“Trying to address race and racism in the curriculum was something that I and a lot of faculty members were trying to do on our own, and grant funding provided by Fordham helped us to support each other in doing this work,” said assistant professor Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Ed.D., who co-hosted the retreat. 

The retreat was specifically designed for members of GSE’s division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy. It was the most recent part of a two-year-long journey initiated by Stosich and her colleague Elizabeth Gil, Ph.D. The two educators sought to bring equity and anti-racism to their own division at Fordham—a program that prepares educators for leadership responsibilities and positions.   

A Collaborative Effort with Prestigious Educational Leaders

During the 2021-2022 school year—the first year of grant funding—five ELAP faculty members worked together to center equity and anti-racism in five of their program’s graduate courses. With this year’s funding, they wanted to include students and alumni—educators themselves who possess unique perspectives in leading equity and anti-racism work. 

“The most rewarding aspect of coming together was working in community with one another to do deep and meaningful work that is ongoing,” said Gil. “Our faculty’s willingness to share their syllabi and receive feedback was also key for us to delve into strengthening our courses and programs. People’s willingness to share their instructional plans can sometimes be a challenge, but these instructors were willing to be vulnerable in order to help us all improve in our practice.”

The all-day retreat was attended by 11 members of the ELAP program, including former New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter, who recently graduated from Fordham with her Ed.D. and now serves as an adjunct professor at GSE. Together, they analyzed five course syllabi in their program. 

‘A Major Impact on Our Curriculum’ 

First, they looked at the syllabi’s mission statements and adjusted words to make them more powerful and actionable, said doctoral student Lizzette Ruiz-Giovinazzi. Next, they analyzed core assignments and pointed out things that the professors had missed, she said. Who was the author? Did they have a “white-centric” mindset on what leadership should look like? Did the syllabus include resources written by diverse authors who could provide a different perspective?

“I’ve always thought that you can’t criticize the instructor. At the end of a course, you often fill out these surveys that feel very surface-level … But this retreat was so open and interactive. It was a safe environment for us to all talk, and it gave us a voice,” Ruiz-Giovinazzi said. “It created a sense that feedback does matter.” 

The retreat was partially facilitated by Edward Fergus, Ph.D., an expert on leading for equity and anti-racism who works extensively with schools and districts. Fergus, who served as the keynote speaker at the 2020 Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D. Lecture, helped the team to create conditions where they felt comfortable about doing this important, yet sensitive work, and gave them guidance on how to revise their courses and the overall ELAP program. The ELAP faculty plan on sending their revised syllabi to Fergus, who will provide additional feedback for revisions. Then they will incorporate their revamped syllabi in their actual classes as early as this fall, said Stosich. 

“In total, we will have revised 10 of our courses to center equity and anti-racism. This will have a major impact on our curriculum,” said Stosich. 

Lyntonia Gold, a second-year doctoral student in the ELAP program, said that the decision to include current students and graduates from all programs—including those who studied online and at the Rose Hill campus—allowed a broader range of feedback given to faculty. 

“Including a diverse set of stakeholders from various areas of an organization and gathering a variety of perspectives is essential to building a program that values equity and anti-racist practices at its core,” said Gold, who is also an executive director in strategic partnerships for advancing collective equity in the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Belonging and Inclusion. 

The retreat may have long-lasting impacts beyond Fordham. Ruiz-Giovinazzi, a Bronx-born Puerto Rican who serves as the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Nyack Union Free School District, said that she wants to encourage her district’s teachers to share their syllabi with each other and provide constructive feedback, too. The retreat was also influential in a more emotional way.  

“I find it very hopeful that the professors took the time to do this work. I was in awe that these conversations were even happening, and I was emotional while driving to the retreat. I was nervous about taking the day off because I’m new in this school district,” said Ruiz-Giovinazzi, who started her position last spring. “But my superintendent was like, ‘This is important work. Go ahead.’ … All of this makes me feel a sense of hope for where education is going.”

How His Fordham Career Began
“I started at Fordham in October 2007. I graduated from Fordham Prep in 1996, so this was my return to campus. I went to NYU for undergrad; got my bachelor’s in political science there, and then worked many jobs, including as a bouncer for three years at an Irish bar.”

His First Job on Campus
“I came to Fordham as a senior systems engineer. I was the guy in the back closet, rebooting the servers and firewalls, never seeing people or the light of day. Great job, great people who I still work with, but after doing that for seven years, I felt like there were natural skillsets I had that weren’t being used. There was an opportunity to move to another IT department where I would be doing technology training and development.”

What He Does Now
“Wherever Fordham or one of our business partners has a new service or product, I’m one of the people who builds the bridge between it and what people currently do. I help design the training, documentation, and communication.”

It’s a Small World
Byer was born in White Plains and grew up in Hartsdale. “When I started working here, I kept looking at my colleague,  Richard Eberhardt, in meetings and thinking, ‘Your last name is so familiar, where do I know you from?’ Couldn’t figure it out. Six months later, I go, ‘Oh my goodness, we were in Boy Scouts together.’ I’ve been on camping trips with him, I’ve been in his house, his mom has given me cookies. Now he’s my supervisor”

The Best Part of the Job
“I get to work with people outside of IT way more than I ever did before. A standard day for me is typically a meeting with HR, a meeting with finance or accounts payable, or with the provost. In the last three years, I have built strong relationships with people all over the university.”

The Biggest Challenge
“No one likes change, and I’m typically the person who’s coming in as the change agent. The challenge is trying to figure out what kind of change they do not like. Do you not like the change I’m bringing, the way we’re bringing it, the change I represent or do you not like me? There’s a big sociological, psychological component to my job, in terms of listening to people and understanding where their anxieties lie.”

One Family Supporting Another
Five years ago, Byer and his wife Clarissa had their first child, Isaac. He was born with a congenital condition called giant omphalocele, in which his intestinal organs were in an umbilical sack outside of his torso in utero. Isaac spent the first 14 months of his life in various hospitals, mostly in the New York-Presbyterian intensive care unit.

Byer said his IT colleagues went above and beyond any of his expectations to help them get through an unimaginably stressful time.

“When people talk about Fordham being a family, I can’t think of a better example than the way my department supported me through this really traumatic experience.”

Isaac still faces significant challenges, and recently underwent a nine-hour operation in July that required a 25-day stay at the hospital during the pandemic. Byer said his gross and fine motor skills are very delayed, but cognitively, he’s doing great. The couple had a second child, Austen, who turned 2 in February.

Byer said Isaac’s illness has “brought me and my wife closer together,” and has guided us through some difficult “life and death” conversations. He also said he relies on his belief system to help him through the tough times.

“I’ve been practicing Buddhism since 2003, and that has been incredibly helpful in trying to make some kind of sense and find some kind of balance.”

“I’m still in contact with some of the youngsters and they retired before I did,” he said.

Having taught in the South Bronx through most of the 1960s at a school populated with Black, Puerto Rican, and newly emigrated students from China and Cuba, as well as the Irish and Jewish populations he grew up with, Marcus understood the borough’s classrooms as few others could.

“I tried to bring the reality of the South Bronx to future teachers,” he said. “Most important I taught them to not stereotype kids on the basis of reading and math scores—every kid is smart.”

Later, as an assistant principal at a junior high, he observed that administrators and teachers who create a nurturing atmosphere, like an extension of the child’s home, gained the trust of the students and the parents. And he noted that both parents and kids could “sniff out” when they were being disrespected.

He started teaching at GSE in 1968 at Fordham’s old campus at 302 Broadway, just before the school moved to its new home on the Lincoln Center campus.  He was one of about five in the faculty of 40 still pursuing a doctorate. It was a tumultuous time, he said; Fordham was in the red financially and socially there was “tremendous unrest.”

Fordham’s reputation, he said, was one of a convenient commuter school. There were other schools that were nationally recognized, but Fordham’s new campus and low profile encouraged a nimble approach that allowed the school to develop innovative programs that thrive to this day.

By the time he graduated with his doctorate in 1970, the school had introduced a doctoral program through a newly formed Department of Urban Education spearheaded by then-GSE Dean Harry N. Rivlin, Ph.D. Today, it’s the Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy Division.

With a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation, the team developed a leadership program focused on training Black and Latino educators to become principals. At the time, there were very few people of color in leadership positions in New York City schools.

Rivlin, a noted reformer, asked Marcus to become the acting chair of the new department, which surprised him. Marcus said he always felt like a “third-rate citizen” as a doctoral student because of his background as a teacher, not as an academic. But he knew he had something substantial to give.

“At the time, there was an atmosphere where all knowledge came from the professor, and I knew that I knew more because of my experience,” he said.

He was reluctant to accept the new role, but Rivlin convinced him with a smile and one line.

“He said, ‘Why not take it on the acting basis, this way can you get a chance to treat students the way you wanted to be treated,’” he recalled Rivlin saying. He accepted the post in 1970, the same year he and Rivlin published Conflicts in Urban Education (Basic Books).

Marcus went on to serve as chair for two terms, from 1970 to 1976, before becoming associate dean of GSE’s Marymount division, housed at Marymount College from 1976 to 1993. (Fordham acquired Marymount in 2000.)

Dealing with Bigotry

In the decades that followed, Marcus related to all his students, except one.

“He walked into my office and said, ‘Get out of that chair, Jew,’” he recalled. “I was stunned.”

He said he began to understand that bigotry created both anger and fear. With support from Fordham’s administration, the GSE team worked to ensure that the Manhattan-based school consciously became more inclusive and that the curriculum reflected the communities that they served.

“If someone picked up the catalog, they should not need to look at the cover and wonder if you were in Manhattan, Kansas, and not in Manhattan, New York,” he said, referring to diversity in student photos.

By the mid-1970s, GSE administrators began a significant shift from teaching theory to melding it with practice.

“The schools are the primary educator; that’s truly where you learn to be a teacher,” he said.

Marcus surmises that he’s taught thousands of students over the years, to say nothing of the scores of doctoral graduates. Toby Tetenbaum, Ph.D., a friend and recently retired colleague of Marcus for more than 40 years, observed that he didn’t simply teach by examples from his past. She said his reading list was exhaustive.

“A lot of professors don’t update their bibliography,” said Tetenbaum. “Shelly is a voracious reader and he had one of the best bibliographies for his course that he updated continuously. If someone wanted a broad-based education curriculum, there are very few seminal books that weren’t on his list.”

In addition to reading, Marcus contributed his own titles to the academic canon. He co-authored several books on schools and teaching. In a departure from education, he published Father Coughlin: The Tumultuous Life of the Priest of the Little Flower (Little Brown, 1973), which explored the life of the famed “radio priest” who was a known anti-Semite and fascist.

Marcus said his love of the academic literature always retained a practical element: It made him a better teacher. And he said his favorite part of the job has always been working with the students.

‘He Teaches with His Heart’

Gloria Rosario-Wallace, Ed.D., is now senior director at the New York City Department of Education’s Anti-Bias and School Support Team in the Office of Equity and Access. She works to ensure that New York City students receive a quality education regardless of their background.

“He will always be the best teacher I’ve ever had because he teaches with his heart,” she said of Marcus.

Rosario-Wallace came close to not finishing her degree after her sister passed away from sickle cell disease. As a teacher and a school principal, she spent much of her career convincing kids to finish school. But with the death of her sister, she reached her own roadblock.

“I wanted to drop out of everything; I was lost until Dr. Marcus called me in his office and said, ‘What are you doing?’” she recalled. “I let it out, cried, and he was so loving and patient. He said, ‘Yeah, this is hard, but you still have to finish and we’re going to do it together.’”

On reflection, Marcus said that mentoring administrators, as well as teachers, leaves an indelible mark.

“We all try to impact youngsters for many years to come and I can pass that along and that’s something I take great comfort in: By treating students the way you want to be treated they will, in turn, treat other students they wanted to be treated and that is your legacy.”

Chillers installed on the top floor of the future home for the Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center, the Quinn Library, and Fordham College at Lincoln Center will convert steam from Con Edison’s 14th Street cogeneration plant.

On May 5th, representatives from the utility presented Fordham’s facilities management department with a check for $225,600, which the University will use to defray the costs of installing the chillers. When it opens, the building will be the second one on the Lincoln Center campus, along with the Lowenstein Center, to use steam to power its air conditioners.

Marco Valera, vice president for facilities, said the University has also negotiated a preferred rate for the steam, making it ideal for the building, which was completely gut-renovated.

“It allowed us to take advantage of what would be waste steam that ConEd generates. So in many ways it’s very green. We’re taking something that would not be utilized, and we’re using it in lieu of electrical power,” he said.

“By negotiating a preferred rate as well as a preliminary discount on the equipment, we’ve managed to have a return on investment of the physical plant of under 10 years, which is very good for an engineering plant.”

Charles Viemester, manager of steam business development at ConEd, said that the steam that New Yorkers occasionally see coming out of the distinct candy-stripe towers atop manhole covers offsets just short of 300 megawatts of electrical power in the summer, thanks to installations such as Fordham’s.

“You’re putting a very efficient energy source into the building, and by staying with steam, you’re keeping your carbon footprint down, too,” he said.

“Anytime you see a tall building, you’re probably looking at a place that’s sourced by steam. Steam is a very efficient way of getting energy up to the top of these tall buildings. The system has been in place for 137 years, and yet it is still finding new uses and new benefits to bring to the city.

Pictured: Deborah L. Russelli, director of business operations in the Office of the Vice President for Facilities Management; Fran Rooney, senior analyst, energy efficiency, Luthin Associates Energy Management Consulting; Marco Valera, vice present of facilities at Fordham; Joseph Scaltro, director of engineering services at Lincoln Center; Charles Viemester, manager steam business development at Con Edison; David Pospisil, manager, Commercial & Industrial Energy Efficiency Programs, Con Edison; Michelle D’Angelo, engineer, steam services, Con Edison; and Scott Springer, operations manager, commercial energy efficiency and demand management programs, Con Edison

The sale is a strong indicator of the University’s financial health, according to Martha Hirst, Fordham’s senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer.

The offering was done via the New York State Dormitory Authority and overseen by Morgan Stanley. The sale achieved three outcomes that will benefit the University:
•    Refinancing the $50 million maturity from a bond issued in 2011 at a lower interest rate;
•    Refinancing in advance of the due date bonds that were issued in 2008;
•    Freeing up $15 million in new funds to help finance the completion of the renovation of 140 West 62nd Street at the Lincoln Center campus.

Assistant Treasurer Bob Steves said the University’s move is similar to when homeowners refinance their mortgage when interest rates are low.

“When you issue tax-exempt bonds, there are some limitations as to how often you can sell, or when you can do it relative to when you originally borrowed the money. To make it worthwhile, the market has to have improved significantly from when you originally issued the bond,” he said.

“By combining these three opportunities, we were able to reduce the administrative cost of this borrowing.”

He noted that the $15 million figure was chosen based on the amount the University saved by refinancing the 2008 and 2011 bonds.

“We were very sensitive to our position in the marketplace, and sensitive to the budgetary needs of the University,” he said. “We wanted a situation where we could raise the capital without increasing the debt burden on the University.”

Current market interest rates provided that opportunity, he said. “Thanks to the sale we’re estimating the University’s interest payments over the next five years to be about $1 million less than if it had stayed the course.”

Timing wasn’t everything though. Fordham received an A2 rating from Moody’s and an A rating from Standard & Poor’s, he said, but was able to secure even lower interest rates than would normally be granted on such ratings.

Martha Hirst, chief financial officer for the University, compared it to winning a gold medal instead of a bronze it was predicted to win.

“It’s a measure of the investor’s community having confidence in the strength and solidity of Fordham as an institution to invest in,” she said.

In the brief, the groups identify climate change as an urgent issue that must be addressed and outline the moral obligations around reducing carbon pollution and protecting the most vulnerable from the dangerous consequences of climate change.

The brief was submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is currently reviewing industry challenges to the Clean Power Plan.

Tom Dunne, vice president for governmental affairs at Fordham, said when Fordham was approached by Catholic Climate Covenant to join the brief, it was an easy choice to make given the University’s involvement projects such as the New York City Carbon Challenge.

“Signing on to the amicus brief in support of the EPA regulations of electric power plants to cut emissions is the right thing to do.  We are poisoning our environment, our planet, our home,” he said.

“If as a society we can leave our children’s children fresh air and clean water, we will truly be remembered as men and women for others.”

Catholic Climate Covenant executive director Dan Misleh said that the Clean Power Plan, which was unveiled by President Obama in August and delayed by the Supreme Court in February until the Court of Appeals could rule on it, helps answer Pope Francis’ call to action in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si.

“The Clean Power Plan helps individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments alike to care for God’s creation and protect human life, especially the most vulnerable among us,” Misleh said.

“The EPA has issued compelling findings demonstrating that the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are a danger to public health and welfare. We must act with urgency. Last year—the warmest ever recorded—indicates that the climate continues to change at an accelerated pace. It is our moral responsibility to reduce the impacts of the climate change we have contributed to, and fulfill our duty to care for our common home.”

The list of signees to the brief includes several Jesuit colleges and universities, including Loyola University Maryland, The College of the Holy Cross, and LeMoyne College. The U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the case on June 2, 2016, with a decision expected later this year.

Milowski comes to Fordham from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, where as controller, he led accounting and finance functions since 2013. He will report to Martha Hirst, the University’s senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer.

“I am pleased to welcome Mr. Milowski to Fordham,” said Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of the University. “In addition to key experience in nonprofit finances, he brings to Fordham a track record of innovation and leadership. I know you will all join me and the Board of Trustees in welcoming Mr. Milowski to the Fordham family.”

During his tenure at Helmsley, a period of significant growth for the trust, Milowski managed a number of important initiatives around the trust’s financial infrastructure and operations, including instituting an enterprise-wide financial accounting, planning, and human resources system; institutionalizing business practices; and designing solutions to support scalable and sustainable business processes and internal controls.

He served as a senior manager at KPMG—one of the “Big 4” accounting firms—in both New York and Switzerland from 2004 to 2013. At KPMG, Milowski was responsible for day-to-day management of $4 million in client business, specializing in providing audit and attestation services to large higher education and other nonprofit organizations, including Fordham University. He previously worked at Arthur Andersen and Grant Thornton, also specializing in not-for-profit institutions.

Milowski holds two bachelor’s degrees from the College of the Holy Cross, in economics/accounting and in German studies, and studied at the University of Freiburg in Germany. He is a certified public accountant and a chartered global management accountant, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. He also serves on the board of directors of Social Accountability International, an international nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City.

Milowski lives on Long Island with his wife and two children.