The program, which was established more than a decade ago in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, is designed to help students complete their course requirements for medical school, veterinary school, and other graduate schools in the health professions. Many of them are non-traditional students who have dealt with personal challenges and worked in many fields.  

“These are students who have lived a career—even multiple careers—and still know in their heart that they want to pursue a career in health,” said Laura Bigaouette, Ed.D., program director and pre-health advisor. 

Fordham’s post-bacc program stands out for its evening courses that allow students to maintain their daytime jobs, high level of support, and curriculum, which is tailored to each student’s individual needs, said Bigaouette. And the students themselves are unique. 

“We have a former Rockette, a poet, a Special Forces Marine, a trapeze instructor, a fencer, a member of the Sioux Native American tribe, and students who came from very humble roots, but prioritized Fordham in their life plans,” said Anthony R. Davidson, Ph.D., dean of PCS, adding that the number of students in the program tripled from 2011 to 2020. “Collectively, it’s incredible how these students truly embody the Fordham spirit of men and women for others.”

A Medical Student Who Faced the Ebola Epidemic and COVID-19 Pandemic

Sophia Greer has juggled many jobs over the past two decades. She was a longtime epidemiologist who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. She also served as an infection prevention and control officer in West Africa during the Ebola crisis, where she helped to train health care workers on managing the disease. 

“Parallel to what we’re dealing with now in the COVID-19 pandemic, the health care workforce was drastically affected. There wasn’t enough staff,” Greer said. “We were in a rural area where some places didn’t have electricity, yet they were delivering babies and managed with very little. They figured out how to make it all work.”

Greer said her experience as an epidemiologist has not only expanded her perspective on public health, but also convinced her to follow her longtime dream to become a doctor. 

“I’ve done a lot of work on health disparities in the U.S., especially in relation to race. Mortality rates due to heart disease or stroke are consistently higher among Black people compared to white. I realized that the cause wasn’t biological—it was structural and institutionalized racism. Seeing this rehashed in the data really drove me toward medicine,” Greer said. “I want to reduce those disparities from the health care side. And as a Black woman myself, I want to be a face for people of color to relate to and an advocate for my patients.” 

From 2016 to 2018, Greer attended Fordham’s post-bacc program, where she balanced evening classes with her daytime job as a research scientist for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She said she appreciated her small class sizes of no more than 20 students, along with the “phenomenal” mentorship. 

“One day, I was stressing out about taking the MCAT and felt like I wasn’t fully prepared. Laura [Bigaouette] gave me a few encouraging words and was like, ‘You can do this. You’re going to do great,’” Greer recalled. “Having that support really made a difference.”

Greer is now a third-year medical student at the University of Missouri School of Medicine who plans on becoming a family medicine physician. 

“At the end of my journey, I want to know that I was able to change the trajectory of my patients’ health care experience,” Greer said. “If I can help them reduce risks that negatively affect their lives, then I will have accomplished what I have set out to do.” 

From the Coast Guard to NYU Medical School 

Jaimie Chicoine seemed destined for a career in medicine. 

Her father is a physician-scientist, her mother is a health care attorney, and nearly all of her aunts and uncles are doctors or nurses, Chicoine said. 

“My family is part of the reason why I want to become a doctor, but also why I didn’t apply to medical school when I was in college,“ Chicoine said. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this because it was in my family or if it was something I wanted for myself.”

At age 17, she joined the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Upon graduation, she served in the Coast Guard in several roles. Among them was deck watch officer—“one of the highest shipboard qualifications one can achieve in the service” below commanding officer, Chicoine said. 

“You’re up there in the captain’s stead, running the ship. I drove a 1,600-ton boat with a roughly 100-person crew, depending on whether or not we had a helicopter on board. And I was about 21 years old and in charge of the boat, while counterdrug boardings, search rescues, and federal fisheries enforcement missions were happening,” Chicoine said. “I learned that leadership is not about you being in charge—it’s about caring for everyone else.”

Among her many adventures on the high seas, one stands out, she said. 

“I remember seeing migrants for the first time. It was the morning after we left the U.S. to go to Central America, and we found seven people sitting in a raft, trying to reach the U.S. by floating across the Florida Strait,” Chicoine recalled, adding that they brought the migrants aboard their ship. “I’ve never wanted to change the circumstances of my life so badly that I floated across the ocean in a makeshift raft.”

That moment was also a personal turning point. Chicoine said she contemplated the human experience and how she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Eventually, she realized the answer lay inside her all along. 

“Our lives intersect in the weirdest ways. But those intersections are really special,” said Chicoine, who has also worked as an emergency medical technician and a hospice volunteer. “I want to bring a positive influence to every intersection [as a doctor].”

Chicoine joined Fordham’s post-bacc program in 2019. She said she chose the program for its flexibility and affordability, in comparison to similar programs in New York City. At Fordham, she also found something special.   

“Many of my classmates had started post-baccs at more rigid programs and then came to Fordham and said they had a better experience here. I felt lucky that I came to Fordham on the first try,” Chicoine said. “When I got here, I realized—based on the caliber of students that I took classes with, the quality of the professors, and the mentorship with Dr. Bigaouette—that I was really lucky. I had stumbled upon something special.”

Chicoine was accepted to New York University Grossman School of Medicine, which offers full-tuition scholarships to its students, and plans to start school this summer. She hasn’t decided what kind of doctor she wants to be. But she says she’s drawn to pediatrics and neonatology—the same branch of medicine that her father works in. 

“We joke that it’s taken me 10 years to finally decide that I genuinely like what my dad does,” Chicoine said, chuckling. “But I had to figure this out for myself.”

A long road back 

The Fordham awardees are Meagan LaDue and Kizuwanda Wyatt.

Wyatt, an urban studies major, returned to school after two decades. She said hopes to find a career that will address inequity in the housing industry. Although recent medical issues have proved challenging, she said she’s on track to get her bachelor’s degree.

“I am completely confident that I’ll have the depth of knowledge and passion to be an agent of change in my community and…beyond,” she said.

A child from a dysfunctional household, LaDue found an early escape in basketball. She received a full athletic college scholarship to play.

However, when an ACL injury halted her college career, she lapsed into a depression and developed an eating disorder.

Today, she is working toward a degree in organizational leadership and psychology. She maintains a 3.89 GPA, and she also coaches a girls’ basketball team.

“I wouldn’t change what I have been through, as it has shaped the person I am and the purpose I find in my life today,” she said.

Grants that are all too rare

Anthony Davidson, Ph.D., dean of PCS, said that grants and prizes like the Women’s Forum awards are rare for continuing education students.

“PCS has a cross-section of students that represent the kind of diversity that we would like to see across the University, but along with that comes some serious financial challenges,” said Davidson.

He said that very often PCS students are the first in their family to go to school. Typically, they work full time and often balance school with taking care of young children and/or elderly parents.

“It’s quite amazing the adversity that many have to overcome and it’s not always a big story,” he said. “Sometimes it’s simply that life gets in the way: kids, health, studying, money—all those things.”

Rita Crotty, executive director of the forum, said that award winners are free to spend the money on whatever they want—from child care to tuition to the rent.

“We want to help keep them in college,” said Crotty. “Women over 35 are an underrepresented segment for student aid. People just don’t think about helping the older woman.”

LaDue said women over 35 make focused students. “Many people want to give to young people because they think of them as having more potential,” she said. “But my experience is that adult learners have enough life experience to know exactly what they want to do.”

Befitting the campus’s proximity to a world renowned performing arts center, the evening’s festivities kicked off with a cabaret performance by Eric Yves Garcia, FCLC ’00, which brought together alumni from Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), Gabelli School of Business (GABELLI) graduate division, the Graduate School of Education (GSE), and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS).

For Garcia, a graduate of Fordham’s theater program, playing cabaret standards on the piano in Pope Auditorium for an audience was a homecoming in the truest sense of the word, as he recalled sneaking into the space on many a late night to practice. When an acting career didn’t pan out upon graduation, Garcia said his musical talents enabled him to become successful professional cabaret performer.

He said that performing works such as A Streetcar Named Desire and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a Fordham student likewise influenced him today.

“Those plays are all old, but our professors impressed upon us that we had to invest in them vitality, and they weren’t museum pieces. You had to bring truth to them as best you could and work very hard to invest the words in them with meaning,” he said.

“I think that’s also true with the great American songbook. They’re not museum pieces, they’re about real-life things.”

On the plaza level, Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of FCLC, marveled at the transformation that the campus has undergone in the last several years, which he attributed in part to the generosity of FCLC alumni. The college’s annual reunion gift, which totaled $4,925,510 in this five-year reunion cycle, was presented by Patricia Dugan-Perlmuth, FCLC ’79.

Twelve floors up, Britanny Miller, GSE ’16, was rekindling the love she felt while working toward a master’s in education. A native of the Bronx who is now a school psychologist in New Rochelle, she said the University has a way of making New York City seem smaller than it is, because she frequently meets people who have connections to it.

“I’m not this person that’s very courageous to speak out or introduce myself to new people, but something about the Fordham community really empowers me to do so,” she said.

“I was a little wary of coming back because I didn’t know anyone who was coming, but I sat down at a table and the conversations just unfolded and flourished. You can just talk about anything when you’re here.”

At the PCS reunion, newly appointed Dean Anthony Davidson, Ph.D., also alluded to Fordham’s place in the city.

“It’s very refreshing and encouraging for me when I meet people, and they say ‘Oh, I went to Fordham,’” he said. “It’s always followed by, ‘What can I do to help?’”

In fact, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, noted that earlier that day, a PCS yellow ribbon graduate spotted him at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., as he was traveling back to New York.

“There I was in in Washington . . . and I had the great fortune and grace to run into one of you. [The graduate]  spoke with love and with great conviction not just about Fordham meant to him, but what Fordham did for him,” said Father McShane.

“I would be willing to bet if I ran into one of you on the No. 1 train, you’d start up a conversation just like the one I had with him, and I’d be, as I am tonight, filled with great gratitude and great grace of knowing you, working for you, and serving you.”

At the GSS cocktail hour, Dean Debra McPhee, Ph.D., welcomed 70 alumni, the oldest of whom was Patricia Young, GSS ’62. The gathering got off to a slow start, a fact that Father McShane attributed to the likelihood that GSS alumni were so dedicated to their jobs that they were likely still working at 6:30 p.m. Jonathan Roque, GABELLI ‘11, a 2017 graduate of the GSS/GABELLI joint Nonprofit Leadership program, said he was heartened by his exhortation that students remember to care for themselves as well as their clients. He plans to use his degree to help his local church.

At the Gabelli School of Business’ graduate gathering, Tricia Schwerdtman, GABELLI ’16, said coming to Fordham was one of the best choices she’s ever made. A Sarah Lawrence College undergraduate who majored in poetry, she worked as a graduate assistant for Benjamin Cole, Ph.D., associate professor of management systems, served as president of the management consulting club, and now works at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant for financial effectiveness in health care.

Working toward her degree strengthened her relationship with her father, too, she said. She recalled he’d made her dinner (macaroni and cheese) once when she was 7 years old, and pretty much never made meals beyond that. But that changed when she became the leader of a Fordham team participating in a case competition sponsored by the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG).

“I came home from the ACG cup prep at three in the morning. He’d waited up, made me dinner, and said ‘You know, you got this. Eat and go to sleep,’” she said.

“He’s really successful, so it was great to see that he’s proud of me and recognizes what I’m doing.”

 [doptg id=”88″] ]]> 70127 https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/qa-with-dean-anthony-davidson/ Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:45:00 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=57885 Anthony R. Davidson, Ph.D., the new dean of the School of Professional and Continuing Studies(PCS), has taken the reins at the University’s college for adult and nontraditional students. He recently sat down with Fordham News to discuss online learning, developing corporate alliances, and the way forward for PCS.

 Where is PCS now and what do you see for its near future?

PCS was always geared toward the adult learner and was most noted for its degree completion. I see the school at the point and time now where it can evolve into being much more than that. Obviously, we’ll remain very strongly committed to promoting the adult learner and making sure they can complete their degrees by giving them curricula that’s focused on today’s working professional. That means bringing a lot of that curricula online. I think the adult learner is very aptly suited to the online learning environment. They have the self-discipline and commitment.

 What’s your experience with online learning?

I’ve been involved in online learning or a variant thereof since the mid- to late 1990s, when it was based on teleconferencing. It was very primitive and was designed for business conferencing rather than the kind of pedagogy that would go on in a classroom. Eventually I was hired at New York University to build out their online programs. I wasn’t initially in love with it, but I developed a keen appreciation after developing several online masters programs. 

What distinguishes online learning?

Technology collapses time and space and that’s what it does for learning. It doesn’t make anything better, it just changes the mode of delivery. It’s not for everybody, but it’s particularly important when people are working 60 hours a week, have elderly parents or young kids to take care of, and time is a premium.

What is blended learning?

Blending learning is a hybrid. There is some face-to-face time, but a majority of interactions and learning is taking place in an asynchronous format online. With working professionals who want to take classes in person, it’s particularly important to make that face time count, and then supplement it with a great deal of asynchronous activity.

What can PCS be for the corporate world?

The corporate world is a natural offshoot of a population of adult learners. We will be providing the opportunity for corporations to have very highly customized programs and we’ll be offering to meet the particular needs of each individual corporation. Sometimes there’s credo or some proprietary information that a corporation wants its employees to understand, but it doesn’t want to send its colleagues to a regular university class. Corporations want their own customized series of seminars. That’s something we can provide, because we do understand what it takes to make them more productive.

How do you see PCS’s relationship evolving with other schools at the University?

I’d like to see PCS to be fully interwoven with the other schools through collaborative programming. A prospective student who wants to attend Fordham could see PCS as a way to be able to weave their way through the different schools to get exactly what they need.

On a personal note, as an observant Jew what does it mean for you to be at a Jesuit institution?

I’m very proud and very happy to be at a Jesuit university. In the short time that I’ve been here I have to say that the people at Fordham not only talk the talk but they walk the walk. It’s important to me as a religious person that I surround myself with other religious people. It doesn’t matter if they’re from the same religion or not. The most important thing is there’s a commitment to values that is not just lip service.