“We had a record-breaking Giving Tuesday,” said Elaine Ezrapour, director of the Fordham Fund. “It’s very exciting to see the outpouring of ‘phil-‘Ram’-thropy.’” 

Held this year on Dec. 3, Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, has become an international day of charitable giving. Since 2015, Fordham has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on this day. But 2019 marked the first year that the University raised more than a million. 

Supporting Athletics

The majority of the 1,589 gifts made this year were for Fordham athletics. More than $300,000 in gifts will help support the Frank McLaughlin Family Basketball Court and University sports teams. That includes the Fordham men’s rugby football team, which is raising money to fly to Ireland for the club’s first international tour in more than 50 years. 

“Working with the Fordham Fund, we’ve created a Give Campus page for each of the varsity and club teams,” said Edward Kull, senior director of development and senior associate athletic director, adding that the student-athletes and coaches create videos for their teams letting everyone know what their needs are. “So it’s a real collaborative effort.” Squash, crew, football, water polo, and sailing were among the top raisers, he said.

Scholarships for Urban Plunge

More than $6,000 was raised for scholarships for Urban Plunge, a pre-orientation program where first-year undergraduate students participate in community service activities throughout the Bronx and Manhattan. The program, run by the Center for Community Engaged Learning, requires a $250 fee for each student that pays for their meals, transportation, and supplies. 

A Double Giving Challenge

This year’s Giving Tuesday offered Rams a double challenge. If 350 donors made a gift by 11:59 a.m. EST, then Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, and Thomas P. Salice, GABELLI ’82, would contribute $20,000. After the goal was achieved, the Salices presented the second half of the challenge: If 200 more donors made a gift by 11:59 p.m. EST, the couple would give another $20,000 to Fordham. Thanks to 550 donors, both challenges were met and the Salices donated $40,000. 

Student Support

Students across the University helped spearhead donation efforts, too. In O’Hare Hall, student callers reached out to dozens of alumni, parents, and friends of Fordham. Usually, they work three hours a day, Ezrapour said. But on Giving Tuesday, they worked from roughly 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and secured 150 gifts over the phone. 

Further downtown, the Student Philanthropy Committee at Lincoln Center set up a tabling session in the Lowenstein Center. For the first time, they created a “giving tree” fashioned out of chicken wire and multicolored leaf cut-outs. Committee members asked passing students to write on a leaf the things they are grateful for at Fordham—including causes they want to support in the future. 

“They wrote wonderful notes about the different areas on campus that they feel connected to and care about,” Ezrapour said. “It was a great effort on their part, not only in raising awareness about Giving Tuesday, but also demonstrating to the campus community just how many potential areas there are to support.” 

As Fordham celebrates the successful conclusion of Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid, the University is transitioning to a new campaign dedicated to enhancing the overall student experience.

The centerpiece of the campaign will be a new campus center at Rose Hill that is scheduled to be completed in 2025. The campaign will also seek support for other student-focused issues like wellness, financial aid, athletics, and STEM facilities, which are being developed in the University’s strategic planning process.

“The new campus center will be bigger, both literally and in concept, than its current incarnation,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “It will be at the heart of the student experience campaign, and the student experience is at the heart of the University. In caring for the whole person, we want Fordham to be a place where students can live, learn, study, celebrate, dine, play, and perhaps most of all connect—with their peers and with the faculty and campus community.”

The campus center project, which the University began work on over the summer, will take place in two phases and cost an estimated $205.3 million.

A Dramatic Expansion

The first phase is scheduled for completion in August 2021 and will entail the construction of a roughly 75,000-square-foot addition in the area in front of the existing McGinley Center.

The sleek glass and stone addition will be connected to the existing structure via a two-story glass arcade, with elevated walkways between the two buildings. The glass canopy-topped main entrance will beckon visitors into an airy space between the Rose Hill Gym and the new addition. The center’s façade, once defined by the modernist arches of the McGinley building, will now be dominated by vertical, soaring windows and stonework that complement the neighboring Gym. In a nod to iconic Rose Hill structures such as Keating Hall and Duane Library, it will also feature a four-story illuminated tower immediately to the west of the entrance.

Once the addition is complete phase two will begin, and the existing structure, which was built in 1958, will be gutted and renovated. When it is finished, it will feature 22,000 square feet of dining facilities and 36,000 square feet of state-of-the-art sports and fitness facilities. Ultimately, the new campus center, which is being designed by the architecture firm HLW, will be much larger, encompassing more than double the space of the original building. It will also include efficient LED lighting, heat recovery systems, enhanced insulation, solar panels, and other features designed to lower its carbon footprint.

The expansion will allow for a dramatic increase in space for several areas. The 20,000 square-foot fitness center will encompass more than half of the basement level, while more than 16,000 additional square feet will be devoted to sports medicine and a varsity weights training center. A 9,500-square-foot student lounge will occupy the first floor of the addition, while Career Services, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, and Campus Ministry will be housed in larger offices on the second floor. The third floor of the addition, which will rise a floor above the existing McGinley Center, will feature space for meetings and special events.

Funding for the Center

Funding will come from a combination of fundraising, loans, and dining services provider Aramark, which has committed $13.3 million toward the renovation of the dining facilities. Fordham will borrow $150 million through a bond offering, and raise up to $85 million for the project through the next capital campaign.

Together, nine donors have already committed $10 million toward the Campus center. Maurice J. “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54 and Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., UGE ’62, GSAS ’65, ’71, whose generosity in the previous campaign led to the creation of the Maurice and Carolyn Cunniffe Presidential Scholars Program, has given $3 million.

Other donors include Board of Trustees Chair Robert (Bob) Daleo, GABELLI ’72, and Linda Daleo; Trustee Fellow Emerita Kim Bepler; Trustee Emeritus Robert E. Campbell, GABELLI ’55, and Joan Campbell; former Trustee Stephen J. McGuinness, GABELLI ’82, ’91, and Anne McGuinness; Trustee Brian MacLean and Kathy MacLean, both FCRH ’75; Brian Kelly, LAW ’95; former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; and several anonymous donors.

The center will feature many spaces with naming opportunities. Among the high-profile spaces in the new building are the fitness center, arcade, career services space, and special events space. When refurbished, the original building’s main dining room, ballroom, and student affairs suite will be available as well.

A Positive Financial Picture

The bulk of the funding for the project will come from a loan that the University will take on through a bond offering via the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.

Martha K. Hirst, senior vice president, CFO, and treasurer, noted that Fordham is able to do this in part thanks to the University’s solid financial footing. Last month, for instance, global rating agency Standard & Poor upgraded its outlook on Fordham from negative, which it issued in 2017, to stable, and affirmed its “A” long-term rating on outstanding bonds. The University previously borrowed $212 million in 2008 via bonds for the construction of the new Law School building; Hirst said it continues to be the best way to finance big projects.

A Focus on Students

Jeff Gray, senior vice president for student affairs, said the new campus center will dramatically increase the ability of the University to deliver the services and spaces that students need to thrive.

“We have clearly outgrown the current campus center over the years, and it’s going to bring online a lot of exciting new spaces that will improve the quality of life for all our students,” he said.

He noted that in recent surveys of students at Rose Hill, 60% indicated that current student club and programming spaces are inadequate for their needs, which is not surprising given that the center was built to accommodate just 2,500 undergraduates total, 850 of whom lived on campus at the time. Today, 3,500 students live on campus, another 1,000 live in off-campus housing and another 2,000 commute to campus. The new campus center will be a place where all of these students can come together to socialize and collaborate.

For a preview of the benefits to come, Gray pointed to the 2016 renovation of the garden level of the Lincoln Center campus’ 140 W. 62nd Street.

“There’s a retail dining facility there that’s very popular; there’s a large community lounge where students gather, study, and meet; there’s dedicated space for student clubs; and dedicated space for important student services, like the dean of students, student involvement, health services, counseling, and career services,” he said.

“They’re all located in that hub, and that’s had a very palpable, positive impact on the quality of life for our students at Lincoln Center. We hope to achieve some of the same benefits at Rose Hill on a larger scale.”

Studies have shown that the longer a student remains on campus and in an academic mindset, the greater their chances are for academic growth and success, Gray said, noting that student retention is a key priority for the University. The new campus center at Rose Hill, he said, will be designed to give students a better sense of place outside the classroom.

In addition to dining, fitness, student lounge, and career services spaces, Gray said he expects that students will benefit greatly from the improved office spaces for departments such as Campus Ministry, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, and the Office of Student Involvement, which supports student clubs and activities.

“Those services are certainly central to our mission and what we do, and I think all of those things have the net effect of improving the overall student experience for the students,” he said.

SPC is a student-run organization at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. It offers opportunities throughout the year for students to give back to the larger Fordham community through their time, energy, and donations.

“[It’s] a group of dedicated students working to create awareness and educate their peers about the importance of giving back to Fordham and its community,” said Kathryn Mandalakis, FCRH ’19, former senior class gift chair and current Fordham Fund Officer. “Our mission is more than just fundraising—it’s more about creating buzz and passion about giving back.”

The committee kicked off giving season on Sept. 24 with its annual Thank-A-Thon, a four-day tabling effort that encourages students to write thank-you notes to Fordham Fund donors. 

“One of the tenets we stress in our meetings is that it’s important to say thanks!” said Mandalakis. “It’s also just a great way for students to interact with our staff members and the Fordham community at large. We always ask students to write a thank-you note so they can more passionately support the cause.”

With the guidance of Fordham’s Office of Stewardship/Donor Relations, these Thank-A-Thon notes are sent to donors who support student scholarships, clubs and organizations, campus renovations, and other initiatives. 

The Student Philanthropy Committee not only provides opportunities to thank existing donors but also offers students the chance to become a part of the larger community of donors themselves by making gifts to the causes that have been most important to their student experience. 

“Being a part of the Student Philanthropy Committee allows me to talk to my peers about how impactful gifts of any size can be, and how impactful your time, energy, and focus can be in improving other people’s lives,” said John Morin, FCRH ’20, the Fordham College at Rose Hill senior class gift chair. 

A few of the opportunities available for students to learn more about giving back and the benefits of becoming a part of the donor community are the Senior Class Gift Kick-Off taking place in November, followed by Giving Tuesday on Dec. 3, and Fordham Giving Day from March 3 to 4. 

“Supporting the senior class gift is a great way to give back to Fordham before becoming an alum. It acts as a vote of confidence in a senior’s four years at Fordham and allows him or her to support the areas that have been most important throughout,” Mandalakis explained. “[It] also introduces students to the world of giving at Fordham in an approachable way while they’re still together with their classmates.”

Current seniors are encouraged to give $20.20 to represent their graduating year. However, seniors who give $50 or more over the course of the year are able to receive the benefits of Young Alumni President’s Club (YAPC), a giving society reserved for current seniors and alumni within 10 years of graduation. (YAPC alumni who have graduated within 1 to 5 years make annual gifts of $250, and for those who have graduated within 6 to 10 years, gifts of $500.)

Much like the President’s Club alumni, who have graduated within 11 or more years and have donated annual gifts of $1,000 or more, YAPC members are invited to exclusive donor receptions and celebrations hosted by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. This year’s YAPC members can look forward to an invitation to the President’s Club Christmas Party, where they will be able to meet longtime President’s Club members. They will also be offered the opportunity to attend a YAPC reception in April and a cocktail reception during Jubilee weekend in June, and they’ll receive recognition in the University’s annual honor roll of donors. 

“I love Fordham and what Fordham stands for, and I wanted to give back to this great institution,” said committee member Kaitlyn McDermott, FCRH ’21. “Joining SPC allowed me to find an outlet for philanthropic duties while learning valuable skills about being a woman for other people.”

–Chloe Meyer

“Your institution has not only demonstrated the highest levels of professionalism and best practice in its fundraising efforts, it has contributed to the betterment of educational advancement worldwide by serving as a model to which others can aspire,” wrote CASE president and CEO Sue Cunningham in the award letter.

DAUR, led by Vice President Roger A. Milici, Jr. since 2010, is responsible for all University fundraising; alumni relations; special events; and marketing and communications, including the publication of Fordham News.

While the award was granted this fiscal year, it is based on accomplishments from three previous years. The total amount raised during those fiscal years was $45.6 million in 2016, $75.8 million in 2017, and $49.5 million in 2018. Though not part of the analysis, Milici said the University closed this fiscal year at $67.1 million raised in gifts and pledges. It’s the pattern of growth in total support that helped Fordham garner notice from the judges, along with breadth and diversity of sources from which funds were raised.

For Milici, the win represents the evolution from a young and evolving advancement program to one that is on the cusp of becoming truly mature.

“It’s a point of pride in that it’s a total team win,” said Milici. “I think the recognition is especially poignant because it doesn’t talk about only the total number of gifts and pledges raised, but the continuity and systemic growth.”

The citation calls attention to the workings of a behind-the-scenes department that often deflects attention. But, Milici, along with Senior Executive Director of Development Robert Smith, pulled back the curtain to discuss vital strategies that brought about the award and keep the University competitive.

“None of this would be possible without receptive alumni and friends,” said Milici.

He noted that the pace and variety of campaigns must interest a range of donors on several levels, from fostering first-time donors in the Fordham Fund to continuing to pique the interests of large donors.

“It takes an evolving, mature operation to have that type of depth of prospects, so that you’re not just continuously returning to a small group of core donors to satisfy the campaign,” said Milici. “You’re constantly refreshing that pool so that even as the campaign ends, you interest newer donors.”

Milici said development must provide “a menu” of opportunities to give and it should be one “that elicits emotion and provides resonance.” But ultimately, he said, people give to trusted leadership, from the president to the provost to the faculty and staff and coaches. That trust is based in part on an assurance that the monies given will be used as the donors intended.

“We are trying to build long-term relationships, I like to call them ‘mission partners,’ whereas Father McShane [Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham] calls them ‘colleagues in ministry,’” said Milici. “The point is the same: these are people who believe in what the University stands for that they are in full partnership with us.”

Milici said he embraced the challenge of reaching out to Fordham’s diverse community, which includes three undergraduate colleges and graduate schools that range from law to social service. He said that while fundraisers may appeal to each of these groups in different ways, “the University mission arches over everything.”

The CASE award, he said, is something donors can feel good about.

“To be acknowledged by the industry is important and something that we should all take pride in. I think the message to our donors is that we are a well-run program,” he said.

Keeping the division operating at high performance levels falls to a variety of teams that includes research, which helps the university better understand donors and their interests, as well as Advancement Services and Advancement Technologies, said Smith.

“Part of our job is to make sure mutual understanding between the University and the donor are clear, what their expectations are of us, and vice-versa,” he said.

“I think the award also speaks to how donors come to trust what it is that we’re going to do as an institution with the gifts that they have given to us,” he said. “Over the years, we have strived to clearly lay out what those expectations are.”

It’s in that spirit of intent that gift agreements must be carefully worded, he said. And they must be forward-thinking.

“We not only need to understand what we are going to be doing in 2019, but what our successors are going to be doing in 20, 30, 100 years from now,” he said. “When we are setting up an endowed scholarship, we have to think about how funds generating income in perpetuity are going to be used 10 years, 50 years, or even 100 years.”

“We have to think about making sure that we can, in the future, follow the donor’s intent,” he said.

He added that Fordham fundraising is a far cry from its past.

“Before Father McShane started, it was a very, very well-defined group of donors with whom Fordham tended to continually engage,” he said. “With Father McShane, we really began a much more concerted and sophisticated effort to reach out to many more alums that previously had not had any contact with the University in any way—not through communications or alumni relations, let alone philanthropy. Today, we have built a community of mission investors that includes students, their parents, alumni, and friends.”

This fall, Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will offer students the opportunity to master polling’s unique blend of science and art with an advanced certificate in public opinion and survey research. The certificate, which is being offered through the Department of Political Science, is an extension of the Elections and Campaign Management master’s program.

Registration for the certificate program is currently open; students can complete it in a year with a full-time course load or in two years on a part-time basis. The curriculum comprises five courses: Introduction to Quantitative Analysis, Political Survey Research, American Political Behavior, Survey Research Data Analysis, and Public Opinion Certificate Practicum.

The last two courses have been created specifically for the certificate program.

For the practicum, students will be designing and analyzing a new annual survey, called the Fordham American Faith Poll.

Monika McDermott, Ph.D., professor of political science and director of the Elections and Campaign Management program, said the faith poll is what really distinguishes this certificate program from others that are similar.

“Each year, the students will decide exactly what the poll will be on, they will write the questions, it will be fielded by a professional calling house, and then the students will do data analysis, and we’ll release the results publicly,” she said.

“This certificate is designed to teach students a specific skillset, one that is useful in a whole range of fields.”

In addition to giving students hands-on experience creating, executing, and analyzing a poll, McDermott said the Fordham American Faith Poll will address an area of American life that she says has been overlooked by most pollsters today.

“Most polling is just horse race polling about politics, and doesn’t delve into the deep belief structures and aspects of American faith and culture that we’d like the poll to do,” she said.

That’s true even of the high-profile polls conducted by Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University, she said, which focus a great deal of time on the presidential race.

“This is going to be up to the students, but if it were to be about politics, it would probably be more about how Americans relate their faith to politics,” McDermott said.

“It could also be just about faith in Americans’ lives. How do Americans worship? How much do they worship? How important is it to them? These are questions we don’t really have in-depth answers to.”

McDermott acknowledged that the polling industry’s reputation took a bit of a hit when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, but she said it was undeserved. After all, she said, most polls had Hillary Clinton up by 2 to 3 percentage points, and in the end, she won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. One thing she said students who earn this certificate will come away with is a better understanding of not only what polls can do, but what they can’t do.

“People like to use polls to predict things, when that’s not what polling is supposed to do. I think we’ve gotten so wrapped up in wanting to know what’s going to happen in an election that we expect polls to be a magical predictor,” she said.

“I teach students that polling is only of the moment. It only tells you what people are thinking when you ask your question, and their opinion could change tomorrow. It could change for very good reasons, or it could change for idiosyncratic reasons.”

Since courses such as Survey Research Data Analysis and Quantitative Analysis are not exclusively concerned with politics, McDermott said the certificate will also be of interest to anyone looking to work in market research and data analytics.

“There’s whole host of fields that want people who can measure public opinion. That’s what we’re looking to train students in,” she said.

“It’ll still have a focus on political polling just because it’s tied to the elections and campaigns management program, but it’s not going to be limited to that in any way.”

The video above is from Hirst’s presentation in the Moot Courtroom at Fordham Law School on May 9. The slides from that forum can be found here.

Thanks to a recent renovation, the second floor of the Lowenstein Center is home to a brand new welcome center for undergraduate admission, where potential Rams can learn about all that Fordham has to offer.

For decades, the admission office at Lincoln Center served as the place where staff greeted visitors and staged tours. But the space was confined to a few small offices adjacent to the second-floor lounge, and in recent years it had become difficult to accommodate a growing number of guests.

In the 2017-2018 academic year, admission staff welcomed more than 14,000 visitors to the Lincoln Center campus. That included nearly 6,000 prospective students—a 68 percent increase in student visitors from 2010.

The new welcome center, which remains on the second floor of Lowenstein, is designed to comfortably accommodate many more people than before. Its offices have been reconfigured, and the space has expanded to include a large presentation room with a state-of-the-art display screen, a workspace for student employees, and a new seating/reception area. 

“The new space gives us an opportunity to greet prospective students and their families in a way that is far more gracious and inviting than we have been in the past,” said John Buckley, vice president for admission and student financial services.

The renovated center has replaced what used to be the second-floor lounge. But the University has taken several proactive steps to maintain the amount of study space available to students. A new lounge on the plaza level (PL-100) was recently opened and offers ample seating. And there are additional lounge options on campus, both in Lowenstein and in 140 West.

Three new seating areas are also currently being installed, said Frank Simio, vice president for Lincoln Center. In the west wing of Lowenstein’s third floor, there will be 24 new seats, along with electric outlets for laptops and phone chargers. In the Quinn Library, there will close to an additional 100 seats available in quiet study areas. And on the eighth floor of Lowenstein, there will be a smaller seating area, also with electrical outlets. The first two areas will be available to students before final exams begin.

The seats in the library will be in QuinnX (an abbreviation for Quinn Annex), an open stack area that holds more than 260,000 titles. It is located down the law corridor from the library entrance.

“Opening QuinnX answers the need for additional quiet study space for Lincoln Center students and provides for open browsing of the stacks, which is so valuable to faculty and researchers,” said Linda LoSchiavo, director of University Libraries.

The new admission welcome center will open for business this month. In celebration, the center will host a reception with refreshments for students and staff on a date to be determined. 

More than 1,000 alumni and friends of Fordham attended the black-tie affair at the New York Hilton Midtown—a new venue for the dinner and a hotel that has hosted every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy.

The 2019 celebration lauded six longtime supporters of Fordham—Solon P. Patterson and Marianna R. Patterson; Joel I. Picket and Joan Picket; and Dennis G. Ruppel, FCRH ’68 and Patricia Ann Ruppel—and honored 44 Founder’s Scholars, whose Fordham education was largely made possible by the Founder’s Scholarship.

This year’s gala also celebrated and supported Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid. Over the past two years, the campaign has reached more than 90 percent of its $175 million goal.

But at its heart, the dinner was more than a meal among those who love the University. It was a toast to the people—every person connected to Fordham’s 178 years of life.

In addressing the crowd, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, recounted the day he met a few friendly locals in a Florida fishing shop. They complimented the Fordham baseball cap atop his head—but they mistook his gear for a Florida State hat. They had no idea what Fordham was. But the innate issue was their question: “What is Fordham?”  

“Fordham is not a ‘what,’” Father McShane said. “Fordham is a ‘who.’”

“Now, I know that sounds like a bad new Dr. Seuss book,” Father McShane said, to the audience’s laughter. “But I truly believe it’s the truth.”

“Fordham is a world-class faculty, a hardworking staff, talented and devoted administrators, students, trustees, donors, alumni—all of whom are men and women for others.”

A Bittersweet Thank-You

Beneath the dimmed lights of the Grand Ballroom, Amie Ko, GABELLI ’19, spoke on behalf of the Founder’s Scholars.

“On this night, standing before you, I can’t help but think that in 54 days I will no longer be an undergraduate student at Fordham,” said Ko, an aspiring tax accountant who will intern at PricewaterhouseCoopers this summer. “From the start of the semester, I have been asked countless times: ‘How does that make you feel?’ And to be very honest, I am scared. I am nervous. I am sad,” she said.

“But most of all, I am incredibly thankful.”

Ko, a Division I athlete for Fordham’s swimming and diving team who recently led her team to its first undefeated season in almost a decade, spoke about her gratitude for her teammates, her four years of Fordham memories, and the donors who made her current reality possible.

She also took a moment to remember one Founder’s scholar who couldn’t make it: Rachel Ragone, GABELLI ’18, who died last January after a long battle with bone cancer. As Ko recounted Ragone’s four years at Fordham—her studies in applied accounting and finance, her semester spent at Fordham’s London Centre, her passion for raising funds and awareness for children’s cancer—a photo collage of Ragone appeared in the background.

“As Rachel’s mom Kim Ragone has shared with us,” said Ko, “‘Fordham gave Rachel the best time of her life.’”

Honoring Three Couples

During the festivities, Father McShane presented the Fordham Founder’s Award to each of the three couples honored this year.

The Pattersons, natives of Atlanta, have been married for nearly 60 years. Solon Patterson worked for 48 years in investment management; he retired in 2007 as CEO of the investment firm Montag and Caldwell. Marianna Patterson worked in the banking industry before becoming a full-time mother.

The couple has been instrumental in helping Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center to prosper over the past decade. In the early 2000s, they created an endowment to establish the Patterson Triennial Conference on Orthodox/Catholic Relations.

“In the process, they have enabled Fordham to become the only Catholic university in the world that offers degree programs in Eastern Orthodox studies,” said Father McShane.

They also established the Father John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies, now held by Professor George Demacopoulos. 

“Solon is Greek Orthodox, and I am Roman Catholic, and we have long prayed for the end of the separation of these oldest and largest Christian bodies. Their reunion would be a positive event for all Christians the world over,” Marianna Patterson said.

The Pickets are longtime New York philanthropists. Joel Picket, a Manhattan native, is the chairman and CEO of Gotham Organization—the real estate development firm that was key to constructing several buildings on campus, including the Law School/McKeon Hall complex at Lincoln Center and the William D. Walsh Family Library at Rose Hill. He is a two-term member of the Board of Trustees and a current trustee fellow who helped make the master plan for the Lincoln Center campus redevelopment a reality. Joan Picket, who has worked as an advertising copywriter and real estate broker, has served in multiple service organizations.

Together, the couple’s generosity spans several initiatives at Fordham, from scholarship support for Jewish studies to the funding of new campus facilities.

“Neither of us have a Fordham education,” Joel Picket said. “[But] from my first introduction to Father O’Hare to what we consider a special relationship with Father McShane, I have seen what strong and dedicated leadership means and grasped the greatness of the Jesuit education.”

The last couple includes a Fordham alumnus—Dennis Ruppel. Today, Ruppel is chairman of Freedom Bank, chairman of AmCap Insurance, and co-owner of the Press Hotel in Portland, Maine. He is a current trustee fellow who has served multiple terms on Fordham’s board of trustees. Dennis and his wife, Patricia Ann, champion multiple organizations, particularly those devoted to early childhood education.

“In her own words, Pat has ‘adopted Fordham,’ and carries the University in her heart,” said Robert D. Daleo, GABELLI ’72, chair of Fordham’s board of trustees and a Founder’s 2019 co-chair.  

At Fordham, the couple created the Dennis and Patricia Ruppel Endowed Scholarship. They have also supported athletics, WFUV, career services and experiential education, the sailing program, and other University endeavors.

“Fordham had few students from Florida when I arrived in 1964, never having been in New York City. I was the virtual stranger in a strange land,” Dennis Ruppel said.

“Within weeks, I realized how special Fordham is: classmates who were bright, questioning, and welcoming; professors whose love and mastery of their subject was infectious; an atmosphere filled with the Ignatian care for the whole person; and, in the Jesuit tradition, the expectation that we live our lives in the service of others.”

The 2019 awardees join 47 other Founder’s Award recipients, the first of whom were honored in 2002.

Examples of a Life Well Lived

“I praise God for what you have become and who you have become and how you have become, first of all, examples of a life well-lived with a strong moral compass,” Father McShane said, gazing at the hundreds of faces across the ballroom. “Tonight, it is my great honor to look at all of you and say to you, ‘You, my friends, are our treasure.’”

To make a gift to the Fordham Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund, please visit fordham.edu/foundersgiving.

Now Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, and Thomas P. Salice, GABELLI ’82, have made another investment in Fordham and its students. Their latest gift—$2 million—will support several important initiatives, leading with student scholarship as a part of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid.

The Salices are among the University’s most generous alumni. In addition to other gifts, they donated to Fordham’s last capital campaign, Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham, to build the Salice and Conley residence hall on the Rose Hill campus, named in honor of their parents. The residence has housed hundreds of Fordham students since 2010.

Susan says there’s a good reason why they give.  

“We both required scholarship dollars in order to be able to attend Fordham,” she said. She was one of the first members of her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, as was Tom the first to attend college in his family.

“If Fordham hadn’t come through, our lives would likely be quite different. We felt that the Jesuit education and values we received and embraced at Fordham made a significant difference in our lives individually—and, of course, together. That’s very powerful when you think about it.”

She has fond memories from her four years at Fordham—tutoring middle school students in the Bronx, working the grill at the McDonald’s on Fordham Road, studying for what seemed like endless hours in the library, sitting at Sunday night Mass at the University Church with her future husband. She also recalled a more recent special moment from last May—the day she and her husband saw their daughter graduate from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service. But perhaps most importantly, she feels the weight of her Fordham education at work in the skills she developed as an undergrad: leadership, curiosity, and awareness of the world around her.

“I graduated from Fordham being much more community-aware, world-aware. You question everything, interested in understanding the why,” she said, “and understanding that you have an opportunity and a responsibility to become engaged difference makers in the community and the world at large, for the greater good.”

Tom, a Fordham trustee fellow, went on to become co-founder and managing member of a private equity firm SFW Capital Partners, and the chairman of its investment committee; Susan became a vice president at Diversified Investment Advisors, a retirement investment firm.

Today, Susan devotes much of her time and resources to the causes that are important to her and her family. She is co-chair of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid and a University trustee. She also serves on other nonprofit boards. In 2017, she was also a keynote speaker at Fordham’s first annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit.

“Giving [to scholarships]  is an opportunity to change a life—to make an impact in whatever capacity you are able to do so,” she said in her keynote speech.

“Many people can usually afford more than they think they can—and I mean that in a very simple way,” she added. “Perhaps one can give up Starbucks for a week and donate that money. Over the course of a year, that amount can add up and have an important impact.”

She encourages potential donors to reconnect with their alma mater and recall how it felt to be a young, 20-something college kid with all the possibilities in the world.

“When you first graduate, you’re busy. You’re working. You may be raising a family,” she said. “But if you are able to make time to go back to campus, listen to a lecture, attend an event, actually talk to students and professors, you’re going to reconnect with Fordham. You will see the promise students hold in their faces and the potential each has to live as women and men for others.”