“Never judge your actions according to what those around you do. Judge yourself against the high standards you set for yourself,” he told an enthusiastic audience of more than 15,000 graduates and their guests gathered on Edwards Parade for the University’s 167th Commencement on May 19.

Along with Brennan, singer Tony Bennett, pediatric cardiologist Eugenie Doyle, MC ’43, and actress Phylicia Rashad received honorary degrees at the commencement ceremony. Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York, was the principal celebrant and homilist at Fordham College at Rose Hill’sBaccalaureate Mass on May 18, at which he received an honorary degree.

Throughout his address, Brennan recalled the influence of his Fordham professors, including the political science professor—John Entelis, Ph.D.—who first sparked his interest in exploring the world and told him about the opportunity to study at the American University of Cairo, which he seized.

“As with most things in life, it was the influence of others—those who helped me learn here at Fordham—that left the most lasting and indelible imprint,” he said. “I had some truly remarkable professors and instructors—educators who knew that learning is a journey that doesn’t end with a semester’s close or even with the achievement of a degree. It is a journey that lasts a lifetime.”

He delivered his commencement address in front of the academic building—Keating Hall—where he first wrestled with some of the moral questions that continue to occupy his mind today.

“The textbooks I read and the papers I wrote in John Banja’s [philosophy]class have traveled and remained with me over the past 35 years,” said Brennan, who serves as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism and deputy national security adviser. “I have reread them many times as I have struggled with the real-world application of the concepts that I learned about as a 20-year-old.”

Brennan, who was deeply involved in the successful hunt for Osama Bin Laden, said among those real-world questions were: “What constitutes justice?” and “When is war a morally acceptable choice? What are the ethics of warfare?”

Brennan’s appearance stirred opposition among some students and faculty opposed to the Obama administration’s defense and homeland security policies. He acknowledged the controversy in his speech.

“Much has been attributed to me over the course of my career,” he said. “And after recently reading some of the things that I reportedly have done, said, or have been responsible for while I was at the CIA and the White House, I must admit that I was deeply torn between giving the commencement address or joining the protesters and petitioners who have so energetically opposed my appearance.

“But that’s what makes our country great: our individual ability to openly and freely express our views, whether or not they are popular, whether or not they are in the minority, or whether they are even based on misimpressions.” Brennan had to pause here for sustained applause. “That’s why I still do my job, because the values that this country was founded on, to include freedom of speech and freedom from harm, are worth fighting for.”

In his own address, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, noted that he and Brennan met that morning with faculty members, students, and members of the Board of Trustees to hear and respond to concerns that had been raised about Brennan’s selection as speaker. Brennan offered to come back to campus next academic year for a longer discussion.

“The discussions…were both good and very important,” Father McShane said. “They bore witness to the seriousness with which our faculty and our students wrestle with the great and sometimes divisive issues of our age.

“It is good for us to remember that our nation was founded as a self-conscious experiment in democratic government,” Father McShane said. “From the very birth of the republic, therefore, it was understood that we would never be, and could never be, a static society.

“Therefore, I would like to thank both [Brennan] and the women and men who raised questions about his appearance for making this an occasion on which our graduates were sent out into the world with an important lesson on civic engagement.”

Brennan told the 3,432 graduate and undergraduate degree recipients that they were among the world’s most privileged. “You have virtually limitless potential in your respective career fields, but it will remain only potential if you do not seize the opportunity you have been given,” he said.

Three honorary degrees were also presented at separate diploma ceremonies: Fordham Law School honored Michelle DePass, LAW ’92, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the Graduate School of Social Service honored Brooklyn congressman Edolphus Towns; and the Graduate School of Business Administration honored Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund.

“It was a hard decision, but I chose softball—the uniforms looked better,”Mineau said jokingly.

The graduating Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) senior is also the senior pitcher for the team. In 2011, she was named an ESPN Pre-Season All America, First Team member, and was also selected for the USA Softball National Collegiate Player of the Year Watchlist.

But Mineau didn’t always love softball.

“I hated it my first year,” she said. “I was placed in the outfield and was always bored. So when I told my dad that I wanted to be closer to the ball, he said, ‘Well, let’s try pitching.’”

Apparently it worked. Mineau has already been drafted by the Akron Racers, and she is graduating as the school’s all-time leading pitcher.

“It’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience,” Mineau said. “On the day of the draft, everyone threw a party for me; it was nice to have everyone with me while it happened.”

Before Mineau came to Fordham, she pitched on her high school varsity softball team at Hoosic Valley Central School in upstate Schaghticoke, N.Y. She was recruited to Fordham’s team as a freshman and has been pitching for all four years.

Mineau has deftly handled some of the challenges of training for softball’s central position.

“As a pitcher, my physical training needs are different from someone out in the field. As a senior captain, I have had to work my way around these differences to help my team.”

Mineau’s strongest pitch is her curveball—one that breaks to the left and usually registers in the speed range of the low sixties.

Before each game, she prepares by researching the statistics of the other team, and most importantly, doing spin work with her throwing hand.

“I’m a movement pitcher,” Mineau said. “What makes me effective is how my ball moves, and this comes from me spinning the ball with my fingers and wrist.”

In addition to her softball successes, Mineau is also an Academic All-American who has maintained a 4.0 average this year in her studies. She is graduating with a major in visual arts and a minor in sociology, and has plans to study towards a master’s degree to become an art teacher. At Fordham, she has enjoyed balancing her two passions—art and softball. Art, in fact, has offered a bit of a respite away from her busy softball schedule, she said.

“Sometimes it’s hard because you need a lot of studio time for art that you can’t take on the road,” Mineau said. “But the art department here has been very understanding about my time constraints as an athlete.”

Following graduation, Mineau will play with the Akron Racers through the 2012 season. Then, she said, she is going to seek a coaching position, and pursue her teaching dreams. Mineau feels that her next step into coaching is a natural one—her own coach, Bridget Orchard, has been a role model.

“She’s been with me throughout the whole pre-draft recruiting process,” Mineau said. “She’s also fostered a sense of family with the team—we’re always with each other.”

— Angie Chen

The Mount Laurel, N.J. native is graduating this year from the Gabelli School of Business (GSB) with a degree in business administration with concentrations in finance and management, along with minors in philosophy and economics.

For her senior thesis, O’Boyle focused on gender differences within lawyer retention at law firms, where she said 78 percent of associates leave within five years of their start.

“A large percentage leaves the field of law entirely, and it seemed interesting because so many people are still choosing to go to law school. Why get this degree and make this investment if you’re not sure you actually want to practice?” she said.

“It’s been really helpful, because there’ve been some people I’ve interviewed who have made me say ‘Hey, you know what? I really don’t want to work in that type of firm. I don’t see myself fitting in well there.’”

The question is relevant to O’Boyle because she is enrolled for the fall at the law school at St. John’s University (SJU). One of the reasons why she chose SJU is because she felt that Catholic values are strong there, and she wanted to continue what she’d felt at Fordham as an undergraduate.

An active member of Campus Ministry, she helped lead retreats and prayer groups at the Rose Hill campus.

“People asked, ‘How can you be in the business school and do things that involve your faith?’ I don’t really see the need for them to be reconciled, I think they complement each other really well,” she said.

“Fordham and the Jesuit education is all about educating people, specifically business leaders, to be ethical,” she said, “to ask these questions and to be in tune with peoples, cultures, religions and faith.”

Fordham’s culture appealed to O’Boyle from the very beginning; she decided to attend the Gabelli School immediately during her Spring Preview weekend back in 2008. Among the opportunities that she was able to take advantage of during her Fordham tenure was an eight-month paid internship at Travelers Insurance, where she worked with an underwriting team in commercial accounts and sales.

She also worked as a teaching assistant with Brian MacLean, FCRH ’75, in his “Ground Floor” class for freshmen. The fall semester was a tough one, with six classes, an LSAT prep course, and the thesis all on her plate, but she persevered.

She still remembers those first few days in 2008 fondly though.

“Father McShane told us, ‘Look to your left, look to your right. These people are your responsibility, and you [will]do these four years together, and you [will]help each other make it through to graduation and beyond that,’” she recalled.

Whether it was giving campus tours, or working in the alcohol and drug alternative program, O’Boyle said she found Father McShane’s words “To be true of my time at Fordham.”

“What really sticks out is the relationships that were formed.”

Walters, a dispute resolution lawyer who is married with three adult children and four stepchildren, had already made one major career shift when he enrolled in law school in the early 1980s, following 11 years as an AT&T phone technician.

His second came after he accepted an ostensibly ordinary request.

“Young friends of mine asked me to be the godparent to their daughter, and I said yes,” said Walters, a Queens, N.Y., native. “I went to the local Catholic church, and they said, ‘you should be a practicing Catholic [to be a godparent]…’ I’d stopped going to church when I was about 19.”

But Walters, who will earn a master’s degree in pastoral care from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE), doesn’t do anything halfway.

“If you’re going to commit to do something, you should do it,” he said.

He started attending Mass again, joined the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA classes, and later became an instructor.

But finding his knowledge of church teaching outdated, he considered taking his spiritual education further.

The answer came in the Jesuit magazine America. He saw an advertisement for an online graduate program at Fordham (where a former Regis High School schoolmate, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., was president). Figuring that GRE graduate courses could bolster his knowledge of Catholicism, Walters enrolled in the faith formation certificate program.

But that, too, grew into another ambitious goal. One of his professors, assistant professor of pastoral counseling Lisa Cataldo, Ph.D., offered a suggestion.

“I was emailing back and forth with her about the future and my studies, and she said that there was a new program starting, an online master’s degree in pastoral care,” Walters said. “That sounded good—that I could get a degree and study further.”

He became a member of the first cohort of the online pastoral care program, and later learned from Cataldo about clinical pastoral education courses, through which he began working with patients at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center. Though Fordham students are only required to complete 100 classroom hours and 300 hours of a clinical rotation to receive credit, Walters enjoyed it so much that he completed four times the requirement.

“In the beginning, I was very intimated by the idea of talking to someone who was facing the ultimate questions—their own death, the death of a loved one, the serious loss of health,” he said. “I had to overcome my desire to fix things. I realized that I can’t fix everything, but maybe I can comfort people by joining in their pain.”

The experience, he said, has changed how he relates to people.

“Before I completed the Fordham program, many times I would deal with people instead of relating to them,” he said. “That’s been the gift of the program.”

After receiving his master’s degree (and, in August, applying for his chaplaincy certification), Walters will begin the doctor of ministry program.

“I envision some kind of hybrid between chaplaincy and my law training,” he said.

Though his destination is unclear, he is confident that he is traveling in the right direction.

“One of the beauties of what I was taught in the Fordham program is that it’s not necessary to have a completely coherent belief system. There can be tension and there can be conflict,” he said. “To accept that there are always questions and that everything is a developing process has been one of the things I learned.”

That’s how old she was when her mother took Christine and her brother halfway around the world, from Korea to Queens, N.Y., so they would grow up in a society that offered more educational opportunities to women.

“She saw how my future would be limited if we continued living (in Korea),” said Shim, who is graduating with a master’s in social work from the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS).

But it wasn’t an easy move. Shim’s father stayed behind in Korea, so Shim’s mother raised them on her own, working in a beauty salon in Flushing. She constantly drove home the importance of education, shaping her daughter’s future in more ways than one.

Shim vigorously pursued her education, completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in an unbroken five years while working multiple jobs to financially help her mother and brother, who is six years younger.

And now her career ambitions revolve around education as well. As an intern at the United Nations during the past semester, she found her calling: creating educational opportunities in parts of the world where they’re scarce.

Like the part of Korea where she spent her early childhood.

“A lot of people take (schooling) for granted because there’s public education systems here,” unlike in Korea, where education was only open to those who could pay for it, she said. “In industrialized countries we get to choose, and we have a lot of options laid out for us, but in these developing countries … they don’t really have any choice but to actually survive day by day.”

This past semester, as a UN intern, she worked with Close the Gap International, a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization that helps Western companies donate their used computers to students in developing countries. Her job was “basically networking,” she said—spreading the word about the organization and looking for opportunities to advance its work.

Today, she wants to become head of projects for an organization of this type. For her master’s, she pursued a management track that’s suited to international development and community-building around the globe. It’s a less-known type of social work that calls for designing sustainable aid projects by gaining a keen understanding of a community’s needs and wants, she said.

The needs of her own family have always figured prominently in her life. It was her family that drew her back to New York from Pennsylvania, where she attended Dickinson College for her first semester.

During her last year of high school, her father had joined the family in New York for the first time since she was six. When he died of cancer during her term at Dickinson, she transferred to Fordham to be close enough to give her family emotional and financial support.

It was a hard decision; she had to give up a full ROTC scholarship to Dickinson. And at Fordham, she has put in long hours commuting from Queens, and balancing paying jobs with her studies.

But her family’s financial situation only reinforces her drive to excel. “I just want to do better,” she said. “It gives me a reason to be successful.”

But if you ask him what stands out the most about his experience at Fordham, none of those will top his list.

Safa, a pre-med double major in biology and history, has devoted a large part of his collegiate experience to learning about and working with the Bronx community.

“The first thing I did was Urban Plunge, which introduced us to service, and I found that I really enjoyed working with people and learning about the bigger issues,” he said. “I felt a connection working with underprivileged people, because I went through that too, and now I’m in a state where I can… empower them.

“That drove me to pursue [service]and take it further, and not just leave my past behind me, but do something with it.”

Safa grew up in the war-torn city of Beirut, Lebanon, from which he and his parents emigrated one month before his 17th birthday. His sister and brother-in-law remained, along with a nephew that Safa has never met in person.

Though years of studying languages and watching American cartoons and sitcoms spared him the culture shock that many immigrants face, Safa said that transitioning to a new country was far from smooth.

“The difficult [part]was getting used to the fact that I’m not in Lebanon anymore, I’m in New York. The worries and problems you had in Lebanon don’t apply here. It took a year to get used to that,” he said.

“It’s still in me,” he added. “It shapes you, it changes the way you see the world.”

That worldview, he said, has instilled in him a love of service that has extended across his college career. Recently, he and five other students were recognized by the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice for extraordinary and consistent service during the last four years.

“Community service has become an integral part of my life and the way that I envision my future,” he said, as he considered his future following medical school. “The kind of medicine I envision practicing is community-based medicine, working with underprivileged and underserved people—people who don’t have access to health care.”

Before applying to medical school, Safa hopes to work for a year in a job that can further this newfound passion. One job on his list would allow him to work with refugees of war.

“I’m drawn to that because I had experience dealing with war, so I feel comfortable being in solidarity with people who also had those experiences,” he said.

Though a possible full-time job and, later, the exhaustive experience of medical school await Safa, these will likely seem like a break to him—after years of such activities as being president of the Laennec Society, president of the Fordham Club, and a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT), all while commuting daily from Staten Island to the Bronx.

“I’m super involved and I get super tired, but I enjoy doing these things,” he said. “If I don’t get my feet wet now, I’m not going to get a chance later.”

After working in design and promotion in New York, Garcia, a Detroit native, enrolled at Hunter College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2008 with a degree in political science.

She enrolled in Fordham Law’s evening division as a Stein Scholar for Public Interest, and will graduate with all the experience necessary to help disenfranchised populations navigate the courts.

She credits her renewed interest in going back to school to a close call that her mother had with cancer.

“Lawyers tried to certify a class action lawsuit for a medication she’d been on that was supposedly linked to the kind of cancer that she had,” recalled Garcia. “All this legal paperwork started piling into the house.”

Garcia’s mother kept asking her to explain it, and to help her navigate it, but Garcia said she “felt a little powerless” and eventually couldn’t help.

“I decided that I wouldn’t feel that anymore. I would go to school and learn law.”

Even before she was accepted as a Stein Scholar, Garcia knew that public service was going to be in her future; for her undergraduate thesis, she examined campaigns to implement living wage laws around the country.

At Fordham Law, she interned for groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Defender Service of Harlem, Public Defender Services of Washington D.C., and Bronx Defenders.

The clinics and externships really brought home the importance of the field.

“When you’re working with real clients on real cases, its not theoretical anymore, it’s not just an academic exercise. It’s real life,” she said. “It’s easier to do things when they actually matter.”

“It almost didn’t feel like school or work. I felt like these were amazing opportunities to be a part of something even bigger.”

In the college’s criminal defense clinic, Garcia represented clients in criminal court for misdemeanors such as trespassing or marijuana possession. What made an impression on her was how punishments are not always proportional to the crime.

For example, a client allegedly in possession of marijuana could, as a consequence of having this violation on his record, lose his electrician’s license.

“So it’s not just getting a ticket and paying a fine; it’s having these collateral consequences that are really horrible,” she said.

This sort of experience helped Garcia land an 18-month Soros Advocacy Justice fellowship to work for the American Civil Liberties Union Criminal Law Reform Project after graduation.

The project will challenge the police practice of selective enforcement of low-level offenses, such as trespassing, which police departments routinely use to target particular communities.

“The theory is they might be guilty of worse crimes, but what this practice is really doing is creating a police state in low-income communities of color,” she said.

Looking back, Garcia said law school was probably more challenging than she’d expected. But it was also more rewarding.

“The public interest resource center at Fordham is such a strong program, and I think without that resource, I don’t know if I would have had the outcome that I had in the end. Just in terms of the guidance, they were along with me the whole way,” she said.

It also captures a personal journey that has spanned both disciplines and oceans.

A native of St. Catherine, Jamaica, Clayton’s motivation to excel brought her from her home in the Caribbean to the Graduate School of Education (GSE), from which she is earning a doctorate in educational psychology.

She first graduated with a bachelor’s degree in management studies from Nova Southeastern University. But seven years in finance left her dissatisfied.

“Your career is most of your life,” she said. “There’s no sense in going to work miserable… If you’re going to do something, you should love doing it. I didn’t, so I changed.”

She decided to enter the field of psychology, where she felt she could help people directly. Hoping, also, to seek a new cultural experience, Clayton set her eyes on New York City and made the first, difficult step in starting over.

“It was hard,” she said of her arrival in America 11 years ago. “For the first couple of months, I was tempted to go back home.”

In addition to readjusting to college life at the City University of New York (CUNY), Clayton had to acclimate to the rapid pace of New York, a city so big that neighbors were strangers.

“I remember asking my cousin, ‘How can you live beside this person and not know them?’ And she said, ‘That’s how it is here.’ That was a culture shock for me,” she said.

Clayton obtained her second bachelor’s degree in psychology from CUNY York College, a master’s degree in counseling and personal services from GSE, and has now completed her doctorate.

For her dissertation, Clayton studied the motivations that drive Jamaican students to pursue education, because that population, she said, is overlooked in most literature about motivation.

According to Clayton, their motivations are largely societal. First, as a very religious population, Jamaican students desire to fulfill God’s purpose for them. Second, students understand that education can raise their low socio-economic status. Finally, the history of slavery in Jamaica offers many students the inspiration to overcome obstacles they face.

These motivations resonated with Clayton, too.

“I would say that my belief and trust in God has motivated me, as well as [being]from a low socio-economic status,” she said. “My sister has always instilled in me that if I want to rise above that, then I need to be educated.”

Even more so,though, Clayton said that her motivations for crossing the Atlantic are deeply personal.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of doing it.”

After graduation, Clayton aims to become a university professor to unite her passions for teaching and research—passions she said she discovered thanks to her two mentors, Akane Zusho, Ph.D., and Fran Blumberg, Ph.D., both associate professors of educational psychology in GSE.

“They were my professors, they were my mentors, but they were also my friends.”

His parents emigrated there from the Dominican Republic before he was born in search of a better life for their family.

Not all of his memories are quite as pure. After all, growing up in an urban, mixed-socioeconomic neighborhood offered a street-smart view of life’s harsh realities.

“I remember seeing drug dealings on street corners, fistfights by the basketball courts, and gang rivalries that climaxed during my youth,” Cedeño said.

What kept him on the right path was the guidance of his parents and the education they struggled to provide for him, as well as mentors he met along the way. One was a nun who believed in his potential so much that she contributed to his parochial school education when his parents were considering moving him to the affordable public school. Another was an educator who took Cedeño under his wing to pursue campus ministry and community service during his high school years at Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx. A third was an upperclassman who helped him make the transition into college life.

Their generosity of spirit helped inspire Cedeño’s dual interest in economics and public service. An unexpected meeting with Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, whom he personally greeted on Fordham’s campus in 2008, motivated him to pursue the International Political Economy and Development (IPED) program offered in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

He wasn’t new to Fordham: He graduated from the Gabelli School of Business in 2010. This August, Cedeño will celebrate another hard-earned achievement on Fordham’s campus as he receives his master’s degree from the GSAS’ IPED program.

“College was a big deal for me,” he said. “I was the first member of my family to attend a four-year institution. In many ways, I carried the hopes and dreams, along with the pressures, of my loved ones to the Rose Hill campus. Through it all, they supported me and instilled the value of higher education and hard work.”

A rare candidate who entered the IPED program just after he earned his undergraduate degree, Cedeño feels he benefited from the experiences and knowledge of his fellow students, many who had spent time in the working world already. The bonds they forged are everlasting, especially after spending a few weeks last year in Manila, Philippines, for a project assessment course.

“We evaluated NGOs and other federal agencies, qualitatively and quantitatively,” Cedeño said. There were 12 students on the trip. “We focused on the farming initiative, and the impact of the typhoon in 2010,” he said.

Cedeño’s next challenge will be his charge in the selective New York City Urban Fellows Program, to which he was accepted earlier this year. Though he’s not sure yet which agency he’ll be assigned to work with—interviews are scheduled this summer—he knows the experience will be pivotal. As he is considering enrolling in law school, and has his sights set on a career for social justice, this experience as a civil servant will be invaluable.

In addition to an internship with the Brooklyn Borough Hall, Cedeño has been active in the New York City Church of Christ, where he has led bible discussions as a campus ministry intern. He says his involvement in his church has allowed him to “shine” and “do things the right way,” opportunities he feels are mirrored in his Fordham education, with its emphasis on ethics. There have been role models too, he said, who have inspired him to achieve great things.

“Undeniably, I stand on the shoulders of dozens of individuals who have challenged, disciplined and loved me,” Cedeño said. “Because of these people, I can make a positive contribution to next year’s Urban Fellows class.”

— Claire Curry

But for Chris Bloom, the distance between Middletown, Virginia (population: 1,265) and Manhattan may as well be more. Much more.

The crowds, the smells, and the noise were overwhelming for Bloom, who grew up and was home schooled on a 400-acre thoroughbred horse farm.

“I have a friend who helped design the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Theater,” said Bloom. “It’s a completely soundproof theater with less than half a decibel of street and subway noise. I used to ask her if I could go in there.”

Now when he goes home, he says he can’t wait to come back.

“A year ago, I walked out in the night back home, and there were no street lights because it’s the middle of nowhere,” he recalled. “And I was actually a little bit scared of the dark!”

Four years after arriving at Fordham, Bloom is earning a B.F.A. as part of the Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s (FCLC) partnership with the Ailey School.

Bloom had visited New York City as a child, but his first two years at FCLC were rough—the first because of the adjustment to the city, and the second because of the challenges of the Ailey program. In addition to his academic workload and two jobs, he estimated that he danced 40 hours a week. Tuesdays started at 8:30 a.m. and ended at midnight, with no break in between.

“I was looking around at my fellow students and going ‘man, if mine could just be like that guys’ major. That guy looks like he’s chill.’ So yeah, I was definitely thinking at certain points, this is too much. But I got through it,” he said.

Bloom knew he wanted to dance professionally from the moment he saw American Ballet Theater dancers perform in the movie Center Stage, at age 15. New York was a “given,” and the BFA program’s dual focus on dance and academics sealed the deal.

“I grew up in a family that emphasized learning and creativity, and the idea of not continuing my studies was terrible,” he said.

“They focus on technical dance and they give you repertoire. They bring in a wide range of choreographers, so I am leaving really well-prepared to dance a lot of different [styles].”

Bloom has been apprenticing with the Parson’s Dance Company. After working with choreographer Thang Dao at Fordham, Bloom has also signed on with Dao’s company to perform for two weeks this summer at the Perry-Mansfield Art Institute in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

More dancing roles await him in the summer and fall, and, as a freelance dancer, he’s also planning to model for art classes and work with ballet schools that need male dancers for partner classes.

His ultimate goal is to land a full-time contract with the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

“I think Fordham and Ailey have done a really great job of creating something that is really positively geared toward what we need as students,” he said.