His wife, Fulvia Masi, who received her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Education in 1987, described her husband using the title of one of his favorite books—The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas.

“Just the title phrase says everything about my husband’s great mind,” she said.

“My husband was literally bigger than life,” she added. “He loved classical music, but also pop music … He was a great traveler—everything about him had to do with literature, music, geography, traveling, history, you name it.”

“He was an interesting guy with very interesting ideas, and he was also very brave,” said Edward J. Bristow, Ph.D., former dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center and current professor of history at Fordham. “Bill was a private person, but once you got to know him, he was fascinating.”

Both Masi and Bristow noted Tanksley’s bravery and strength in overcoming personal tragedy—his first wife was killed in a car accident with Tanksley and their children in the car, according to Masi.

“As I got to know him, I realized how brave he really was to pull himself together and move on,” Bristow said.

Working at Fordham

Tanksley, Ph.D., was named the fourth dean of what was then the College at Lincoln Center by the University’s then-president, Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., on July 1, 1985. He worked to build up the Lincoln Center campus at a time when it faced declining enrollment and offered no residential facilities.

Three of his biggest visions for the college were accomplished years after he left in June 1989: opening a residence hall at Lincoln Center (McMahon Hall opened in 1993); bringing business programs to the college (the Gabelli School’s Lincoln Center location opened in 2014); and improving collaboration between Rose Hill and Lincoln Center (which now enjoy many partnerships.)

During his tenure, he developed the College at Lincoln Center Advisory Board, which helped connect alumni back to the school and helped future deans develop connections in the city.

Tanksley graduated with a degree in English from Gonzaga, a Jesuit university in Washington, before earning his M.A. and Ph.D. in English and American literature at the University of Illinois. He worked at multiple colleges, including Victoria College in Melbourne, and was the director of academic affairs at Penn State before taking the job at Fordham.

An Interdisciplinary, Jesuit Purpose

When he was hired, Tanksley told The Observer that he wanted to return to a Jesuit institution “because there is a sense of purpose that I think a lot of secular institutions lack,” according to A History of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, written by Robert Grimes, S.J., former dean of the college, in 2018.

In a University viewbook published during his tenure to help increase enrollment, Tanksley described the college as “clearly in the middle of things—an engagement of time and place.”

“Our cornerstone is set in the heart of Manhattan, the energy center of the world,” he wrote. “Our curriculum is intimately plugged into the abounding sources and resources surrounding us … We have a very special structure here, inviting many new ways of making connections—linking students to each other, to the faculty…and bridging from the college to the larger dynamic community in our front yard.”

Masi said that this fit in with her husband’s personal side, which was also interdisciplinary in nature.

“We talked about music or literature—of course that was his field,” she said. “But sports—he loved to play basketball. He was also interested in watching those games on television. His favorite basketball team was definitely Gonzaga, because that was his alma mater.”

Laying the Foundation

In 1986, Tanksley hired Bristow as an associate dean of the college, a hire that Grimes noted was “an appointment the significance of which would not be fully realized for many years.”

Bristow said that Tanksley allowed him to gain a wide variety of experience and knowledge as an associate dean.

“He delegated substantial authority, and I think he hired me with the intention of working on certain things. To be associate dean in those years was really interesting—not only because of Bill’s administrative style, but because at that point the College at Lincoln Center was a very different sort of institution,” he said.

At that time, Bristow said, the campus operated pretty separately from the Rose Hill campus, and the dean was in charge of almost everything, from academics to recruiting to advertising, as well as managing both the undergraduate and adult learning program.

After Tanksley left in 1989, the University named Gerald Quinn as dean of the college. When Quinn died tragically in a car accident in 1991, Bristow took over as dean. During his tenure he oversaw the opening of a residence hall on campus, developed an honors program, and most significantly, helped create the highly regarded Bachelor of Fine Arts program with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Grimes noted in A History of Fordham College at Lincoln Center that this partnership would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by Tanksley.

“Without the contributions and encouragement of Bristow and Mort Levy, chair of the college’s Board of Advisers (both appointees of Dean Tanksley), the Ailey-Fordham collaboration may never have come to fruition,” he wrote.

Bristow agreed.

“These are people who helped subsequent deans in all sorts of interesting ways,” he said. “For example, we created the Bachelor of Fine Arts program on my watch, but I inherited Bill’s Board of Advisers and they were of immeasurable help putting the program together—they were so well connected.”

Clara Rodriguez, professor of sociology who was named to the advisory board by Tanksley, said that the group’s dedication to helping enhance Fordham College at Lincoln Center was unheard of.

“The amount of commitment, devotion, and love—I haven’t used that term very often—that the members of the board who were graduates of the college had was astounding,” she said. “I have served on many boards, and the degree of commitment that they brought to the board was always impressive.”

Writing a Love Story

Fordham would remain a part of Tanskley’s life after his deanship, not just because he remained a professor in the English department for many years, but also because it’s where he and his wife met, and where his son later attended college.

While getting her Ph.D., Masi was teaching Italian at a charter school and got an idea for an exchange program between Fordham and a university in her home country of Italy. After submitting a written proposal and discussing it with faculty members, she submitted it to Tanksley’s office.

“He said that he was busy and that he never read (the written proposal),” she recalled. “But he said, ‘Well, let’s have lunch together and we’ll talk about it, and that was the beginning.”

They kept in touch for six months primarily through letters and cards since they didn’t have time to see each other.

“I told him very bluntly, ‘I don’t have time to do this,’—I was pushing him away at the beginning. That was November,” she said with a laugh. “In April, I said, ‘OK, why don’t we see each other in person a little more?’ The first date was a car ride between Fordham and Woodstock and we decided everything—including our wedding date, July 7, 1987, and the name of our first child.”

Masi said she’s kept those letters and memories close to her heart, especially in the last year, when she became Tanksley’s full-time caregiver.

Tanksley is survived by Masi and the couple’s two children: Mosa Tanksley and William Tanskley. William Tanskley is also a Fordham alumnus, graduating from FCLC in 2010.

“Today’s events are designed for recognition, celebration, and appreciation of the numerous contributors to Fordham’s research accomplishments in the past two years,” said George Hong, Ph.D., chief research officer and associate vice president for academic affairs.

Hong said that Fordham has received about $16 million in faculty grants over the past nine months, which is an increase of 50.3% compared to the same period last year.

“As a research university, Fordham is committed to excellence in the creation of knowledge and is in constant pursuit of new lines of inquiry,” said Joseph McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said during the virtual celebration. “Our faculty continue to distinguish themselves in this area. Today, today we highlight the truly extraordinary breadth and depth of their work.”

Earning Honors

Ten faculty members, representing two years of winners due to cancellations last year from the COVID-19 pandemic, were recognized with distinguished research awards.

“The distinguished research awards provide us with an opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of our most prolific colleagues, give visibility to the research achievements, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps,” Provost Dennis Jacobs said.

Recipients included Yuko Miki, associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work focuses on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century; David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty; and, in the junior faculty category, Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work examines shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics. (See below for a full list of recipients).

Diving Deeper

Eleven other faculty members presented in their recently published work in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies.

Jews and New York: ‘Virtually Identical’

Images of Jewish people and New York are inextricably tied together, according to Daniel Soyer, Ph.D., professor of history and co-author of Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People (NYU Press, 2017).

“The popular imagination associated Jews with New York—food names like deli and bagels … attitudes and manner, like speed, brusqueness, irony, and sarcasm; with certain industries—the garment industry, banking, or entertainment,” he said. “

Soyer quoted comedian Lenny Bruce, who joked, “the Jewish and New York essences are virtually identical, right?”

Soyer’s book examines the history of Jewish people in New York and their relationship to the city from 1654 to the current day. Other presentations included S. Elizabeth Penry, Ph.D., associate professor of history, on her book The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Kirk Bingaman, Ph.D., professor of pastoral mental health counseling in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, on his book Pastoral and Spiritual Care in a Digital Age: The Future Is Now (Lexington Books, 2018).

Focus on Cities: The Reality Beyond the Politics

Annika Hinze, Ph.D, associate professor of political science and director of the Urban Studies Program, talked about her most recent work on the 10th and 11th editions of City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America (Routledge, 11th edition forthcoming). She focused on how cities were portrayed by the Trump Administration versus what was happening on the ground.

“The realities of cities are really quite different—we’re not really talking about inner cities anymore,” she said. “Cities are, in many ways, mosaics of rich and poor. And yes, there are stark wealth discrepancies, growing pockets of poverty in cities, but there are also enormous oases of wealth in cities.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Hinze’s latest edition will show how urban density did not contribute to the spread of COVID-19, as many people thought, but rather it was overcrowding and concentrated poverty in cities that led to accelerated spread..

Other presentations included Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., professor of political science, on his book Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018); Margo Jackson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the division of psychological and educational services in the Graduate School of Education on her book Career Development Interventions for Social Justice: Addressing Needs Across the Lifespan in Educational, Community, and Employment Contexts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019); and Clara Rodriguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology on her book America, As Seen on TV: How Television Shapes Immigrant Expectations Around the Globe (NYU Press, 2018).

A Look into Migration

In her book Migration Crises and the Structure of International Cooperation (University of Georgia Press, 2019), Sarah Lockhart, Ph.D. assistant professor of political science, examined how countries often have agreements in place to manage the flow of trade, capital, and communication, but not people. While her work in this book specifically focused on voluntary migration, it also had implications for the impacts on forced migration and the lack of cooperation among nations .

“I actually have really serious concerns about the extent of cooperation … on measures of control, and what that means for the future, when states are better and better at controlling their borders, especially in the developing world,” she said. “And what does that mean for people when there are crises and there needs to be that kind of release valve of movement?”

Other presentations included: Tina Maschi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate School of Social Service, on her book Forensic Social Work: A Psychosocial Legal Approach to Diverse Criminal Justice Populations and Settings (Springer Publishing Company, 2017), and Tanya Hernández, J.D., professor of law on her book Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination (NYU Press, 2018).

Sharing Reflections

The day’s keynote speakers—Daniel Alexander Jones, professor of theatre and 2019 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, head of design and production and assistant professor of design—shared personal reflections on how the year’s events have shaped their lives, particularly their performance and creativity.

For Jones, breathing has always been an essential part of his work after one of his earliest teachers “initiated me into the work of aligning my breath to the cyclone of emotions I felt within.” However, seeing another Black man killed recently, he said, left him unable to “take a deep breath this morning without feeling the knot in my stomach at the killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Minnesota.”

Jones said the work of theatre teachers and performers is affected by their lived experiences and it’s up to them to share genuine stories for their audience.

“Our concern, as theater educators, encompasses whether or not in our real-time lived experiences, we are able to enact our wholeness as human beings, whether or not we are able to breathe fully and freely as independent beings in community and as citizens in a broad and complex society,” he said.

Ramos said that he feels his ability to be fully free has been constrained by his own desire to be accepted and understood, and that’s in addition to feeling like an outsider since he immigrated here.

“I actually don’t know who I am if I don’t anchor my self-identity with being an outsider,” he said. “There isn’t a day where I am not hyper-conscious of my existence in a space that contains me. And what that container looks like. These thoughts preface every single process that informs my actions and my decisions in this country.”

Interdisciplinary Future

Both keynote speakers said that their work is often interdisciplinary, bringing other fields into theatre education. Jones said he brings history into his teaching when he makes his students study the origins of words and phrases, and that they incorporate biology when they talk about emotions and rushes of feelings, like adrenaline.

That message of interdisciplinary connections summed up the day, according to Jonathan Crystal, vice provost.

“Another important purpose was really to hear what one another is working on and what they’re doing research on,” he said. “And it’s really great to have a place to come listen to colleagues talk about their research and find out that there are these points of overlap, and hopefully, it will result in some interdisciplinary activity over the next year.”

Distinguished Research Award Recipients

Humanities
2020: Kathryn Reklis, Ph.D., associate professor of theology, whose work included a project sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation on Shaker art, design, and religion.
2021: Yuko Miki, Ph.D., associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work is on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century.

Interdisciplinary Studies
2020: Yi Ding, Ph.D., professor of school psychology in the Graduate School of Education, who received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for a training program for school psychologists and early childhood special education teachers.
2021: Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., professor of Economics and co-director of the Disability Studies Minor, whose recent work includes documenting and understanding economic insecurity and identifying policies that combat it.

Sciences and Mathematics
2020: Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., professor of computer and information sciences and founder director of Fordham Center of Cybersecurity, whose $3 million grant from the National Security Agency will allow Fordham to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions build their own cybersecurity programs.
2021: Joshua Schrier, Ph.D., Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Chair and professor of chemistry, who highlighted his $7.4 million project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on perovskites.

Social Sciences
2020: Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., university professor and E. Gerald Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance, whose recent work has included the examination of the role of female leadership in mayoral positions and resilience of local societies to crises.
2021: David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty.

Junior Faculty
2020: Asato Ikeda, Ph.D., associate professor of art history, who published The Politics of Painting, Facism, and Japanese Art During WWII.
2021: Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work focuses on shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics.

America, as Seen on TV: How Television Shapes Immigrant Expectations Around the Globe

In her latest book, Clara Rodríguez examines the “soft power” of American television in projecting U.S.-centric views around the globe. She analyzes the strong influence TV exercises on both young Americans and recent immigrants with regard to consumer behavior and their views on race, class, ethnicity, and gender.

The book is based on two studies: one focused on 71 immigrant adults over 18 who had watched U.S. TV in their home country, and one focused on 171 U.S.-born undergraduates from the Northeast. Many in the foreign-born group were surprised to find that their experience of the U.S. proved more racially and economically diverse than the mostly white, middle-class depictions of American life that they had seen back home on TV. And substantial majorities of both groups shared the sense that American TV is flawed in that it “does not accurately represent or reflect racial and ethnic relations in the United States.”

Still, Rodríguez notes, TV is “a medium in flux; it has changed greatly in the past decade, and the only thing we can be certain about is that it will continue to change.”

Back from the Brink: Saving Animals from Extinction by Nancy F. Castaldo, MC ’84 (Cornell University Press)

In Back from the Brink, Nancy Castaldo recounts the survival stories of seven species—whooping cranes, alligators, giant tortoises, bald eagles, gray wolves, condors, and bison.

“All of these animal populations plummeted,” she writes, “and yet, all of them survive today.”

She describes how each species got in trouble; relates the often controversial restoration efforts and their results; explains the need for apex predators; offers calls to action for young readers; and pays tribute to a group of “eco-heroes” (including President Richard Nixon, who in 1973 signed the Endangered Species Act) who “look out for the needs of creatures that cohabit this planet, even when these needs may conflict with our short-term economic goals.”

Feminism’s Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family by Kirsten Swinth, Ph.D., associate professor of history and American studies at Fordham (Harvard University Press)

From failed promises of women “having it all” to the contemporary struggle for equal wages for equal work, Kirsten Swinth exposes how government policies often undermined tenets of second-wave feminism during the 1960s and 1970s.

She argues that second-wave feminists did not fail to deliver on their promises; rather, a conformist society pushed back against far-reaching changes sought by these activists.

“My focus is on the story of a broad feminist vision that wasn’t fully realized,” Swinth notes. “There were a lot of gains generally, but the movement also generated an antifeminist backlash so that most of the aspirations, like a sane and sustainable balance for work and family, were defeated.”

She examines activists’ campaigns and draws from them “a set of lessons that we need to inspire us” to continue the fight “with a new energy.”

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll, Ph.D., professor of history at Fordham (Hill and Wang)

To better understand the history of the United States, one should include the people who were displaced from lands they once called home, argues Steven Stoll. That story includes not only Native American tribes evicted by English and later American settlers but also poor whites who once called the mountains of Appalachia home.

In Ramp Hollow, he visits an area just outside of Morgantown, West Virginia, to explore how the people who once lived there were pushed out and forced to surrender a self-sustaining, agrarian life in exchange for a wage-based living tied to coal mining companies and lumber mills.

Brooklyn Before: Photographs, 1971–1983 by Larry Racioppo, FCRH ’72 (Cornell University Press)

New York City photographer Larry Racioppo honed his art and craft during the 1970s by taking pictures of family, friends, and kids in his working-class South Brooklyn neighborhood.

This collection of his early work highlights families—most of them Italian American, Irish American, and Puerto Rican—as they go about their daily lives, celebrating Catholic sacraments and holidays, playing stickball and congas on the sidewalk, hanging out on stoops and fire escapes, posing with boom boxes in front of graffiti-tagged walls, and taking part in patriotic parades and religious processions.

“I did not know it at the time, but I was recording a part of Brooklyn that would soon be remade by gentrification,” Racioppo writes.

Read the full story at Fordham Law News.

Clara Rodríguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology and former dean of Fordham College of Liberal Studies, has been named to Hispanic Business magazine’s annual list of 100 most influential Hispanics in the country.

Rodríguez was listed as one of the most influential Hispanics in the field of education.

“I was absolutely shocked to be nominated, let alone be selected,” Rodríguez said. “It is quite an honor to be recognized in this way, but that is not why I do what I do.”

The magazine, which published the list in its October issue, highlights Rodríguez’s work as a consultant for the television shows Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street and notes that she has written “more than 50 articles on Hispanics in the United States and most recently co-authored Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century.” See the article “Five Fordham Faculty Members Win National Book Award.”

“Dr. Rodríguez is a … very distinguished candidate whom the team felt deserved to be recognized,” said Michael Caplinger, an editor at Hispanic Business.

This is the second honor for Rodríguez in the past few weeks. On Oct. 1, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities announced that Culture and Commerce (Stanford Business Books, 2007), which she co-authored with Fordham colleagues Al Greco, Ed.D., professor of marketing, Robert M. Wharton, Ph.D., area chair of management systems, had won a National Jesuit Book Award.

Over the years, Rodríguez has done extensive research on Hispanics and the media, publishing 10 books, including Heroes, Lovers and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004) and Latin Looks: Images of Latinas and Latinos in U.S. Media (Westview Press, 1997).

“I would say that Heroes, Lovers and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood is the most influential book I’ve written because it is a different way of thinking about film, American history, American culture and their place in the international arena,” Rodríguez said.

Her research led to her consulting work on Dora the Explorer, when the show was being developed, and Sesame Street. As a consultant, Rodríguez was called on to offer advice on everything from the music used on the shows to story lines and characters.

Hispanic Business has been publishing its 100 Most Influential Hispanics list since 1983.

Included in this year’s list are NASA astronauts Miguel Lopez-Alegria and John Olivas; New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya; and America Ferrara, star of the hit television show Ugly Betty.

Rodríguez is the recipient of Fordham’s Distinguished Teaching Award in Social Sciences and was elected to the governing board of the American Sociological Association earlier this year.

Five Fordham University faculty members have won 2007 National Jesuit Book Awards given out by Alpha Sigma Nu and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

Receiving the awards were Robin Andersen, Ph.D., professor of communication and media studies, for A Century of Media, A Century of War (Peter Lang, 2006); Jane Bolgatz, Ph.D., assistant professor of social studies education, for Talking Race in the Classroom (Teachers College Press, 2005); and Albert N. Greco, Ed.D., professor of marketing, Clara Rodríguez, professor of sociology, and Robert M. Wharton, Ph.D., area chair of management systems, for The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century (Stanford Business Books, 2007).

“We are very honored,” said Rodríguez, whose book analyzes the sometimes conflicting cultural and commercial themes that influence all segments of the $54 billion book industry in the United States. “This book began as a follow-up to an earlier classic work by Lewis A. Coser, Charles Kadushin and William Powell. … It then evolved into something a little different.”

Greco said the book is unique because he and his co-authors studied the cultural and commercial forces of the book industry, something few academics have done.

“I assume our empirical data and analysis and our comprehensive understanding of the industry might have interested the reviewers,” he said.

Bolgatz, who taught language and social studies for five years at an Iowa high school while working on her doctoral degree, said her book is geared at helping teachers develop the knowledge, skill and confidence to successfully address racial controversies in their classrooms.

“I was frustrated with not being able to have conversations with my students, or my fellow teachers, about racism,” she said. “They treated it as if it was a thing of the past. There were no books to refer to so I decided to write my own. And the title really says it all—it’s about talking race in the classroom.”

Andersen’s book, which has been lauded in reviews for being “cogently written” and “uncompromising in its ethical stance,” evaluates the long history of press coverage and media representations of American wars in the 20th century.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have received [the award],” Andersen said.

Alpha Sigma Nu and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities award four book prizes each year in a specific category in a range of disciplines from the humanities to science. The category for the 2007 awards was professional studies, which encompasses everything from business to law. There were 60 entries this year from 16 Jesuit colleges and universities. The award carries a $1,000 prize.

The book awards are open to all faculty and administrators who have published a book in the past three years. The books are judged by scholars on the basis of scholarship, significance of topic to professors across several disciplines, authority in interpretation, objectivity, presentation and style.