Their friends and families—including many small children—filled the seats of the McGinley Center Lounge on the Rose Hill campus. Adding to the excitement was the presence of the first graduating class of the school’s new master’s degree program in cybersecurity. 

Speaking on behalf of all the graduates, Jim McCormack, a medically retired sergeant first class in the U.S. Army, took the stage to loud cheers and applause.

“I can honestly say that I would not be standing here in front of you today had it not been for the men and women in the military community,” said McCormack, who lost his financial stability and eventually his home after being injured in Iraq. “They helped me to my feet.”

He looked for a veteran-friendly school  that reflected their values and his own, and said he found that at Fordham.

The 2008 financial crisis and the unethical practices behind it inspired him to study business at PCS. “I had realized that all business decisions have a subsequent effect on human lives,” said McCormack, who graduated with a 3.985 GPA.

“We must prove to the world that future leaders can be successful, honest, and civically motivated.”

McCormack began working with Hudson Valley Bank last fall as a software developer and hopes to start his own software company devoted to artificial intelligence research. He said he’s been inspired by his classmates and their “tales of perseverance,” from the “disabled veteran trying to make her life better,” to the “foreign student who wishes to bring these values home to help his local community,” to the “single mother of two working double shifts in order to support her family and her education.”

“I’m a firm believer that anyone can do anything,” he said. “And you are my proof.”

Nevertheless, the bouts of rain couldn’t dampen the graduates’ spirits at Fordham University’s 170th Commencement, held May 16 at the Rose Hill campus.

A crowd of nearly 20,000—students, their families and friends, and the Fordham faculty, staff, and administration—gathered on Edwards Parade to send off more than 4,000 members of the Class of 2015.

Delivering the keynote address was Nana Lordina Dramani Mahama, First Lady of the Republic of Ghana and an internationally renowned advocate for empowering women and helping the poor and marginalized.

The wife of Ghanaian President H.E. John Dramani Mahama, Nana Lordina Mahama is the president of the Lordina Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that works to make healthcare more accessible in Ghana and to expand educational opportunities. Her work for social justice is a mission that she shares with Fordham.

“I admire Fordham for a number of reasons, including your location here in the Bronx,” said Mahama, who received an honorary doctorate of humane letters. “This is a university that has a good history and background of working for our community.”

It is not uncommon to define ourselves by our careers, identifying as scientists, social workers, or religious leaders, Mahama said. These identities are valuable, but it is equally important that we forge strong relationships with our communities.

She urged the new graduates to continue to strive for excellence, but do so while heeding the commandment at the cornerstone of our humanity: “to love thy sister as thyself.”

“Opportunities are presented to us at every stage of life, and every opportunity comes with a pedestal on which to stand to do more not only for ourselves but also for others,” she said.

“Even as we … see ourselves advance in education, finance, and health, we should not forget to advance also in the very thing that defines us—our humanity.”

Jane Kani Edward, PhD, assistant professor of African and African American Studies, said that the First Lady of Ghana’s appearance at Fordham was significant for Ghanaians in general—of which there are many in the Bronx—and especially for African women.

“Her appearance shows Fordham’s commitment to build bridges not only with Ghanaians, but with other African communities in the Bronx and the African continent.”

Before the ceremony, Ghanaian national George Buadi, LAW ’15, could hardly contain his excitement. Buadi, a justice in the High Court of Ghana who is receiving his LLM, said “besides the fact that I’m graduating, it gives me an additional joy that she is the guest of honor.”

His fellow graduates, judges Alexander Tutu Osei, Afi Agbanu Kudomor, and Mariama Sammo (who comes from Mahama’s hometown of Nkoranza), said they were thrilled when they learned who would be addressing the Class of 2015.

“I thought I was dreaming,” Tutu Osei said. “Fordham is big institution, and it’s wonderful that on such a grand occasion the focus is on an African woman.”

The four students have been studying at Fordham as Vivian Leitner Global South LLM Scholars, a program that is part of an ongoing relationship between Fordham’s Leitner Center and the judiciary of Ghana.

Addressing the Class of 2015, Fordham President Joseph M. McShane, SJ, recounted the many formational experiences the graduates had shared at Fordham, from internships, to Ram Van rides, to Occupy Wall Street, to immigration reform—all part of a dynamic, fast-paced education befitting of New Yorkers.

But then, it should have been obvious from day one that this class in particular was bound for excitement, said Father McShane, recalling the then-freshmen’s rather dramatic arrival on campus during Hurricane Irene.

“As in the case of the hurricane that greeted you upon your arrival four years ago, the lessons, opportunities, and challenges that came at you from every angle did so with breathtaking speed, and never let up. Not once,” Father McShane said.

Surrounded by “immense care and rigorous challenge,” the class learned what Father McShane said are the most important lessons that the human mind and heart can learn:

“There is no hunger like the taste of truth. There is no thirst like the desire for justice. And there is no joy like the joy that comes from the service of others,” Father McShane said.

“As life comes at you with the force of a hurricane and the speed of a New York-Fordham education, may your hearts and minds always respond with a deep and insatiable longing for more—more truth, greater wisdom, selfless service, and the glory of God.”

Fordham conferred honorary degrees on nine others, including:

• Douglas M. Brooks, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy;
• Matthew Goldstein, who oversaw the transformation of the City University of New York as its chancellor from 1999 to 2013;
• William Loschert, GABELLI ’61, retired chairman of ACE Global Markets and former member of the Fordham University Board of Trustees;
• Thomas A. Moore, LAW ’72, a widely respected trial lawyer and two-time winner of The National Law Journal Lawyer of the Year award;
• Judith Livingston, a distinguished attorney who was the youngest person and first woman to be admitted to the Inner Circle of Advocates, an elite group of the country’s top 100 trial lawyers;
• Admiral Michael Mullen, retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
• His Eminence Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana;
• Mary Anne Sullivan, TMC ’73, one of the top energy lawyers in the country and a partner at the global firm of Hogan Lovells; and
• Dennis Walcott, GSS ’80, former chancellor of New York City’s public schools from 2011 to 2013.

I write to you on the eve of our 170th Commencement. Tomorrow the University community will gather on Edwards Parade to confer more than 3,500 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees upon the Class of 2015.

As a one-time scholar and current university president, I find our annual celebration of achievement fitting and right. Commencement is, in many ways, the brightest day in our academic calendar: our raison d’être. Teaching and scholarship are at the heart of what we do at Fordham, and central to what defines a great university. One measurement of how well we do at teaching and research is the annual roll of prestigious scholarships our students accumulate.

So far, 159 undergraduate and graduate or professional students have received 173 national and international fellowships or awards, including 10 Fulbright winners. In fact, Fordham is consistently among the leading producers of Fulbrights in the country. You can read all about this year’s awards here.

Of course I’m proud of these students, of the dedicated faculty who teach them and mentor them, and of the exceptional work of our Campion Institute and a small cadre of alumni volunteers in preparing those students for the prestigious fellowship process. Bragging rights, however, are not the point. Every one of the student award winners has taken advantage of the best thing a University has to offer: in developing their intellectual, moral, and social lives, they have seen their worlds expand.

For these students—and many others at Fordham—their horizons have opened up in a way that only a University education can accomplish. This process is the result of long hours of focused work by the students, faculty, and Campion staff; a developing of the whole person that prepares our students not merely for rewarding careers, but for lives well lived. That, my friends, is our triumph.

I close by saying to you, take it all. Take everything Fordham has to offer: the wisdom of your faculty members, the friendship of your colleagues, the enthusiasm of your students. Immerse yourself in an academic community that I believe is unique in many ways, and offers riches beyond the dreams of avarice.

Finally, to the Class of 2015, I say this: we will miss you, but you will be ours until the end of time. Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, SJ

A few mornings a week, you might glimpse Lester Taylor running through Van Cortland Park’s cinder trails.

You would do well to catch him.

Earlier this year, Taylor, FCRH ’15, set the Bahamas’ indoor record in the 800 meters, 1:49.65, beating a time set 13 years ago by Bahaman Chris Brown, an Olympic track and field athlete who won a team Gold at the 2012 games.

Taylor’s mark, set at the Valentine’s Day Classic in Boston, qualified him for the Pan Am Games, which take place in Toronto in July. But although the team’s season, as well as Taylor’s collegiate career, is winding down, he could by then have set his country’s outdoor mark in the distance, now 1:49.54.

But Taylor, who is majoring in economics with a minor in business, isn’t dwelling on the records.

“It’s something I keep in the back of my head but I try not to think about it too much and have as much fun as I can and compete,” he said. “Times will come.”

The Bahamas’ Pan Am squad hasn’t yet been named, and Taylor is not taking anything for granted: he recently sent Syracuse University a down payment for a first semester of law school, which he would start in the fall.

“Unless,” he said, “I get an opportunity to train for the 2016 Olympics.”

Taylor was born in Miami, where his mother, a nephrologist, did her residency. The family returned to Nassau, Bahamas, soon afterward and he spent his formative years there.

“It’s a very warm place to be,” weather-wise certainly, but also with regard to family, he said. “Everybody knows everybody.”

He goes home to the island several times a year—for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and summers. He usually also spends spring recess in the Bahamas. But Taylor, the University’s athlete of the week four times this season, stayed in the Bronx this March to train for a defining season.

Although he played soccer at his junior high in Nassau, Taylor only started running middle distances competitively as a junior at Suffield Academy, in Connecticut, where he relocated as a teenager. He was on the swim team all four years and also ran cross-country and played soccer.

He then spent a year at St. Joseph’s University before transferring to Rose Hill. Taylor posted good times through his junior year at Fordham, but the Boston race established him among elite runners: He had trimmed nearly three seconds from his outdoor best a year earlier.

The team’s coach, Tom Dewey, called Taylor a singular athlete who could only get faster.

“He’s got a tremendously effortless style,” said Dewey, who is in his 35th year as Fordham’s track coach. “He’s as smooth a runner as we’ve ever seen.”

Taylor is still learning the finer points of both technique and tactics, Dewey said, and preparing for the Pan Am Games could lift him into yet another class.

Despite carrying 16 units in addition to his track obligations, with the Olympic Games just 16 months away, next year could be even headier. Taylor is clear-sighted about the prospect.

“I’ve been an athlete all my life. To really give it all up is going to be a real tough decision, a very emotional decision. It’s all I know,” he said. “It’s a decision I want to have to make—it’s a good problem. But I try to just take it a day at a time.”

— Rich Khavkine

Nana Lordina—wife of H. E. John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana—is national president of the Lordina Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that works with partner companies and agencies to make health care more accessible in Ghana and to expand educational opportunities. In addition to working on behalf of the disadvantaged, she strives to advance the cause of educating women and girls as a way to improve communities worldwide.

“In conferring an honorary degree upon Mrs. Mahama, it is we who are honored,” said Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham. “Her work with women and children in Ghana and across Africa reminds us of persistence of kindness and the will to make a difference in the world.”

Nana Lordina’s work embraces many pressing public health and educational issues. The Lordina Foundation has provided medical supplies—including, in one instance, an ambulance—to hospitals and health facilities in Ghana, worked to prevent breast and cervical cancer and HIV infection in Africa, and helped provide shelter and vocational training in northern Ghana for women accused of witchcraft who were shunned by their communities.

The Foundation also provides food, clothing, and cash for seven orphanages across Ghana, and offered scholarships to 21 Ghanaian students to study in China, with support from the Chinese government.

Among her many advocacy efforts, Lordina helped secure the Ghanaian government’s approval of a World Bank program to provide secondary school scholarships to 10,400 Ghanaian children—half of them girls—who come from deprived communities.

“Today, women are accelerating economic growth and improving conditions in their communities across the world,” she said last year in an address at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. “Perhaps if there were more women in decision-making roles around the world, we would create fairer and better societies. Women’s education brings positive changes not just for women but for communities and future generations too.”

She applauded her husband’s appointment of many more women to be cabinet ministers or to hold other public posts.

Mrs. Mahama was born and educated in Ghana, earning a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management and a master’s in governance and leadership from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. She became First Lady of Ghana in July 2012, when her husband—then vice president—ascended to the presidency upon the death of his predecessor, John Atta Mills.

She is a first vice president of the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV and AIDS (OAFLA) for West Africa, and is premier ambassador of the UNAIDS Global Plan on the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission.

Last year, she was honored with a Global Inspiration Leadership Award and inducted into the Global Women Leaders Hall of Fame at the second Africa-Middle East-Asia Women Summit in Dubai, organized by the Centre for Economic and Leadership Development and the CEO Clubs Network worldwide. Among her other honors, she was awarded the key to the city by the City of Newark, N.J., and given awards for her anti-cervical cancer advocacy in Namibia and Mozambique.

Nana Lordina Dramani Mahama will be awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the commencement ceremony.

More Honorary Degrees

Fordham will also present honorary degrees to nine other accomplished individuals:

Douglas M. Brooks is director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. A licensed clinical social worker, he has held many high-level policy positions related to the AIDS epidemic including board chairman of AIDS United in Washington, D.C., and member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. He has advised governments and nongovernmental organizations on addressing AIDS and directly managed many federally funded programs aimed at treating and preventing the disease.

Matthew Goldstein oversaw the transformation of the City University ofNewYork as its chancellor from 1999 to 2013. Once dubbed an “institution adrift” by a mayoral task force, the university added schools and colleges, built up its faculty, increased graduation rates, achieved record enrollments, and raised its academic profile. He is a nationally recognized education expert who has served on the U.S. Teaching Commission and the New York State Commission on Higher Education, in addition to leading national summits on public higher education.

William Loschert, GABELLI ’61 is a retired chairman of ACE Global Markets who served for six years on the Fordham University Board of Trustees. He is a generous Fordham supporter who has funded scholarships, an endowed chair in entrepreneurship, a lecture series at the Fordham University London Centre, and other enhancements while also giving generously of his time to advance the University’s mission. A residence hall on the Rose Hill campus is named in his honor.

Thomas A. Moore, LAW ’72, is a widely respected trial lawyer who has twice been named Lawyer of the Year by The National Law Journal, and who was the most frequently mentioned attorney in New York Law Journal‘s Verdicts and Settlements Hall of Fame for medical malpractice cases from New York, published last year. He and his wife, Judith Livingston, funded the Brendan Moore Chair in Advocacy and the Moore Advocacy Center at Fordham Law School, named for Moore’s late brother.

Judith Livingston, also a distinguished attorney, was deemed “a legal legend” by Lawdragon and is the youngest person and first woman to be admitted to the Inner Circle of Advocates, an elite group of the country’s top 100 trial lawyers. She has been recognized twice by Best Lawyers as the New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year; in other pursuits, she has been active with Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert. She and her husband, Thomas A. Moore, received the Fordham Founders Award for 2014.

Admiral Michael Mullen retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2011. He led the military through the end of combat in Iraq and a new strategy in Afghanistan, and also promoted the new technologies, international partnerships, and new antiterrorism methods that led to the elimination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. He advocated for shorter combat tours, more attention to veterans’ posttraumatic stress, and more public support for service members, and played a key role in dismantling “don’t ask, don’t tell” so gay service members could serve openly.

His Eminence, Jaime Lucas Cardinal Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana played an important part in sustaining the Catholic Church in Cuba under communist rule. Under his leadership, the church in Cuba has become an effective mediator between the government and dissidents, and in 2010 Cardinal Ortega worked with the government of Raul Castro to secure the release of 126 political prisoners. He also had a key role in Pope Francis’ successful efforts to bring about dialogue between the governments of Cuba and the United States.

Mary Anne Sullivan, TMC ’73, is one of the top energy lawyers in the country and a partner at the global firm of Hogan Lovells. She served as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Energy in the Clinton administration, and before that as the department’s deputy general counsel for environment and nuclear programs. She provided critical legal support for the world’s first deep geologic disposal facility for radioactive waste and negotiated the first agreements with electric utilities on voluntarily reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Dennis Walcott, GSS ’80, served as chancellor of New York City’s public schools from 2011 to 2013, ushering them through major changes. Under his leadership, the city’s education department replaced large low-performing high schools with smaller schools, resulting in higher graduation rates and more college enrollments, particularly for disadvantaged students of color. In addition, he launched a major effort to improve the quantity and quality of the city’s middle schools and led a $13 million expansion of after-school programs.

Lana Ho-Shing, PCS ’15—Achieving a 56-Year-Old Goal of Graduating from Fordham

Lana Ho-Shing learned about Fordham as a 12-year-old student at the Jesuit Convent of Mercy Academy in Kingston, Jamaica. Ever since then, she has wanted to come to New York City’s Jesuit University.

“I was just completely taken with the school,” Ho-Shing said. “Whenever I met someone who had gone to Fordham, I would ask them endless questions.”

Ho-Shing’s fixation on Fordham stemmed from its location near the home of members of her family and a childhood steeped in Catholicism and church life. Latin masses had a great draw for her, and she developed a deeply rooted love of the language.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

 Merritt Juliano, GSS ’15—Former Attorney Turns Her Focus to the Roots of Social Ills

As a government attorney, Merritt Juliano was trained to look exclusively at the facts of a case. Yet the more she investigated potential violations of the law, the more she began to wonder if the facts were only telling half the story.

“I was always interested in people’s backstory; I wondered what experiences in their lives had led them to the position they were in,” said Juliano.

“I was interested in the human aspect of the job … but that side of the story wasn’t part of the agenda. So I decided to do something different with my life.”

READ FULL STORY HERE

 
Ferdinand von Habsburg-Lothringen, GSAS ’15—Ideas of Peace from a Humanitarian

In December 2011, the newly formed Republic of South Sudan was in the throes of ethnic violence that left more than 1,000 dead and tens of thousands homeless. A dispute over abducted children, stolen cattle, and ongoing raids had prompted members of the Lou Nuer community to attack members of the Murle community.

Ferdinand von Habsburg-Lothringen had traveled to the region with the country’s vice president to see how the United Nations might help.

“We were right in the middle of this place that had been burned down and was still smoking, with bodies everywhere,” said von Habsburg-Lothringen. “What I saw was so shocking that I have nothing to relate it to.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Nora Dwyer, FCLC ’15—A Shift of Heart

Nora Dwyer moved to Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus from South Berwick, Maine, in 2011, with dreams of becoming a journalist in the media capital of the world.

But fate had another plan.

“The direction I thought I wanted all of the sudden seemed foreign to me,” said Dwyer. “In college you’re trying to come up with a life plan. For me, it was especially scary because I’ve always been somebody who thought I knew exactly what I wanted.”

READ FULL STORY HERE

Kwame Akosah, Law ’15—Fighting for Disenfranchised Voters

There have been times in Kwame Akosah’s life when the system seemed stacked against him.

In 2008, while he was studying political science and English at UCLA, the financial crisis hit. His mother, who was single at the time, lost her job and spent her life savings. Soon, collection agencies became a familiar presence.

The experience crystallized his decision to go to law school.

 READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Juan Blanchard, GRE ’15—Forging a U.S.-Dominican Connection

When Juan Lulio Blanchard emigrated from the Dominican Republic with his wife and four children in 1990, he left behind his job as a physics instructor at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo. There, he’d overseen programs at the university’s School of Science and coordinated pedagogical programs for students.

When he arrived in New York, he became a dishwasher.

“My first job was cleaning pots in a restaurant,” said Blanchard, DMin. “It was traumatic for me. But I did what I had to do as a father and a husband.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Marielle Rivera, GABELLI ’15—Bringing Business Know-How to Luxury Retail

Marielle Rivera had not expected to launch a career in luxury retail.

But thanks to a healthy dose of tenacity and resourcefulness—as well as some shrewd networking at a Fordham career fair—the Gabelli School of Business senior is en route to success in this elite market.

At an ordinary career fair during her sophomore year, Rivera struck up a lighthearted conversation about musical theater with a fellow enthusiast. The enthusiast turned out to be a representative for Sterling Publishing, and the connection led to the first of six internships Rivera would work over her time at Fordham.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Brandon Mogrovejo, FCRH ’15—Combining Social Justice with Hard Science

Brandon Mogrovejo describes himself as having been a child obsessed with anatomy. In first and second grade he gobbled up all the science magazines for children that he could get his hands on.

He has vivid memories of building a model of a heart for a science project in fourth grade.

“I was interested in all the organ systems, but especially in the heart,” he said. “I thought it was incredible.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Aisha Holder, GSE ’15—Imagining a Corporate Ladder with Rungs for All

Aisha Holder’s parents inspired her at an early age to live life with “grace, integrity, and decency.”

“They reinforced the importance of using my talents to be of service to others and create value,” she said.

As a black woman who rose to the rank of vice president in corporate human resources at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Holder triumphed in the difficult climb through an environment that is predominately white and male.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Joel Knippel, GABELLI ’15—Navy Recruiter Segues into Human Resources

In 2008, the Great Recession struck, swallowing up jobs and weakening entire employment sectors. Many of the newly jobless found themselves checking out the U.S. military as a way to reboot their careers.

A U.S. Navy recruiter at the time, Joel Knippel helped them do just that—and, in so doing, found a new path for himself as well.

Talking to people about what they wanted and helping them get it “opened up a whole new world to me,” said Knippel.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE