Rather, it can be found in places such as Tesla, which is developing autonomous driving vehicles; at an art exhibition where artificial intelligence (AI) created the paintings on display; and at AI labs that create music, literature, and drugs.

So Yanisky-Ravid takes her Fordham Law students on field trips to meet AI startups and developers, to push them to better understand advanced technology and then to design solutions to the modern age’s legal paradigm shift.

Read the full article about Yanisky-Reid’s approach at Fordham Law News.

“A recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed that 91 percent of those surveyed believe that consumers have lost control over how information is collected and used,” she said.

“Our shared challenge is to build consumer trust by insuring that consumers have control over their personal information, while also reaping benefits of emerging technologies.”

Ramirez’ speech at the Fordham School of Law was the keynote address for “Solving Privacy Around the World,” a daylong symposium sponsored by the Center for Information Law and Privacy (CLIP). Panels covered topics such as “Apps and Start-Ups,” “Security & Trust,” “Infrastructure and Compliance,” and “Consent Models and Technological Complexity.”

Ramirez noted that although the iPhone was introduced less than a decade ago, half of all adults worldwide have a smart phone today. These and other devices generate tremendous amounts of data that can be bought, sold, and exploited by unscrupulous actors, many of who divide consumers into categories based on their race, ethnicity, income, and socioeconomic status. This has the potential to affect what consumers see online, the prices they’re quoted for services, and the level of consumer service they receive.

“In the not too distant future, many … aspects of our everyday lives will have a digital trail, and that data trove will contain a wealth of revealing information, that will present a deeply personal and startling complete picture of each of us,” she said.

“If a consumer uses a fitness band which records her heart rate, level of activity each day, and other details, she may not understand that the information could be shared with third parties … even insurers.”

She recommended several strategies for businesses to pursue to regain consumer trust.
One of them, “Privacy by Design,” integrates privacy into product development and maintenance and is epitomized by data minimization—when companies only hold onto data they absolutely need and destroy it when it’s no longer of use.

Many argue that the value of data to businesses lies in its unanticipated uses in the future, but Ramirez said privacy is more important.

“I question the notion that we must put sensitive consumer data at risk on the chance that a company may someday discover a valuable use for that information,” she said.

She advocated letting consumers have greater control over their privacy, so they are more aware of how data is shared among brokers and marketing firms. The FTC’s research has indicated that few people are aware of these practices.

Businesses also need to do a better job safeguarding customers’ personal information. Security measures should be tested before a product launch, requiring consumers to change the password from default and considering the use of encryption.

“We have [to]ensure that new technologies that have the potential to provide enormous benefits develop in a way that also protect consumer information,” she said.

Hackers bent on invading peoples’ privacy know no national boundaries. Beating them back will require government regulators, policymakers, legal experts, and industry players to work together to find solutions to cross-border conflicts and issues presented by innovative technologies.

Next week, Fordham Law’s Center for Law and Information Policy (CLIP) will host a day-long conference dedicated to creating a robust dialog about questions arising from the international legal framework, infrastructure architecture and commercial practices of the global processing of data.

Ninth Law and Information Society Symposium
Wednesday, May 13
9 a.m.-6:30 p.m.
Fordham School of Law, 150 W. 62nd Street

Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, will deliver the keynote address.

Panels on topics such as “Apps and Start-Ups,” “Security & Trust,” “Infrastructure and Compliance,” and “Consent Models and Technological Complexity” will feature short presentations on the technological and business context to set the stage. Panels will be followed by informal, moderated roundtable discussions with experts, as well as Q&A sessions with the audience.

In keeping with the international scope of the day, CLIP Academic Director Joel R. Reidenberg, PhD, will moderate a lunch keynote panel between José Alejandro Bermúdez Durana, deputy superintendent for Data Protection for Colombian Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, and Ventsislav Karadjov, vice-chairman EU Article 29 Working Party and Chair of the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection.

“Europe is changing its data protection rules, Latin America and Asia have new emerging policies, and in his State of the Union address, the President called for new privacy protections in the United States,” Reidenberg said.

“So this is a critical time to have robust dialogue among different stakeholders.”

For more information, visit the event webpage.

The partnership, which was announced on April 24 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, will pair New York State’s top legal authorities with companies involved in what has become known as the sharing economy.

“This will help new companies navigate our regulatory system, but it will also help us provide insights to state and local governments about outdated or overly cumbersome rules and trends that we need to be aware of in this rapidly growing sector of New York’s economy,” he said.

Schneiderman’s announcement was part of his keynote address at the daylong conference, “Sharing Economy, Sharing City: Urban Law and the New Economy,” organized by the Urban Law Center.

The partnership with Fordham Law is one of three between his office and area colleges, including the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and Brooklyn Law School. Schneiderman, whose office has investigated the sharing economy practices of businesses such as Uber and AirBNB, said he hopes to head off potential problems before they happen. The attorney general’s office is not allowed to advise individual companies, he noted, but programs such as CLIP can.

“We’re very excited to have law students, professors, and lawyers working with these clinics to advise startups … as they move into New York,” he said.

Joel Reidenberg, founding academic director of CLIP, said that the announcement reflects CLIP’s longstanding relationship with the attorney general’s Internet bureau.

“Today’s announcement by Attorney General Schneiderman reflects an evolution of that relationship, and an advancement of CLIP’s work as a research think tank on information technology law and policy issues,” he said.

Getting a handle on the sharing economy is critical because many companies involved in it are poised for exponential growth: Price Waterhouse Coopers estimates that 10 years from now, the sharing economy will control 50 percent of the total revenue of all the rental sectors.

“As the sharing economy rapidly evolves into a mature and important part of America’s economic life, … it is no longer credible for its companies to cling to what I have called a cyber-libertarian vision of a regulation-free environment,” Schneiderman said.

“Just because a company has an app instead of a storefront does not mean laws do not or should not apply.”

With CLIP and other university-based organizations doing consulting, Schneiderman suggested there might be fewer law-breakers to catch.

As an example of getting out in front of crimes, Schneiderman mentioned that his office—once plagued with caseloads of smart phone thefts (3.1 million in 2013 alone)—worked with the iPhone technology to stop them. Rather than spending tax dollars on trying to break up the cartels that were profiting from the thefts, Schneiderman said his office focused on working with Apple in getting kill switches installed in phones, thus removing the theft incentive in the first place.

“Lets try to get the regulations right, lets prioritize our work and engage in an honest and open collaboration,” he said.

“If we do that, the sharing economy holds enormous potential to be a dramatic agent of positive change for our city, or state, and the world as a whole.”

GPS, facial recognition and WiFi? On an afternoon in February, not so much.

But when three students from Fordham Law School’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) offered to show students how to find the privacy settings on their mobile devices, students pounced on the opportunity for a little hands-on learning.

Having finished their day’s presentation, Fordham Law students Sara Gates, Elena Rizzo, and Noelle Park quickly formed three groups, and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring intricacies such as location services and photo tagging.

This was the fourth in a series of five classes on digital privacy offered this semester by Fordham Law students, covering everything from passwords and online reputation to social networks and behavioral ads. The class has been bringing CLIP volunteers and P.S. 191 students together for three years.

Tom Norton, privacy fellow at CLIP, said the center focuses on middle schoolers because it’s the age that children begin using the same technology that adults do.

“The students have a broad understanding about the things we teach in the lessons, and it’s always surprising to see how much they know. But at the same time, the depth of their understanding isn’t as developed as someone like you or me,” he said.

“To understand that sending a Snapchat may have serious implications on your life in one, three or five years from now is the kind of thing we want to teach them.”

Nichole Gagnon, a teacher for six years at P.S. 191 who has been working with CLIP since it launched its first pilot class there, agreed.

“Students don’t realize how easily people can access their information, and how things aren’t really private. People can track you through posts on social media like Facebook, and when you’re putting that out there for the world, it’s always going to be there. I don’t think they really get that,” she said.

Gagnon plays an active part in the discussions, prodding students to consider whether they’d want their parents to see everywhere they’d checked in, for instance. Like her students, she found the lesson on password strength to be interesting. Like the Fordham Law volunteers, she learns more about the newest apps and social networks from her students.

“When we were going through the privacy settings, I went, ‘Wow, I don’t even know if I have those set correctly on my phone,’” she laughed.

Twelve-year-old Tyuana Bivines said she changed her passwords immediately after the class (during which they visited the site howsecureismypassword.net). She admitted, however, that because one new password was hard to remember, she wrote it down.

“But it’s in a place where nobody can find it,” she said.

An avid user of Facebook, Kik, and Vine, Bivines said she’s also stopped her willy-nilly posting of pictures that are tagged with her location.

“When we first started learning about [online security], I was scared, but now that I know more, I feel like, ‘I’ve got this,’” she said.

Although the CLIP volunteers are given materials to work with in the class, they are free to add their own touches to their presentations. For this class, one of two happening simultaneously at P.S. 191, the Fordham Law students used a picture of a breakdancing cat to illustrate motion capture. They also chose a photo of a cell phone tower blending in with a forest to accompany a lesson on cell phone triangulation.

Elena Rizzo, a native of Rome, Italy, who is working on her master of laws, said it’s been eye-opening to see how lax the American legal system is about privacy when compared with Europe. Working with students has been fascinating, she said, because on the one hand, they’ll frame a question by saying “a person I know did this…” instead of admitting they did it themselves.

At other times, she learns emerging technology from them because “sometimes they already realize there’s an issue” before she does.

“Rather, they’ve encountered problems, like someone tried to talk to them when they didn’t want to, or someone sent pictures to them. They were already aware of the problems; they just didn’t know how to solve them.”

Norton said that CLIP’s lessons, which are free to download are being used in 13 other schools around the country. Lessons are constantly updated to keep up with changes in technology, and will soon include video tutorials.

“The goal is not to show kids, ‘Look at how bad or how good this is,’” he said. “Rather, it’s to give them a tool kit and the wherewithal to form opinions about these issues on their own.”

Fordham’s reputation as a center for academic rigor has ascended to a loftier perch, thanks to an increase in the number of endowed faculty positions established since the start of Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham.

Before the campaign, the University counted 26 endowed chairs; as of September 2013, that number stands at 67, with many created through the generous investments of individual and institutional donors. These investments offer resources to attract noted scholars to the University to teach and interact with students and carry out research.

Although some of the newly established chairs have yet to be filled, the sheer number and variety of fields they encompass, from business and law to religion to the arts and sciences, are a true testament to the generosity of the Fordham family.

The following are a few chairs funded as a result of the campaign.

Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology

Established with a bequest created in Anastasi’s name, this chair enhances the legacy of the former Fordham professor whose book, Psychological Testing (Macmillan, 1954) is considered by many to be the definitive text in the field of testing.

Anastasi was a member of the Fordham faculty from 1947 to 1985 and chair of the Department of Psychology. In 1987, she received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan.

David V. Budescu, Ph.D., a psychologist who has researched the effects of uncertainty on human judgment and decision-making, was installed in the chair in December 2008.

Edward and Marilyn Bellet Chair in Legal Ethics, Morality, and Religion

Established in 2005 by Sally J. Bellet, LAW ’76, the chair was named for Bellet’s parents. Bellet’s grandfather, Louis Stein, Law ’26, in 1976 founded the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law, which has achieved enormous success in matters related to public service and ethics.

Russell Pearce, the current holder of the chair, joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, and currently teaches, writes and lectures in the field of professional responsibility. He is also the co-director of the Stein Center.

James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics

Established through a gift from James Buckman, FCRH ’66, former vice chairman of York Capital Management, and his wife, Nancy M. Buckman, this theology chair was established as a way to strengthen philosophy and theology, areas in which, James Buckman said, Jesuit universities “act as the lights of the world.”

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Ph.D., a feminist theologian and ethics scholar, was installed in the chair in a ceremony in February 2009.

Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing

Mary Higgins Clark, FCLC ’79, whose 42 books have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone, pledged in 2013 to create the Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing.

The gift will make it possible for Fordham to hire a professor of creative writing within the Department of English. The chair will be a visiting appointment for a limited term, offered to a distinguished writer drawn from a variety of genres, to lead writing workshops and teach seminars and master classes to upper-level undergraduates or graduate students.
The first holder of the chair will be announced in the spring of 2015.

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Chair in International Business and Finance

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and managing director at Goldman Sachs, established the chair in 2007 with a gift to increase the Graduate School of Business Administration’s (GBA) talent in global finance and economic issues. The Corrigan gift further endowed the E. Gerald Corrigan Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fordham College at Rose Hill, which has provided financial support to minority students for nearly a decade.

Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., whose expertise is in the areas of corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance, and capital markets, was formally installed as the inaugural holder of the chair in February 2012.

Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

This chair was created thanks to a February 2009 gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., a philanthropy that provides grants to arts, cultural, and religious institutions, and Mary and Michael Jaharis. It marked a milestone for Orthodox studies in the Western Hemisphere and ensured resources for a chair in this discipline in perpetuity at Fordham.

The new chair was celebrated by members of the Fordham and Orthodox Christian communities at the November 2013 installation ceremony for Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., a professor of theology and the senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center. A second chair will be installed in 2015.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Chair in Catholic Theology

A gift in November 2009 from Vincent Viola, PAR, chairman of Virtu Management, LLC, and his wife, Teresa, created an endowed professorship in honor of Cardinal Dulles, who was the first American to become a cardinal who was not a bishop, and the only cardinal to teach on Fordham’s staff.

In January 2011, the chair was filled by Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology and then-chair of the department. At the installation ceremony, he delivered “Sentire cum Ecclesia: Thinking With and for the Church.” His talk explored ways to understand St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church” in the context of Cardinal Dulles’ influential book Models of the Church (Doubleday, 1974).

Gabelli Professor of Security Analysis

As part of his 2011 transformative $25 million gift, Mario Gabelli, GSB ’65, devoted funds toward a new faculty position that will be tasked with heading the new Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

In addition, Gabelli’s matching gift challenge resulted in five additional chairs for the business school, enhancing its strength across a range of disciplines:
• Grose Family Endowed Chair in Business
• William J. Loschert Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship
• Robert B. McKeon Endowed Faculty Chair in Business
• Edward M. Stroz/Sara A. Spooner Endowed Chair in Accounting
• Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets (see below)

Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History

Paul Guenther, FCRH ’62, former president of the investment firm PaineWebber, and a trustee emeritus of the University, established the chair in 2008 through gifts made by him and his wife, Diane. The Guenthers were born and raised (and met) in Inwood, Manhattan, while Saul Cornell, Ph.D., the chair’s inaugural holder, was born and raised in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn.

For his inaugural address, Cornell kept the New York City connection alive with “The Perils of Popular Constitutionalism: Riding the D Train with James Madison,” which detailed the Anti-Federalists of Colonial times.

Leitner Chairs in International Human Rights

A gift from James Leitner, LAW ’82, in 2007, allowed the law school to establish two chairs in international human rights. Martin Flaherty and Thomas Lee are holders of the Leitner Chairs.

Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies

A gift from Eugene Shvidler, GBA ’92, made in February 2013 provided for the establishment of the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies in the Department of Theology.

Shvidler, the chairman of Millhouse LLC, an investment and asset management company, received a master’s degree in mathematics from the Gubkin Institute of Petrochemicals and Natural Gas as well as an M.B.A. and master’s degree in international taxation from Fordham’s GBA.

A search is currently under way among academics with distinguished records of research and scholarship in Rabbinic and/or later religious developments within the Jewish tradition.

Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets

Answering the matching challenge of Mario Gabelli, William Toppeta, FCRH ’70, and his wife Debra provided the funds for this chair, which in April 2012 was awarded to James R. Lothian, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Finance in the Fordham Schools of Business. Toppeta is a senior advisor at Promontory Financial Group.

Lothian, who joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, researches international finance, monetary economics (including monetary policy), financial history—both U.S. and international—and the incidence and international transmission of economic disturbances.

Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre

In March 2011, the contributions of Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, endowed both a chair in theater and a scholarship fund for undergraduate students studying theater.

The revolving chair has already been occupied by Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the classic sitcom The Cosby Show; Tony-nominated veteran stage, television, and film actor Joe Morton; and Tony Award-winning set designer Christine Jones.

Stanley D. Waxberg and Nikki Waxberg Chair

A gift from the Waxberg estate led to the creation of a chair at the Fordham School of Law in 2008 that was awarded to Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., the founding Director of the law school’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

Reidenberg has held numerous administrative leadership positions for Fordham University and has become a leading voice for privacy. CLIP’s most recent report detailed the ways in which schools endanger students’ privacy through connections with private data collectors.

Fordham’s reputation as a center for academic rigor has ascended to a loftier perch, thanks to an increase in the number of endowed faculty positions established since the start of Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham.

Before the campaign, the University counted 26 endowed chairs; as of September 2013, that number stands at 67, with many created through the generous investments of individual and institutional donors. These investments offer resources to attract noted scholars to the University to teach and interact with students and carry out research.

Although some of the newly established chairs have yet to be filled, the sheer number and variety of fields they encompass, from business and law to religion to the arts and sciences, are a true testament to the generosity of the Fordham family.

The following are a few chairs funded as a result of the campaign.

Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology

Established with a bequest created in Anastasi’s name, this chair enhances the legacy of the former Fordham professor whose book,Psychological Testing (Macmillan, 1954) is considered by many to be the definitive text in the field of testing.

Anastasi was a member of the Fordham faculty from 1947 to 1985 and chair of the Department of Psychology. In 1987, she received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan.

David V. Budescu, Ph.D., a psychologist who has researched the effects of uncertainty on human judgment and decision-making, was installed in the chair in December 2008.

Edward and Marilyn Bellet Chair in Legal Ethics, Morality, and Religion

Established in 2005 by Sally J. Bellet, LAW ’76, the chair was named for Bellet’s parents. Bellet’s grandfather, Louis Stein, Law ’26, in 1976 founded the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law, which has achieved enormous success in matters related to public service and ethics.

Russell Pearce, the current holder of the chair, joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, and currently teaches, writes and lectures in the field of professional responsibility. He is also the co-director of the Stein Center.

James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics

Established through a gift from James Buckman, FCRH ’66, former vice chairman of York Capital Management, and his wife, Nancy M. Buckman, this theology chair was established as a way to strengthen philosophy and theology, areas in which, James Buckman said, Jesuit universities “act as the lights of the world.”

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Ph.D., a feminist theologian and ethics scholar, was installed in the chair in a ceremony in February 2009.

Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing

Mary Higgins Clark, FCLC ’79, whose 42 books have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone, pledged in 2013 to create the Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing.

The gift will make it possible for Fordham to hire a professor of creative writing within the Department of English. The chair will be a visiting appointment for a limited term, offered to a distinguished writer drawn from a variety of genres, to lead writing workshops and teach seminars and master classes to upper-level undergraduates or graduate students.
The first holder of the chair will be announced in the spring of 2015.

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Chair in International Business and Finance

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and managing director at Goldman Sachs, established the chair in 2007 with a gift to increase the Graduate School of Business Administration’s (GBA) talent in global finance and economic issues. The Corrigan gift further endowed the E. Gerald Corrigan Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fordham College at Rose Hill, which has provided financial support to minority students for nearly a decade.

Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., whose expertise is in the areas of corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance, and capital markets, was formally installed as the inaugural holder of the chair in February 2012.

Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

This chair was created thanks to a February 2009 gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., a philanthropy that provides grants to arts, cultural, and religious institutions, and Mary and Michael Jaharis. It marked a milestone for Orthodox studies in the Western Hemisphere and ensured resources for a chair in this discipline in perpetuity at Fordham.

The new chair was celebrated by members of the Fordham and Orthodox Christian communities at the November 2013 installation ceremony for Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., a professor of theology and the senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center. A second chair will be installed in 2015.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Chair in Catholic Theology

A gift in November 2009 from Vincent Viola, PAR, chairman of Virtu Management, LLC, and his wife, Teresa, created an endowed professorship in honor of Cardinal Dulles, who was the first American to become a cardinal who was not a bishop, and the only cardinal to teach on Fordham’s staff.

In January 2011, the chair was filled by Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology and then-chair of the department. At the installation ceremony, he delivered “Sentire cum Ecclesia: Thinking With and for the Church.” His talk explored ways to understand St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church” in the context of Cardinal Dulles’ influential book Models of the Church(Doubleday, 1974).

Gabelli Professor of Security Analysis

As part of his 2011 transformative $25 million gift, Mario Gabelli, GSB ’65, devoted funds toward a new faculty position that will be tasked with heading the new Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

In addition, Gabelli’s matching gift challenge resulted in five additional chairs for the business school, enhancing its strength across a range of disciplines:
• Grose Family Endowed Chair in Business
• William J. Loschert Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship
• Robert B. McKeon Endowed Faculty Chair in Business
• Edward M. Stroz/Sara A. Spooner Endowed Chair in Accounting
• Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets (see below)

Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History

Paul Guenther, FCRH ’62, former president of the investment firm PaineWebber, and a trustee emeritus of the University, established the chair in 2008 through gifts made by him and his wife, Diane. The Guenthers were born and raised (and met) in Inwood, Manhattan, while Saul Cornell, Ph.D., the chair’s inaugural holder, was born and raised in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn.

For his inaugural address, Cornell kept the New York City connection alive with “The Perils of Popular Constitutionalism: Riding the D Train with James Madison,” which detailed the Anti-Federalists of Colonial times.

Leitner Chairs in International Human Rights

A gift from James Leitner, LAW ’82, in 2007, allowed the law school to establish two chairs in international human rights. Martin Flaherty and Thomas Lee are holders of the Leitner Chairs.

Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies

A gift from Eugene Shvidler, GBA ’92, made in February 2013 provided for the establishment of the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies in the Department of Theology.

Shvidler, the chairman of Millhouse LLC, an investment and asset management company, received a master’s degree in mathematics from the Gubkin Institute of Petrochemicals and Natural Gas as well as an M.B.A. and master’s degree in international taxation from Fordham’s GBA.

A search is currently under way among academics with distinguished records of research and scholarship in Rabbinic and/or later religious developments within the Jewish tradition.

Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets

Answering the matching challenge of Mario Gabelli, William Toppeta, FCRH ’70, and his wife Debra provided the funds for this chair, which in April 2012 was awarded to James R. Lothian, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Finance in the Fordham Schools of Business. Toppeta is a senior advisor at Promontory Financial Group.

Lothian, who joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, researches international finance, monetary economics (including monetary policy), financial history—both U.S. and international—and the incidence and international transmission of economic disturbances.

Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre

In March 2011, the contributions of Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, endowed both a chair in theater and a scholarship fund for undergraduate students studying theater.

The revolving chair has already been occupied by Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the classic sitcom The Cosby Show; Tony-nominated veteran stage, television, and film actor Joe Morton; and Tony Award-winning set designerChristine Jones.

Stanley D. Waxberg and Nikki Waxberg Chair

A gift from the Waxberg estate led to the creation of a chair at the Fordham School of Law in 2008 that was awarded to Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., the founding Director of the law school’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

Reidenberg has held numerous administrative leadership positions for Fordham University and has become a leading voice for privacy. CLIP’s most recent report detailed the ways in which schools endanger students’ privacy through connections with private data collectors.

Fordham Law School’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) released a groundbreaking report on Dec. 13 on how school districts address privacy when they transfer student information to cloud computing service providers.

The study found that as public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, they transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers without requiring basic privacy protections. As a result, school districts frequently fall short of federal privacy standards and community expectations for children’s privacy.

“School districts throughout the country are embracing the use of cloud computing services for important educational goals, but have not kept pace with appropriate safeguards for the personal data of school children,” said Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and the founding director of CLIP. Reidenberg points out that vendors who are not generally subject to federal privacy laws have put schools in a precarious position for the stewardship of children’s data through their contract terms.

“We believe there are critical actions that school districts and vendors must take to address the serious deficiencies in privacy protection.”

Fordham CLIP analyzed a national sample of public school districts including large, medium, and small school systems from every geographic region of the country.

Among other key points, the analysis found that 95 percent of districts rely on cloud services for a diverse range of functions such as data mining related to student performance, support for classroom activities, student guidance, data hosting, and special services. An overwhelming majority of cloud service contracts do not address parental notice, consent, or access to student information.

—Steve Eichinger

BTEP Marks International Human Rights Day

On Dec. 9, the Graduate School of Social Service’s Be the Evidence Project (BTEP) hosted a screening of the documentary Mothers of Bedford, which follows five incarcerated women struggling to maintain relationships with their children from behind bars. Following the showing, director Jenifer McShane and Mona, one of the women featured in the documentary, spoke about the film and answered questions from audience members. The event was held as part of the United Nations’ Human Rights Day, which has been celebrated globally every Dec. 10 since 1950 to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. GSS’s Institute for Women and Girls co-sponsored the event.

—Tom Stoelker

Fordham Law School’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) today released a report on how school districts address privacy when they transfer student information to cloud computing service providers.  The report marks the nation’s first in-depth analysis of this increasingly contentious issue.

The study found that as public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services to fulfill their educational objectives and take advantage of new technologically enabled opportunities, they transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers, without requiring basic privacy protections such as strong data security measures and limitations on commercial data mining. As a result, school districts frequently fall short of federal privacy standards and of community expectations for children’s privacy. The study can be found here: http://law.fordham.edu/k12cloudprivacy.

“School districts throughout the country are embracing the use of cloud computing services for important educational goals, but have not kept pace with appropriate safeguards for the personal data of school children,” said Joel Reidenberg, a professor at Fordham Law School and the founding director of CLIP. Reidenberg points out that vendors who are not generally subject to federal privacy laws have put schools in a precarious position for the stewardship of children’s data through their contract terms. He said, “We believe there are critical actions that school districts and vendors must take to address the serious deficiencies in privacy protection.”

The goals of the study were 1) to provide a national picture of cloud computing in public schools; 2) to assess how public schools address their statutory obligations as well as generally accepted privacy principles in their cloud service agreements; and 3) to make recommendations based on the findings for the protection of student privacy.

Fordham CLIP selected a national sample of school districts including large, medium and small school systems from every geographic region of the country. Using state open public record laws, Fordham CLIP requested from each of the school districts all of the district’s cloud service agreements, notices to parents and computer use policies for teachers and examined whether the districts met privacy obligations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, as well as basic fair information practices.

The key findings from the analysis are:

• 95% of districts rely on cloud services for a diverse range of functions including data mining related to student performance, support for classroom activities, student guidance, data hosting, as well as special services such as cafeteria payments and transportation planning.

• Cloud Services are poorly understood, non-transparent and weakly governed with only 25% of districts informing parents of cloud services, 20% of districts failing to have policies for the use of online services, and a sizeable plurality of districts having rampant gaps in their contract documentation including missing privacy policies.

• Districts give up control of student information when using cloud services, with fewer than 25% of the agreements specifying the purpose for disclosures of student information, fewer than 7% of the contracts restricting the sale or marketing of student information by vendors, and many agreements allowing vendors to change the terms without notice. FERPA, however, generally requires districts to have direct control of student information when disclosed to third-party service providers.

• An overwhelming majority of cloud service contracts do not address parental notice, consent or access to student information. Some services even require parents to activate accounts and consent to privacy policies that may contradict those in the district’s agreement with the vendor. FERPA and COPPA, however, contain requirements related to parental notice, consent and access to student information.

• School district cloud service agreements generally do not provide for data security and even allow vendors with alarming frequency to retain student information in perpetuity. Yet, basic norms of information privacy require data security.

Fordham CLIP recommends that school districts and vendors take a series of specific actions to address these problems. For example, among other things, Fordham CLIP recommends 1) that the existence and identity of cloud service providers and the privacy protections should be available on district websites and districts must provide notice to parents of these services and the types of student information that is transferred to third parties; 2) that vendors and districts include explicit contract protections described in the study; and 3) districts adopt policies and implementation plans for the adoption and use of cloud services that involve student data.

The Fordham Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) was founded to make significant contributions to the development of law and policy for the information economy and to teach the next generation of leaders. CLIP brings together scholars, the bar, the business community, technology experts, the policy community, students, and the public to address and assess policies and solutions for cutting-edge issues that affect the evolution of the information economy.

This project was supported by a gift from Microsoft.

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The promise of social media when it first appeared in 2006 as “Web 2.0” was a lofty one. Sign up for Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, the thinking went, and the right amount of self-promotion, cleverness, and moxie could make you rich and famous.

The folks who created Web 2.0 felt the same way about themselves. All one needed to strike it rich, it was believed, was a revolutionary idea and a mastery of programming. 

Alice Marwick, Ph.D., says that archetype of the self-made entrepreneur is largely a myth.

“When you actually tease out the social dynamics of Silicon Valley, you find that it’s really about having access to people and resources,” said Marwick, an assistant professor of communications.

Marwick, a social-software researcher, spent a year living in San Francisco in 2008, and the research she conducted there formed the basis of Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age (Yale University Press, 2013), published last month.

Status Update delves into three techniques that social media promotes: self-branding, micro celebrity, and life streaming, which consists of sharing information about what you’re doing as you go about your day. Marwick is not a fan.

“Far from being participatory and democratic, people in Silicon Valley were instead encouraged to present themselves online and interact with others in these very commercialized ways,” she said.

“They were encouraged to create self-brands, or to think of themselves as celebrities, and try to sell themselves to other people. The metric of success was therefore how many followers you had.”

What surprised Marwick was the sexism in the industry. Women make up a tiny percentage in the field, and are also less likely to major in computer science in college today than they were 1970.

“There’s an assumption that it’s because there’s a lack of merit—that if women were good at coding or good at what they did, they’d be getting funded and starting companies,” she said.

In fact, Marwick said that venture capitalists are so enamored with a certain type of entrepreneur—notably a male who is Harvard- or Stanford-educated—that there’s a term for it: pattern recognition. Men will mentor other men, but when a man mentors a woman, there’s an assumption that she’s returning the favor physically.

“It’s like 1950s-level sexism, what you might see in Mad Men,” she said.

Marwick is quick to note that it’s not technology per se that leads to sexism. San Francisco is in many ways a company town, and the lack of people working in media, fashion, and finance makes it more of a closed loop than New York City’s tech industry, for example.

“I think New York techies tend to be a bit more humble, because they are constantly interacting with people who aren’t in tech, and constantly having to try to justify their existence,” she said.

Marwick’s work also focuses on online harassment and cyber bullying. She’s the first academic affiliate at the Law School’s Center for Law and Information Policy (CLIP), and recently won a Fordham faculty grant to study online sexism and the motivations behind online hate speech.

Her research will focus on how the average person practices online privacy, with an emphasis on everyday practices. She cautions that there are frequent moral panics over online conflict, resulting in misguided laws around social networking or “online predators,” and emphasizes that she does not want her research contributing to poorly thought-out legal remedies to social problems.

In spite of her critical assessment of Silicon Valley, Marwick calls the Internet and social media a “great love.” She teaches social media to undergraduates and has used their insights in a recent paper she authored about Instagram.

“I would almost always say I’d rather hang out with technologists than investment bankers,” she said.

“I like the sort of ‘Lets use our powers to figure these different problems out’ attitude. I just think that the industry has so much more potential.”

Watch the video below to learn more about Marwick’s social software research:

Fordham Law School’s Center for Law and Information Policy announced and released a first-ever curriculum for privacy education geared to middle school students on Oct. 16 at Fordham Law School.

The program was financed by a court-approved settlement in the class action law suit against NebuAd. Fordham Law student volunteers taught a pilot program last spring at PS 191 in New York City, and now Fordham CLIP is launching a partnership with volunteers from about a dozen law schools who will teach the program in middle schools across the country.

Fordham CLIP is making the curriculum available as a set of free open source documents on the CLIP website to any educators who want to use the instructional materials to address the many privacy issues teens face as their use of technology skyrockets.

CLIP gave inaugural Pioneer in Privacy Knowledge Awards to administrators and teachers at PS 191 as well as to the 30 students who participated in the pilot program. The Fordham CLIP team described the curriculum and the national education effort.

“As online technologies become a key feature in young teens’ lives, parents and educators must teach teens about the privacy and safety implications of these technologies,” said Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., Fordham Law professor and founding director of CLIP. “We’ve designed a program and enlisted a team of volunteers to help educate children about how to use these devices safely so they don’t make mistakes that can impact them for many years.”

Jordan Kovnot, LAW ’11, an associate at the law firm Olender Feldman and former Fordham CLIP Privacy Fellow, developed the program during the course of his fellowship last year and supervised the group of volunteer Fordham law students who taught the program last spring to a class of seventh graders at PS 191 in Manhattan. The program features a set of one-hour-long sessions covering topics such as: 1) privacy basics; 2) how to deal with passwords and behavioral ads; 3) navigating social media and tricky situations; 4) understanding mobile, WiFi and facial recognition; and 5) managing a digital reputation.

“Our middle school students were challenged to think about privacy in their everyday lives,” said Nichole Gagnon, the PS 191 classroom teacher for the pilot class. “Many teens believe that because they are communicating through their own personal accounts, phones and computers that it is private. While interacting with the law students, they soon realized that nothing that is public can be private at the same time.”

Reidenberg has enlisted law schools and universities from around the country to teach the program for free in their communities starting next spring. Participating students and faculty include the following schools: Berkeley Law, UC-Irvine, Georgetown, Harvard’s Berkman Center, Idaho, Northern Kentucky, Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, Roger Williams, Seattle, Suffolk, Tulane, Washington University-St. Louis, and Yale.

The need for this type of education is revealed by recent reports from the Pew Research Center that 93% of teens ages 12 to 17 go online, 53% of teens post their email address online, 20% post their cell phone number and 33% are connected online to people they have never met.