Oil Prices & Airline Profits

Oil Prices & Airline Profits: A big story in 2015 will be the continued fall in the price of oil.  Brent crude, $115/barrel in June 2014, is now down to $60 and will likely fall to around $50 next year.  The impact is perhaps most visible at the pump where gasoline is now below $2/gallon in some parts of the country.  The effect on the U.S. economy has been a stimulus far more effective than any that government could provide: reduced production costs for businesses and significantly greater disposable income for consumers.  One major beneficiary will be the airline industry.  Fuel accounts for 25-30 percent of airline costs, the industry’s single biggest expense.  Lower oil prices will add over $6 billion to airline profits worldwide in 2015.  However, fares are unlikely to decline on most routes since the airlines are already filling their planes and have little incentive to discount prices to sell the remaining seats.

-Frank Werner, associate professor of finance and business economics

Net Neutrality No, Faster Streaming Yes

Net Neutrality No: The big social media development in 2015 will be the increase in original television watched by streaming, adding to the success of House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Marco Polo, and The Peaky Blinders on Netflix and Alpha House on Amazon.  Viewing unique to smart phones, tablets, laptops, and smart television will continue to compete with and supplant traditional cable and network offerings.  Net neutrality won’t be enacted, insuring even faster streaming and better viewing for millions of consumers.

-Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies

A New Human Rights Movement

Human Rights: What we have witnessed during the latter half of this year is a revolutionary transformation in the way we think and act in regard to race-based injustice. I hesitate to call the protests, actions, and community mobilizations that have occurred in response to Mike Brown’s murder in Ferguson and Eric Garner’s death in Staten Island “trends”. As a young woman activist recently told me, “Mike Brown is the catalyst and Ferguson the site” that highlights the pervasive nature in the United States of state violence against people of color (who are usually black and poor), and an enduring anti-black ideology. People of all class and race backgrounds have come together to call out these inhumane practices. This is a new movement. This is a human rights issue, not a matter of partisan politics. We will see this movement for justice continue into 2015 and beyond. And, it will be largely led by the courageous and smart organizing of black youth who refuse to be silenced or see anyone refused his or her full rights of citizenship.

-Aimee Meredith Cox, assistant professor of African and African-American Studies

Pope Francis in the Land of the Free

A Papal Appeal: This coming Earth Day (April 22nd) Pope Francis will release a much-anticipated encyclical on ecology. I suspect his visit to the United States, which comes only five months later, will focus on ideas from that document. My sense is that he will call Americans–especially given our status as trend setters when it comes to the world’s economy–to radically rethink our consumerist lifestyles and addiction to technology. These twin forces are destroying both the world’s ecology and what the Pope will refer to as “human ecology.” For decades, Catholic social teaching has connected the health of the human heart or spirit with the health of the earth. I anticipate that the Pope will call on Americans to resist the disconnected lifestyle that consumerism and technology produce, and instead live a life concerned with and connected to the health and flourishing of those in need and, indeed, of the whole planet.”

-Charles Camosy, associate professor of theology

Apple Watch Drives Wearable Tech

Design and Tech: Fashion and fashion law are all about trends, and 2015 will be no exception.  The wearable tech sector will continue to grow, generating a steady stream of patent applications and licensing deals between designers and tech companies, and the expected release of the Apple watch is likely to boost interest still further.  Data privacy problems will remain critical for online retailers and are on the horizon for wearable tech companies as well.  And social issues, from environmental sustainability and working conditions to gender-specific workplace dress codes to ruffled feathers over Native American headdresses and other forms of cultural appropriation, will continue to be topics of conversation.  In other news, following a recent legal settlement, New York Fashion Week will leave Lincoln Center after February.  Enjoy the spectacle now!

-Susan Scafidi, academic director for the Fashion Law Institute

The Supreme Court has a Big Decision to Make

A Presidential Legacy: In the spring of 2015 the Supreme Court will hear another challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The judicial question revolves around the extension of federal subsidies to individuals in the 36 states that have not established health care exchanges. Plaintiffs argue that the government avoided establishing federal exchanges in the ACA, encouraging individual states to establish them instead. Contrarily, the government argues it intended to establish federal exchanges, but still encouraged states to join them in doing so. As a result, the Court has a serious decision to make. It could deconstruct the signature piece of legislation passed by the executive and legislative branches in the last six years, which would likely cement itself to critics as a politicized institution and not an objective appellate judiciary. It could also refrain from any decision with major impact. As the Obama Presidency draws to a close, a decision on this case could significantly affect his legacy.

– Bobby James DeNault, FCRH 2016, political science major

Restorative Justice and Transformative Power

Fixing What’s Broken: Next year we’re going to see much needed attention on restorative justice that focuses less on punishment and more on repairing harm for all involved because of crime. Fordham collaborated on an exceptional restorative justice consultation in November 2013 that brought leadership in the faith community and justice officials together with leaders from around the world who have experienced restorative justice’s transformative power. Everyone there agreed that the U.S. justice system is broken, particularly for people of color. We are inhumane with the way we handle justice. Right now the Beck Institute is working with judges, lawyers, social services and congregations in Westchester who have committed themselves to doing something about this. Currently there isn’t a program of restorative justice in the county; a tragic omission, particularly for youth. Judge George McKinnis has provided the leadership, establishing a 501c3 for Community Restorative Justice.”

-Anita Lightburn, professor of social work and director, Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty

— Janet Sassi

For the past few years, Anita Lightburn, Ed.D, has been studying a particularly promising type of social service program, one that helps people overcome some of the toughest personal challenges anyone can face.

Offered in a number of places around the region, this type of program—generally known as life skills empowerment—offers comprehensive help to those who are homeless and vulnerable and struggling to rebuild their lives. They include domestic violence survivors, veterans, and the formerly incarcerated. Often suffering from debilitating trauma, they can show striking progress after going through the life skills regimen, said Lightburn.

“They’ll tell us at the end, ‘Please don’t end this. I’ll do anything to come back,’” she said, describing participants’ reaction to one of the programs.

Lightburn is director of the University’s Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty in the Graduate School of Social Service, which collaborates with life skills programs in the New York area—offering training, assessing the programs’ effectiveness, and working with providers to enhance the programs.

The programs address the full spectrum of human needs, from the basic to the intangible. They help people find housing, employment, education, and services, while also offering personal connections and a sense of belonging. They’re run by grassroots coalitions including congregations, volunteers, social service agencies—in other words, a diverse community of supporters.

“If we go back in time, community centers used to respond to people’s complex needs when they were immigrating, and some of them still do,” Lightburn said. Done correctly, she said, these life skills programs offer the same kind of all-embracing support: “It’ll be providing so many layers of support so that the people won’t be getting lost in the cracks, which often happens.”

The programs typically involve three months of twice-weekly workshops on skills like budgeting, goal setting, and self-presentation, along with inspirational readings and exercises that help participants make sense of their life stories. Volunteers provide mentoring, meals, and other help.

A 2012 Beck Institute study—supported by the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation—found that four programs significantly improved participants’ sense of coherence and well-being, among other results. Eighty to 85 percent completed the program—“exceptional for this population,” the study says.

Another Beck Institute study, supported by the New York Community Trust’s Silberman Fund, shows life skills empowerment to be a viable, cost-effective model. An anonymous donor is supporting further work on the programs’ sustainability and capacity building.

People served by the programs feel lost and alone, unsure where to turn. They’re often impoverished, Lightburn said, giving the example of domestic violence survivors forced to leave shelters after three months with the challenge of supporting themselves and their children.

“Begin to think about their challenges,” she said. “They’re huge.”

Some abuse survivors can be instantly immobilized when trauma resurfaces. “The past entered the present, and I went from ‘totally functional’ to ‘can’t cross the street,’ ” said one, quoted in a Beck Institute report.

Helping life skills programs recognize trauma and address it properly is one of the Beck Institute’s current projects. Others include developing effective ways to evaluate the programs and training people to be mentors.

Lightburn and her colleagues are working with diverse New York-area organizations that run life skills programs, including Catholic Charities, the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, and community groups in the city’s northern suburbs. One coalition, based in Ossining, N.Y., is seeking to help people recently released from Sing Sing prison.

The formerly incarcerated face their own kind of disorientation, Lightburn said. Often barred from going home because of probation restrictions, they find other doors closed also, despite the plans and hopes they developed during their incarceration.

“Because you have a criminal history, nobody wants you,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘I went to five places to try to get a job. I walked 30 miles. I had no money for carfare or even to ride on the subway. And as soon as I got to the [employer], they would say, ‘Oh, you have this history. I’m sorry.’ And then they would try again.

“There’s usually shame, and a lack of a sense that there’s any way to redeem their life and to move forward,” she said, referring both to those formerly incarcerated and domestic abuse survivors.

A particularly inspiring part of the programs is the storytelling exercises, in which participants tell their stories in front of their peers. They learn that they’re not alone in their struggles and see themselves in a new light. They’re also invited to tell their stories on speakers’ nights, or at graduation, before audiences that include family members, mentors, and probation officers.

“Everyone comes to listen because it’s so amazing to see, in threemonths, transformed lives,” Lightburn said. “Most of these people have never told their story to anybody. Some of them are incredibly proud that for the first time family who won’t talk to them and don’t understand what they’ve been through have come to witness and hear.”

Meanwhile, she said, volunteers who serve as mentors often call the experience “the most meaningful thing I have done with my life.”

At an event at the Lincoln Center campus, two men spoke with hard-won clarity about the early experiences that put them on the path to incarceration. The Rev. Divine Pryor, Ph.D., recalled that he struggled in class because he went to school hungry, but found himself labeled as having a learning disorder. Deon Richards was bullied as a child and later found the experience had wrought a frightening change in himself.

“I never thought I would actually become a bully from getting bullied,” he said.

The men were part of the Consultation on Restorative Justice and Youth Incarceration, convened on Nov. 18 to generate ideas for helping young offenders reclaim their lives and stay out of prison. The event was attended by judges, educators, university leaders, and representatives of churches, nonprofits and youth service agencies.

It was organized by a committee that included Cheryl Bader, clinical associate professor at Fordham Law School, and Anita Lightburn, Ed.D, director of the Beck Institutefor Religion and Poverty and a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service.

One speaker—Robert McCrie, Ph.D., professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice—noted that incarceration rates in the United States have soared since 1973. “Why has that happened? Are Americans seven to 10 times more criminal than other countries?” he said. “No. It’s because of laws, and the laws within their hearts have come from Washington and then (been) replicated by the states.”

Peggy Shriver, co-director of the event and former assistant general secretary for research with the National Council of Churches, called for “better ways to lead our young people into healthier, more constructive lives, even after having done something destructive or harmful to themselves or to other people.

“If we bring together our individual insights, perhaps new mosaics of possibility will emerge.”

Pryor recalled growing up in a large family, saying there wasn’t always enough food for everyone. “It was difficult for you to pay attention in class if you were battling with your stomach,” he said. He was labeled early as disruptive, and a possible candidate for special education, he said, but added that he was a capable student who would have done better if given the right stimulation.

“When you’re not being properly stimulated, you do other things,” he said. After repeated detentions, and then expulsion, he said, “the streets welcomed me with open arms.”

He pursued an education in prison, and saw an extremely low recidivism rate among his cohort of fellow students. “If you really want to talk about what works, I can tell you, education works,” said Pryor, who is executive director of the Center for New Leadership on Urban Solutions, a think tank in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Alongside the bullying that left its mark on him, Deon Richards, a resident of the South Bronx, noted the lack of contact with his parents growing up. “I just started doing crazy things that I didn’t envision myself doing at that age,” he said. By age 14, he had been arrested eight times “because of things that I was trying to blame on my parents and blame on the streets.”

After realizing he had to either “change or die,” he said, he turned his life around with help from the Center for Community Alternatives, based in New York City and Syracuse, N.Y. Through CCA he developed his passion for music, and also worked with youths facing troubles similar to those that he faced.

“I had an opportunity to actually help the young people like myself (who were) going through the same exact things,” he said.

Said Pryor: “Public safety is not exclusively a law enforcement endeavor. It’s about community cohesion and cooperation and respect, and how we look out for each other.”

–Chris Gosier