Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health, stood by on Monday as an intensive care nurse at Northwell’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, N.Y., received the vaccine granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, December 11. The vaccination, televised widely, kicked off Northwell’s effort to inoculate the staff at its hospitals.

“Today is V-Day in our fight against COVID-19,” Dowling said, calling it a long-awaited “historic day for science and humanity.”

On Monday, December 21, Dowling will join a virtual panel discussion about vaccination and the coronavirus. Organized by the Fordham University Alumni Association, the event is open to Fordham alumni, parents, and students.

The intensive care nurse who received the dose, Sandra Lindsay, said she felt “great” afterward. “It didn’t feel different from taking any other vaccine,” she said.

“I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe,” she said. “We’re in a pandemic, and so we all need to do our part to put an end to the pandemic.

“As a nurse, my practice is guided by science, and so I trust science.”

The vaccine, developed by Pfizer, was found to be 95% effective in preventing COVID-19. It requires two doses three weeks apart. Northwell is seeking to vaccinate all of its essential frontline hospital staff as well as any physicians, nurses, or other staffers who work in direct contact with COVID-19 patients. Lindsay’s vaccination was the first to take place outside clinical trials.

Another Fordham graduate, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, FCRH ’79, took part in the event virtually, via video link, asking questions of Lindsay and the doctor administering the dose.

Pandemic Leadership

Last spring, soon after the pandemic began, Cuomo named Dowling co-leader of a statewide council on expanding the state’s hospital capacity to cope with the pandemic. A Fordham trustee, Dowling has served as a professor of social policy at Fordham, assistant dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, and director of the Westchester campus. Since 2002, he has been at the helm of Northwell, the largest hospital system in New York state.

COVID-19 has killed more than 300,000 Americans, and New York was widely considered an epicenter of the pandemic last spring.

“COVID-19 took our loved ones, disrupted our lives, and forced us to deal with unthinkable circumstances,” Dowling said. “But hope brings prosperity, and we never ended our fight. We never did wave the white flag.”

Lindsay spoke hopefully about the vaccination effort after receiving the dose. “I hope this marks the beginning to the end of a very painful time in our history,” she said.

“It’s one of the best preventative ways to try and stop the transmission. That’s been demonstrated not only here but everywhere else,” said Michael Dowling, GSS ’74, in an interview with IrishCentral posted March 25, as hospitals were facing increasingly dire conditions because of the influx of patients.

It was one of many recent media appearances related to Dowling’s new role as co-leader of a statewide council tasked with expanding hospital capacity to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Dowling has long played a prominent role in New York healthcare as president and CEO of Northwell Health, the state’s largest health system, comprising 23 hospitals and more than 750 outpatient facilities. He took the helm at Northwell in 2002 after a long career in state government, in the healthcare industry, and on staff at Fordham, where today he serves on the Board of Trustees.

In another interview, Dowling emphasized New York hospitals’ ability to accommodate more patients but also acknowledged the unknowns, like the eventual number of patients afflicted with COVID-19—the disease caused by the novel coronavirus—and the availability of supplies like masks, gloves, and gowns for hospital workers.

“We’re working unbelievably hard to make sure that we access as much supply as we possibly can,” he told WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City in a March 17 interview.

Dowling joined the council on March 16 at the request of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a 1979 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill. Cuomo is “driving the ship in a big, big way, and he’s looking at every possibility,” Dowling told WCBS. “So nothing is off the table here.”

Communicating in a Crisis

Dowling stressed the need to be “creative and adaptable” during a crisis in an interview with HealthLeaders, posted March 25, about his approach to running Northwell Health. Also key to his leadership style, he said, is communication. “You’ve got to be calm. You have to be upbeat. You must also give people data,” he said.

In December, Northwell Health entered into an agreement with Fordham to develop new programs to train health professionals. And Northwell’s research arm is taking part in three clinical trials for drugs to treat COVID-19.

While the trials offer hope, he stressed the importance of the public’s behavior. “If they’re not compliant with the public policies, then we’re going to prolong [the pandemic] longer than we should,” he told HealthLeaders.

Dowling is co-leading the council with Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association and himself the father of a 2008 Fordham graduate, and also working with New York State Commissioner of Health Howard A. Zucker, M.D., a 2000 graduate of the Fordham School of Law.

Here are four things to know about Dowling’s life and career:

He’s no stranger to challenges. Dowling grew up in rural Ireland, the oldest of five children, in a home with mud walls and a thatched roof and without electricity, heat, or running water. He helped support his family and raise money for college by working summers on the New York City docks starting at age 17.

He held leadership roles at Fordham. After graduating from University College Cork, he returned to New York to earn a master’s degree in social work at the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) in 1974. Five years later he joined the Fordham faculty, serving as a professor of social policy, assistant dean of GSS, and director of the Westchester campus.

He held leadership roles in state government. Dowling spent 12 years in New York government, including seven years as state director of health, education, and human services and deputy secretary to the governor.

He remembers his roots. Every year, Dowling brings 20 students from Ireland to gain work experience at Northwell. The company gives employees tuition reimbursement for attending college, and Dowling is known for making time to meet new employees every Monday morning.

Mulkeen, a member of the Bronx Borough Anti-Crime Unit, was struggling with a man who had fled when he and other officers stopped to question him while patrolling near the Edenwald Houses on East 229th Street, according to police. Mulkeen was shot three times at approximately 12:30 a.m. and pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

“The Fordham family has lost one of its own to senseless violence today,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“Brian Mulkeen went out into the world to do exactly what we expect of our alumni—be a man for others—and he was slain in service to the local community.

“Our hearts go out to Brian’s family and loved ones, and to his fellow officers. I know the Fordham community joins me in prayer for the repose of Brian’s soul, and for his family and loved ones as they mourn his untimely death.”

A wake is set for 1 to 4 and 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, at Smith, Seaman & Quackenbush Funeral Home at 117 Maple Ave. East in Monroe, New York. The funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the Church of the Sacred Heart at 26 Still Road in Monroe. Cardinal Timothy Dolan will celebrate the Mass and Father McShane will be a concelebrant.

Fordham flags will be flown at half-mast until after services.

Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered flags flown at half-mast, as did Westchester County Executive George Latimer, FCRH ’74, according to CBS New York. Mulkeen lived in Westchester County’s Yorktown Heights with his girlfriend, also a New York City police officer. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, FCRH ’79, also commented on the shooting, saying Mulkeen “put his life on the line and … lost it in service to the people of this city,” according to the Associated Press.

Going Above and Beyond for Others

Mulkeen was “just a tremendous human being,” quick to put aside whatever he was doing to help someone else, said Brian Horowitz, FCRH ’10, head coach of the cross country/track and field program. “[His] first thing was to care about everyone else, put aside whatever he’s doing and really step up.”

In fact, Horowitz, who knew Mulkeen as an undergraduate, said he had recently asked Mulkeen if he would return as a volunteer throwing coach. “He was quick to say ‘yes’ and was very excited about the opportunity,” despite his busy schedule, Horowitz said.

Mulkeen was going to start as soon as next week, Horowitz said. He spoke to Mulkeen on Saturday, when Mulkeen said he had to work and wouldn’t be able to make it to the Fordham football game that day, where recently retired cross country/track and field head coach Tom Dewey was to be honored.

In the program, “it’s been really difficult for everyone to really wrap their heads around” what happened, Horowitz said, describing Mulkeen’s contagious enthusiasm and care for others. “If you met Brian, you fell in love with him.”

A two-year captain in the program, Mulkeen was a multiple-time scorer at the Atlantic 10 Championship in the weight throw for indoor track and the hammer throw for outdoor track. As a senior, he earned a bronze medal at the Atlantic 10 Indoor Track and Field Championship in the weight throw. He was a member of the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll, and helped the Rams win the 2008 Metropolitan Outdoor Track and Field Championship for the first time in program history.

Horowitz described Mulkeen as a hard worker who “went above and beyond,” both on the playing field and in the classroom. He worked on Wall Street after graduating, but turned to police work to find something more fulfilling.

“He always wanted to do better for the people around him,” he said.

Mulkeen “was a remarkable human being. Everybody loved him,” Mulkeen’s father, also named Brian Mulkeen, told the New York Post.

An Officer’s Sacrifice

Mulkeen was patrolling near Edenwald Houses because of recent gang activity in the area, said NYPD Chief Terence A. Monahan, FCLC ’85, in prepared remarks on Sept. 29. The man that Mulkeen was struggling with was shot by police and died at the scene. Monahan identified him as a 27-year-old man on probation for a narcotics-related arrest last year who had been arrested several times before.

“Tonight is a vivid example of the dangers New York City cops face every day.”

UPDATE (Oct. 10): Fordham University has established the Brian Mulkeen, GABELLI ’08, Memorial Endowed Scholarship, which will go to an undergraduate student at the Gabelli School of Business. The Office of Student Financial Services, in consultation with the dean of the Gabelli School of Business, shall award the scholarship to academically high-performing students who might be unable to stay at the University without financial support. Gifts in support of the scholarship can be made here. 

“In a few minutes, I will sign the most aggressive climate law in the United States of America,” Governor Cuomo said to raucous cheers and applause from an audience filled with assembly members and activists.

The law requires statewide greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 85% below 1990 levels by 2050 and offset the remaining 15% with measures such as planting forests and capturing carbon for storage underground.

Regulations will also ensure that a minimum of 35% of investments from newly created energy efficiency funds will be reinvested in disadvantaged communities. Representatives from environmental justice communities and state government will help identify communities for investment. Vice President Gore noted that many suffering the effects of pollutants that accelerate climate change are disproportionately found in communities of color. He said he found it startling that the number of African-American children who die from asthma is 10 times greater than the number of white children.

“This is unacceptable and that is only one of the statistics that illustrate why we have got to do better on environmental and climate justice,” he said.

The bill also establishes a council to outline recommendations for reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal being net-zero emissions in all sectors of the economy. All state agencies would consider the impact of attaining the statewide greenhouse gas emission limits when issuing permits, licenses, or other administrative approvals.

“We are almost literally watching the world melting right now, and the federal government has chosen to turn a blind eye to this to retreat from action,” said Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, in his introduction of the governor. “It’s really falling to the states to lead.”

The law would require 70% of the electric generation to be produced by renewable energy systems by 2030. Additionally, the law requires that the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions by 2040. The measure would spur the procurement of at least nine gigawatts of offshore wind electric generation by 2035, six gigawatts of distributed photovoltaic solar generation by 2025, three gigawatts of statewide energy storage capacity by 2030, and 185 trillion BTUs of end-use energy savings below the 2025 energy use forecast.

The governor called the law “the most consequential” of his administration that would “determine the future, or lack thereof.” He left little room for naysayers of climate change.

“A complicating factor is that these pressing issues must be addressed at a time in which emotion and partisanship rule this nation over logic and fact,” said the governor. “But even in this chaos of political pandering and hyperbole, there is still facts, data, and evidence. And climate change is an undeniable scientific fact, period. To deny climate change is to deny reality. All credible scientists agree.”

He then delved further into details about the project, including two offshore wind power fields, a wind power training program run by the State University of New York, and several port upgrades that will be necessary to accommodate the massive infrastructure required for wind power. The new green jobs will be substantial, and they’ll be union, he said. Those projects are expected to be completed by 2024.

Vice President Gore concurred that that sustainability revolution means more jobs for Americans. He cited a recent paper from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that reported solar jobs are the fastest-growing jobs in the United States, growing six times faster than the average job.

He said that thanks to efforts like New York’s, the green movement is gaining momentum, though perhaps not fast enough.

“We’re gaining momentum, but the truth is some damage has already been done, and more will be, but we still have a chance,” he said, his voice rising.

“We still have it within our power to grab hold of this crisis and save the future.”

The bill signing was sponsored by the Office of Government Relations and Urban Affairs.

“I thought the event was an excellent opportunity to be part of a historical event with a governor who is also a Fordham alumnus,” said Lesley Massiah-Arthur, associate vice president for government relations and urban affairs. “The fact that Fordham was chosen for this event aligns with what the University offers academically and socially, whether it’s our own environmental policies, our environmental law offerings, or the research at the Louis Calder Center.”

Dennis C. Jacobs, Ph.D., Fordham’s new provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, concurred.

“Fordham University was honored to host Governor Cuomo and Vice President Gore for this momentous bill signing. Given Fordham’s longstanding commitment to promote environmental sustainability and pursue research that addresses climate change, we were thrilled to celebrate New York’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition the state toward a green economy.”

“As a lifelong rider—and a daily customer—of the MTA, I can think of no higher honor or more important challenge than serving at the helm of an agency that connects millions of people each day to their jobs, schools, families, and friends,” Foye said in a statement released by the agency.

Foye had been serving as president of the MTA since August 2017. His appointment, confirmed by the State Senate on April 1, comes as the MTA is under public and political pressure to modernize the New York City subway system.

It also coincides with state lawmakers’ approval of a groundbreaking plan to help pay for the upgrades.

The state’s recently approved budget authorizes the MTA to work with the city to devise and implement a congestion pricing plan—the first of its kind in the U.S.—that will require drivers to pay tolls to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. The program, scheduled to take effect in 2021, is expected to reduce vehicular traffic and raise billions of dollars for public transit.

“There is no question that we have a great deal of work ahead of us, to bring truly innovative and meaningful reform to the agency and provide the service and system New Yorkers deserve,” Foye said in his statement.

The MTA serves 8.6 million people each weekday on average, accounting for one-third of the nation’s mass transit users and two-thirds of its commuter rail passengers. In addition to the city’s subways and buses, its network includes Metro-North Railroad, the Long Island Railroad, seven tunnels, and two bridges.

Before joining the MTA in 2017, Foye was executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for six years. In 2013, he played a key role in bringing to light what later came to be known as the Bridgegate scandal, the politically motivated closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

In addition to appointing Foye to lead the MTA, Governor Cuomo named four people to serve on the agency’s board, including Fordham alumna Haeda Mihaltses, FCRH ’86, GSAS ’94.

Since 2014, Mihaltses has worked for the New York Mets, where she is currently vice president of external affairs and community engagement. She previously served for 12 years as the director of intergovernmental affairs for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In September 2016, Mihaltses and Foye returned to Fordham to take part in “Fordham University: Made in New York,” a panel discussion that was part of the University’s yearlong 175th anniversary celebrations.

It’s certainly the busiest. Hundreds of thousands of people hustle through Penn Station’s labyrinthine, low-ceilinged corridors every day. Amtrak owns the terminal but shares space and operations with New Jersey Transit, Long Island Rail Road, and the New York City subway. Problems have compounded in a system stretched beyond capacity. Minor delays become major headaches, and overcrowding erodes safety and security. The whole enterprise—and much of the economic vitality of the region—relies on crumbling, outdated infrastructure: narrow platforms, failing ties and switches, and tunnels that may be one major storm surge away from becoming permanently inoperable.

On top of it all, literally on top of it all, sits Madison Square Garden.

It wasn’t always like this.

For Samuel Turvey, FCRH ’79, LAW ’83, the way forward for Penn Station is through its storied past, a time when the station wasn’t a sunless maze but a shining symbol of New York grandeur.

“If we want to keep pace with London, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong, we need to stop using patently dangerous tunnels from 1910 and funneling 650,000 people daily under a basketball arena,” he says. “A train station can and should be located over what presently passes for Penn Station.”

Turvey leads the steering committee for Rebuild Penn Station, a project of the National Civic Art Society conceived by architect and historian Richard W. Cameron. They have been calling for a new and improved version of the original station, as well as a comprehensive transit plan to ease regional congestion.

A Majestic Past

The original station, designed by architect Charles Follen McKim, was a beaux-arts masterpiece inspired in part by Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla. Opened in 1910, it featured a stately colonnade on Seventh Avenue, with an arching glass ceiling above the train platforms and a massive, sunlit general waiting room where, as historian Jill Jonnes wrote in Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels, the “play of light and shadow in [the] high curved ceilings and pillared walls was evocative and deeply poetic.”

Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the station was designed as a public space that would elevate the city’s reputation while honoring the engineering feat that made the station necessary—the construction of subaqueous railway tunnels linking New Jersey to Manhattan and Manhattan to Long Island. McKim said he designed the station as a “monumental gateway … to one of the great Metropolitan cities of the world.”

By the early 1960s, however, the Pennsylvania Railroad had fallen on hard times with the advent of the interstate highway system. “Ultimately, their duty was to shareholders, not to posterity,” Turvey says of the railroad’s decision to skimp on upkeep and sell the air rights to developers who eventually demolished the original building and built the Penn Plaza offices, a theater, and Madison Square Garden atop the station’s platforms and tracks.

In an October 1963 editorial, The New York Times called the demolition a “monumental act of vandalism.” (The public outcry spurred the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, which played a key role in saving Grand Central Terminal from destruction.) Years later, architectural historian Vincent Scully lamented what New Yorkers lost at Penn Station: “Once, we entered the city like gods,” he said. “Now we scurry in like rats, which is probably what we deserve.”

Turvey believes New Yorkers deserve better, and so does Gov. Andrew Cuomo, FCRH ’79. Last January, during his State of the State address, he reaffirmed his commitment to fixing the station, and left open the possibility of using eminent domain to do it.

Fixing a Troubled Transit Hub

Some changes are already underway. The James A. Farley Building, the former post office building across Eighth Avenue from Madison Square Garden, is being transformed into a train hall for Amtrak and Long Island Railroad passengers (a project initially led by current MTA President Patrick Foye, FCRH ’78, LAW ’81, who was then working for Governor Eliot Spitzer). Funded by developers, New York, New Jersey, and the federal government, the renovations are scheduled to be done by late 2020.

For Turvey, that’s a good but partial step, one that will alleviate only about 20 percent of the pedestrian traffic at Penn Station and do little to resolve the bigger issues, congestion chief among them.

Rebuild Penn Station has supported a plan by Jim Venturi of ReThinkNYC to make Penn a through station instead of the last stop for New Jersey Transit and Long Island Railroad trains. Trains would no longer be “going back empty,” Turvey says. “Think of the subway: If the subway came down from the Bronx, stopped at 42nd Street, and went back empty, how much waste is that?”

The plan calls for adding or expanding transit hubs in New Jersey, Queens, and the Bronx, while eliminating some platforms in Penn Station and widening others to accommodate more escalators, Turvey says. The plan takes into account the $30 billion Gateway Tunnel Project, which would add a second tunnel under the Hudson.

For Turvey and a growing number of civic groups, however, relocating Madison Square Garden is key to renovating Penn Station. They recommend moving it to the Morgan Post Office and Annex, a five-minute walk west of its current location, by the time the Garden’s lease expires in 2023.

“Madison Square Garden really needs to move if you’re ever to get that location right,” he says. “It’s a historical accident that a basketball arena is on top of a train station. It’s illogical.”

Turvey knows the old Penn Station from books, photos, and Hollywood films. On a recent stroll through the current station, he pointed out some glimpses of its past: a cast-iron partition here, a brass and iron railing there, some glass-block tiles that were designed to allow natural light to reach lower levels but now bear fixtures for fluorescent bulbs. “Dreams die hard for me,” he admits. But he denies that he’s guided solely by nostalgia, and insists that classical tastes and innovation can go together, citing Grand Central Terminal and Washington, D.C.’s Union Station as examples.

“There’s a strain in the architecture community that doesn’t like the idea of rebuilding old buildings,” he says. But he points to recent examples of architectural reconstruction, like Moscow’s 19th-century Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was torn down on Joseph Stalin’s orders in 1931 and rebuilt in the 1990s. And he argues that Penn Station could be rebuilt on the existing foundations “using modern, more cost-effective construction techniques with appropriate upgrades for expanding train and pedestrian traffic.”

The estimated cost, he says, would be between $3 billion and $3.5 billion.

A “Public-Spirited” Commitment

Turvey grew up on the north shore of Staten Island, where his grandfather worked briefly as a stevedore for the B&O Railroad. He moved to suburban New Jersey with his family when he was 10 and later enrolled at Fordham, where he developed an interest in urban studies as an undergraduate during the 1970s. “It was an interdisciplinary major, and it gave me the opportunity to take courses with some real prominent Jesuits,” he says, including sociologist Joseph Fitzpatrick, S.J., who later presided at the ceremony when Turvey married his Fordham classmate Patricia Evans, FCRH ’79, and who baptized two of the couple’s three children.

In 1983, Turvey earned a J.D. at Fordham Law School, where he was associate editor of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. And throughout his career in legal and financial services, he has been involved in what he calls “public-spirited” pro bono efforts. In the early 1990s, he established the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, a series of free outdoor concerts in East Village and Harlem parks. He serves on the board of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and he’s a trustee of the Noble Maritime Collection at Snug Harbor on Staten Island.

“I’ve worked in New York City my whole career,” says Turvey, a managing director at TIAA. “The city has given a lot to me and my family, and I’m interested in seeing it continue its upward trajectory.”

He sees “a transformative resurrection of the original Penn Station” as part of that.

“How we get the federal government and state governments to work together, I’m not entirely sure. I think the corporate community and the cultural and other communities in New York City need to learn about and rally around this plan, akin to how Lee Iacocca spearheaded the Ellis Island restoration,” he says, adding that “public-private partnerships need to be pursued with vigor.”

And he remains inspired by the democratic spirit of the original station.

“It’s very hard to get people to decide that Penn Station should be on the same plane as Central Park, but in a sense, this is a public space, and you need to think about the city’s need for public spaces,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s just the highest dollar and the region misses a once-in-a-century opportunity to get something so right.”

Cuomo, a 1979 Fordham University graduate, delivered his remarks on curbing the power of independent expenditure campaigns in conjunction with the release of a governor’s counsel opinion laying out criteria to regulators and law enforcement officials on existing state law and whether coordination existed between these campaigns and the candidates they supported.

According to Cuomo, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission(2010) has created a perverse political system in which collusion and fraud are rampant and the voices of millions of American voters are disenfranchised. Citizens United held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation, a principle since extended to for-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.

The governor implored New York legislators to enact laws protecting voters before this fall’s elections rather than waiting for the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling in the future.

“They can lead this effort to reform or they can perpetuate the status quo,” Cuomo said of the legislature, whose session ends next week. “My friends, the status quo is unacceptable.”

“They’re my gender justice warriors,” Robles-Román says of the dolls and bobblehead figures that stand guard in her downtown Manhattan office. “I’ve been a gender justice warrior in my heart.”

After only 18 months at the helm, Robles-Román and her team have added to Legal Momentum’s accomplishments. The nonprofit, launched in 1970 by the National Organization for Women to advocate for women’s civil rights, recently won pregnancy accommodations for all New York City employees. It also joined forces with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, FCRH ’79, on the “Enough Is Enough” bill signed into law last summer to combat sexual assault on college campuses.

These headline-generating achievements are the latest results in a career spent recognizing problems and then finding the political will and the means to fix them.

“Part of my ethos is being a disruptor, in a good, nice way,” says Robles-Román, who served as deputy mayor for legal affairs and counsel to Mayor Michael Bloomberg for 12 years before leading Legal Momentum. “It’s about creating strategic partnerships to make change happen.”

Crusading for social justice comes naturally to Robles-Román, the daughter of Puerto Rican migrants who moved to the New York area in 1956, raising her and her five siblings in Brooklyn and Queens. She remembers watching her mother, Ines, transform the family’s travel agency into an informal legal services outfit, assisting neighbors in battles with bureaucracy, whether the problem was translating a form from English to Spanish or getting a child enrolled at public school. “She was a lawyer without a law degree,” Robles-Román says of her mother, who died in 2012.

The first time Robles-Román began looking for solutions to complex social justice issues was during her senior year at Fordham. She was dating a fellow Fordham student who would later become her husband, the Hon. Nelson S. Román, FCRH ’84. At the time, he was a police officer in the Bronx and had told her some harrowing stories about responding to domestic disputes. Her interest piqued, she did some research into best practices for handling domestic violence calls, publishing her work in Fordham’s pre-law journal. “Ever since then, domestic violence and the treatment of women has been an issue that she’s held very close to her soul,” says Román, who is now a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.

While good grades and test scores are important, networking is just as critical, says Robles-Román, who counts U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor among her mentors and role models. She met Sotomayor, a Bronx native, through the Puerto Rican Bar Association in the mid-’90s. “When I’m in a heated negotiation trying to get that extra $3 million for [a] project and nobody else in the room is advocating for it, I try to channel her,” Robles-Román says.

Like Sotomayor, Robles-Román is generous with her time when it comes to mentoring young people. Though she has a high-profile job and is the mother of a 17-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, she still carves out time to help the next generation. Four years ago, she created what she calls her “Girl Power School” talk, which she presents primarily to teens. She focuses on the steps that lead from the classroom into a profession, like writing a resume, getting letters of recommendation, and finding mentors. “Don’t be shy,” she often tells young women. “Do. Not. Be. Shy.”

Robles-Román has never been shy about pursuing initiatives to help the city’s most vulnerable citizens. In late 2001, after overseeing large operations at the New York state court system, she was tapped by Mayor Bloomberg’s transition team to lead legal affairs. The first woman to serve as counsel to a New York City mayor, Robles-Román thrived in the hard-charging Bloomberg administration.

She was a force behind the city’s language translation policy and the multimedia “Let’s Call an End to Human Trafficking” campaign. The accomplishment in which she takes the most pride is the creation of four Family Justice Centers, where victims of domestic violence have access to law enforcement and other social services under one roof.

The opening of the first Family Justice Center in Brooklyn 10 years ago was prompted by city data that found nearly three-fourths of women killed in family-related homicides hadn’t made a prior domestic violence report to the police. The goal is to make the process less frustrating and overwhelming by providing comprehensive services in one location. A 2014 report by the city’s Fatality Review Committee showed that family-related homicides dropped 36 percent since the center opened, and 57 percent of the victims had contact with at least one city agency.

As the end of Mayor Bloomberg’s third term loomed, Robles-Román began thinking about her next act. When she learned that Legal Momentum—which tackles a wide range of gender issues, from violence against women to workplace equity to poverty—was looking for a new CEO, it seemed like the perfect fit. The Hon. Judith Kaye, former chief judge of the State of New York, agrees. “Women of strength, that’s what Legal Momentum stands for,” she says. “They couldn’t have a better representative than Carol.”

Robles-Román aims to build on Legal Momentum’s recent victories. She’s determined to see the “Enough Is Enough” legislation—which requires affirmative assent before students engage in sexual activity—spread to the other 49 states. And she’s looking to build on the pregnancy accommodations victory, won as a result of a discrimination case brought by pregnant New York City police officer Akema Thompson. With support from Legal Momentum, Thompson sued the city after she was denied a chance to take a makeup promotional exam, despite the fact that the exam day coincided with her due date. Thompson will get to take the test—and she won the right to reasonable pregnancy accommodations for all city employees.

As she spoke about the courage Thompson showed in challenging the city, Robles-Román glanced over at Wonder Woman and Princess Leia and had a thought: “I’m going get one of these made in the shape of Officer Thompson!” she said, with an eye toward growing her collection of gender justice warriors.

—Mariko Thompson Beck is a freelance writer based in New York City.

“Cesar Perales has devoted his life to public service,” Gov. Cuomo said. “He is one of our most distinguished New Yorkers and will be an exceptional secretary of state. I look forward to working with Cesar in making New York stronger and restoring dignity and honor to our state government.”

Perales has a 50-year record as a dedicated public servant. As co-founder of the Latino Justice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (Latino Justice PRLDEF), Perales served as its first executive director and returned later in his career to serve as its president and general counsel.

Perales has held numerous positions in the public and private sectors throughout his distinguished career, including:

•    founder of the first Brooklyn Legal Services office;
•    general counsel for the Model Cities Administration under Mayor John V. Lindsay;
•    assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, nominated by President Jimmy Carter;
•    commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Service, appointed by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo;
•    deputy mayor of New York City under Mayor David N. Dinkins;
•    senior vice president for community health at New York-Presbyterian Hospital; and
•    senior fellow at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs

As secretary of state of New York, Perales will be leading the oldest agency in the state government. The Department of State provides various services to citizens, community organizations, businesses and local governments. With more than 17 divisions, the department is one of the state’s most diverse agencies. The broad nature of the department’s work has an impact on all New Yorkers.

Perales earned his bachelor of arts from City College of New York in 1962 and then enrolled at Fordham Law. Throughout his career, he has been recognized for his dedication to community development and social justice. He received an honorary doctorate from Lehman College; the Thurgood Marshall Award from Seton Hall University Law School; and the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hispanic National Bar Association; among other distinctions.

– Carrie Johnson