Harris played numerous leadership roles—in ASILI, the Black student alliance; in Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, or CSTEP; and at Loschert Hall, where he served as a resident assistant. He served on the University’s undergraduate advising task force, and he was part of a team working with philosophy professors to add diverse voices to the department’s curriculum as part of a Teaching Race Across the Curriculum grant.

He was a leader among his friends, too, always ready to help them or dispense a wise word when it was needed.

“There wasn’t a moment when Vincent wasn’t a big brother to us,” said one of his friends, Anita Adu Manu, a fellow Fordham College at Rose Hill senior. “He taught me so much, and we’re all going to miss him.”

Harris was serious and hard-working, and always got things done on time, but he could also be “a goofy guy,” and fun-loving, said Rashain Adams Jr., president of ASILI.

“He was extremely authentic, and one of a kind,” Adams said.

A CSTEP Scholar 

A native of Orange County, New York, Harris graduated from Regis High School in Manhattan in 2018 before coming to Fordham and joining CSTEP, a statewide program that prepares college students from underrepresented backgrounds for careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), or careers in healthcare or in licensed fields. Harris was interested in law school, said Renaldo Alba, associate director of the Fordham CSTEP program and its partner program for younger students, STEP.

Harris was a Dean’s List student double-majoring in philosophy and German language and literature, said Lisa Gill, Ph.D., assistant dean for the senior class at Fordham College at Rose Hill. Harris was also pursuing a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps through its Platoon Leaders Class and was set to become a 2nd lieutenant on June 10.

He was a member of the Caribbean and African Students Association, among his other roles, and he was described as someone who often brought different campus groups together for discussions.

“Vincent was a talented, warm-hearted, and highly engaged member of our campus community who gave of himself in so many ways,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “Words cannot fully convey the tragedy of losing someone so young and so full of promise.”

Harris had received the C. David Ferguson CSTEP Scholar Award on May 5 in a ceremony at the Rose Hill campus. He had served in CSTEP’s companion STEP program for junior- and high-school students by teaching a seminar course—Philosophy and the Black Experience—to STEP students on Saturdays last fall at Rose Hill, Alba said.

He was also a tutor/peer counselor for STEP students enrolled in math, earth sciences, and rhetoric enrichment courses taught on campus by area high school teachers, he said, serving as a role model and helping to demystify the college experience and make it more accessible. In addition, Harris was part of a trio of CSTEP students who visited area schools on weekdays for conversations that supported a college access and student life curriculum, Alba said.

Harris had served as treasurer of ASILI and was vice president of the student organization this semester, Adams said. Harris played a significant role in arranging the virtual Fordham event in February featuring prominent author and activist Cornel West, Ph.D. “Without him, it wouldn’t have happened,” Adams said.

Geraldo De La Cruz, a senior in the Gabelli School of Business and fellow ASILI board member, said Harris loved to be active, and was often in the gym. He was passionate about his opinions, which were always well-reasoned, De La Cruz said.

Full of Energy

Harris’s fellow Loschert Hall resident assistant and ASILI board member, Sydni Britton, said “he very much cared about whatever he’s talking about, whatever he’s doing, whatever he’s involved in.”

He showed fortitude in his well-grounded perspectives on societal and political issues, “and that’s an admirable quality, especially if someone wants to be a leader,” she said. He did, however, show he could change his views based on discussion and new information—“a very difficult balance that many people can’t do,” said Britton, also a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior.

She noted his love for the outdoors, which came out during a hiking trip in the New York outskirts that they organized for Loschert Hall students last fall. “It was really cool to see how enthusiastic he was with the students about the outdoors.”

She described him as someone who wanted to make the most of every day. “He was definitely always about being in service of others,” she said.

Anita Adu Manu described him as humble, never wanting to be rewarded for anything, and “incredibly smart.”

She said that she and his other friends were going to try to finish out the semester showing Harris’s same joyful spirit.

“‘There’s nothing in life that’s out of reach’—that’s something Vincent always told us,” she said.

A memorial Mass for Vincent Harris will be held in the University Church at Rose Hill on Friday, May 13, at 12:15 p.m.

The fellowship was created to help train future leaders in public service. Fellows spend nine months focusing on civic engagement within various organizations, and develop a final independent project in cooperation with an agency of their choice.

Patterson, who majored in women, gender, and sexuality studies and took both pre-med and pre-law classes at Fordham, said she plans to use the fellowship to learn cross-sector approaches to eradicating health disparities in New York City.

Growing up as a Jamaican immigrant in Mount Vernon, New York, Patterson saw many of these injustices firsthand. At Fordham, she dedicated much of her time outside the classroom to fighting or bringing awareness to these inequities. As a senior she was president of ASILI—Fordham’s black student alliance—and she participated in several Global Outreach projects. She credits her Fordham Fund Scholarship with allowing her to immerse herself in the full Fordham experience.

Patterson became especially passionate about issues of racial injustice through her work with Urban Plunge, an optional pre-orientation program run by Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning.

Over a three-day period at the beginning of her first year at Fordham, Patterson participated in one of several community-enriching programs offered throughout the Bronx and Manhattan. She loved the program so much that she became an Urban Plunge assistant for the next three years.

“It was a transformative experience that I think … planted the seeds in my mind for all of this,” she said. “It allowed me to become more social justice oriented as I was looking into a career in the health profession. I started to understand the racial inequality and health disparities within our current system.”

Patterson wrote her thesis on the relationship between African American women and the American health care system. “My Fordham education has helped guide my decision-making,” she said. “Fordham allowed me to follow my passions and has challenged me to become my best self.”

Now through the Coro Fellowship, Patterson is working with the executive vice president for strategy and innovation at the New York City Housing Authority, more commonly known by its acronym, NYCHA.

“Coro is providing me with inquiry tools, leadership training, and exposure through hands-on learning that I don’t think I would have gained elsewhere,” Patterson said. Next, she plans to apply to law school or pursue a master’s in public health.

“With this fellowship, I do feel like I am closer to achieving my goal,” she said.

According to ASILI president Amirah Brown, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior, the show aimed to highlight fashions representing the African diaspora.

The fashion show featured clothing from Blipstar, JackRabbit, and BRWN, which were created by Fordham students and alumni. Models from all backgrounds also sported colorful dashikis by the Afrocentric, Brooklyn-based company Noni, and streetwear by TMS.

“We feel that showcasing clothing is the best way to represent the culture,” said Brown.

The pair often throw spontaneous dinners for large groups. But on this rainy night they were expecting just a few friends. In their off-campus Bronx apartment, Otis Redding and Van Morrison tunes played, candles flickered, and their kitchen radiated warmth and a scent that was just barely sweet. Madsen was prepping the first course.

“I’m just making something to get you guys started,” he says to a guest, straightening up from the oven, where he’d been inspecting his loaf of sourdough. “I got into breadmaking last year. It’s really fun, because sourdough has a science. You have to create lacto-fermentation, you have to harvest your own yeast,” says the son of a chemistry teacher.

After quickly spraying some water into the oven to maintain humidity, he notes, “I’m working on perfecting crust. I remember being a little kid saying I don’t like the crust—now I’m so excited about crust!”

Madsen and Brown lived across the hall from each other freshman year and became fast friends, bonding over, among other things, their love of cooking. They moved in together last year, along with two other Gabelli students. They were excited to find an apartment with a nice kitchen and separate dining space, as well as a sprawling outdoor patio.

“We called this apartment ‘the Dream,’” Madsen says. “Other places were a little closer to campus, but we said, ‘this place has granite countertops!’” They’ve hosted large barbecues with homemade-barbecue-sauce ribs and live bands on their patio, as well as more low-key indoor gatherings. Last year, they had about 40 people over for a “Friendsgiving” feast—which included a 15-pound turkey and 15 pounds of ribs.

While he waits for Brown to come home with the evening’s main ingredients, Madsen gets to work on his spicy carrot soup, which he makes with carrots he picked from St. Rose’s Garden on the Rose Hill campus, where he volunteers. He’s also using some selects from his big batch of red and green peppers—spicy and sweet—which he grew himself. He dices and slices, tossing ingredients into the blender while keeping an eye on his bread. Soon he’ll plate them together—the sourdough ready to soak up the piping hot soup.

Brown arrives laden with packages from Arthur Avenue, where he and Madsen shop “almost exclusively.” He unwraps a thick, bright-red cut of beef from Vincent’s Meat Market (the “best butcher shop in the Bronx,” he says) a large silvery striped bass, and a slippery whole octopus, which he will confidently drop into a pot of boiling water.

Brown says he developed his culinary skills when he was a child. “I’m a really picky eater, so I cooked for myself,” except for when his father made southern food. “I made my own eggs—put stuff in them that I liked.”

Despite being busy college students and gourmet chefs, both young men have significant work responsibilities. Brown’s late father was an artist—a painter known for his portraits of jazz and blues musicians—so Brown works with museums and galleries that show his father’s work. He’s also on the executive board of ASILI—the Black student alliance at Fordham—and is a research assistant with Fordham’s Bronx African American History Project. Madsen works as a bookkeeper in his father’s real estate development firm, which brought him to Australia for the summer to work with a client. Both students are studying entrepreneurship at Gabelli.

With so much going on, one wouldn’t think there’d be time for such epicurean endeavors. But the roommates say that cooking helps them “de-stress.” Also? “We just really love doing it,” says Brown, who, truth be told, is not a total amateur. He worked for a time for a chef in Arizona who’s now working in France. His favorite thing to cook? Coq au vin.

With his creamy peppercorn sauce simmering, the octopus boiling, and the steak in the oven, Brown sits at the dining table with his laptop open. “Sorry, I’m finishing a paper,” he says. It’s midterm time so he must multitask, but he’s not worried that anything will burn or boil over. “At this point, I’ve been cooking so long I have an internal timer.”

Meanwhile, Madsen’s got his mind on his peppers and how they might complement the octopus.

“Can I make the sauce, Bentley? Please, please?”

Brown gives him the OK. “Jake loves sauces,” he tells a guest.

Madsen heads to the stove. “This sauce is new—today,” he declares. He concocts a thick, sweet and spicy sauce using passion fruit juice, pineapple chunks, vinegar, ketchup, and several treasures from St. Rose’s Garden, including tomatillos and cayenne, scorpion, and Tabasco peppers.

Madsen uses his peppers to make batches of hot sauce, which he always keeps on hand. After a friend gave him a Carolina Reaper plant—which yields the hottest pepper in the world—he decided to challenge himself. “I said, ‘I’m gonna make a hot sauce that uses Carolina Reaper that isn’t masochistic.” His finished product uses mango, pineapple, ginger, and lime, and as promised, does not set the mouth on fire. (Though it’s still got plenty of kick.)

Soon friends are trickling into the apartment, and everyone’s sitting down to eat. Eleni Koukoulas, a Gabelli School senior, said she’s been over once or twice before to eat with the Fordham foodies.

“It’s not very conventional college,” she says. “You could just tell it’s something they really love, and that they love to share it with other people.”

As everyone digs in, Brown hears one of his other roommates come in the front door. “Hey, Phil,” he shouts. “Come get you some food!”