“Going through this adventure with my daughter has taught me what it means to be truly human,” said Martone, who spoke at the Rose Hill campus on Nov. 9. “The time I sat by her … when she was comatose was the most meaningful time of my life. It made me realize that persons with disability are discriminated against—not because of who they are, but because of who we are and what we wrongly value.”

Martone is an associate professor emerita of moral theology at St. John’s University in Jamaica, New York. She is the recipient of several awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities grant on “Justice, Equality, and the Challenge of Disability” and a fellowship on disability ethics from Weill-Cornell Medical College and the Hospital for Special Surgery. She wrote and published Over the Waterfall, a memoir of her daughter’s accident, in 2011. Since retirement, she has worked with Ladies of Charity USA to establish a national homecare agency. In 1995, Martone earned her Ph.D. in moral theology from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. 

In her lecture “From Trauma to Disability: Examining Our Cultural Values,” Martone offered an emotional account of her daughter’s journey from her perspective as a mother and caregiver. In addition, she spoke about the shortcomings of America’s health care system and how our societal values marginalize those with disabilities.   

A Health Care System That Neglects People Living with a Chronic Condition

On February 22, 1998, an elderly woman lost control of her car and hit several students from the University of Chicago, including Michelle. For nearly eight months, Michelle was unconscious. She had 10 brain surgeries, a respirator, and a feeding tube inserted into her stomach, said her mother—and she nearly died a few times. 

Today, Michelle continues to live at home. She is able to use a walker to move around, answer her email, play games on her computer, and even go horseback riding, with the help of her family members and professionals. In 2016, she celebrated her 40th birthday with family and friends. 

But during the two years following the accident, her family experienced a difficult journey through the health care system. When Michelle’s doctors determined that she would not be restored to independence in a short period of time, her care became less important to the system, said Martone. Everyone in the intensive care unit received the same level of care based on their needs, but those who left the facility without the possibility of a full recovery experienced disparities in care, she said. For example, she was able to get all the MRI scans she needed for her daughter, but after she left the hospital, it was difficult to find home care workers and therapists. 

Michelle was discharged from one facility to another, including large research hospitals that underwent frequent changes in residents and staff, said Martone. In the process, Martone discovered that on her daughter’s medical records, someone had falsely written that she had undergone a lobotomy procedure. 

When Michelle finally awoke, she began to make progress, but it wasn’t fast enough for her insurance companies, said Martone. “If a patient doesn’t respond quickly, she’s documented as having plateaued and services are cut back and soon eliminated,” said Martone. 

Eventually, Michelle needed to move back home or into a nursing home. Thanks to money earned from a major lawsuit, they were able to afford the former, along with personalized care. Her condition improved with time and the help of professionals and close family members. But insurance only covered a few hours of daily nursing care, and Michelle needed round-the-clock care. 

Too Much Emphasis on Independence

Throughout this experience, Martone said she has learned that people with chronic conditions, especially those who can no longer live independently, are neglected by the health care system. 

This speaks to a deeper problem embedded in the U.S., she said. Our society overwhelmingly favors independence and often rejects dependency. Many of us live in a world where we think we are independent because we can buy whatever products or services we need. But that isn’t true, she said. Even the able-bodied all rely on people and services. 

“We delude ourselves into thinking we are independent. Our health care system also favors this approach. … It puts vast resources into keeping people alive and returning them to independence and few resources into teaching people how to die or live with a chronic condition,” she said, including the 1.7 million Americans who have a traumatic brain injury. “We have to give chronic care more serious thought … [and]do something about the fragmentation of our health care system,” Martone said. 

‘I Am So Much More Than What You See’

Dealing with the health care system was difficult, but the hardest thing for her to experience as a mother was discrimination against her daughter, she said. 

“There were so many places where we were made to feel unwanted. Her friends drifted away, and her world was reduced mostly to her immediate family and her paid caregivers and therapists,” said Martone. 

Martone showed the audience a scene in the documentary “Your Health: A Sacred Matter,” aired on PBS, where her daughter sings about her desires in a song that she composed herself: “I am so much more than what you see. There is so much more inside of me. A sense of humor and gratitude for life. … You may think I’m less of a person, only because you see I can’t walk. But if you took the time, you would know I could talk. Could you stop a moment and say hi?” 

Martone said we need to do more to accommodate persons with disabilities: “We need to stop viewing our work with them as acts of charity on our part and recognize our interdependence. They are not here to make us feel good about ourselves. They are us.”

“It was nerve-wracking to move to another country that was eight hours away and not know anyone,” said Miller, who studied in London in 2018 and now works as a senior researcher at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a policy think tank. “It was a challenge, but a rewarding one.” 

Miller was born in Maryland and raised in New Jersey. She first attended Syracuse University, but later transferred to Fordham College at Rose Hill when she realized the latter was a better fit. She said she was drawn to the Rose Hill campus, which resembled the classic ivy-covered colleges she had seen growing up. The campus was also in New York City—her favorite city at the time. That initial attraction grew deeper when she visited her cousin Gabrielle Mascio, GABELLI ’18, at Rose Hill.

“When I was a senior in high school, she was the coolest thing: a college freshman. I visited her on campus and got to really experience Fordham,” said Miller. “Initially, I didn’t consider it because I wanted to be far away from home, and Fordham wasn’t within the radius that I had in mind. But I think you end up where you’re meant to be.”

Miller once wanted to become the first woman president of the United States. She tested that ambition in high school, where she served as student council president. But as she grew older, she realized she was less interested in the world of politics and more interested in shaping policies. 

“The part of me that wanted to be president wanted to do something like that because I wanted to feel like I was making a difference. But you can still do that with writing. You can sit down, think about big issues, and work out solutions for the government or private companies,” said Miller, who is getting a taste of that at the Tony Blair Institute, where staffers write about politics in the U.K. and develop recommendations for British policymakers. 

Developing a New Perspective at Fordham London

Part of what prepared her for her job was her last semester at Fordham, which she spent at the University’s London campus. She lived in a first-floor flat in Maida Vale, a neighborhood in north London that reminded her of the brownstone neighborhoods in Manhattan. On a typical school day, she would ride the bus from her apartment to Fordham London—a six-story building that opened in 2018 and features modern classrooms, a spacious student lounge, and a rooftop terrace. Several days a week, she commuted to her marketing internship at the Aid & International Development Forum, an organization that spreads awareness about key humanitarian issues. After class, she frequented London bars and restaurants with her new friends. Like many of her classmates, she also traveled to other parts of Europe on weekends, including France, Sweden, and Scotland, where she found a world beyond her home in New Jersey. 

“My study abroad experience in London showed me that the world is so much bigger than my life at home in New Jersey and in the U.S.,” said Miller, who also studied abroad in Granada, Spain, for one semester. “New York is a multicultural city, and you see just as many types of people in London as you do in New York. But being in a different country, meeting people who have never been to the U.S., and learning about politics outside of the U.S. has really opened my eyes to different perspectives and ways of thinking.” 

Navigating A New Job Abroad During the Pandemic

Miller loved her life in London so much that after she graduated with her degree in communication and media studies from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2019, she headed back across the pond to the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she earned her master’s degree in international social and public policy. A few months later, she began her first full-time job at the Tony Blair Institute. 

She started working during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, but said she made the most out of an unusual situation. 

“Our team published a lot of papers about mass testing and being prepared for the vaccine rollout. I think the government actually took into account a lot of our policy recommendations, so that was really exciting,” said Miller, who was promoted to senior researcher at TBI after a year and a half of employment. “I love being part of an organization whose mission is to make positive change. You may not be the person authoring a paper or speaking to the media about it, but all our work is going toward a common goal: providing policy solutions to governments in challenging times.”

‘Oh My Gosh, You’re British Now!’

It’s been four years since Miller first studied abroad in London, and she says life looks different in the U.K. 

“Now when I go home, it’s not the same,” she said. “Cars are on a different side of the road. The culture between the U.S. and the U.K. is also different. No Thanksgiving in London, but there’s a Sunday roast and different holidays like Guy Fawkes Day in November.”

If Miller lives in London for two and a half more years, she can become a permanent resident. At this rate, she says, it seems like that will become a reality. Even her family says that her accent is starting to sound like a native Londoner’s. 

“I don’t see it, but my family makes fun of me. Sometimes I’ll say bins instead of garbage, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re British now!’” she said, laughing.

“This fund will directly give students opportunities to feed their souls and bodies with nourishment in the form of meals, conversations, and retreats,” said Carol Gibney, director of solidarity and leadership in Campus Ministry. “I’m thrilled for the students who will be the beneficiaries of Theresa’s generous donation.”

Mao, now 85, is a retired chemist, businesswoman, and philanthropist who grew up in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. when she was 18 years old. In 1964, she was hired by one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, Exxon Mobil Corporation, then known as Esso Research, as the company’s first female chemist with a Ph.D. When she was 46 years old, her husband, Peter T.H. Mao, M.D., a pathologist, suddenly died from a heart attack. She became a single mother who raised their two daughters, then a junior at Rice University and a first-year student at Harvard University. In order to provide a living for herself and her family, she switched her career to investment in real estate, which included citrus farms, vineyards, and a fruit packing house. Both daughters followed in their father’s footsteps in medicine: The oldest is an ophthalmologist in Florida; the youngest is a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Massachusetts. 

Mao was raised in a family of Presbyterians, including a grandfather and two uncles who served as ministers. But she became a devout Catholic as a teenager in Taiwan. One day, she encountered a Catholic priest on a long bus ride. Seven months later, she sought refuge in a mountainside church during a thunderstorm—coincidentally, the same priest’s church. The next summer, she studied under his wing and learned what it means to be Catholic. In August 1952, she was baptized by that same priest, John T.S. Mao, who would provide a scholarship for her to attend Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. In 1962, she married Father Mao’s youngest brother, Peter T.H. Mao. 

When she was a young woman in her 20s, she was accepted to teaching assistant programs at three schools in New York City—Columbia University, New York University, and Fordham. She said she was impressed by the reputation of the first two schools, but she chose Fordham because of its Catholic background; she wanted an education that would strengthen her own faith.  

“I probably value my religion as a Catholic more than a person who was born Catholic,” Mao said earlier this year, “because I picked it.” 

Mao loved her years at Fordham, but she was disappointed that there were no religious events or retreats for graduate students. Mao was also an international student who couldn’t afford to fly home to Taiwan during holiday breaks. Life on campus could feel isolating, she said. 

“Undergraduates meet each other a lot more. Graduate students are different. They come in; they go. There’s so little time to meet each other,” she said. 

Mao took matters into her own hands. One day after a late-night chemistry experiment, she suggested to her classmates that they eat dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant together. That one dinner turned into bimonthly meals with up to 20 students. They piled into cars—sometimes seven students in one vehicle—and shared meals at local Chinese restaurants, where Mao introduced them to Cantonese-style roast duck and baos. Their special dinners expanded to include Italian restaurants on Arthur Avenue and trips to roller skating rinks and musicals in Manhattan. 

“Everybody just loved to go. We started with a small group, and then later on, everybody wanted to join in. We got to know each other a lot better … Now I want to help [today’s graduate students] develop their relationships,” said Mao, who earned a master’s degree in chemistry in 1960 and a doctorate in physical chemistry in 1964.

This year, she established the Theresa Lim Mao Graduate Student Retreat Endowed Fund, which will support an annual retreat program and dinners for graduate students at Fordham who want to deepen their relationships with their classmates and their faith. 

“Retreats are a way to literally retreat from everyday life and step aside from busy schedules, particularly for students,” said Gibney, who will help coordinate the inaugural events this spring. “They offer students an invitation to deepen their understanding of who and what feeds their spirit, their relationships with others and God, with our rich Ignatian history and spirituality as a compass and guide.” 

Mao’s fund is part of a planned gift that designates Fordham as a beneficiary of her individual retirement account. She is beginning to add funding to her endowment fund annually, to support the initiative now. Mao said she wants students to pay it forward, the same way she has done throughout her life. 

“All of us can contribute to society by doing something for other people. If we contribute something to society instead of just making money and serving ourselves, in a small way, we can make the people around us happier,” said Mao, who now lives in Florida near her oldest daughter. “If all of us can do a little bit of that, that would be really wonderful.”

But Nilda I. Soto, a two-time Fordham graduate and assistant dean in the office of diversity enhancement at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, wants students to know that with the proper support, they can become doctors.

Nilda I. Soto with Fordham CSTEP students at Einstein

“This is a doable, attainable goal that you have,” she told a group of 10 incoming freshmen in Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP) for minority and economically disadvantaged students. “It’s a very disciplined endeavor but it’s doable.”

The students visited Einstein on July 22 as part of Fordham’s five-week CSTEP Summer Scholars program. Students live on the Rose Hill campus, take math and science courses, and visit medical, dental, and optometry schools.

In a conference room on the Einstein campus, Soto doled out practical advice on how to sequence college courses, when to take the MCAT, and the importance of summer internships.

Part of her goal for the afternoon was to debunk “the horror stories” about medical school admissions. Everyone’s heard a tale about the student “with the 3.88 average and the fabulous MCAT score who didn’t get in.” But admissions staff value more than scores, she said, citing her colleague in the diversity office at Einstein who “looks at the road you have traveled.”

If students can remain focused on their studies despite significant challenges, Soto said, “then we feel comfortable that you’re going to succeed in medical school.”

She cautioned, however, that the percentage of minority students in medical schools is low. She noted only 500 black men matriculated into medical school in 2013, out of 20,000 students, according to a chart from the American Association of Medical Colleges that Soto included in a packet she put together for the CSTEPpers. “If you don’t get the support and help, our numbers are going to look worse.”

A Bronx native, Soto graduated in 1974 from Thomas More College (Fordham’s undergraduate women’s college, which existed from 1964 until 1974, when it merged with Fordham College at Rose Hill). After earning a B.A. in urban studies, she worked on the Rose Hill campus for HEOP, the Higher Education Opportunity Program, and went on to earn a master’s degree from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education in 1978.

She has been at Einstein for 24 years, during which time she has worked closely with Michael Molina, CSTEP’s director at Fordham, advising CSTEP students early in their college careers.

“You have very good and focused young people,” she said, but they are competing against kids who’ve gone to high schools with extensive science equipment and resources. “And here are these kids thinking, ‘Maybe I got to dissect a frog.’ The program is needed to help level the playing field.”

Soto also accepts CSTEP students into her summer research program at Einstein and, in the case of at least one aspiring medical student, has provided extended mentorship.

CSTEPper Nabilah Nishat said the afternoon at Einstein—and the summer program—have made her goals seem more realistic.

“CSTEP showed me it’s possible to go into the health professions,” she said, “and because it’s possible, I’m inspired to go on.”

—Nicole LaRosa