Four years ago, the University committed to Generation Study Abroad, an initiative spearheaded by the Institute of International Education, to double the number of students studying abroad. At the time, 36% of Fordham undergraduates studied abroad. This month, the institute officially recognized Fordham for passing the 50% threshold.

Joseph Rienti, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s International & Study Abroad Programs, said hitting that number was key to fulfilling Fordham’s goal of educating students to be leaders in a global society.

“It’s one of the best ways we find students can broaden their knowledge of themselves, of their academic discipline, and the world around them,” he said.

“It gives them an opportunity to experience a different culture, a different academic context, and it really just brings that global dimension to their undergraduate education.”

The increase didn’t happen by accident. Rienti said the department underwent a reorganization as part of the push to increase participation. Specific areas of study, such as short term-programs, exchanges, and the London Centre now have individual staff members dedicated specifically to managing them. Outreach has been overhauled as well, and the department now recruits students to be “global ambassadors” and gives them Canon Rebel cameras to document their study abroad trips.

“We think it helped. It’s really given us an opportunity to capture what the students are seeing and doing, and to share with students here in New York, to get them excited about going,” he said.

The new London Centre campus has had a palpable effect, Rienti said, as it enabled his department to offer additional programs, including one connected to internships. The University’s study abroad program in Granada has also expanded in the last three years. Rienti said his department has also worked with faculty to both develop summer courses abroad and add international components to courses that take place in New York.

Exchange programs are also a key area of expansion; most recently Fordham has established two with Institut d’études politiques de Paris and the University of Helsinki in Finland. And just as importantly, Rienti said all of the

26 exchange programs have been designed so that students can tap into the financial aid packages they use in New York City, making cost less of a barrier.

“What we’ve done is very strategically look to expand those opportunities, aware of the fact that we could make studying abroad sometimes even less expensive than studying in New York,” he said.

The department has also distributed an additional $50,000 in aid to students last year, thanks to a fund maintained by donations from parents, alumni, and even current students who want to help their peers.

“Sometimes students still have airfare to pay for, there’s still visas to pay for, and we’re able to give some additional funding to students,” he said.

Participating in Generation Study Abroad was helpful, he said, as it added another level of accountability to the department’s goals.

“We had to report back to the institute, and we were able to participate in conversations with other colleges and universities how to come up with innovative ideas and different strategies to get participation up,” he said.

“Universities are challenged in an urgent way by the questions that are now posed, questions that are after all existential, that are of the survival of the biosphere, of deepening inequality, of a return to the language of hate, war, and fear, and the very use of such science and technology yet again for warfare rather than in serving humanity,” he said.

The Sept. 30 lecture was part of the Ireland at Fordham Humanitarian Lecture Series, a partnership between the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations and Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs. (Watch the full lecture here.)

Higgins, a poet and former professor, said the Irish lost at least one million lives to starvation during the Great Potato Famine and saw more than 2.5 million emigrate. Therefore, the nation holds a collective memory that resonates with today’s crisis.

“We have known what it is to be hungry,” he said in his lecture, “Humanitarianism and the Public Intellectual in Times of Crisis.”

He noted that the Irish famine was editorialized in some newspapers as “an act of God.” The difference today, he said, is that the constant drumbeat of the news cycle desensitizes the listener.

“[Today,] we’ve become accustomed to narratives of how men and women throughout the world as refugees find themselves, through extended periods of time in unsuitable accommodation, confined to forced idleness, without even control over their daily diet,” he said.

Eugene Quinn, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Ireland, he noted, has said that children grow up “without the memory of their parents cooking a family meal.”

He lamented that millions of refugees spend years stranded in semipermanent camps around the world, while world leaders discuss the “internationalism and interdependency” of international trade.

“In fact [the conversation]nearly always begins with trade. This has devalued everything, really, in relation to intellectual life, and it has devalued diplomacy very seriously.”

He said that people’s loss of citizenship is so much more than a loss of a homeland. The rights of displaced humans become distinct from the rights of “the citizen.” Without citizenship, refugees lose their inalienable rights as a person, as well as their voice, he said, referencing Arendt.

“To be stripped of citizenship is to be stripped of words, to fall to a state of utter vulnerability with avenues of participation closed off, and thus new futures disallowed,” he said.

Given their past, he said that it falls to the Irish, at home and abroad, to be exemplary to those seeking shelter, especially since it is a crisis that will continue, fostered by climate change and exacerbated by precarious political situations.

“This is a deepening, if you like, of what I call the intersecting crisis of ecology, economy, and society,” he said.

But unlike the welcome that many European refugees received in the wake of World War II, today’s refugees have been shunned.

“The relatively small number of refugees reaching our borders [in the West]  has brought forth the type of narrative about ‘the other’ that we in the humanitarian tradition had hoped was assigned to the chronicles of the past,” he said.

“Countries whose citizens have often benefited from international asylum and migratory flows are reneging on their commitments with the aim of discouraging or inhibiting refugees from seeking the international protection to which they are entitled.”

It is here, he said, that public intellectuals and universities must play a crucial role to alter a discourse “soured by hateful rhetoric.” However, he added that today’s charged atmosphere has not made it easier for the academy to exert influence, with some in the community seduced by corporate power, and others complacent with current economic models as the only way forward, he said.

He asked what is being taught in Economics 101 in North America, and questioned how much of it was game theory and how much was real political economy, to say nothing of the coursework’s moral content. He worried that an emphasis on funding beyond the state has had a disjointed effect on the career structure of young scholars.

“I believe public intellectuals have an ethical obligation as an educated elite to take a stand against the increasingly aggressive orthodoxies and discourse of the marketplace that have permeated all aspects of life, including within academia,” he said.

Edward Said said it best when he stated that an intellectual’s mission in life is to advance human freedom and knowledge, he said.

“This mission often means standing outside of society and its institutions and actively disturbing the status quo. Yet it also involves placing a strong emphasis on intellectual rigor and ideas, while ensuring that governing authorities and international intermediary organizations are well-resourced. To quote Immanuel Kant, ‘Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.’”

From August 18 to 26, the students visited Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of a monthlong onboarding process that emphasized camaraderie, academic excellence, and helping the less fortunate.

Julita Haber, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of communications and media management and director of the full-time MBA program, said this year’s trip, which followed three weeks of orientation both on campus and remotely, expanded upon previous years’ trips, when students did consulting work for local nonprofit organizations. This year, they also brought goods with them to donate to charities and devoted a full day to community service, helping to refurbish a shelter for homeless children.

Serving Local Charities

The three nonprofit groups they worked with were Mensajeros de la Paz, which runs residential homes and daycare centers for underserved children and the elderly; Pilares, which works alongside the families living in precarious settlements in Buenos Aires; and Educar y Crecer, which designs, implements, and evaluates high quality educational programs for children living in vulnerable situations.

“This year, we enriched their involvement and touched on their emotional connection with these populations,” she said, noting that after interviewing the heads of the NGOs about issues such as human resources and marketing, students then presented their findings in person at the NGO’s headquarters.

“Emotionally, students felt a lot more compelled to tap into a social innovation space and do things that open up their ability to give back, which I think is important for MBAs.”

Argentina isn’t the only place the students are traveling; in March, MBA students will travel to London to work with for-profit companies. Both trips are part of a program that emphasizes a global outlook, personalized leadership development, collaboration, rigorous curriculum, and business with purpose.

Forming Tight Bonds

Kostapanos Miliaresis, a member of the class who created to a spreadsheet to track the unassembled bicycles, sheets, towels, rain gear, and other items that the cohort brought with them to donate, said the trip resonated a great deal with him. The mission of Ethelon, the company he co-founded seven years ago in Athens, Greece, is to connect companies with volunteer opportunities. He decided to get his MBA to explore new opportunities, and Fordham’s designation as a Changemaker Campus convinced him to move to New York City. The trip was a great bonding experience, he said.

“We have all these get-to-know kind of gatherings, but when you spend all this time together, you really get a better sense of who someone is,” he said.

Hermann Rinnen, a native of Dusseldorf, Germany, said the trip exceeded his expectations. A 2013 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Rinnen said he enrolled in the MBA program to strengthen his accounting and finance skills. He was part of a team that addressed human resource management at Mensajeros de la Paz, a project that enabled him to share insights he’s gleaned as co-owner of a family-owned logistics company, Rinnen GmbH & Co.

He said he considers the group’s donations and the service work to be even more important than the consulting projects.

“With the consulting project, we also benefitted from it, not just the organization. We were able to grow and apply knowledge and insight. But doing the community service opened my eyes to how important community work is and how important it is to pay attention to people,” he said.

“I think it was a really great experience to have one day of this kind of community work, I could have done it two or three more days.”

Haber said the trip, which was the third of its kind, has proven to be an excellent bonding experience. This year, the group was treated to a reception at the home of new Fordham Trustee Dario Wertheim, GABELLI ’91. Wertheim also earned an MBA at the business school, and is currently the director of Grupo Werthein, a firm whose portfolio includes mass consumption, energy, insurance, agribusiness, real estate, and technology.

“By having our students travel together, we are actually creating cohesive cohorts,” Haber said.

“That cohesiveness is something that distinguishes us from other, larger MBA programs.”

The International Symposium on Digital Scholarship took place from June 3 to 5 at Birkbeck College and Fordham’s London Centre. Sponsored by the University’s Office of Research, it featured a mix of lectures, workshops, and formal and informal gatherings geared toward furthering research opportunities and international collaborations.

If last year’s gathering illustrated how cross-border collaboration is key to tackling vexing challenges of our time, the London gathering showed how, in the digital realm, no one discipline can go it alone.

Bringing Technology and Scholarship Together

“Digital scholarship is notable for its interdisciplinary nature, since it involves not only IT and computer science, but also the humanities, social sciences, and schools of education,” said Maryanne Kowaleski, Ph.D., the academic coordinator for the digital symposium.

The Joseph Fitzpatrick S.J. Distinguished Professor of History and Medieval Studies and curator of Fordham’s Medieval Sources Bibliography, Kowaleski has deep connections to both London and the digital humanities.

In London, she delivered a keynote address, “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Acknowledging Collaborative Work in Digital Scholarship Projects.” She also presented a research project that touches on both London and the digital realm, titled “Prosopography, Database Design, and Linked Data in the Medieval Londoners Project.”

The project is a collaboration with Katherina Fostano, visual resources coordinator in the department of Art History, and Kowaleski said it was notable that Fostano presented at the conference, as did Elizabeth Cornell, Ph.D., director of communications at Fordham’s department of information technology. Adding professional staff such as librarians and graduate students to the mix, was key to the conference’s success, she said.

“One of the things that my research shows, and that I have experienced, is how crucial librarians are to digital efforts now. I’m grateful that Fordham has included them in this program,” she said.

London and New York, Working as a Team

Representing the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Professor of Childhood Special Education Su-Je Cho, Ph.D, and doctoral student Kathleen Doyle jointly presented “Using a Digital Learning Platform to Increase Levels of Evidence-Based Practices in Global Teacher Education Programs.” It detailed Project REACH, a U.S. Department of Education-funded initiative that makes widely available the best evidence-based practices for training prospective teachers.

George Magoulas, Ph.D., Alex Poulovassilis, Ph.D., and Andrea Cali, Ph.D., members of Birkbeck College’s Knowledge Lab, helped them collect and analyze data through the website.

Working with a partner in London made sense for this project, Cho said, because one of her goals is for Project REACH to get more use internationally. She, Doyle, and the GSE’s Alesia Moldavan, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics education, will collaborate with Christine Edwards-Leis, Ph.D., associate dean of research, and enterprise and doctoral student Jennifer Murray from St. Mary’s College in London on a new endeavor geared toward student teachers’ mental health. Once finished, it will be incorporated into Project REACH.

“The student teaching experience is very stressful, because it’s not their own classroom they have to student teach in. It’s someone else’s classroom. By providing this kind of platform, they can also share their concerns and knowledge and frustrations with the students overseas,” she said.

For Doyle, the trip was an opportunity to see how colleagues from other disciplines assemble collaborative teams.

“I really appreciated learning across the fields. Being in the Graduate School of Education, I’ve been mainly focused on that field. It was refreshing to hear about the other ways digital scholarship is utilized in other disciplines,” she said.

Urban Challenges That Cross Borders

Gregory T. Donovan, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, presented “Keeping Place in ‘Smart’ Cities: Situating the Settlement House as a Means of Knowing and Belonging in the Informational City.” The project, which he is developing with the assistance of Melissa Butcher, Ph.D., reader in social and cultural geography at Birkbeck College, will highlight the efforts of New York City’s Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center and London’s Toynbee Hall.

The project will focus on the “settlement house” model of community center that was founded a century ago to confront segregation and displacement and promote belonging.

“New York City and London are examples of global cities that are going through significant technological change, both in terms of the cities themselves becoming more digitized as well as the economy and the kinds of jobs and the kinds of education that’s being elevated. With that comes all kinds of difficult changes and gentrification that causes displacement,” said Donovan, who is also organizing November symposium at Fordham called Mapping (in)justice.

“We’re going to look at how we might network [Lincoln Square and Toynbee] through digital technology and think about how they’re managing to keep pace in these communities that are often being displaced in this kind of digital gentrification.”

“The trip was an educational immersion experience to work and collaborate with educators in Kenya and teach students who are underprivileged with limited resources,” said Graduate School of Education professor Diane Rodriguez, Ph.D., who spearheaded the spring trip. “It’s part of the University’s mission of cura personalis.”

For 12 days in early May, the graduate students learned about classroom instruction and curriculum in Kenya, where the majority of children attend primary school, but nearly half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line. Through visits to four Kenyan schools and one university, the GSE students put into practice the teaching and counseling skills they had learned at home. And through conversations in English and a smattering of Swahili, they found solidarity with students and educators in a foreign country.

Applying Fordham Lessons to Actual Classrooms

The Kenyan children were curious about what life was like in America. Interiano said they peppered the Fordham students with questions: “What does the currency look like?” “Who’s the biggest fashion designer?” Another student, whose school housed farm animals, asked, “Are there cows in New York?”

The six students not only answered their questions—yes, cows do live in New York—but also weaved lessons from their GSE instruction into Kenyan classrooms. At St. Jude Academy, a school where students spoke both Swahili and English, Interiano taught sixth-graders how to make their sentences more expressive.

“Instead of just saying, ‘A man and a woman are getting married,’ [I would suggest] ‘A beautiful bride is marrying a groom,’” said Interiano, who plans on becoming a bilingual elementary school teacher.

Another Fordham student said she used her training from a GSE career counseling course—particularly a lesson on the power of social media—to help Kenyan students chart their own career paths.

“We had a conversation about [what they do on]social media,” said Chelsea Bowens, a master’s student in school counseling. “They like to look at celebrities. So [I told them] you can also use it to explore your interests and find out more about your career options.”

A Warm Welcome

The two cities they taught in—Eldoret and Nairobi—embraced them with open arms, said the GSE students. As they drove from school to school, they waved from their bus window to local townspeople in the streets. Outdoor vendors ushered them inside their stores with a simple Swahili greeting: “Jambo!” And school administrators welcomed them with doughy pastries and roasted nuts.

Kenya reminded them of home, too. Eileen Interiano, a GSE master’s student from Long Island, said she saw buildings as high as Manhattan skyscrapers, though these were bordered by palm fronds instead of oak tree leaves. The city streets were filled as early as 6 a.m. and as late as 9 p.m. And the food—rice, potatoes, boiled cabbage, chicken, and a flaky, fried flatbread called chapati—reminded Interiano of her native Hispanic cuisine.  

“Kenya makes you feel like you’re at home. They welcome you, even if they’re strangers,” Interiano said. “And the kids … they just fill your heart with so much love.”

An Inside Look at the Kenyan Educational System

But the trip wasn’t all about teacher training. Several GSE students said their 12 days in Kenya also showed them the need for equal education in many local schools. They spoke with professors from the Catholic University of East Africa about how many girls don’t continue their education past primary school, particularly in some rural areas. They often cease schooling because their families aren’t able to afford their academic fees or because they’re married young, the GSE students said.

In her journal entries from Kenya, Bowens wrote about meeting a young woman living in the “slums” who, unable to afford school fees, made a living as a housegirl. And Interiano recalled meeting an eighth grader named Valerie—a girl with dreams of becoming a doctor.

“Just being with her for a couple of minutes … it made me emotional,” Interiano said. “I hope that she continues her education. What breaks my heart is sometimes they lack the money or support to get there.”

Bowens, who is working toward becoming a school counselor in a Title I school in the U.S.—a school where the majority of students come from low-income families—said her mentorship experience in Kenya has made her more aware of the different factors that can affect children’s lives.

“As counselors, we sit and talk to the students. The teachers might not see the whole picture, but we’re trying to get the whole picture,” Bowens said. “There’s a child, yes. But behind that child is the parents, schools, teachers, their physical environment, and their mental [environment].”

Building A Boarding School for Kenyan Girls

In 2016, Rodriguez, a GSE professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, founded Every Girl Is Important, a non-profit organization that promotes the education of underserved girls around the world, particularly in Kenya. For the past few years, it has been working to raise $100,000 to build a boarding school for girls ages 11 to 17 in rural Eldoret. The organization has now reached nearly 80% of its original goal, and will commence construction once the total amount has been raised, said Rodriguez, who also spoke in a recent interview aired on TV network Telemundo.

Part of the reason why the GSE team visited Kenya this year was to prepare for the new boarding school, said Ashley Rodriguez, a Ph.D. student in school psychology at GSE.

“We wanted to get a sense of what the high-performing schools [in Kenya]are doing, what they aren’t doing so that the school could be comparable [to other high-performing schools],” she said.

The trip also motivated the GSE students to think about how their time in Kenya will shape them as future educators. For Interiano, it means giving her students—both boys and girls—the same opportunities.

“I want to make sure that wherever I teach, kids are getting an equal education,” she said.

The words study abroad bring to mind traveling to new places, meeting different people, eating all kinds of delicious foods, and having new experiences. I had the pleasure of leading a dozen Fordham pre-health students to Cali, Colombia, on a weeklong study abroad course. Since this is the third time I am leading this course, I can say that study abroad not only opens students’ eyes to new cultures and new possibilities but also gives them the opportunity to learn about themselves.

Almost half of all Fordham undergraduates study abroad, but it is not very common for students in the pre-health professions track. A one-credit service course, called Community Health in Cali, Colombia, held each year during spring break, is probably the only study abroad program available for pre-health students. As the faculty leader, I have always enjoyed the trip as it feels like an extension of my Human Physiology course here on campus. Not only do we talk about human health and disease, but I can also extend the discussions on health care systems in the U.S. and abroad.

As part of the service course, these students get to visit the city of Cali and learn about the health care system there. Colombia has the fourth largest economy in Latin America and Cali is the third largest city in Colombia, located southwest of Bogotá and situated in the Valle de Cauca. It is a thriving metropolis of about 2.4 million people. Cali has many private and public universities and Fordham has a special relationship with Javeriana University, a private Jesuit university that hosts us while we’re there. Javeriana is a nonresidential university with undergraduate and graduate programs; it also has a medical school. Colombian students start medical school directly from high school and graduate in five years, followed by a one-year internship and residency.

Fordham students are inquisitive and eager to learn about other cultures and different health care systems. The study abroad course is ideally suited for pre-health students interested in pursuing medicine as well as public health. What we discover is that Colombia’s healthcare system is based on the income level of the people and organizes the population into six strata, or levels. The bottom-most layer is made up of people that have very low or no income; their basic medical care is covered by the government. At higher income levels, people receive better medical coverage from their employers. People at the highest strata are often able to pay out of pocket and access the best medical care available.

As the week progressed, we interacted with many Javeriana medical students, who are very open and friendly, and attended lectures and labs with Javeriana medical school faculty. The students dissected pig hearts, studied the electrophysiology of the cardiovascular system, and learned how to get a medical history of patients in Spanish. They also listened to a lecture on the various facets of being a physician—the hard work, the physical and emotional toll, as well as the financial remuneration. One of the medical school professors also highlighted the most important reason to choose medicine as a profession: the capacity to serve others and derive happiness from it.

We visited several hospitals and clinics to get a better idea of the healthcare system in Colombia. One of the best and most touching experiences for students was visiting the Institute for Deaf and Blind children, where the disabled children get necessary surgeries and treatments for their conditions. The institute also has a school that teaches them skills to make them independent and help them transition to high school and college so that they can become productive members of society.

We also got to be a part of an outreach program run by Javeriana public health faculty and Javeriana medical students. The students visit areas in and around Cali, especially on the hillsides, where it might be harder for people to access the medical centers. They talk to people about good nutrition, maternal and children’s health, vaccinations, how to maintain healthy lifestyles, and exercise, among other things. This is a great opportunity for Fordham students to actually meet the local people and interact with them.

One of the most important aspects of education, and certainly Jesuit education, is to reflect on the learning and incorporate the learning into practice. As part of the program, I asked the students to submit a daily reflection. At the end of the trip, I asked them to write a reflective paper examining how the program influenced their thinking in terms of their commitment to health professions, and how they might incorporate the lessons they learned in Cali moving forward. All the students felt that the program helped them to visualize themselves in medical school and a hospital setting and to be able to communicate with people from different backgrounds. They felt a new sense of confidence.

In all, it was a fun and educational experience and that leaves the students reenergized and refocused on their future plans to be part of a profession that improves lives. The most important thing we learned about was our ability to connect at a very human level—and that it’s our connections that define us, not our differences. That, I hope, is the lasting message that resonates with all my students, regardless of the professions they enter.

Photos courtesy of Usha Sankar.

Top photo, standing, left to right: Sydney Souness, Antonia Flores, Maribel Molina, Samantha Hamilton, Fatima Khan, Usha Sankar Ph.D., John Soriano, Brittany Zaita, LiYing Wei, Stephanie Pepdjonovic. Sitting, left to right: local guide Veronica Paris, Issy Asianah, Kevin Quiah, Daniel Garcia

A significant multiyear partnership between the Government of Ireland and Fordham University, the lecture series will begin this month and run until June 2020 with events in New York, Dublin, and Geneva.

The series will consist of a number of distinguished lectures supported by more technical lectures and workshops that are open to all.

“Ireland and Fordham University have deep enduring connections,” said Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ireland’s permanent representative to the United Nations. “Our historic ties are rooted in our strong commitments to respect for human dignity and spirit. … As we look toward the humanitarian challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, gender equality, and ensuring respect for international humanitarian law, I can think of no better partner than Fordham. We believe that a better understanding of these complex issues is critical, as Ireland aspires to make a meaningful difference as a candidate for election to the U.N. Security Council, for 2021-22.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said the University is honored to take part in the project.

“Fordham is humbled and gratified by the trust that Ireland has placed in the University in creating this grant,” said Father McShane. “The lecture series brings fresh depth to the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs’ mission to educate men and women who are both committed to, and professionally trained in, helping the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters around the globe.”

Lectures will explore the challenges facing policymakers and humanitarians as they seek to ensure that aid reaches those in need, that humanitarian principles are upheld, and that civilians are protected. Specific topics of discussion will include humanitarian protection through international humanitarian law, humanitarian financing, climate and security, and more.

Brendan Cahill, executive director of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, said the new series “complements the overall work of our institute and the leadership in this sector by the Irish government. These lectures and events, by leading U.N., government, and humanitarian leaders, will further inform and provide new insights in providing assistance to the most vulnerable.”

Speakers will include high-level political leaders who will communicate pivotal messages in response to key questions such as: What challenges and opportunities exist in humanitarian action in the 21st century? How do climate and gender drive food insecurity and humanitarian need? And, how can humanitarian action strengthen the role of local actors in humanitarian responses?

The inaugural lecture of the series will be delivered by H.E. Mary Robinson, chair of international NGO The Elders and the first woman elected president of Ireland (1990-1997). She is a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and an advocate for climate justice, gender equality, women’s participation in peace-building, and human dignity. This lecture will take place on Monday, April 29 at 6 p.m. in the United Nations Sputnik Lounge. Learn more and register here.

In 2016, Ghayalod’s son Raj enrolled as an undergraduate at the Gabelli School of Business and found that Fordham lacked a similar support system. Raj’s mother, Pallavi Ghayalod, knew this was something she wanted to address.

Fordham’s Indian Association, which Pallavi founded, was officially launched at a reception on April 8 at the Gabelli School of Business on the Lincoln Center campus. Its goal is to create a strong network of support among current Fordham Indian students, Fordham alumni in India, and other members of the community in New York and across the United States.

“The Gabelli School wants to be a hub for global education,” said Donna Rapaccioli, dean of the Gabelli School of Business.

The Indian Association will work to celebrate the rich culture, history, and contributions of India and South Asia at Fordham. It will also help Fordham build stronger ties in India, spurring more interest and awareness of Fordham’s schools among students across the region.

“Fordham is seeking to create internationalists at the undergraduate and graduate level. We’re hoping that this initiative will bring the University closer to South Asia, and India in particular,” said Roger A. Milici, vice president for development and university relations.

Fordham undergraduates travel from 76 countries, and international students make up ten percent of the undergraduate student body. More than 100 students from India currently attend the University, and over 200 alumni hail from there. That network is key to recruiting prospective international students, who use social media and other online resources to decide whether they will attend an institution.

“When parents of international students find out that their child gets admitted to Fordham, they’re not thinking of the school. They are thinking of New York City, and things like, ‘Where is their kid going to live?’ Facebook is a great resource for parents to connect with other parents to figure out the answers to questions like this.” said Pallavi.  

Prospective students often speak to other admitted students, current students, and alumni via social media in order to determine where to enroll. “If I didn’t get to talk to Fordham Indian alumni about their experience, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable attending Fordham,” said Kapil Bashani, GABELLI ‘18, who spoke with three Fordham alumni via social media before making his decision to enroll in the global finance program.

Sris Chatterjee, Ph.D., professor and chair of global security analysis, finance, and business economics at the Gabelli School, and one of several faculty members who attended the reception, said the association was a critical addition to the University.

“At this time, with what’s happening in India, and all across the globe, many cultures are finding it hard to come to terms with each other. But India is not just one culture, but a confluence of many cultures,” he said.

The Indian Association at Fordham seeks to unite people across those different cultures and to ease the transition for students studying at Fordham from overseas.

The association is planning to host a reception in India this July.

These are the questions that Imelda Lam, Ph.D., GRE ’15, faces every day.

Lam is a curriculum developer in the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong’s Religious and Moral Education Curriculum Development Centre, a group that produces teaching and learning content for religious schools and provides professional training for religion teachers. In 2006, she began writing religious education textbooks for Catholic schools across Hong Kong. Lam and her colleagues create content for both teachers and students, including instruction guides, lesson plans, PowerPoints, audio files, and videos. So far, they’ve developed textbooks for children ages 4 to 15, and they’re currently working on books for older teens.

Their textbooks touch on topics like love, ethics, temptation, and moral decision-making. Lam’s team selects the stories, activities, and biblical references that make it to publication—and it’s no easy feat. Lam says, for example, she has struggled with choosing the right words to talk about premarital sex, which Catholic teaching says shouldn’t happen.

“But why? How do you guide them [students]to think about that?” she said.

Lam, a Hong Kong native, began working at the Religious and Moral Education Curriculum Development Centre in 2006. That same year, the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong released its first centralized curriculum for Catholic schools. It became the guiding point of the material that Lam and her colleagues use in their religious education textbooks.

After a few years, her life changed. Lam, who had previously been a primary school teacher for more than a decade, wanted to become an educator for religion teachers. She also realized that if she wanted to create the highest quality teaching aids for educators and their students, then she needed to strengthen her skills and continue her own education.

In 2011, Lam enrolled in the religious education Ph.D. program at Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education. She says the most useful thing she learned at Fordham was a deeper style of teaching. In Hong Kong, many religion teachers educate their students by reading stories from the Bible, singing songs, praying, and creating arts and crafts. But Fordham taught her that this is not enough.

“To teach religious education is to have them have a bigger mind,” Lam said. “To understand the meaning of life, and to think about Christian values.”

Their current curriculum is no longer limited to activities like storytelling and singing. Lam says religion school teachers are now more focused on providing reflective activities, like encouraging students to share their own experiences and the lessons they learned. Then they, in turn, can model this behavior when teaching their young students.

Let’s say a teacher is talking about the concept of forgiveness, Lam said. She might have them reflect on when they’ve been angry with someone, and vice versa. Did they forgive them? Have they been forgiven by someone? How did they feel? They can bring this reflection back to their work in the classroom.

“Children learn by experience,” said Lam, who is also a part-time lecturer in teacher training at the Caritas Institute of Higher Education, a post-secondary college in Hong Kong. “Learning through their own experiences and other’s experiences leads them to think bigger, and think more about life and values.”

Nearly half of Hong Kong’s Catholic schools—150 out of 270—have adopted the local  Catholic Diocese’s curriculum, Lam estimated. Most of the students in these Catholic schools are not Catholic. But everyone can learn something from a Catholic education, just like at Fordham, she said. In other words, a Catholic style of teaching can help the younger generation become thoughtful citizens and make wiser decisions in their lives.

“When you are growing up, you need to make decisions every day, every minute—to choose what to do, to choose a boyfriend, to make a family,” she explained. “Why don’t we teach the young guys [students]to know how to choose?”

“We don’t force them to accept Christian values,” she emphasized. “But at least they have the chance to know them: how to reflect on being a better person, how to have a bigger dream, how to have a meaningful life.”

“This was the book that made me excited to study political science,” said Dayal, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science who began teaching at Fordham in 2015. “It examines one of multiple ways to think about power, which is really what animates the study of political science.”

Dayal hopes her own research, which focuses on international organizations, peace processes, and peacekeeping, will also contribute to new ways of thinking about power.

“We live in a world that has been shaped by big international institutions like the United Nations, European Union, and NATO, which emerged out of the end of World War II,” said Dayal. “These are institutions that were designed to help countries cooperate and work together to secure mutual benefits.”

As the United States’ role in global affairs begins to change—for example, with the country’s recent withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement—political scientists are weighing the short- and long-term effects of the country’s political moves, she said.

“When the United States backs away from international organizations and agreements, we worry it could delegitimize a lot of these institutions,” said Dayal. “If the U.S. says, for example, that it doesn’t need to be a part of an institution like the United Nations, other countries may say, ‘Well, the United States doesn’t think it’s important so why is it important for us?’”

The bargaining models of war

This summer, Dayal is set to complete a manuscript examining the U. N.’s peacekeeping operations. She hopes her analysis of how U.N. peace operations play a role in peace processes might help scholars and policymakers as they reconsider how the United Nations contributes to the way wars around the world end.

“There’s a popular perception that all peace operations don’t work very well, and that’s an understandable reaction because of the way that news is reported,” said Dayal.

Failing U.N. peacekeeping missions in countries and regions such as Rwanda and the Balkans, she said, are more “vivid” in the public eye than more successful peacekeeping missions like those in El Salvador, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, and Liberia—which were not quick fixes.

“What we know from existing academic research is that if combatants have decided to stop fighting, negotiate an agreement, and lay down their arms, then peacekeepers are good at keeping them from picking up their arms again,” said Dayal. “But when we send peacekeepers into active war situations, research tells us statistically it can be the same as not sending them at all.”

Globally, the United Nations is the largest deployer of troops in high conflict regions. Because of this, Dayal said it is important to consider how combatants, who are involved in ongoing peace processes, view the United Nations.

“The United Nations thinks of itself as bringing peace, but the combatants’ view of the United Nations can be very different,” said Dayal. “Combatants think of U.N. involvement as bringing a range of things. It’s possible that it will help bring peace, but even if it doesn’t bring peace, it can bring material and financial benefits, or help create the conditions for humanitarian actors to work on things like refugee resettlement, as well. It can also bring tactical and symbolic benefits, like helping rebels forces recraft themselves as political parties.”

Investigating force in peacekeeping

Dayal said U.N. peacekeeping operations have undergone several changes after some prominent peacekeeping failures in the 1990s. Most recently, she and her co-author Lise Morjé Howard have been researching the U.N. Security Council’s decision to give U.N. peacekeepers authorization to use force in defense of civilians.

In their article, “The Use of Force in U.N. Peacekeeping,” to be published in International Organization journal this fall, they note that the authorization of force doesn’t always fit the peacekeeping mission. She cites the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti as an example.

“The problem in that case is that Haiti is not at war,” she said. “Who are we protecting civilians from? What’s the peacekeeper’s job there? It’s not clear because the language is identical to the language of giving peacekeepers the authorization to protect civilians in war-stricken places like Darfur or in South Sudan. We think the answer to why the mission mandates all look so similar lies in Security Council politics, not in the conditions on the ground.”

Dayal said her goal in investigating international organizations is to spark conversations among scholars, policymakers and citizens of the world about effective governance and conflict management, so that they can work together to build a better world.

The risks of inaction

One thing that Dayal emphasizes to her students and other young people is that there are risks to inaction on both a national and global level.

Earlier this summer, she was asked to deliver a speech to young women graduating from her old high school in Troy, New York. She encouraged the graduates to be active participants in politics even in moments of despair.  An adaptation of that speech was published on Ms. Magazine’s blog.

“It’s important for people to understand that democracy isn’t the kind of thing that you set up once, and it just runs on its own,” she said. “It requires investments from citizens to make sure that their values are expressed in their systems of government.”