In a Q&A, Nuñez talked about the board’s vision for Fordham, including the University’s commitment to global education; its Jesuit identity, and the need to embrace new technologies like AI. 

You have led the international divisions of major U.S. media companies, including CBS, where you brought some of the world’s most well-known shows to a global audience. How will you bring your experience in media and communications—and your global perspective—to this role? 

My experience has given me unique insights. Corporations historically viewed their businesses through a bifurcated lens: international vs. domestic. With time and evolution, that paradigm has shifted to mostly a global view.

Likewise, I want to help Fordham to continue to grow globally. When I was a student, Fordham was mostly a tri-state area university. Now it is a nationally recognized institution. California, where I live, is our third largest feeder state into Fordham for undergraduates. International students make up roughly 7% of our undergraduates and 11% of the entire Fordham population. In the last few years, we have seen an increase in recruitment from countries like India and Vietnam. We recently held regional alumni receptions in Beijing, Hong Kong, Rome, and Shanghai, and Dean Aksoy announced the relaunch of the Doctor of Professional Studies in Business program with Peking University. There was also a contingent led by President Tetlow at our incredible campus in London this year. 

Many opportunities already exist, but we need to continue to recruit and expand—nationally and internationally—and offer more of our students the opportunity to study abroad, seeing firsthand our world’s different governments, cultures, and religions, while broadening their perspective. 

You started as chair-elect on the same day that Tania Tetlow became Fordham’s 33rd president. Can you tell us about your shared vision for Fordham?

There’s no question about the great impact that President Tetlow has already had on Fordham. Our shared vision is one of opportunity, while confronting the current challenges facing higher education, like accessibility and affordability.

Fordham is a Jesuit Catholic institution in the greatest city in the world. Thirty-six percent of our undergraduates identify as Catholic, so clearly, concepts of a Jesuit education resonate, irrespective of religious background. It’s who we are and will always be, and what separates us from other educational institutions in New York. We have tremendous opportunities to evolve. And we have an innovative and abundantly gifted president working with our engaged board members, many of whom are themselves first-generation college alums, who will lead us boldly into Fordham’s next chapter. 

You are the first Hispanic person to serve in this role. How will this influence your leadership?

We have incredible diversity on our board. The overwhelming majority of trustees are Fordham graduates who came from very humble backgrounds, from across the country and outside the U.S. They were fortunate to be able to go out into the world and succeed, after graduating with a Fordham degree and a Jesuit education. Now they want to give back to Fordham. And at this pivotal moment, with President Tetlow starting her second year in office, we want the best and brightest sitting around that table, engaging with the challenges and opportunities ahead of us. 

My participation on the board and being chair of the board reflects that great diversity. I’m extremely proud of my Cuban background and heritage and proud that Fordham has such great diversity, which includes a large percentage of students who are Hispanic. It’s a great honor for me to be the first Hispanic chair—and being asked to serve in this position.

As higher education—and the workplace in general—are facing disruption from AI, can you tell us how your industry faced similar challenges, and how and whether AI had already started to disrupt your work in global communications?

I worked in an industry that probably had more revolutionary changes than any other over the last five years. Those changes were primarily driven by technology, which significantly impacted the way people consumed content and how content was monetized. We transitioned from the old-fashioned way of watching linear television during set times scheduled by companies to the flexibility of watching content at any time. That’s an over-simplistic version of the impact of technology on the media industry, but with that came groundbreaking changes. It was a difficult undertaking, but there was no choice but to embrace it and move on. 

That’s been the same issue with all new technologies. There’s a certain level of fear when something new comes along. But you can’t run away from it—and you can’t run away from AI. We have to embrace it, study it, know it, teach it, and figure out its benefits, while trying to protect ourselves from its pitfalls. You embrace it, and you move on. 

Any final thoughts? 

I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams that this Cuban kid who commuted on the D train from Hell’s Kitchen to Fordham would end up serving on its board for 11 years, and now serve as its chair. It’s an honor to be a voice for the board and to work closely with our president at a key moment for our country and the world where education in general, and Jesuit education in particular, are abundantly needed. I look forward to every opportunity to give back to Fordham, and to thank other donors who have invested in our noble mission. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

They begin their term alongside new board chair Armando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82, who took office on July 1.

Read more about our new trustees below.

Donald “Don” Almeida, GABELLI ’73
Retired Vice Chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC 

At PwC, Almeida was responsible for the firm’s global clients, markets, and industries. In addition to serving as a vice chairman, he worked as the client service vice chairman for the U.S. firm, a managing partner for several U.S. industry groups, and a member of the U.S. Board of Partners and PwC Global Board of Partners. In a career spanning four decades, he has served in several market-facing leadership roles with large multinational companies. He sits on the boards of multiple organizations, including WellDoc and Cardinal Hayes High School. 

Decades after graduating from the Gabelli School of Business with his bachelor’s degree in accounting, Almeida has continued to pay it forward at Fordham. He previously served as vice chairman of the Board of Trustees and is now a trustee, a member of the Gabelli School Advisory Board and Cura Personalis campaign cabinet, and a Gabelli School adjunct instructor. Almeida is also related to three Rams: his twin brother, David, GABELLI ’73; his nephew, David Almeida Jr., GABELLI ’03; and his cousin, Victor Frazao, FCRH ’70. 

Almeida lives in Armonk, New York, with his wife, Gail. They have two children, Gabriella and Matthew. 

Mandell L. Crawley, GABELLI ’09
Executive Vice President/Chief Human Resources Officer, Morgan Stanley

Crawley began his nearly 30-year career at Morgan Stanley when he was 17 years old. He rose in the ranks from a high school intern to a senior leader, in company positions that range from head of private wealth management and international wealth management, to global chief marketing officer, to head of U.S. fixed income sales and distribution for wealth management. Today he serves as Morgan Stanley’s chief human resources officer and as a member of several company committees and boards. In addition, he serves on the board of the national Boys and Girls Club and previously served on the board of Covenant House New York, an organization that helps youth experiencing homelessness. 

Crawley earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northeastern Illinois University and an M.B.A. with honors from Fordham. Over the past decade, he has given back to the Fordham community in many ways—as a motivational speaker to student-athletes; as a special adviser for diversity, equity, and inclusion planning and programming at the Gabelli School of Business; and as a member of the Gabelli School’s centennial working committee, among other roles. In 2022, he served as a speaker at the Gabelli School’s graduate diploma ceremony, where he received an honorary doctor of humane letters. 

Crawley, who is originally from Chicago, now lives in New Rochelle, New York, with his wife, Allison, and their twin daughters, Jaedyn and Jordyn. 

Sheryl M. Sillery Dellapina,
FCRH ’87, PAR ’24
Officer, Dellapina Family Foundation 

After an early career in media production at Grey Advertising, Dellapina raised three children in London. Dellapina is now engaged in philanthropic work through the Dellapina Family Foundation.

Dellapina earned her bachelor’s degree in communications from Fordham. She now serves on Fordham College at Rose Hill’s Board of Visitors. She and her husband, Jeffrey, are also members of the Cura Personalis campaign cabinet and the Parents’ Leadership Council. Her husband, Jeffrey, is the chief financial officer of Vitol Group, a multinational energy and commodity trading organization.

The couple have three sons: Spencer; Connor; and Ian, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who plays club rugby.

Dellapina and her family split their time between England, New Jersey, and Florida, but she is a Fordham Ram at heart. Last year, instead of staying in London to attend the Platinum Jubilee celebrations honoring Queen Elizabeth II, she decided to attend her 35th Fordham Jubilee reunion.

Lori Cruz Doty, PAR ’20, ’21, ’23, ’26
Secretary and Treasurer, Doty Family Foundation 

Doty is secretary and treasurer of the Doty Family Foundation, a civic activist, and a California rancher who grows coffee beans, avocados, and grapes. 

She and her husband, Steve, are proud Fordham parents. They have four daughters, including three who have either graduated from or currently attend Fordham: Tara, FCRH ’20, GABELLI ’21; Jessica, who graduated from the Gabelli School of Business this year; and Gabrielle, a sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. At Fordham, Doty serves as a member of the Cura Personalis campaign cabinet and the executive committee of the President’s Council. She and her husband serve as vice chairs of the Parents’ Leadership Council. The couple has also hosted a summer send-off reception in their Southern California home. 

Doty is originally from California and graduated from the University of La Verne. She and her family split their time between California and New York City. 

Joseph G. Marina, S.J., GSE ’99
President of The University of Scranton 

Father Marina has served as president of The University of Scranton since 2021. He was previously the provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor of education at Le Moyne College (where he also briefly served as acting president), dean of Providence College’s School of Continuing Education, assistant dean at Montclair State University’s College of Science and Mathematics, and an assistant dean at St. John’s University, among other positions. He has also served on the boards of multiple institutions, including St. Thomas Aquinas College, Regis University, Canisius College, Canisius High School, Xavier High School, Le Moyne College, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, New York. 

Father Marina holds five degrees: a Ph.D. in administration and supervision from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education, a Master of Divinity and a master’s degree in theology from Boston College, and a master’s degree in secondary education and bachelor’s degree in physical sciences from St. John’s University. His research interests include leadership and organizational change, as well as scripture and the question of non-belief. Father Marina entered the Society of Jesus in 2004 and was ordained to the priesthood in 2012. 

Thomas J. Scirghi, S.J., GSAS ’80
Associate Professor of Theology at Fordham

Father Scirghi is an associate professor of theology at Fordham, where he specializes in the theology of sacraments and liturgy, as well as the theory and practice of preaching. He has taught courses and workshops on preaching for priests, deacons, and lay ecclesial ministers in locations around the world, including Africa, Asia, and Australia. He has taught at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and the Jesuit College of Theology in Melbourne, Australia. He also served as the Thomas More Chair of Catholic Studies, in a joint appointment between the University of Western Australia and the University of Notre Dame Australia. In addition, he has published several texts, including Everything Is Sacred: An Introduction to the Sacrament of Baptism (Paraclete Press, 2012) and Living Beauty: The Art of Liturgy (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007) with his colleague Alejandro Garcia-Rivera. He holds five degrees, including a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham; a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California; an S.T.L. from the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, formerly known as the Weston Jesuit School of Theology; a doctor of theology from Boston University; and a bachelor’s degree from Le Moyne College. 

David M. Tanen, LAW ’96
Co-founder and Partner, Two River, LLC 

Tanen is a co-founder and partner of Two River, a New York-based venture capital firm focused on creating, financing, and operating development stage life sciences companies. In addition, he is a co-founder of a number of biotechnology companies, including Kite Pharma, Inc., where he served as corporate secretary and general counsel until its acquisition by Gilead Sciences in 2017. Tanen also serves on the board of directors of Kronos Bio, Inc., and as corporate secretary of Allogene Therapeutics, Inc., each a publicly traded life science company. Tanen also serves as an officer and director of several privately-held biotechnology companies and as an adviser to Vida Ventures, LLC, a life science investment firm. 

Tanen earned his J.D. from Fordham’s School of Law. He now serves on the school’s Dean’s Planning Council and the Entrepreneurial Law Advisory Council. Tanen, who is originally from Massachusetts, earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from George Washington University. He now lives in New Jersey and has three children.

“Father Sosa is both deeply spiritual and entirely pragmatic. He comes from higher education, so he understands the challenges and opportunities we face,” said Tetlow. “We talked and laughed about all sorts of things, but especially about how we can deepen our Jesuit mission, even as we transition to lay leadership.”

A Personal Endorsement of President Tetlow

The meeting between Father General Sosa and Fordham’s newest president—the first woman and layperson to hold the position—was important for Fordham, said John Cecero, S.J., vice president for mission integration and ministry at Fordham. 

“From the perspective of the Society, it was probably the strongest endorsement of Tania and her leadership that one could possibly get,” Father Cecero said. 

The introduction between the two leaders is not unusual. Over the past two centuries, other superiors general have established relationships with Fordham and also visited the University campus. In 2013, Father General Sosa’s predecessor, Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., celebrated Mass at the University Church. In 1991, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., delivered the homily at the baccalaureate Mass and the benediction at commencement the next day. In 1966, Pedro Arrupe, S.J., served as the featured speaker at a special academic convocation celebrating Fordham’s 125th anniversary. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, past Fordham president Vincent O’Keefe, S.J., was elected assistant ad providentiam to Father General Arrupe in 1975 and later served as vicar general of the Society.  

From Father General Sosa’s Perspective: Challenges in Higher Education

The luncheon between Father General Sosa and Tetlow took place in his private dining room in the Jesuit Curia, where they were joined by Father Cecero, who has met Father General Sosa several times in his past role as provincial of the Jesuits’ USA Northeast Province. Armando Nuñez Jr., chair-elect of Fordham’s Board of Trustees; and Douglas Marcouiller, S.J., regional assistant for the USA Assistancy at the Jesuit Curia, also joined the meeting. 

Father General Sosa was elected as the 31st leader of the Jesuits in 2016. He has previously served in leadership positions for the Society, including director of a research and social action center and the Society’s provincial superior in his native Venezuela. He also participated in the Society’s 33rd general congregation, where he served as the youngest delegate at 34 years old. He is a scholar, political scientist, and former educator. 

Over a traditional Italian meal, Father General Sosa and the Fordham leaders discussed topics both light and heavy, including challenges facing Jesuit schools today, said Father Cecero.

“The traditional mission paradigm emphasized the delivery of a body of truths and traditions to the university community. Father General challenged us to shift that paradigm, emphasizing instead the need to engage in encounter and dialogue with all university constituents, so that out of that fruitful exchange, we will come together to a much richer understanding of who we are and why we exist,” said Father Cecero. 

An Ongoing Connection with Jesuit Leadership

After the luncheon, Father General Sosa met the entire Fordham delegation on the Jesuit Curia’s rooftop, where he greeted each person and then posed for a group photo in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. Then the delegation toured the Curia itself, including its chapel that contains the relics of Jesuit saints. 

Nuñez emphasized that establishing relationships with leaders like Father General Sosa is important in maintaining Fordham’s Jesuit identity. 

“As someone who is a big believer in the power of Jesuit education, I thought it was an incredible experience to be able to interact in person with the leader of the Jesuits,” said Nuñez, who graduated from the Gabelli School of Business. “Now that we no longer have a Jesuit president, it’s more important than ever for the board and the lay leadership of the University to be aware of the Jesuit mission and identity. I hope that connecting with the Jesuit leadership continues to be an ongoing tradition.”

This article is part of a series of stories about the Rome pilgrimage. Read the original full-length story here. 

All of you have traveled to Rome before. How was this experience different? 

AN: This was my first pilgrimage. Our access to the Vatican hierarchy, our meeting with the head of the Jesuits, the opportunity to bond with other members of Fordham—and the timing of all that with our new leadership—was quite extraordinary.

KB: Eight years ago, I embarked on a pilgrimage with my late husband, Stephen Bepler, the love of my life. Steve loved his Jesuit education at Fordham, and he was fully indoctrinated in how a Jesuit education is a transforming experience. For many years, there was a paperback book on his desk—Ignatius Loyola: Spiritual Exercises by a Jesuit named Joseph Tetlow—and I often saw it, not realizing that someday I would meet his niece, Tania Tetlow. A few months ago, Tania sent me my own copy. I read the entire book before our 2022 pilgrimage and took it with me to Rome. I wanted to see what encouraged Steve about his Jesuit education. I’m glad that I rejoined that extraordinary pilgrimage and spiritual reflection with Father Cecero and, of course, Roger Milici. On the trip, I also met a woman who is agnostic, yet appreciates, admires, and respects what we’re doing. She sees this as an opportunity to understand not only her perspective of what religion is, but to see how people gravitate towards this idea of spirituality and St. Ignatius. 

MJB: I first visited Rome 20 years ago on a vacation with my best friend—my first time traveling outside the country as an adult. During this pilgrimage to Rome, my goal was to have a stronger connection with Fordham and a deeper understanding of the history that the University is built upon. When I became a trustee, I learned a lot of information about the Jesuits. But it’s different to experience something in person, instead of reading about it. This trip was more of a lived experience and it gave me the opportunity to spend time with Tania, fellow trustees, and other friends of Fordham. Overall, the pilgrimage helped me to deepen my love for and commitment to the University and allowed me to look within myself.

What is your relationship with the Catholic faith?  

AN: I am Catholic. I’m the beneficiary of a Jesuit education, between Xavier High School and Fordham, and I continue to experience a deep appreciation for the history, legacy, and continued leadership of the Jesuits.

KB: I was born and raised Catholic. While I don’t necessarily look to the hierarchy of the church, I follow my heart and my spirituality in the journey of my life to understand something that is bigger than I am. 

MJB: I was raised Catholic. I respect many things that I learned from my Catholic upbringing and other faiths, but it took me a long time to understand what I believe in and what’s important to me. I don’t like putting myself in a box, but I would identify as spiritual. 

What was one of your favorite sites you visited during the pilgrimage? 

AN: I’ve visited the Sistine Chapel many times, but every time I walk inside, it feels like the first time. It’s such a powerful experience to see the hand of God through Michelangelo. 

KB: The quarters of St. Ignatius himself. Sitting there and experiencing Father Cecero’s Mass—and then hearing Tania Tetlow, a trained opera singer, sing a hymn—was utter perfection. It was simple, but so powerful that it took my breath away. 

MJB: There were so many sites. When you’re in a place like a church, it evokes the enormity of so much history. It reminds you of how small we are and how big the world is, of everything that’s come before and everything that’s to come after. I loved being in a place where that history felt palpable. 

How do you feel the delegation’s meetings at the Vatican have helped to advance Fordham’s mission? 

AN: It was gratifying and reassuring to hear Cardinal Versaldi talk about how our mandate in Catholic education is global because Fordham itself is global. Nearly 9% of the undergraduate class of 2026 comes from outside the U.S., and we have a London campus and plenty of study abroad opportunities for our U.S. students. We still have room to expand. It’s important that we continue to form relationships with other Jesuit and Catholic institutions around the world. It’s part of the mandate of being Jesuit, of being global. Our new ties with the Vatican will continue to be important as we enter this next exciting chapter at Fordham with President Tetlow. 

KB: It was extraordinary to be brought into the Vatican and to meet the hierarchy of not only our church, but also the Jesuits. This is critical because we are developing new diplomatic ties for Fordham in Rome. I hope that on our next trip there—hopefully a year from now, where more trustees will join us and understand the value of this pilgrimage—that we have a two-way dialogue with Villa Nazareth. 

MJB: I enjoyed our meeting with Cardinal Versaldi, who spoke about respecting the roots and the history of the Catholic church while being able to change with the times. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him bring that into the conversation. 

Why was this trip so important at this particular time in Fordham’s history?  

AN: We are a Jesuit university, but our students come from many different backgrounds. Irrespective of their religious affiliation—or no affiliation at all—the concept of a Jesuit education still resonates with them. As we transition to lay leadership, we as a board have more responsibility than ever to uphold our identity as the Jesuit University of New York. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article is part of a series of stories about the Rome pilgrimage. Read the original full-length story here. 

Cohen’s legacy includes launching and leading four pharmaceutical companies and testifying before Congress to expose corruption in the Food and Drug Administration. Most recently, he served as the founding CEO and chairman of Summit BioSciences Inc., a Lexington, Kentucky-based pharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures nasal spray medicines.

“[He] was an advocate for Fordham University since graduating from the College of Pharmacy, and always credited the experience and education he received at Fordham as the building block for his future business endeavors,” Cohen’s son Richard wrote in an email.

Although Fordham’s College of Pharmacy closed in 1972, Cohen remained close to his alma mater, particularly the Gabelli School of Business. After serving on the University’s Board of Trustees from 2000 to 2004, he became a trustee fellow. He and his wife, Nadia, have also been generous benefactors of Fordham, supporting scholarship funds for students and research at the Graduate School of Social Service’s Ravazzin Center on Aging and Intergenerational Studies, among other initiatives.

In 1997, Fordham awarded Cohen an honorary Doctor of Science degree during the University’s annual commencement ceremony. Sharon Smith, Ph.D., then dean of the University’s undergraduate business school, read the citation.

“One of the enduring challenges facing American society is the development of a system of health care that is both medically and economically sound and responds to the needs of all of our citizens,” Smith said. “Mr. Cohen’s success in providing generic drugs to the public has set a standard for other business leaders to emulate.”

To that end, Cohen made a significant impact on the global pharmaceutical industry. He worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development and Egypt’s Ministry of Health to expand the use and availability of generic drugs, and was invited to Turkey and Mexico to work with industry leaders on maximizing pharmaceutical exports to reach new territories.

Under his leadership, Summit BioSciences achieved annual sales between $1 million and $5 million and expanded its facilities and staff by nearly triple since he founded the company in 2008. In the late 1990s, Cohen founded Intranasal Therapeutics, now known as Ikano Therapeutics, and served as the company’s CEO and chairman. He made his first foray in the industry in 1959, when he co-founded Davis-Edwards Pharmacal Corporation, which became one of the first companies to manufacture and promote multisource drugs.

Another milestone in Cohen’s career was his leadership of Barr Laboratories Inc., a pharmaceutical company he launched in 1970 that traded on the New York Stock Exchange and grew to more than $3 billion in annual sales before the company was acquired by Teva for $7.5 billion in 2008. During his tenure, Forbes magazine named him among the 200 Best Small Companies’ Chief Executives. As CEO of the firm, Cohen testified before Congress to expose several corrupt officials at the FDA who were later found guilty of taking bribes and manipulating the drug approval process.

Cohen was a founding member of the Generic Pharmaceutical Industry Association (the predecessor to the Association for Accessible Medicines) and a founding member and executive board member of the National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. He also served as chairman of New Concepts for Living, an organization that provides support for people living with developmental disabilities.

After he graduated from Fordham, Cohen earned an M.B.A. from the City College of New York and completed a program in organizational change and marketing management at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He enjoyed traveling with his wife and had a keen interest in New York City architecture and World War II history.

He is survived by his wife, Nadia; daughter, Andrea Cohen-Lenihan; and three sons, Richard, Steven, and Michael.

—Claire Curry

Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86, is the driving force behind the new Diversity Fund, which will provide financial aid to economically disadvantaged undergraduates and those from underrepresented groups who are living on campus. 

“The difficulty of getting into college if you don’t have the ability to pay is enormous. The ability to stay in college without the proper means is even harder. And if you’ve managed to get in, there’s also the setback of working and paying off student loans,” said Rainford, a Fordham alumna and University trustee who spent 17 years paying off her student loans. “It’s disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx students, and Fordham needs to give these students a more equitable opportunity to attend. This fund was intended to do some of that.”

The goal of the new fund is to encourage a diverse student body, Rainford said. She explained that it will provide “last-dollar” financial aid, including funding for student housing, to undergraduate students at the Rose Hill or Lincoln Center campuses. Funds can also be used for University-accredited study abroad programs. 

“It’s almost like a top-off fund,” Rainford said. “There’s a student that wants to come to Fordham, we want them to come to Fordham, and we do not want them turning down a Fordham education because they don’t have that final $2,000 or $5,000.” 

Rainford, a Bronx native who overcame many hardships as a young woman, is now the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies, a consulting firm that helps senior leaders increase diversity and inclusion within their companies. She was previously a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the company’s Advancing Black Leaders strategy, and a 21-year veteran at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she became the first Black female senior vice president. 

Two years ago, Rainford created the Valerie Irick Rainford Scholarship Fund to help students of color attend Fordham. But she said there were still many students who didn’t receive enough financial aid. Rainford said she wanted to multiply her initial effort, especially after a year marked by racial unrest. So at the end of 2020, she set the wheels in motion for the Diversity Fund. 

“There’s something to be said about diversity in the leadership positions. This is the kind of thing you can do and spark others to do when you have a seat at the table,” said Rainford, who joined the Board of Trustees in 2019. 

Several other trustees have already donated to the fund, including Thomas J. Regan, S.J., co-chair of the board’s Mission and Social Justice Committee and rector of Fordham’s Jesuit community. 

“The Jesuits at Spellman are happy to contribute to the Diversity Fund in the hope of advancing the University’s goal to make Fordham the most diverse and welcoming community it can be,” Father Regan said. 

Rainford said anyone can contribute to the fund, and she challenges more members of the Fordham community—alumni, parents, families, friends, corporate sponsors—to help her meet this new commitment. 

“The goal is to have others match what I’m trying to do: to create more opportunities for students of color to attend an elite school when they may not have the funding to,” Rainford said. “Funding should not be the thing that keeps them from going to college. This is intended to close that gap.”  

Make a gift to the Diversity Fund here. Visit the 2021 Fordham Giving Day website for more information.

To illustrate the story, “A Communal Reckoning,” we commissioned Bronx artist Laura James, a painter and illustrator who specializes in sacred images and scenes of everyday life. James uses vibrant colors and draws on Ethiopian Christian iconography in her work, an influence evident in the wide, almond-shaped eyes of the people she depicts.

“Those eyes—they’re all over in Ethiopian art, but especially in the churches,” she said. “They often have angels painted on the walls, just heads and wings with these great big eyes, and [the idea is] that they’re watching you, they’re protecting you.”

For Together We Rise, the painting featured on the cover, James worked with Fordham Magazine art director Ruth Feldman. She chose to depict the story’s “secular theme with that ancient style,” she said, and with Fordham’s Keating Hall and Edwards Parade in the background.

“It’s not churchy; it’s not a Bible story,” James said of the painting, but she wanted to give people a sense of the spiritual nature of the work of anti-racism, particularly at a Jesuit university. She said that came through to her as she read the cover story, a roundtable conversation among six members of the University’s Board of Trustees.

“To see people, to hear them, to talk and communicate—it’s all very, very important. There are more students in the image than anything else, and it really is up to them to hold people accountable and make sure discussions happen, the listening and the hearing, and the seeing with these eyes,” she said.

“We have to see the humanity and the divinity in one another, because yes, we are all made in the image of God, no matter what color you are.”

James said she paid particular attention to the tone of the conversation depicted on the cover.

“Everybody’s not smiling, ‘Oh, I love you,’” she said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re really looking at each other and saying let’s talk about this. There’s so much to learn. And then we have to do something about it, by the way. We can’t just have all this information and sit on it.’”

‘A Sermon for Our Ancestors’

Together We Rise is not the first time James has mixed sacred and secular with a focus on societal issues. In A Sermon for Our Ancestors (2006), she brought the ancient Ethiopian Christian style to bear on U.S. history, juxtaposing 10 scenes of slavery and the slave trade with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-14).

In one scene (in the top center panel), more than a dozen Black people console each other after witnessing a lynching, as two white men look on, indifferent and unmoved. Above that panel James painted the words of the second Beatitude: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And in the painting’s large central panel, Christ addresses groups of enslaved people, some arriving by ship, others in chains, with the words that follow the blessing on those who are persecuted. “Ye are the salt of the earth,” the text reads in part. “Ye are the light of the world.”

“Representing Christ as an African places him in solidarity” with the enslaved people depicted in the painting, Rebekah Eklund wrote in The Visual Commentary on Scripture. “The work’s title points both to the past (the enslaved Africans) and to present-day African Americans (‘our ancestors’). The message is clear: the suffering slaves, and their present-day descendants who suffer still, are blessed.”

‘Love One Another’

The vigilant, mutually supportive group James depicted for Fordham Magazine is more directly related to another one of her earlier works: Love One Another (2000), a detail from which illustrates the feature story in the print edition of the magazine.

James created this earlier work as part of a series of more than 30 paintings she produced to illustrate a Book of the Gospels published by Liturgy Training Publications. She said the Chicago-based Catholic publisher commissioned her to create artworks that would be more inclusive in their depiction of biblical figures and stories, and more reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of the church itself.

For two decades, the book has been used in Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago and throughout the country and the world. It’s currently in its second edition, James said, and this past May, James’ work on it was the subject of a feature in U.S. Catholic magazine.

“The sacred art of Laura James challenges and inspires,” John Christman wrote in that story. “Her compositions are filled with people navigating the difficult task of reaching fullness of life within a community.”

A Community-Focused Artist

James grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, the youngest of eight daughters of immigrants from Antigua, and she has called the Bronx home for the past 17 years. She said she became more involved in her community after she illustrated a children’s book, Anna Carries Water (Tradewind Books, 2014), and the publisher’s biography for her noted that she lives and works in the Bronx.

Today, she is a member of Bronx Community Board 6, which represents the Bathgate, Belmont, East Tremont, and West Farms neighborhoods, and includes Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. She also promotes the work of other artists as the founding director of BX200: The Bronx Visual Artist Directory, an online database that highlights a curated selection of works by more than 200 Bronx artists, connecting them with collectors, businesses, and other artists worldwide.

In 2020, James collaborated with the nonprofit arts group Chashama to curate four public art exhibitions in the windows of 1 Fordham Plaza, just across the street from the Fordham Metro-North stop and the University’s Rose Hill campus.

James said she designed the installations—including Living Walls, about our connections to the natural world, and Black Lives/Black Matters—to “add a bit of artistic color and happiness to Fordham Road,” and to strengthen pedestrians’ sense of hope and community at “a time when we are all feeling isolated” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to painting scenes from the Bible, James has created works inspired by Buddhism and by the Yoruba religion as well as ancient Egypt, often highlighting the divine feminine. She is currently working on a series of 10 paintings on the theme of race and reparations that she said is inspired in part by a William Faulkner quote, taken from his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

James said she is encouraged by the sharpened focus on anti-racism not only at Fordham but throughout the country, particularly among students.

“It’s good—and it’s necessary, it really is, because we cannot go back. All of these Black Lives Matter protests, it’s not like it’s a moment that passed, and it’s done now,” she said. “Once students get to places like Fordham or wherever they’re going to better themselves and their families, they’re going to let people know what’s going on. They’re not going to allow the status quo.”

“We have to move forward,” she added. “[Jesus said,] ‘Love one another.’ That was 2,000 years ago. I don’t know how well that has done, but we’re getting there, slowly but surely—and I think faster now, actually.”

View Laura James’ website to learn more about her and her work.

“The heartfelt testimony given by members of our community in the course of the summer has made it searingly clear that racism is also present here at Fordham,” Father McShane said in his September 12 State of the University address, referring to stories of discrimination students and alumni of color shared, largely on social media.

“As painful as that admission may be, we must face up to it. Therefore, let me be clear: anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion are institutional and mission priorities at Fordham.”

Case in point: The trustees have mandated annual anti-racism training for all faculty, students, staff, and administrators—including the president’s cabinet and the board itself. And they have charged the newly renamed Mission and Social Justice Committee with ensuring that diversity and anti-racism are central to the University’s efforts.

In late October, Fordham Magazine brought together six members of the board for a candid discussion of bias, inclusion, and what it will take to bring about meaningful, lasting change at the University and beyond.

The Participants

VALERIE RAINFORD, FCRH ’86
Moderator
Valerie Rainford is the CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies. Previously, she was a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the company’s Advancing Black Leaders strategy. She also had a 21-year career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she was the first Black woman to rise to senior vice president. She is the author of Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium (Elloree Press, 2014). A Fordham trustee since 2019, she is currently spearheading anti-racism trainings among the trustees and within the University as part of Fordham’s action plan for addressing racism.

ROBERT D. DALEO, GABELLI ’72
Chair, Fordham University Board of Trustees
Bob Daleo is a former vice chairman of Thomson Reuters, where he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer before retiring in 2012. He joined the Fordham Board of Trustees in 2008 and was elected chair in 2012.

MARY ANNE SULLIVAN, TMC ’73
Vice Chair, Fordham University Board of Trustees
Mary Anne Sullivan is senior counsel at Hogan Lovells. Previously, she served as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Energy. She became a Fordham trustee in 2016 and has been vice chair of the board since 2018.

ANTHONY P. CARTER, FCRH ’76
Anthony Carter retired in 2015 as vice president and chief diversity officer at Johnson & Johnson. At Fordham, he has served as a member of the Diversity Task Force, and in 2017 he led the search committee for a chief diversity officer. He joined the board in 2018 and is now co-chair of its Mission and Social Justice Committee.

THOMAS J. REGAN, S.J., GSAS ’82, ’84
Father Regan was named superior of the Jesuit community at Fordham in July 2020. He previously served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School at Loyola University Chicago, and as a Fordham trustee. He rejoined the board this year and is now co-chair of its Mission and Social Justice Committee.

GUALBERTO RODRIGUEZ, FCRH ’95
Gualberto Rodriguez has been the chairman of Grupo Navis since 2017 and managing partner of Semillero Ventures since 2016. From 2005 to 2017, he served as president of Grupo Navis, the San Juan, Puerto Rico-based firm that was founded by his grandfather in 1960 as Caribbean Produce Exchange. He joined the Fordham Board of Trustees in 2019.

The Discussion

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and space.

VALERIE RAINFORD: So, the world has this problem, and many feel it’s pretty overwhelming and don’t know where to start. What gives you hope that we can make progress at Fordham?

BOB DALEO: One of the intentional actions we are taking is refining the focus of the trustees’ Mission and Social Justice Committee, which has oversight responsibility for our antiracism strategy. If we’re going to cure this, you have to start at the board level to make sure that the institution has in its process what the Jesuits have in their heart. And that’s a hard transition, to go from head and heart to how we behave as an institution.

We are an organization whose mission has always been about social justice. We’ve always talked about educating young men and women for others. What does that mean if it’s not for all others?

Calling out “social justice” in the title of this committee is our way of deliberately emphasizing our intent and ensuring that we stay focused.

We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to combating racism, overt and covert, and doing our part to ensure the opportunity and ability for all to generate real wealth, to share in the American dream.

Understanding the Pain

In conversation, the trustees discussed some pernicious examples of bias and racism that students have experienced on campus in recent years—and they related those instances to their own experiences as undergraduates. Allowing these intensely personal stories to surface, they said, is part of the process of spurring the entire Fordham community to reflection and action.

RAINFORD: Are there specific experiences with racism that drive how you think about the work we are undertaking?

ANTHONY CARTER: We had an issue on campus several years ago when I was on the President’s Council. It was explained to me that a Black student, on move-in day—one of the most enthusiastic days for students—went downstairs to bring more stuff up to his dorm room, and when he got back, the N-word was carved into his door.

I wasn’t a trustee at the time, but my son had just graduated a year or so before that happened. I didn’t ask what is wrong with the school. I asked, what’s wrong with our students and families? Our focus was on making sure that the student did not feel the incident was systemic; it was not the baseline of what happens at Fordham.

That example brought back memories that I had of the white student union as a Fordham undergraduate during the 1970s, and my feeling, as a grown man still experiencing these things, is, how do we console? How do we make someone feel whole again? How do we make folks who are constantly subjected to this feel that we are better than this, and that your very being here, and that very experience here, indicates we have a lot of work to do?

I am emboldened, I am hopeful, because the leaders on this team believe as I do, that there’s zero tolerance for racism at Fordham University. And I think our students need to know that.

MARY ANNE SULLIVAN: Hearing Anthony’s examples makes me think of the Instagram posts by Fordham students and alumni after George Floyd was killed, and how shocked and hurt I was at how some Black students had been made to feel unwelcome. There was a story of a student who brought his little brother to see Fordham, and while he was giving his little brother a tour of the campus, he got challenged that he “didn’t belong” there. Having brought my little sister to campus when I was an undergraduate, and having her be so welcomed—it just crushed me to see that Black students were having such a different experience.

RAINFORD: Mary Anne, were you surprised, or was it the contrast that made you feel crushed?

SULLIVAN: It was the contrast, that I had done something so similar and had such an absolutely opposite experience.

GUALBERTO RODRIGUEZ: What it brought up for me is an experience I had in the first month of sophomore year at Fordham. I was in a U.S. history class, and the professor called on me to finish a very common American nursery rhyme parents use to put their kids to sleep. I didn’t know it, and he put me on the spot in front of the entire class by asking, “How come?” “Well, I’m from Puerto Rico,” I responded. And he’s like, “Isn’t that part of the U.S.?”

I felt so ashamed, that I really didn’t belong. I ran to my new theology professor, a Jesuit, and, like Anthony said, he consoled me. He made me realize, “You do belong. I know this professor. He’s a very kind man. He just doesn’t know about your background.”

I had written a letter, in my fear that I somehow found myself in the wrong place. He read my letter—I was trembling—and he said, “I think you should send this to him, and you should have a conversation.” So, my Jesuit professor, through the wisdom of his loving advice, empowered me to take on this issue by myself. And it was a beautiful conversation with a very kind man who simply had never thought about why a student from Puerto Rico would not know a common nursery rhyme in the States.

So my hopes are, in this whole process of tackling racism, that we dig deep for the Jesuit approach, a very loving, consoling, compassionate one, focused on justice with compassion, without anger.

THOMAS REGAN, S.J.: I taught for 19 years at Fairfield University in Connecticut. And Connecticut prides itself on planting dogwood trees. Every spring they have this magnificent dogwood festival, and the colors are just breathtaking. I was living in a residence hall, and I said to the student who lived next door to me, “I know it’s finals, but you need a little break from studying. You have a car. Go up to Greenfield Hill, and just allow yourself to see the beauty of Fairfield.” And so after dinner that night, I walked by his room. I said, “How was the dogwood festival?”

And he says, “Well, it was really pretty, but I got stopped three times by the police in Fairfield.” And your heart just goes out to him. Why can’t he go up to Greenfield Hill, like any other student, and have an enjoyable experience? Why is he deprived of that?

RAINFORD: So, the unfortunate reality is that racism is not new and is as prevalent today as ever. Each of us has seen it before, but have we taken it on to end it? To make it clear that as an organization, we will not tolerate racism? Now is the time to openly and proactively take it on as trustees of this great institution that we all love.

Making Anti-Racism Part of the Fordham DNA

The trustees spoke about the need to root out racism at the University in a systemic way, and why, despite a host of challenges related to remote learning and the ongoing economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are committed to using the board’s authority to unite the community in combating racism and educating for justice.

RAINFORD: What are your thoughts for how we will embed anti-racism policies and practices in how we lead as a board?

CARTER: What I want us to be conscious of is that while we don’t have all the answers, the questions that we’re asking as a governance body can lead us to look for solutions. And not only look for solutions but to hold leaders in the Fordham community and beyond accountable for those solutions.

But there are two things, I call them syndromes. One is the fatigue syndrome. And one is the obvious racism syndrome. The fatigue syndrome allows us to believe, “Oh man, this has been going on for so long.” And I hear this from a lot of my white friends. “It’s not the time to talk about this. Since George Floyd and all the things happening before that, we’re just so fatigued.”

The racism syndrome says to me that we at Fordham have all made ourselves accountable. Whether we experienced racism or not, with our action plans, we embrace the fact that racism affects us all. This is not the time to be fatigued.

There are some things embedded in our strategic plan around this topic. But now we have embraced anti-racism policies and behaviors and mechanisms to solve this thing in a way in which we own it. And our Fordham community must know that, because we put people on notice. We put our own board on notice.

SULLIVAN: If we’re going to be relevant going forward, we have to make rooting out racism part of our DNA. This can’t just be a nice-to-have that we do on the side. It has to be a systemic change that comes about by a thousand different actions we take. It has to be part of our course offerings, part of our student body, part of our faculty, part of our public safety force.

It’s got to be everybody’s job to make Fordham relevant for the future. And the reality is, the future has many more students of color who are going to be looking for places in college, and a society that demands that we be representative of the communities we live in.

At my law firm, we cannot put forward a team for a client on a project if we don’t show that we are including members of color. And Fordham’s role is to fill the pipeline so that those people are there.

And Anthony, we do have a lot in the strategic plan that was already focused towards educating for justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, but we’re now saying with everything we look at, how is it responding to the issue of racism in our society? How are we fixing the problem at Fordham in this one area, in this one area, in this one area?

We have four broad goals in the strategic plan, and I would say three of the four pretty explicitly lend themselves to anti-racism objectives. Holistic student development—addressing the needs of students to feel respected, to feel consoled, when necessary. Walking with our community. We sit in New York City, a very diverse community, and we are not nearly as diverse as the community we sit in. The goal is to develop more partnerships of all kinds that will engage the broader community. We are looking for ways to strengthen what we’re doing to have a greater impact. For example, cybersecurity is an area where we are partnering with the historically Black colleges and universities on a cybersecurity initiative. The fourth broad objective is STEM-plus. I would say people of color are underrepresented in STEM.

I’m a to-do list kind of person, and so I want to see what’s on our to-do list that is going to address this problem so we’re not just having pious thoughts and writing beautiful statements.

Changing the Way Fordham Looks

The trustees spoke about the barriers between Fordham’s campuses and the surrounding areas of New York City, and of efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students.

RAINFORD: Maybe this is for you to help us with, Father, but what is Fordham’s unique opportunity given its Jesuit traditions around social justice? And what’s the thing that gives us the ability to do this differently than probably any other university in New York City?

FATHER REGAN: We have to change the way that Fordham looks. I’m just coming off six years of being dean of arts and sciences at Loyola University Chicago, and every time we hired a tenure-track faculty member, they sent three candidates up to the dean. And so I said, “If we don’t have a person of color on that list, you’re going to get it back.” It’s very competitive, but you have to be really intentional that you’re going to do this and hold people to the fire. Whoever is applying, the HR managers have to say, “Bring me a diverse slate of candidates and let’s change the way that Fordham looks.”

To speak to the Jesuits, we have this incredible Jesuit network. We could create scholarships for the students coming out of the 56 Jesuit high schools in the U.S. If you’re a person of color, you have a home at Fordham. We’re in New York; you can’t get a more diverse city than New York. And so we have to be reflective of this city.

But we also have to make people feel welcome. Because I listen, and see on Instagram—the students want to come, people who work here want to come, but they want to see people who look like them. We really have to say, this is who we are and we’re going to put up the money to make this happen.

RODRIGUEZ: It strikes me that there would be a special Fordham Jesuit way to address, on a day-today basis, the issues of inclusion and racism. That is what I would like to draw from the Jesuit tradition, this idea of comforting and consoling and reconciliation. That could make the process of having a different look to the faces—the process itself—interesting.

For example, an invitation to a prospective African American faculty or staff member would be to be part of a process of change. We have a Jesuit way to explore that experience of not yet being the end result. I think that will make us a very interesting lab as an institution for people who like to be the astronauts, the first on the moon, to experience that in a safe, consoling, socially interesting laboratory.

RAINFORD: I love that concept of a lab for anti-racism, done in a Fordham way, rooted in the Jesuit tradition. Now, how do we get that done?

Mastering the Architecture of Reform

Since the spring, deans, faculty, administrators, students, and staff have been working to advance Fordham’s anti-racism goals, but in conversation, the trustees expressed the need to establish a framework to ensure that the community’s efforts are not only unified but sustainable.

DALEO: In establishing a framework, the first thing you want to do is set the strategy; then you say, as an organization, “Okay, do we have the structure to properly implement that strategy?” And then the third thing is, “Do we have the people in that structure to run that process to implement the strategy?” I think one of the most important things we can do as a board is to be nudging the organization on these issues.

As a board, the one thing I’d like us to always come back to is, “Okay, these are great ideas. How do we get it done?”

We must also continually remind ourselves that our role is one of oversight. We are not the strategists but instead evaluators of the strategy. We have tremendous power, if you will, by shaping that, by pushing back and saying, “Nope, that isn’t quite right. Go back and think about it again.”

CARTER: This is moving. It’s motivating. We can be the masters of the architecture around designing inclusive behavior.

For example, we invite faculty to our board meetings, typically department heads; we should invite faculty of color to periodically meet with us. As the governing body, we determine how we want to engage. And from that engagement, we can become more solutions-oriented. “We’re here to hear you. What can we do?”

FATHER REGAN: Higher education has changed so dramatically, and the pandemic has just put that in floodlights. What does a university do? How is it going to look different after the pandemic? That’s exciting. That’s exactly where we need to go.

CARTER: I’m encouraged by the reports we get on what’s going on with COVID-19, how the University is proactively managing the crisis to protect the Fordham community. It is data-laden, well-researched; there is direction to it. Now we need to say, with that same sort of vigor, how do we apply that to those things that focus on social justice? How do we make that an agenda item with data, with information to measure our progress?

Once you tell somebody, “I need a report on that,” people get pretty serious. So, I think we have the energy to keep us aware of what’s going on with this backdrop we’re living in, but what are the other components that might be missing from those presentations that we need to know?

SULLIVAN: When we’re meeting in person as a board, we routinely have a lunch speaker. I would suggest that we set an expectation that whoever is presenting will address anti-racism. What is their school doing? What is their part of the University doing on this subject to advance our goals?

DALEO: I love all of your ideas, including the suggestion to increase our interaction with students and faculty of color so that we can talk about and learn how these issues affect them directly. As we move forward, the key will be to continually look for ways to institutionalize improvements for long-lasting change. Let’s continue to have these kinds of open discussions more broadly, because it’s easy to get frustrated by the problem of racism, to not know how to solve it.

I believe, and I think Fordham believes, the way you change the world is one life at a time. Our actions need to ensure that we are impacting every single life.

RAINFORD: Team, the essence of this conversation is that while we don’t have all the answers, the board is proactively engaged and owning the challenge. We’re committed to pushing each other and pushing the organization and asking all the questions that will continue to move the organization forward to create sustainable and equitable change. Thank you!

Addressing Racism, Educating for Justice

The University’s anti-racism plan features six broad goals and nearly 40 concrete action steps.

Six Goals, Six Examples of Work Underway

1. Develop robust admissions strategies for effective recruitment of students of color.

Fordham is expanding pipeline programs with local schools, such as Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, that have a high number of Black and Latinx students.

2. Recruit and retain a more diverse faculty, administration, and staff.

Of 26 arts and sciences full-time tenure/tenure-track faculty members hired this year, 50% are persons of color.

3. Develop curricular and cocurricular initiatives that support the imperative of confronting racism and educating for justice.

With support from Teaching Race Across the Curriculum grants, academic departments are integrating questions of race and justice into introductory courses.

4. Create a more welcoming and affirming campus.

A multicultural center will be part of the campus center expansion at Rose Hill, and a similar center will be established at Lincoln Center.

5. Build lasting partnerships with our neighbors.

Fordham has joined the Bronx Is Reading to co-sponsor and co-host the annual Bronx Book Festival and other events.

6. Amplify our voice in educating for justice beyond the campus.

The Center on Race, Law and Justice recently hosted a webinar on police reform that included Benjamin Tucker, LAW ’81, first deputy commissioner of the New York City Police Department.

Read the complete action plan.

Read the December 2020 update on progress the Fordham community has made so far in implementing the initiatives outlined in the action plan.

“Fordham is blessed—a word I do not use lightly—with an exceptional Board of Trustees,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “Our eight new trustees typify the generosity, wisdom, and dedication of Board members. I, and the University, are indebted to them for the time, treasure, and care they bring to Fordham, and especially to our students. I look forward to working with them as we navigate this most challenging of years.”

In the past decade, former and current board members have helped establish endowed chairs and endowed or current-use scholarship funds, fund the construction and renovation of buildings on campus, and guide University policies and initiatives. Recently, the board helped develop the University’s anti-racism action plan and mandated annual anti-racism training for all faculty, administrators, staff, and students—including the president’s cabinet and the board itself. Below are the condensed bios of this year’s newly elected trustees. 

Meaghan Jarensky Barakett, GSS ’16

Founder and Executive Director, One Girl

Barakett is the founder and executive director of One Girl, Inc., a nonprofit that develops young women into leaders through charity, advocacy, and community organizing. She is also a two-time beauty pageant winner; she won the Miss New York USA title in 2005 and Mrs. New York America in 2010. An unusual obstacle in her courtship with her husband, Brett Barakett, led her to become an anti-cyberbullying advocate who has pushed for passage of the E-Impersonation Prevention Act, New York Senate Bill S5871-A, which would elevate the crime to a felony. Barakett graduated from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service with a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership in 2016. That same year, One Girl and GSS’s Institute for Women & Girls hosted its first “Women in Charge” conference, which became an annual event for several years. More recently, Barakett served as a panelist in Fordham’s 2018 Women’s Philanthropy Summit and a member of the President’s Council. The Baraketts are finalizing plans to establish an endowed scholarship fund at Fordham in loving memory of their son, Lincoln.

Ulderico Calero Jr., FCLC ’90

Head of Banking and Lending, BNY Mellon

Ulderico “Rick” Calero Jr. is a financial services executive with more than two decades of experience. Before joining BNY Mellon Wealth Management, he spent six years at TIAA, where he served as senior managing director in institutional financial services and president and CEO of TIAA-CREF Trust Co. FSB. He has also held various senior executive roles at Umpqua Financial Holdings, Citigroup, and Regions Financial. In addition, he is a fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Finance Leaders Fellowship, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and a board member of the Bank Administration Institute. For nearly 12 years, he served in the U.S. Army in various positions, including as a Green Beret. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham College at Lincoln Center and an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. As a Fordham student, he received an ROTC Scholarship. He is a past member of Fordham’s President’s Council, where he mentored current students and helped fund key initiatives. Calero and his wife, Nancy, whom he met in the sixth grade, have three children. 

Denny Chin, LAW ’78 

Judge, United States Court of Appeals – Second Circuit

Chin is the first Asian American to win a federal judicial appointment on the East Coast and an award-winning circuit judge who has presided over many notable cases in his judicial career, including the sentencing of infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. A Hong Kong native, Chin graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and earned his law degree from Fordham Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Fordham Law Review. Over the next four decades, Chin climbed the ranks in the U.S. courts and private firms, from law clerk, to associate, to assistant U.S. attorney, to partner, to U.S. district judge, to his current position. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association, the Edward Weinfeld Award from the New York County Lawyers Association, and the Medal of Achievement from the Fordham Law Alumni Association. At Fordham, he is an adjunct professor of law who has regularly taught first-year legal writing since 1986. Chin and his wife, Kathy Hirata Chin, have two children. 

Emanuel Chirico, GABELLI ’79 

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Phillips-Van Heusen

Emanuel “Manny” Chirico is chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., the world’s second-largest apparel company and parent company to brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including being named to the NRF Foundation’s List of People Shaping Retail’s Future in 2020 and induction into the Business of Fashion 500 Hall of Fame in 2019. Born and raised in the Bronx, Chirico serves on the boards of Montefiore Medical Center, Save the Children, United Nations Global Compact, and other organizations; he has previously served on the Fordham Board of Trustees. This year, Fordham and PVH entered a new partnership: PVH will donate $1 million to the Gabelli School of Business to enhance sustainability curriculum and support speakers, visiting scholars, and academic conferences. Chirico and his wife, Joanne, have supported other University initiatives and incorporated lessons from Fordham into their daily work. Two of their three grown sons are Fordham alumni. The couple will be honored at the Founder’s Dinner on March 22, 2021.  

Darlene Luccio Jordan, FCRH ’89 

Executive Director, The Gerald R. Jordan Foundation

Jordan is the executive director of the Gerald R. Jordan Foundation, a nonprofit named for her husband that champions education, health and medical research, youth services, and the arts. She is a former assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, where she served in the insurance fraud division from 1996 to 1999. Previously, she was an assistant district attorney in the Norfolk district attorney’s office. She served as a national finance co-chair for Mitt Romney for President in 2008 and 2012, and was the state finance chair for Florida Gov. Rick Scott in 2014. At Fordham, Jordan and her husband established the Darlene Luccio Jordan, Esq., and Gerald R. Jordan Jr. Endowed Scholarship, which gives preference to undergraduates from Boston high schools. Jordan served as co-chair of Excelsior | Ever Upward | Campaign for Fordham and Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid, the University’s most recently completed campaign to help finance opportunities for Fordham students. She has previously served on Fordham’s board. Jordan and her husband, Jerry, live in Florida with their daughter, Charlotte. 

Armando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82 

Adviser and former chairman, Global Distribution Group, ViacomCBS

Nuñez is adviser and former chairman of the global distribution group and chief content licensing officer for ViacomCBS, where he oversaw all content licensing for ViacomCBS-owned programming to third-party platforms and monetization of the industry’s largest library of film and television titles. Nuñez, who has held senior leadership roles in international media for more than two decades, also directed CBS Television Distribution, which produces and distributes industry-leading franchises including Entertainment Tonight and Jeopardy!. He has been recognized by multiple organizations for being a major television influencer. In 2014, he was No. 7 on The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the top 25 Latinos in entertainment. Nuñez graduated from the Gabelli School of Business with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. In 2012, he established the Nuñez Family Scholarship Fund for full-time Gabelli students, with preference given to students who are economically disadvantaged or part of underrepresented populations. He has previously served on the Fordham Board of Trustees.

Thomas J. Regan, S.J., GSAS ’82, ‘84

Rector, Jesuit Community at Fordham 

This past summer, Father Regan became the leader of the Jesuit community at Fordham. In 1980, he began his academic career at Fairfield University as an instructor of philosophy and went on to become associate professor and chair of its philosophy department and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. His work at Fairfield earned him the Most Influential Educators award, given to five faculty members, every year from 1990 to 1995. He also spent nearly a decade at Loyola University in Chicago, where he served as an associate professor of philosophy, academic dean at St. Joseph College Seminary, director of the Jesuit First Studies master’s program, and dean of both the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School. From 2010 to 2011, he was a visiting associate professor of philosophy at Fordham. Father Regan also served as Provincial for the New England Province of the Society of Jesus for six years. He has served previously on Fordham’s board. He is the new co-chair of the Mission and Social Justice Committee with Trustee Anthony Carter. 

Richard P. Salmi, S.J.

Rector, Jesuit Community at Loyola University Chicago

Father Salmi, previously the head of Fordham University’s London Centre from 2014 to 2020, is currently the rector of the Jesuit community at Loyola University Chicago. A native of Cleveland, Father Salmi has served in various roles throughout his life, including director of community service programs; coordinator of spiritual counseling for people with AIDS, their families, friends, and caregivers; and vice president of student affairs at Loyola University Chicago. From 2009 to 2013, he served as president of Spring Hill College, where he oversaw the opening of a center in Bologna, Italy. Father Salmi has been a member of nearly a dozen boards, including Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago and the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities. Among other degrees, he holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. in higher education administration from Boston College.

Dowling is president and CEO of Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York state. He spent 12 years in state government, including seven years as state director of health, education and human services and deputy secretary to the governor.

A member of Fordham’s Board of Trustees since 2018, Dowling has served as a professor of social policy and assistant dean at the Graduate School of Social Service and director of the Fordham campus in Westchester County.

He talked to Crain’s about leaving Ireland for New York, the Affordable Care Act, and the optimism immigrants bring to the country. Read the interview here.

“An institution is only as strong as the people who lead it,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University.

“I am pleased to say that Fordham is blessed with the leadership and support of immensely talented and dedicated trustees, upon whom I depend for their broad expertise and wise counsel. I—and the Fordham community—are grateful for their generosity in time, gifts, and expert advice. I know everyone at Fordham joins me in welcoming these new members to the board.”

Carolyn Albstein, GABELLI ’82
Retired, Finance Executive

Albstein received an M.B.A. from the Gabelli School of Business in 1982, attending the school as an evening student. From 1984 to 1997, she worked as a senior manager of pension investments at Unilever, and from 1997 to 2000, she served as director of pension investments for Bristol Myers-Squibb. She is married to Andrew W. Albstein, LAW ’81. Together with her husband, she has been very involved with the University. She is a former chair of the President’s Council, a former member of the Gabelli School of Business Advisory Board, a Fordham Law Cornerstone Founder, and a member of the Archbishop Hughes Society. The couple’s daughter Cindy is a second-year student at Fordham Law. In 1979, the Albsteins, along with Andrew’s sister, Iris Albstein, LAW ’78, established the Nathan H. Albstein Memorial Endowed Scholarship at Fordham. They created it in memory of Iris and Andrew’s father, who was an employee of the chemistry department at Fordham for many years.

Nora Ahern Grose, GABELLI ’84
Retired, Real Estate and Construction Manager

Grose earned her B.S. in architecture from Catholic University and an M.B.A. in finance from Fordham. She worked in commercial architecture at the Washington, D.C., firm Deupi and Associates before becoming project manager for Halpern Real Estate Development and the property development firm Olympia and York. Grose first joined Fordham’s Board of Trustees in 2011 and is returning for another term. She is a former member of the boards of Blair Academy and the Greenwich Land Trust. Grose and her husband, Madison Grose, support and volunteer at several schools as well as environmental, health, and children’s charities. During her prior term as a Fordham trustee, Grose served in the roles of vice chair of the board, secretary of the board, chair of the Facilities and IT Committee, and vice chair of the Board Strategy Committee and the Facilities and IT Committee. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Gabelli School of Business Advisory Board. She and her husband are members of the Archbishop Hughes Society.

Alexis Klemish, LAW ’93
Senior Corporate and Tech Transactions Counsel, GM Cruise, LLC

A 1989 graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Klemish began her legal career as a senior policy analyst for California Governor Pete Wilson. She was later appointed as first general counsel and assistant director for the California Department of Information Technology. In 1997, she left public service to pursue a career providing legal counsel in Silicon Valley. She began as a business associate specializing in technology licensing for Cooley LLP, and gradually moved into positions of greater responsibility. She served as associate director of legal at Twitter and general counsel and executive vice president of human resources and compliance at Digital Media Solutions Group. Most recently, she served as outside counsel to various technology and consumer product companies before joining Cruise, a self-driving vehicle company based in San Francisco.

Kevin O’Brien, S.J., GSAS ’01
President, Santa Clara University

After serving for three years as dean of the Jesuit School of Theology, Father O’Brien was appointed president of Santa Clara on July 1. He previously spent eight years at Georgetown University, the last five as vice president for mission and ministry. A native of Montreal, he graduated from Georgetown University in 1988 and became a naturalized American citizen at age 22. He practiced corporate litigation for two years after completing law school before a mini-epiphany led him to take up teaching social studies at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Florida. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1996, and in the course of his formation, he earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham and a Master of Divinity and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, now part of Boston College. He was ordained a priest at Fordham’s University Church in 2006. His book The Ignatian Adventure, Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in Daily Life (Loyola Press, 2011) has been translated into three languages and has sold more than 40,000 copies.

Joseph O’Keefe, S.J., GSAS ’80
Scholar in Residence, Graduate School of Education

An internationally recognized expert on Catholic education, Father O’Keefe is the editor or co-editor of 12 books and author or co-author of more than 40 articles and book chapters on Catholic education and educational leadership. In 2004, he was the recipient of the F. Sadlier Dinger Award for his contribution to Catholic education. Father O’Keefe entered the Society of Jesus in 1976 and was ordained in 1986. He received his bachelor’s degree from the College of the Holy Cross, and a Master of Divinity and Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, now part of Boston College. In addition, Father O’Keefe received a master’s degree in French from Fordham and a doctorate in administration, planning, and policy from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Valerie Irick Rainford, FCRH ’86
Managing Director, Head of Advancing Black Leaders & Diversity Advancement Strategies, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

As a member of JPMorgan Chase’s human resources operating committee, Rainford works to attract, hire, retain and advance top black talent at all levels of the bank. In three years in the role, she has embedded transformative strategies that increased JPMorgan Chase’s black senior executive talent by over 70 percent. Prior to JPMorgan Chase, she served for 21 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she rose to become the most senior black woman and the first to achieve a senior vice president title. The author of the memoir Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium (Eloree Press, 2014), Rainford is the founding member of the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle; the co-founder and board chair of Black Women of Influence; and the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including Black Enterprise’s Most Powerful Women in Business and The Network Journal’s 25 Most Influential Women in Business.

Gualberto Rodriguez, FCRH ’95
Chairman, Grupo Navis LLC, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Semillero Ventures LLC

Rodriguez has served as Chairman of Grupo Navis—the holding company of what is now a group of food companies with combined revenues in excess of $100 million, since 2017. He has held leadership roles in the company, which was founded by his grandfather in 1960 as Caribbean Produce Exchange, for the last 17 years. From 2005 to 2017, he served as president of the San Juan-based firm, which serves supermarkets, restaurant chains, wholesalers, and cruise ships and posts sales exceeding $84 million annually. He earned an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management and has completed executive education programs at the London School of Economics and Harvard Business School. An avid surfer who has served on the Board of the Foundation for Puerto Rico and the Advisory Board of the Center for the New Economy, Rodriguez was recently honored by the Fordham Alumni Association Award for his commitment to social and economic development.

Dario Werthein, GABELLI ’91
Director of Grupo Werthein

Upon graduation from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Werthein earned an M.B.A. from Fordham. He began his career at Barclays Bank PLC in London and returned to Argentina in 1994, where he was appointed adviser to the National Industry Secretariat and joined Banco Mercantil Argentino as deputy general manager. Since 1996, he has held senior management responsibilities at various companies within the Werthein Group, a firm whose portfolio includes mass consumption, energy, insurance, agribusiness, real estate, and technology. As part of a commitment to improving society, Werthein chairs the Tzedaka Foundation, one of the largest social welfare organizations in Argentina. He has also participated on the board of Vida Silvestre, an affiliate of WWF. His book Pampas: Argentine Productive and Natural Field, (Sudamericana, 2018), makes the case for biodiversity for a balanced ecosystem and addresses how to achieve responsible production without destroying wildlife and the environment.