a great deal of compassion and care for the student body, and invites graduate students to serve their peers in meaningful and enduring ways.

Photos by Taylor Ha, Tom Stoelker, Patrick Verel, and contributed by Eleanor Smith and Claire Nunez

On Saturday, May 18, Tim Shriver delivered the following remarks to the Fordham class of 2019.

Tim Shriver: Class of 2019, congratulations. Father, I know you’re fond of saying … Uh oh. Already I’m cut off? I know it’s supposed to be short, but that. There we go.

I know you’re fond of saying … What’s the expression? I should know it now. Fordham is your university and New York is your campus? Fordham is my school. I screwed it up already. Okay. How about we add ‘And we forgive all your loans?’ I mean, this is a religion all about forgiveness, Father. You’re trying to get people to confession. Here you have the chance.

Joseph M. McShane: Senator Casey, what do you say? Can we take care of that? I mean, it would be great. I’m the wrong guy to talk to.

Tim Shriver: Congratulations in advance, especially to all the parents who are here. Let’s hear it for our moms, dads, uncles, aunts, people who mothered us and fathered us. Are you proud back there?

I know the next expression you’re going to say to all of them after you say how proud you are is get a job, right? Lincoln Center grads, the rest of you, these are your classmates. These are your classmates from Lincoln Center. I know it’s late in the process to be meeting them, but they’re wonderful people. I think this is Rose Hill over here. You guys should get to know each other.

I want to do a special shout out to the dancers. Hello, dancers. Yes. When I was in college I got in trouble for dancing too much, they got degrees for dancing too much. I want to congratulate my daughter, Caroline. I just couldn’t let you go. I had to get a degree with you. Linda and I, and your brothers and sisters, are extraordinarily proud of you, and of all of the graduates here.

Graduates, I hope you’re realizing that if you’ve spent the last four years making fun of the nerds those days are over. You now start working for them, and you will be for the rest of your life.

And to the faculty who’s here, I want to congratulate you for allowing these young men and women to enter the halls of academia, the search for truth. They’re entering a world that because of a whole host of sources doesn’t think there is truth anymore, so, graduates, I think your first job is to return to the country the truth. It’s up to you to figure out what it is. Don’t expect me to tell you.

I am not here to preach. I think there are enough preachers in this place already. I think probably the best ones are the women religious. Are there any women religious here on the stage? Maybe I can ask them to stand because pretty soon I hope they’ll be preaching from the altars. No? Come on. How about all the women faculty, then? Let’s have them all up. Come on. That’s you guys, come on. Stand up. We want you to preach.

That’s not a liberal thing, so just relax. That’s not a liberal thing. Jesus told…let’s do a little theology. Jesus told Mary Magdalene to teach the boys. We could use a little of that. Okay. That may be a little political.

Speaking of teaching, I had a powerful encounter with a lesson not too long ago. I was on an elevator in a hotel down in Texas. I got on the elevator. There was a guy on the elevator with a 10-gallon cowboy hat and big cowboy boots, and blue jeans and a big silver belt buckle. I pushed the second floor where I was headed. He looked over at me and he said, “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like a Kennedy?”

I was on a short ride on the elevator and not up for a chat. I just said, “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.” As the elevator door opened he said, “Well, that must really piss you off, eh?” I want to go back to him and say, “President Trump loves us. Loves me. We’re all together in all this.” I’m not sure he’d hear me.

Actually, if I can take just a few moments, and trust me it’ll just be a few, I do think this issue of what we call one another, how we label each other is in fact a big issue for your time. We live in a time of labels. We have labels for everything, for political affiliation, for the college we go to, for genders, for races, for income brackets, for sexual orientations, for affiliation, for address, for income bracket. We label like crazy these days.

And we don’t agree on much across those labels, but we do agree on one thing. This country seems to have one consensus point of view, and that is that we’re divided. We’re so deeply divided we’ve lost a sense even in our own families often of being able to have conversation, of being able to listen and hear. Even in our own schools, even in our own communities.

The sense of division maybe driven by labels has led to anxiety, it’s led to distrust, it’s led to pain. And we agree on one other dimension of it. Almost everybody thinks it’s not their fault. It’s their fault. It’s someone else’s fault. We’re divided not because of me, but because of you. Because at some level you’re just too different, you’re just too wrong to be included, so we blame each other, we judge each other, we humiliate each other, and we try to make others pay by judging them.

It’s an old story, you might say, scapegoating. It’s in our biblical texts. The ancient Israelis took the sins of the people, the weaknesses, the fears, the anger, the mistakes, put them on a goat, chase it out. Remove it from the group. Exclude it from belonging. That will solve the problem.

It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now, because it relies on one big problem. It assumes you, me, we can be happy as long as we exclude someone else. It assumes that if we defeat or humiliate or dominate the other, we’ll find a way to be happy.

The problems aren’t mine. They’re just a function of getting rid of someone else. We don’t want to look inside, as Bishop Jakes has written in his recent book. We would rather hurt others, even those who are already hurting, than feel the hurt ourselves. This, my friends, my fellow graduates, is a guarantee, that we will never be happy, because being happy is something that we can only do together.

So I want to give you a challenge. It’s a pretty big one, I’ll admit. How do you take all the technology, all the anger of cable news, not network news, just cable news, all of our losses, our loss of feeling that we belong, our loss of feeling, the sense of justice in our country, our loss of a national narrative, how do we take all the hostility and anger of this moment and transform it into something new, something different?

How do we be brave enough to turn toward each other instead of away from each other when we’re in pain? How do we stay open to each other even when we’ve hurt each other?

It’s a personal challenge. It’s a political challenge. I dare say it’s not going to be solved as Einstein said with the old remedies. Separation of powers, due process, protection of rights, those are the foundations of our democracy. They’re necessary, but we’ve lived with divisiveness now long enough. Narrow self-interest. We’ve lived with this fundamental sin of othering for long enough to see where it leads us. We need a new operating system of the heart.

Now, to some of you that will sound like a naïve dreamer, but I don’t think so, because ultimately, we are much more naturally we than we are me. We start out as we. My beautiful grandson doesn’t know me. He only knows we. That’s the story of each of your lives, a long, arduous period of extended helplessness that was met and healed and transformed only by love.

You were a we long before you were a me. If I try to defeat you, you try to defeat me. That’s the recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, if I want to change me I believe I need to love you, so I believe in this power to change our own hearts. I believe in the power to transform the hearts of others, because I’ve seen it up close. I’ve had a front row seat to the best of humanity, the transformers of the world. I’ve got to see them, watch, take the most painful, most difficult, sometimes the most heart-wrenching situations, and somehow turn them into healing.

Think of the … A Canadian. Some of you may have heard of it, but most of you haven’t, he died last week, Jean Vanier. He died at the age of 90 in France. When he was young about your age he was invited to go to an institution where those who had been excluded, totally left out, totally treated as other, he was invited to go and meet them.

He met two men, Phillipe Seux and Raphaël Simi. They looked him in the eye with the eyes of anguish and pain. They looked him in the eye, saying, I want to leave. I don’t want to be locked up for the rest of my life.

Now, he could’ve just seen the stress and abandonment of parents. He could’ve just seen the neglect of the system, but he saw a third force, another way to do it. He bought a little house and he invited them out. They opened a home three men living together as friends.

He called his communities L’Arche the place where creatures friend or foe, hunter or prey all were safe, all were cared for. Countless times he saw people come to him in homes, then around the world, with the face of anguish, with the experience of pain, with the struggle of a life of rejection.

He said to them over and over again, “You are more beautiful than you dare to imagine.” Those words, more beautiful than you dare to imagine. He said, “When you let people who are no good into your life, you are transformed.” Why are you transformed when you bridge the gap? Because when you let them in you’re not trying to be superior anymore. You’re not trying to be separate. You’ve stopped othering. In some ways, you can stop hiding, too. You can have a reunion with yourself.

Remember the text in scripture, do not be conformed, but be transformed. When you let the other in, that’s your chance. Vanier spoke of your primal innocence, that little part of you that’s fragile and tender and vulnerable. You can let it back in.

This is the vision I’m inviting you into, to be transformers, to transform pain into joy, hurt into love, separation into connection, instead of just fight or flight try to unlock a new form of sight. And know that separation is always a false solution.

Now, you know transformers already. Alvin Ailey was a transformer. He was a transformer. He saw racism, he saw exclusion, he saw misunderstanding. He saw the forces colliding in his world, and he chose an alternative, a form of expression. As he said, “I want to teach people to understand the inner kinds of things.” The inner kinds of things he let out, an expression that allowed people to see from the inside out.

We can learn to do this. I had a student years ago, Lamont Young. He did just this. He learned in high school how to do this work with social and emotional learning. He learned how to find his deepest self. He wanted to make a change in his life, and then he got shot seven times at point blank range. By a guy high on PCP. By a miracle, he recovered physically. And then, he says, by an even greater miracle, he recovered spiritually when he forgave the man who shot him.

Lamont once told a reporter the African-American story of going through slavery and discrimination and still being able to look someone in the face and say, “I love you, brother,” that’s what makes it unique. That’s how we survived, he said, for 400 years. The perseverance, the resilience, that’s my story.

Lamont graduated from this university last year with a master’s in counseling and is using his gifts to transform the lives of others who are locked in prisons of othering and rejection and racism.

So these transformers are heroes of mine, but I really want you guys to recognize that this is your real superpower. You’ve all got it. You can go to the movies and watch someone else pretend to have it, but you’ve actually got this superpower. We don’t use it that often, but I’m going all over the country. I ask young people, “What do you wish Americans knew?”

As you sit here, answer the question, what do you wish the country knew? The answer I get over and over again is ‘I wish Americans knew that everybody counts, that everybody deserves a chance, that everybody belongs.’ That’s a creed. You may not hear it in church in those words, but wherever you worship remember that creed. It is the defining, in my view, creed of your generation.

Rather than just tell you about it, maybe it’s better to practice. So I want to ask all of you to join me in a little fun. Let’s imagine this day is actually a track meet. You’re here for the local Bronx Special Olympics local games. Right down on here is the track, and assembled here before you are six or eight athletes. They’re ready to run their 100-meter dash. Are you with me? Okay.

Now, in Special Olympics people get loud, they get noisy, so I want you to imagine catching the eye of one of the athletes. You’ve got your Starbucks, you’ve got your … You’re ready to go, but just for a moment as you’re watching your own life capture the eye of one of the athletes. Maybe a 12-year-old boy or a 12-year-old girl. Make your choice.

Maybe just for a moment let that athlete catch your heart. Maybe just know, at least unconsciously, that that young man, that young woman has been rejected over and over and over again. Maybe just remember, unconsciously maybe, that when that little child was born, maybe it was a tough day for his or her mom and dad, maybe just be aware how hard it was to get into a preschool, how hard it is to fit into school, how many kids don’t speak to him in the cafeteria, in the hall.

Maybe you could just imagine his little eyes looking up at yours and somehow know that those little eyes have seen their spirit wounded over and over and over again by a world that saw them as other.

So now, join me in pretend. I’m going to pretend I’m hitting the starting gun. I want to ask you guys to, all of you, to join me and cheer. We’re going to do a mock race right here and I want you to get loud. I want you to be as loud as a Ram’s audience has ever been. This is your final wild, crazy cheer, and it’s going to be for these athletes right here running in front of you.

When I hit the gun, when I say “Go,” I want you to cheer, and I want all the parents in the back to cheer and I want you to get loud. I want you to get up. It’s going to be a short race, so I want you to give it all you’ve got. Do I have you with me? All right.

So meet the eyes of the athlete. Watch as I sound the gun, and as I run across this stage I want you to cheer like you’re seeing that athlete, that little boy or that girl, but one more thing. I want you to cheer using your name. I want to use your own name and say, “Go, fill in the blank.” That’s parents, too. Uncles, aunts, friends, brothers, sisters, teachers, mentors, faculty, Mr., Dr. How many titles do you have? President?

Joseph M. McShane: Just Joe.

Tim Shriver: Just Joe. I want you to cheer for Joe. You got it?

I’m running. You with me? Are you ready? On your marks, get set, go. [cheering].

Thank you. Yeah. Come on … Yeah. I can hear your name. So I wonder what happened in that brief moment. Did you see yourself? Did you feel that primal innocence that Jean Vanier spoke about? Did you know that that was you on the track, that little boy or that little girl, running to be free of being judged, running to be free of being humiliated, running to be free of anguish, running to return to that primal innocence?

I think you just had a reunion, I hope, with yourself, with your best self. I hope you know that when you have a reunion with your best self you’re having a reunion with everybody else, too, because we all share that. We all share that sense of trying to carry so much woundedness, so much brokenness, and yet let it out.

It’s what our country’s struggling with right now, so if you can see that person as you, I hope you will join them, these athletes, and you yourself, and remember their oath, let me win, but if I cannot win let me be brave in the attempt.

I would add let me be a transformer. Let me not just be a transformer in my relationships, with my friends, in my job, in my life, but let me be part of a transformed nation. Let me be … Let us be the class, the class of 2019, that invites the country into a new dialogue with itself.

There is no problem, Americans are fond of saying, that we can’t solve together, but it is so obvious that we need to do it together. So, I ask you to choose this life. You have a choice. You have to decide which side you’re on. I hope you will choose to be a transformer and to be brave.

And if you need a reminder, why not let’s have us dance a reminder? You got up once. Dancers, I need you to help me now. The words of the Special Olympics oath include the words be brave. Let me be brave in the attempt. So right now, let’s have a little bit of music if we can. Let’s hear the words and the lyrics.

Okay. All right. Oh, yes. Dancers, up. Okay. All right. There we go. Let’s go. Come on. Come on. [music playing]. Be brave. Yeah. Just want to see you be brave.

“Fordham students have a passion for leadership and understand the academic underpinnings of societal issues. That passion gets ignited in the classroom and continues with civic engagement in the Bronx, Manhattan, and beyond,” said Arto Woodley, Ed.D., executive director of the Center for Community Engaged Learning. “As [Irish poet William Butler] Yeats said, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but a lighting of a fire.’”

All volunteers bring individual expertise to their respective organizations, but Fordham College at Rose Hill seniors Marc De La Hoz and Laura Lynch said Fordham students bring something extra: a commitment to service, honed over their four years here.

De La Hoz is heading to Cameroon with the Peace Corps as a health educator. Lynch will assist teachers at underserved community schools outside of Sacramento, California, with the JVC, one of the world’s largest lay, Catholic, full-time volunteer programs. Both say they are going away to learn, as well as to help.

Lynch said her experiences in Alaska and Mississippi with Fordham’s Global Outreach, part of the Center for Community Engaged Learning, taught her a lot about how to approach helping others. At the forefront is self-awareness of her own privilege.

“When you’re working with marginalized communities, or any kind of service work, you have to be careful not to be paternalistic,” said Lynch, adding that the people she’ll be aiming to help will have plenty to teach her.

The French major said she’ll be brushing up on her Spanish over the summer before beginning her one-year stint as a teacher’s assistant at Saint Hope Charter Schools in Sacramento, a city known more for its wealth than its underserved communities.

“Everyone talks about how nice a city it is, but there’s shocking disparity, so historically underserved populations don’t benefit from that reputation,” she said, adding that it’s not unlike her experiences volunteering in the Bronx, where impoverished communities sit amidst New York’s enormous wealth.

Lynch has some experience in teaching; while at Fordham, she volunteered as a tutor at Concourse House, a transitional housing site, and at the Rose Hill Tutoring Center.

She said she’s looking forward to the JVC version of volunteering, which incorporates Ignatian values signified by four pillars: simple living, social justice, community, and spirituality. To that end, she’ll be living in a community with other JVC volunteers on a small stipend, where she’ll share dinners and experiences. Mostly, she’s looking forward to meeting her new students.

“I want to stand with these students and hear about their experience,” she said. “This is for me as much a learning experience as another year of school would be.”

De La Hoz also expressed a desire to learn from the people of Cameroon over the next two years. He’s already hunkered down on reading about the diverse country, which tends to “lean very religious and conservative,” he said, regardless of the many religions represented there. He said he’s expecting to embark on a period of listening to understand what’s needed from him. He spent years teaching sexual health as a volunteer at Peer Health Exchange in New York City, a health education program for underserved community youth. He used what he learned at Peer Health to help educate a diverse group of populations about sexual health, from sex workers in the Dominican Republic to teens at his church near his hometown of Fishkill, New York.

Each community has its own needs and each has its own way of receiving health information, he said. Bronx teens appreciate frankness, he said, “or they immediately lose interest.”

“With a sex worker, the situation is very different. In that case, it’s sitting there and letting them know you are listening to them as a person, not a sex object,” he said.

In Cameroon, he’ll need to learn the needs of a new population: those living with HIV/AIDS. He will not be dealing with clients as directly as in the past. The Peace Corps, established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy with Sargent Shriver serving as its first director, has its members work side by side with local leaders to tackle challenges.

He said his experience working with immigrants in his own community laid bare what happens when people don’t get the health information they need.

“Health education is what decides success in life,” he said. “If you’re a 14-year-old girl without real health education, you could get pregnant. A baby is a blessing, but what about that young girl’s future?”

De La Hoz’s ultimate goal will be medical school when he returns from Cameroon. For now, he’s set to listen.

“I won’t know the best way to get things done until I get there.”

“That was the first time I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be a surgeon,’” Sanchez said. “I want to be that guy who is in control of the room, who knows what’s going on, who has all the knowledge and the capability to save someone’s life.”

Today, Sanchez is a senior chemistry student on the pre-med track at Fordham College at Rose Hill. In his four years at Fordham, he’s conducted research in three labs. He’s shadowed three medical specialists and observed tumor removals and colonoscopies. He’s volunteered at St. Barnabas Hospital—just a 15-minute walk from campus—and served both English and Spanish-speaking patients from the Bronx.

But it was a buildup of experiences, beginning at home, that inspired him to pursue a career in medicine.

A Boy from Queens

Sanchez was born and raised in a family of health care professionals in Bayside Hills, Queens. His mother is a geriatrician; his father was an ultrasound technician. Both of them left their native Ecuador in their 20s to achieve the American Dream.

Whenever Sanchez fell ill, his mother “always had the answers,” he said. Those “answers” extended to their family members in Ecuador, who often called their home in New York for medical advice.

“I loved that she was that source of knowledge and information to people,” Sanchez said. “And I aspired to be that.”

Bringing Science and Solace to the Bronx

His dream of becoming a doctor slowly took shape.

At Fordham, he worked as a research lab mentor for three chemistry professors who taught him how to better navigate the heavy science associated with pre-med studies. Under the tutelage of Christopher Koenigsmann, Ph.D., Sanchez synthesized cobalt nanowires for fuel cells. In the lab of Fariborz Firooznia, Ph.D., he learned how to separate different substances and measure heat transfers. And since last fall, he has worked in the lab of Paul Smith, Ph.D., where he analyzes cortisol, a stress hormone found in hair and saliva.

Last year, he also served as a STEM student representative for Fordham College at Rose Hill’s academic integrity committee, said Rachel Annunziato, the associate dean for strategic initiatives. In fact, she was the one who selected him for the role.

“He was just so thoughtful in terms of his ethical responsibilities,” said Annunziato, who met Sanchez and his family at the fall 2017 dean’s list ceremony. “He’s so personable, hardworking, and determined …. He’s a really good kid.”

In the spring of 2018, Sanchez started volunteering at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, where he surveyed patients on the quality of care during their stay. But he also connected with them, particularly those that spoke Spanish, his family’s native tongue. He bonded with a middle-aged Dominican patient, who, like him, loved the taste of arroz con habichuelas and pasteles.

“This was human interaction … conversational care,” Sanchez said.

Life and Death in the Operating Room

For years, Sanchez had wanted to become a doctor. But it wasn’t until 2017 that he formally decided to pursue a profession in medicine.

Two summers ago, Sanchez shadowed a family friend: chief surgical oncologist Mario Leone, Ph.D., who works at the Society to Fight Cancer, a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. For almost two months, Sanchez observed surgeries and clinical appointments.

Many of the patients he observed in Ecuador suffered from soft tissue sarcomas, or cancers that begin in the bone and muscle. One patient, who had lost an eye, complained about the wind flowing through his empty socket. Another had a fist-sized sarcoma growing from her scalp—a bald, pink mass that was only visible when she took off her hat. 

In the operating room, he watched Leone and his medical staff remove tumors in surgeries that took hours. As an electrocautery probe sliced across a patient’s body, he could smell the burning flesh. With the aid of a surgeon’s scalpel, he saw skin layers peel apart. But he wasn’t afraid.

“I was totally intrigued by learning the anatomy of it—learning how to be careful,” Sanchez said. “Not severing any major arteries or veins and being careful of the nerves.”

He also loved the vibe of Leone’s team. Sometimes they played rap or bachata music during surgery, he said. But what he liked the most was their team dynamic.

“The fluidity, the way they joke around, but also the way that they solve problems off the fly and rely on each other—that’s what I like,” Sanchez said. “[And] they all have the same goal: They want to save this person’s life.”

That doesn’t always happen. Leone told him about how he had cared for a child in Ecuador who later succumbed to liver cancer, Sanchez said.

“You’re not always gonna have a success in the operating room. You’re not going to be able to fix everybody that comes in there,” Sanchez said. “But you keep on trying.”

After he graduates from Fordham, Sanchez plans on taking a gap year before applying to medical school. He said he wants to gain more clinical experience, and plans on applying for medical scribe and research assistant positions. He looks forward to people putting faith in him the way they put faith in his mom.

“You look after these people with all your heart and soul because you genuinely love them,” Sanchez said. “I want to have that friendship where they trust me as a doctor, and a smile comes on their face every time I walk in the room—‘cause I know I’m going to have a smile on my face.”

Timothy Shriver, Ph.D., chairman of the Special Olympics, ran, danced, and jumped his way into the hearts of Fordham graduates on May 18, delivering a rousing keynote address at Fordham’s 174th Annual Commencement.

“You have a choice. You have to decide which side you’re on. I hope you will choose to be a transformer and to be brave,” he said from the steps of Keating Terrace, where he had just led the crowd of about 15,000 people—including Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham—through a lively dance to the Sara Bareilles song “Brave.”

Shriver used his speech (full remarks here) to highlight the way the Special Olympics helps people overcome the tendency to look at one another as “the other.” Toward the end of his speech, he asked all assembled to imagine Keating Terrace as a track, and that he was a disabled 12-year-old competing in a race. With a full academic gown on and the 70-degree sun beating down on him, he then jogged from one end of the terrace to the other to the roar of the crowd. He told them to also imagine themselves as the runner, and shout out their own names as they cheered.

“Did you know that was you on the track? That little boy or that little girl running to be free of being judged, running to be free of being humiliated, running to be free of anguish? I think you just had a reunion with your best self, and I hope you know that when you have a reunion with your best self, you’re having a reunion with everybody else too because we all share that,” he said.

“We all share that sense of trying to carry so much woundedness, so much brokenness, and yet let it out. It’s what our country’s struggling with right now.”

That “othering,” he said, is responsible for what he called “a time for labels” in the United States, be they labels of political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, address, or income bracket. It has also led to a sense of division.

“We don’t agree on much across those labels, but we do agree on one thing, and that is that we’re divided. This sense of division has led to anxiety, it’s led to distrust, it’s led to pain. And we agree on another dimension of it: almost everybody thinks it’s not their fault. It’s not their fault, it’s someone else’s fault.”

The country needs a new “operating system of the heart,” he said, and he implored the class of 2019 to be the class that invites the country to a new dialogue with itself.

“Ultimately, we’re much more naturally we than we are me. We start out as we. My beautiful grandson doesn’t know me, he only knows we,” he said. “You were a ‘we’ long before you were a ‘me.’”

Curriculum for Life

Father McShane echoed Shriver’s emphasis on the “we” in his own address to the departing class. He imparted to graduates five lessons for succeeding in the “curriculum of life,” which he said, is concerned with matters of the heart.

His lessons? Lead with love, don’t be paralyzed by adversity and complexity, don’t listen to those who promote rugged individualism, and be wise and humble enough to accept help.

“Love has its own rather peculiar calculus, a calculus that confounds mathematicians and leaves accountants agog, for according to love’s rules, subtraction is really multiplication,” he said.

“If you doubt me, just look at your parents. Learn from them. Love. Love your spouse. Love your children. Be heroes to your children. Cultivate and perfect the art of friendship. Love the forgotten,” he said.

“You have also learned from the experience of the loss of three much-loved members of your class that grief is the price we pay for loving, and that if we love someone deeply, the grief of loss is almost unbearable,” he said, referring to the deaths of Gabelli School student Rachel Ragone and Fordham College at Rose Hill students Donika Celaj and Sydney Monfries.

“The key word here, of course, is almost. Think about it. You would never regret or trade the love that you gave or experienced even in the face and experience of grief. Never.”

For his fifth lesson, Father McShane went back to the language of his Marble Hill, Manhattan, roots: “Don’t be a jerk.”

“At the end of the day, the class clown is just that: a clown. Cynics are self-absorbed dopes and crashing bores who take the joy out of life,” he said.

“As for know-it-alls, let’s be honest: They are tiresome. Avoid them. Don’t believe them. Dare to be the person whom everyone trusts.”

Finally, always remember that God is with you, even when you don’t know it or don’t want him to be, he said.

“On this day of days, this is my complex prayer for you: May God, who has begun such great work in you, bring it to completion. Don’t be jerks, don’t go solo, lean into life, and as Dr. Shriver says, ‘be your own best self every day.’”

A Celebration for Families

For Brooklyn natives Cesar Martinez and Michelle Reyes, the day was particularly poignant, as they were accompanied by their parents and Alexis Adriana Martinez Reyes, their 15-month-old daughter. The international studies majors met while Reyes was working at the HEOP office at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and were able to both complete their studies thanks to the support of their families.

“I’m really excited. I’m also a little nervous. It’s been a very long four years, couldn’t have been happier now with my daughter here,” said Martinez.

“It was in the middle of taking midterms when she came, but it was nothing but a blessing. Everything comes down to the support of family members, friends, professors, everyone at Fordham too.”

Reyes concurred.

“It started off as a beautiful friendship, and it turned into something more beautiful, and now with this beautiful little one here, she’ll follow our footsteps at Fordham,” she said.

On the edge of Edwards Parade, Rose Gallagher, a resident of Stuyvesant Town whose daughter Danielle graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill with a degree in general science and psychology, laid out a set of four beach chairs and a blanket for the dozen or so members of the family expected to attend. Her father, James Hoare, was a 1955 Gabelli School graduate who received his diploma at Rose Hill. Her husband John passed away in March, making for an emotional day.

“I’m very excited for Danielle. It’s been a tough semester. She lost a few weeks there, but she got back into school March 2, and she made up everything, and being a science major, that’s no easy feat,” said Rose.

In the front row of Edwards Parade, Reading, Massachusetts, residents Neil and Diane Cohen watched their oldest daughter Stephanie, a Fordham College at Rose Hill communications major and Spanish minor, graduate. She worked at WFUV and interned at Story Corps during her time at Fordham, and will be going to Madrid in late August to teach English for the year.

Diane admitted the moment was bittersweet, as it brought back memories of the first time they saw this campus, and since Stephanie’s younger sister is attending college in Massachusetts, it would likely be their last visit for some time.

“One thing we learned is that students want their parents to visit for a few days, and when you get there they want to be with their friends more than their parents. So we’ve had a lot of downtime,” she joked.

A highlight for them was attending a reception Thursday by history professor Mark Naison, Ph.D., who’d hosted students for a round of tennis at Rose Hill.

“Fordham has been a wonderful experience for her, and I know it’ll carry her far in life,” she said.

In addition to Shriver, Fordham conferred honorary doctorates on six other notable figures: Ellen R. Alemany, chairwoman and CEO of CIT Group and CEO of CIT Bank, N.A.; Bob Casey, U.S. senator from Pennsylvania; Yueh C. Chen, secretary of the J. T. Tai & Company Foundation; Joseph P. Parkes, S.J., provincial assistant for secondary and pre-secondary education for the Maryland and USA Northeast Provinces of the Society of Jesus and a former Fordham trustee; David Ushery, NBC News 4 New York news anchor; and the Honorable Pamela K. Chen, United States District Court judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Photos by Bruce Gilbert, Chris Gosier, Chris Taggart, Patrick Verel

Widdi, a lifelong New Yorker who is earning a J.D. from the School of Law, has zero tolerance for injustice. A Stein Scholar and board member of the Fordham Law Defenders and the Coalition of Concerned Students, Widdi has accepted a position upon graduation with the Bronx Defenders, where she will represent parents accused of abusing and/or neglecting their children.

It’s an area of law that is sorely in need of rehabilitation, she said.

“People respect criminal defense attorneys because they know that our prison system is racist and classist, and that most people in jail are there for things they shouldn’t be in jail for, or because there are underlying reasons of poverty or mental health or addiction,” she said.

“But people don’t have the same understanding of the child welfare system.”

Seeing Injustice Up Close

Widdi, who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, has a great deal of experience in the child welfare field. A 2015 graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she interned during her first year at Fordham Law at the Brooklyn Defender Services’ family defense practice, and the Bronx Defenders Family Defense Practice her second year. She noted that in four months, she could count on one hand the number of defendants who weren’t black or Latino.

“It’s not like other communities don’t use drugs, leave their kids unattended, have their kids get into accidents, or have mental health issues. But these poor communities don’t have the resources to protect against the state getting involved. They’re going to public hospitals, and they’re getting public benefits, so they’re always kind of being monitored.”

“When we see a mother of color letting her kid go to the park by himself, she’s probably ‘unfit’ to be a mother. But when it’s a white family in Park Slope, that’s just a parenting style, and you’re building independence.”

Seeking Alternatives to Foster Homes

Widdi doesn’t dismiss the fact that parents dealing with issues of mental health, poverty, institutionalized racism, and substance abuse can struggle to care for their children. But she doesn’t believe that removal from their homes is the answer, noting that children who are placed in foster homes are incarcerated more frequently and have more mental health issues.

“Instead of helping the family with the services that they need, which is what the child welfare system is required to do by law, they take a better-safe-than-sorry approach, and take a kid out of their home,” she said.

“Judges are not going to end up on the front page of a newspaper for taking a kid out of his home because they were being extra cautious, even though the effects of that on that family are monumental. But they will if a kid stays at home and ends up dead. It rarely ever happens, but of course it’s so sensationalized when it does.”

A Drive Inspired by Heritage

Widdi’s devotion to social justice has resonated both outside the walls of the Law School and inside it as well. She has pushed to have a space created where students who don’t live nearby can relax between classes, and as part of the Coalition of Concerned Students, she’s advocated that professors and administrators think about the ways that Muslims are portrayed negatively when discussed in the context of law. She chalks up her interest in social justice to her upbringing as the child of Palestinian immigrants.

“I go back home to Palestine as often as I can and see a lot of similarities between the injustices that happen there and what happens here every day, though on a different scope,” she said.

“In doing public defense, I am working against systems of racism and classism and misogyny, and so I’m doing my part, albeit indirectly, to help my own community.”

Inspiring Others to Pursue Family Law

Leah Horowitz, LAW ’06, director of student organizations and publicity at the Law School’s Public Interest Resource Center, repeatedly falls back on the word “phenomenal” to describe Widdi. She recently submitted Widdi’s name for consideration for the Law School’s prestigious Donald Magnetti Award, which is presented to a member of the graduating J.D. class in recognition of their outstanding public commitment and contribution to those beyond the Law School Community. When she asked for co-signers, 15 faculty members swiftly added their names to the nomination.

“People now know about criminal defense because of TV shows, and because there’s a lot of information about the injustices in the criminal defense system. But there are injustices everywhere, and I think that one of the amazing things that Leena has done is she’s shone a light on what’s happening in the child welfare system,” she said.

Widdi has also been a mentor to others, Horowitz said. Students routinely reach out to her and say ‘Leena told me I had to come see you,’ about practicing family law, she said.

“What I admire most is her level of commitment, her heart, her vision, and her love for people. She has a vision for something better in this society.”

Photos by Dana MaxsonFordham’s Gabelli School of Business rolled out the red carpet for its highest achievers on May 16 at its annual Awards Night celebration at the Rose Hill campus.

The ceremony, which took place in the McGinley Center’s student lounge, brought together about 400 students, faculty, administrators, friends and families, who sat on three sides of a stage.

Speaking to graduating seniors at the McGinley Center Ballroom, Dean Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., implored them to remember the helpers in their lives. The notion that one can be successful all on their own is a lie, she said.

It’s also useful to remember organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s theory that people are generally givers, takers, or matchers, she said. We vacillate between the three at different points in the day, but in general, those who gravitate toward one specific model are more successful.

“In business, you might think it’s the takers: Hard-charging, take-no-prisoners types who pull themselves to the top no matter what. Or you might think it’s the matchers: People who master the delicate negotiation of ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours.’ But it’s not. It’s the givers,” she said.

Their accomplishments are many, including jobs at the likes of Barclays, BlackRock, J.P. Morgan Chase, Blackstone, Amazon, Instagram, Adobe, BBDO, Nike, and all of the Big Four accounting firms, and Rapaccioli lauded them for being supportive of each other in hard times. Deep down, Gabelli School graduates are givers, she said.

“You have completed four years at a business school that is caring, not cutthroat. You have learned to use your business skills to advance society and the plight of others. You are interested not only in a great salary and a great apartment, but in doing something that adds good to the world,” she said.

Caroline Dahlgren, GABELLI ’11, recipient of the Alumnus of the Year Award, echoed that refrain, telling graduates that it’s now their turn to help each other. That’s how she connected with Tiffany & Co., where she is currently manager of global consumer insights, she said.

“Fordham said yes to you when you were accepted, and along the way, professors, deans, mentors, peers, coaches, parents, and maybe even some alumni said yes to you,” she said.

“But I ask now that no matter how busy you are, to find the tiniest block of time for that Fordham student who inevitably reaches out to you. Now you might say, ‘I can’t hire them, I can’t give them profound career advice—I just graduated.’ That may be true. But I ask that you not be afraid to impart even the smallest nugget of wisdom and experience with them. Its valuable. That’s the beauty of the Fordham community. We can support each other even in seemingly small ways.”

The class of 2019 featured two valedictorians, Clara Gastaldi and John Lichtmann.

Gastaldi, a finance and marketing major who minored in fashion studies and was a member of the women’s soccer team, compared her acceptance to Fordham to the U.S. welcoming her parents from Argentina 20 years ago. Her parents, she said, taught her the value of embracing the unknown with that move.

“Through hard work and dedication, they opened a world of opportunities for me and my three brothers. Whenever I had even the wildest of dreams, you always had my back and pushed me to do everything to my fullest potion,” she said, pausing to address her mother in back of the McGinley Center ballroom.

“Mom, please don’t cry.”

A “passion for fashion” that she had since she was a little girl, walking around in pink plastic high heels, led her to Fordham.

“I knew that my future was in New York. So, when the opportunity presented itself, I packed my bags, made the switch, and reported for preseason in August of 2016,” she said.

“In the same way that the United States welcomed my family, Fordham University and Fordham athletics took me in when I transferred to the Bronx from the University of Georgia, just after my freshman year, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.”

For Lichtmann, an accounting major who commuted two hours to campus from New Jersey and is pursuing an M.S. in public accounting at the Gabelli School, his time was bittersweet, tinged with the sudden loss of his mother right before Christmas his sophomore year. He was devastated, and unsure he’d be able to return to Fordham, he said.

“However, I kept faith that God would guide her safely to heaven, and I learned to trust the people around me to help adjust to my new lifestyle. I decided that I had to work harder and focus even more on school so I could make her proud,” he said.

Lichtmann was able to maintain a sense of humor as well. He joked that he was not really in any position to tell anyone what to think, because he only got to be on stage “because I was able to balance debits and credits for four years.”

“What I can tell you is, people will remember you for your actions. Opening the door for a stranger, greeting a co-worker with a hello—kindness and respect are contagious. At the end of the day, knowledge is power, but how you use that knowledge to affect lives of others is even more power,” he said.

“I hope to see a future where accountability is a virtue, dreams can become a reality through hard work, and people choose cooperation and collaboration over division.”

Capstone student awards include the Alumni Chair Award, which was given to Maxwell Lynch, the Mozilo Future Distinguished Alumnus Award, which was given to Morgan Mezzasalma, and the Dean’s Award, which was given to Amanda D’Antone.

In addition to recognizing dozens of students from the Gabelli School at Rose Hill with awards throughout the evening, the event also celebrated faculty contributions. The Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence for full-time faculty went to Stanley Veliotis, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting and taxation; the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence for adjunct faculty went to Linda Luca, adjunct professor of marketing; the Faculty Cura Personalis Award went to Nancy McCarthy, lecturer of communications and management; and the Faculty Magis Award went to Barbara Porco, Ph.D., clinical associate professor of accounting.

Erin Kiernan, an English and film and television student who opened for Saturday Night Live comedians Alex Moffat and Mikey Day this past Spring Weekend, was the 2019 Lady of the Manor. In a monologue that mixed nostalgia with good humor, she poked fun at her home for the past four years.

“We entered Fordham with countless questions: Will I make friends? Will I find my passion? Is my roommate bringing the mini fridge, or am I? When will Edward’s Parade occur?” Kiernan joked.

“As we move into the next stages of our lives, we’re faced with even bigger questions: Will I get a job? What is my purpose? How do you pronounce Cunniffe House? Is the small building next to Freeman a seismic station or a tomb? Where did all the cats come from? What is the Calder Center for, except shutting down for a week every time there’s a rumor of snow?” she continued, to laughter so frequent it seemed like a laugh track.

At the end of her playful satire, she tempered her tone to one of gratitude. Kiernan listed a string of things she was grateful for at Fordham. Among them were the sunny days on Eddies and GO! (Global Outreach) trips.

“Thank you for turning me into the woman I’ve always wanted to be. And most of all, thank you for not having an application fee or requiring a supplementary essay,” Kiernan said, as her classmates cheered.

Valedictorian Robin Happel, an environmental studies major and the daughter of field biologists, steered the night’s speeches toward a tougher topic—climate change.

But before doing so, she acknowledged two young women who should’ve been at the ceremony that evening.

“I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge Donika Celaj and Sydney Monfries, two members of our class who tragically could not be with us,” Happel said. “May their memories be a blessing.”

She then delivered a personal reflection on the climate change crisis. For three consecutive years, Happel and her friends faced natural disasters that were worsened by the effects of climate change. The fall of her sophomore year, her close friends from California were forced to drive through wildfire flames that encircled—and eventually destroyed—their homes. A year later, her roommate’s hometown flooded during Hurricane Harvey. And last fall, Happel’s own family home flooded during Hurricane Florence.

She urged the audience to not only celebrate her classmates’ four years of achievements but to also focus on what they need to achieve in the next 11.

“That’s how long climate scientists have given us—11 years to avoid catastrophic climate change,” Happel said. “It’s already damaging our homes, our health, our safety, and our happiness. We won’t let it take our futures, too.”

It’s more than possible at Fordham, she said. The University already has solar panels that help provide low-cost power to its neighbors in the Bronx. It’s home to the fair trade start-up Spes Nova and other student clubs that aid the less fortunate. And it’s created a global alumni network that now includes the Class of 2019, she said—the class of “zero emissions, zero excuses, and zero time to waste.”

“I challenge you tonight to see yourself as placed here for a purpose. Whatever that purpose is, I hope that—win or lose—you pursue it. Because you are free, free someone else. Because you are alive in this moment, do more than simply step aside. Because we are the class of zero, and we have zero time to waste,” Happel said, to a standing ovation from her peers and other audience members.

More Fordham College at Rose Hill students were recognized for being inducted into top academic honor societies and winning prestigious awards, fellowships, and scholarships over the past four years.

There were two special awards, whose winners—unlike the rest—were a surprise.

The Claver Award, given from the Jesuits of Fordham to a senior who epitomizes the University’s commitment to community service, was bestowed on Katarina Martucci, a senior who met weekly with an immigrant child living alone in the United States, and then accompanied the child to court as a child advocate with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. The Fordham College Alumni Association Award, given to a senior who exemplifies the Fordham spirit, was presented to Charlotte Hakikson, a senior who served the campus community in more than six roles at Fordham, including vice president for ASILI: the Black Student Alliance.

At the end of the night, Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, addressed the graduating class of 2019. She encouraged them to find God in all things—including the bad and the ugly—with a simple approach used to cross a street: stop, look, and go. When you stop, you take a break from the chaos of reality and begin “to see clearly,” she said. When you “look” and become more aware of the reality around you, you can develop a deeper, more receptive attitude. And when you “go,” you engage with the world based on what you have learned from stopping and looking.  

“Weave attention, reverence, and devotion into your life,” she said. “And when you do that, when you practice that, your eyes will open, your heart will open, and you will find God in all things.”

Mast also described the students as her “classmates.” Like the students sitting before her, Mast said, she was also new to Fordham in August 2015. She learned the hard way that she “couldn’t get on the red trains bound for Grand Central” at Fordham’s Metro-North station. It took her three years to find Pugsley’s, thanks to the aid of Google Maps.

But the last four years, no matter the train or on-campus Wi-Fi issues, were transformative for all—and the years ahead will be, too.

“Your education doesn’t stop on Saturday,” Mast said. “I expect you to continue learning and growing as you reflect on your Fordham experience throughout your life.”

“I was raising a lot of money and I was enjoying the act of doing so, but I got frustrated with not having any say in the strategic way that money would get spent,” said Marino.

She was looking for a graduate program that would help her move into a leadership role in the policy or advocacy field, but also teach her more about the needs of the people and communities she wanted to serve.

At GSS, she found both. She chose to pursue the school’s leadership concentration. However, regardless of whether a student wants to work directly with clients or in administration, all GSS students must fulfill two field placements: one in their first year that is assigned to them, and one of their choosing in the second year.

While Marino knew early on she wanted to play a leadership role in her career, her first placement was very hands on. She was a forensic social worker for Legal Aid Society on Rikers Island.

Her role required her to assess incarcerated people and present her findings to their defense lawyers, who are looking for a social worker’s perspective in helping to build their case. In explaining the details of the incarcerated person’s life—their past, the issues they may be struggling with—she was able to help the defense explain what led to the person’s arrest in the first place. She also helped plan appropriate alternatives to incarceration.

It was a writing intensive placement, but Marino also had to be on hand to interview the client. She recalled her first visit to Rikers as particularly jarring.

“You have to take a bus over the bridge to get to the main gatehouse. I remember locking my stuff in the locker and taking another bus to the jail my client was housed in. The room was dark and claustrophobic,” she recalled.

When she reemerged to take the bus back over the bridge to go home, she found the daylight blinding and she was overcome with exhaustion.

“That’s when I realized I was acting as a bridge between the people I’m serving to the entire outside world,” she said. “They’re why I’m getting this education is—to be the best bridge I can be. The fact that it was painful to experience made me realize the power I have and how seriously I need to take this experience.”

Marino said that the hands-on experience was the very reason she wanted to pursue social work as a skillset to add to her development and administrative experience.

“When you’re sitting at a board table and able to advocate for people, it’s important to know the people you’re advocating for,” she said. “You’re affecting their lives by the decisions you’re making, and I thought that might be lacking in my experience.”

Marino’s second-year placement was at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Sustainably, which is not necessarily the sort of government agency one would associate with social work. Her supervisor, Nancy Wackstein, director of community engagement and partnerships, said that Marino’s past experience in the nonprofit sector made her a good match to work with a city agency.

“She had a great experience before she came here and it’s really a revolving door between city government and nonprofit leadership, so her getting experience in government will be a great asset going forward,” said Wackstein. “Social workers have a skillset and a particular world view, so whenever we think of the environment or transportation, low- and moderate-income people deserve a voice at the decision-making table—and that person should be a social worker.”

Whereas her previous placement was on the micro side of the practice, this role was far more macro, said Marino.

“I don’t know too much about the science of sustainability, but now I know intimately about the populations that environmental injustice impacts most directly,” she said.

She was part of an interdisciplinary team that examines policies and programs. Her team functioned as an internal consulting arm on sustainability for other agencies, such as the Department of Buildings and the Department of Transportation. She also helped bring specific projects to community boards and neighborhood-based organizations.

“Part of this intermediary role I play is to translate between what different groups of people need to hear, and how they need to hear it,” she said. “Policy people talk at a very high wonky level and that may actually turn some people off.

She used the example of solar panels, which before her internship she believed were only an option for the middle-class homeowner, not necessarily for renters. She said that unlike homeowners, most renters in New York can’t put a solar panel on top of their building. But through Con Edison, they can choose an electric company that uses renewable energy. This is something most renters are unaware of, she said, and need to be educated about.

“We have to think very differently about what is it that we’re asking people to do,” she said. “The city is actually promoting  community-shared solar programs, which you could probably sign up for now if you’re a renter.”

In her role, she looked at what was working in other cities around the country and created a spreadsheet with all the programs she was impressed by.

“We researched every single policy or program that the mayor’s office could promote, fund, or create to deploy more solar in New York City.”

She said the strategic exercise is a macro social work skillset that city government needs more of, though it’s not necessarily something that agencies expect from a social worker.

“There is this big gap between the people who make the decisions and the people who are affected by them,” she said. “So being the person who can connect information by translating between the two, I think is an interesting space.”

For the past year, Natalie Ward, a math major at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a George and Mary Jane McCartney Research Fellow, has been exploring the link between PM 2.5—an air pollutant smaller than the cross-section of a human hair—and pediatric asthma in the Bronx.

“Millions of New Yorkers are breathing in this harmful pollutant, but have no clue it might be really affecting their lungs,” said Ward, whose research was funded by a Fordham undergraduate grant.

Studies have shown that long-term exposure to PM 2.5, which originates from vehicle exhaust and fuel combustion, is linked to increased rates of pediatric asthma. And high particle concentrations are a bigger problem in the Bronx, where asthma death rates are three times higher than the rest of the United States.

Last summer, Ward examined air quality in the borough. Using a Temtop air quality detector, a TV remote-sized device that measures PM 2.5 levels, she collected air samples from different public parks located along major roadways in the Fordham and University Heights neighborhoods of the Bronx. Ward recorded PM 2.5 concentrations during three time periods—peak traffic hour from 7 to 10 a.m., 12 to 2 p.m., and rush hour from 5 to 7 p.m.—nearly every day for two months. Then she compared those numbers to their “green” equivalent at the New York Botanical Garden and Edwards Parade on the Rose Hill campus—spaces located more than 300 meters from a major roadway.

Her solo study provided a better picture of air conditions in the borough, said city health experts and environmentalists in a recent AM New York profile of Ward’s work.

“I found overwhelmingly that the farther I am away from the roadways, the smaller the PM 2.5 concentration, meaning healthier air quality,” Ward said, after using Python programming language and math modeling techniques to analyze her data. “But the closer I am to highways, large diesel trucks standing and idling—things of that nature—the PM 2.5 [levels are]consistently very toxic for vulnerable populations.”

Particle concentrations were in the “good” to “moderate” range in the green spaces, as classified by data from the Environmental Protection Agency. But the Bronx park locations near major roadways, including Noble Playground, had particle concentrations categorized as “unhealthy for sensitive groups” to “unhealthy,” Ward said.

“When I go to the public parks and see soccer teams, kids playing, moms and babies in strollers, and see the PM 2.5 [levels]as harmful,” said Ward, “it’s a staggering difference that tells a lot about environmental injustices taking place right in the borough.”  

An Alarming Discovery on the D Train

Her project was inspired by a program called Project True—a collaboration between Fordham and the Wildlife Conservation Society, where Ward worked on an urban ecology research project in 2017. It sparked her interest in how the natural landscape interacts with people and cities. It also made her think about a topic closer to home: the pediatric asthma crisis in the Bronx, her home for the past four years.

“It’s a disease that will be affecting cities as they grow in population, as more cars are added to the roads, and also as the EPA continues to deregulate air pollution,” Ward said.

She added that her preliminary subway data is “scary,” too.

Last September, she said she stood on the uptown subway platform at 59th Street and, on a whim, decided to measure the air quality. A “good” PM 2.5 concentration is 0 to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air, according to the EPA. Ward’s measurement, however, was nearly 120—a number deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” she said. And the further underground she ventured into the subway station, the higher the PM 2.5 concentration became.

“At every stop along the D train route, levels have been harmful to human health in general—not just for those who already have lung conditions or children,” Ward said, adding that other subway lines could have similar levels. “The levels are twice what I see typically at roadside locations … That ultimately could tell a lot about the health of subway workers and the millions of people who ride the MTA every day.”

Using Science to Push for Change

Ward will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics this May. She is currently enrolled in Fordham’s five-year master’s program in humanitarian studies, where she will continue conducting research that blends science and math with social justice. Right now, she is in the process of submitting her research article for publication. But over the next few years, Ward said she’s planning on collecting and comparing more quantitative data, particularly between the D and Q subway lines, with a better air quality detector.

She said her research is dedicated to the memory of Fordham first-year student Nicholas Booker, who died after a severe asthma attack last fall.

“Science can be used as a tool to enact change and advocate for justice,” Ward said. “Ultimately, it can be that tipping point to make lawmakers and policymakers see that there is a problem.”