A Queens native and the son of two Irish immigrants, McGonigle is now the father of three Fordham graduates.

Cara, who earned her B.S. from the Gabelli School of Business in 2013, is currently an associate banking advisor at Northern Trust and is pursuing her M.B.A. at Gabelli part time. Kathleen, a 2015 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate, is now studying at the School of Law. And Claire just graduated from Gabelli in May.

A managing director at a private equity firm, McGonigle had always credited his Fordham education for jumpstarting his career. He had multiple job offers to choose from when he completed his undergraduate degree, and he was thrilled to return to Fordham part time to complete his M.B.A. But it wasn’t until he started going through the college admission process with his oldest daughter that he realized quite how special Fordham is.

“Fordham students are willing to see beyond themselves and their immediate needs. They realize there’s a larger world out there,” he says, “and they’re willing to help each other.”

McGonigle’s youngest daughter, Claire, says it was that same Fordham spirit that eventually drew her and her two sisters to their dad’s alma mater. “I remember one of us had a birthday party at a basketball game on campus,” she recalls, “but that love for Fordham didn’t really hit us until she was applying to college. It’s the best of all worlds.”

Now the whole family is involved in the Fordham community. All three sisters served as Rose Hill ambassadors, giving tours of the campus to prospective students. McGonigle is a member of both the President’s Council and the Parents’ Leadership Council. And everyone attends sporting events and Homecoming.

The whole family gathered on the Rose Hill campus again in May to celebrate Claire’s graduation. McGonigle served as the alumni banner bearer, so he and his wife, Ann Marie, also walked down Eddies Parade during the University commencement. As the group gathered for photos before the Gabelli diploma ceremony, Ann Marie laughed about how she was the only one in the family not to have a Fordham degree.

“When we go on vacation, we always take photos and make a ram sign with our hands,” says Claire, “and my mom jokes that she needs to go back and get a Fordham degree so she can join in.”

Though she’s the only one in the family without a Fordham degree, McGonigle says his wife also recognizes how special Fordham’s culture is. “Every time we’d visit [our daughters], we’d leave feeling terrific about where they were and what they were doing. It’s a great feeling.”

Claire says her dad never expected that she and her sisters would end up going to the same college, let alone his alma mater.

“He didn’t ever push us to go to Fordham,” she explains. “We all came to the decision on our own. So I think that is the most special part. We all chose to have that common experience individually.”

Shannon Harman graduated from the Gabelli School of Business on May 20, just like two of her sisters before her. Abigail (Abby) Harman earned her Gabelli diploma in 2016, and Emily Harman graduated from the school in 2015.

Having her two older sisters on campus with her was helpful, said Shannon, standing outside the Rose Hill Gym with her family just before the Gabelli ceremony, where Abby and Emily joined her on stage as she received her diploma.

“I got to know a lot of people over the years, especially having two sisters [here] before me,” Shannon said, adding that watching her siblings navigate Fordham’s classes and extracurriculars helped her pursue her own path toward a career in finance.

Shannon followed in her sisters’ footsteps in some key activities during her Gabelli career. She was CEO of Smart Woman Securities, where Emily had also served as CEO and Abby was chief development officer, hosting weekly seminars with finance professionals who shared advice and career perspectives. The nonprofit organization, with chapters on several college campuses, aims to educate undergraduate women on finance and investing through networking events and mentoring. Each of the Harman sisters attended the organization’s annual trip to Omaha, Nebraska, where they were among a group of students who met and dined with Warren Buffett.

“One of my favorite things here was being in Smart Woman Securities. That really helped me grow,” Shannon said. “And it actually helped me get my job, because of one of the events they helped me attend.” In July, she’ll be starting a rotational finance program at JPMorgan Chase, where she interned as a student.

All three sisters studied abroad with Gabelli at Fordham’s London Centre. Emily said that learning what it was like to work in finance in London, as well as connecting with Fordham’s alumni network there, gave them each valuable international perspective. “It had a huge impact on my Fordham experience,” she said.

Emily started her career in BNY Mellon’s Emerging Leaders Program before moving last summer to Blackstone, where she is an analyst in the Private Wealth Group. Abby is also currently at Blackstone in the rotational finance program, a position she landed after completing the summer internship there in 2015.

Though the three sisters ended up together at Fordham, they went their own ways in high school. The family lives in Brielle, New Jersey, and they each went to a different specialized high school in the Monmouth County Vocational School District. The fact that they attended separate high schools gave them a greater appreciation for the time they spent together at Fordham. Their youngest sibling, Gracie, is currently a junior in Manasquan High School, where she is part of the finance academy. The family affectionately refers to her as a potential Fordham Ram.

“I’d love to see her come to Fordham and have a great experience like we did,” Emily said.

In 2006, McKay began taking courses at Fordham without telling her relatives.

“I wanted a degree that was recognizable and prestigious and to me that’s what Fordham is,” she said. “Everybody knows Fordham.”

Over the course of her schooling, she had to balance several responsibilities: She got married; she worked full time at major brokerage firms, and; she helped raise her nieces and nephews for her twin sister.

It’s no small miracle, she said, that she has made it to college at all. McKay and her fraternal twin sister were born addicted, as both of their parents were chronic heroin users. Her mother died a few years later and her father abandoned the twins shortly thereafter. McKay said that foster parents took them in as a source of income—and she doesn’t flinch when telling the story.

“I don’t have any shame; who wants to be born addicted to heroin?” she said. “I never did drugs because I saw what it did to people.”

Even though she never succumbed, her parents’ affliction became the family’s legacy, affecting both her brother and her sister. She said her foster mother was abusive, telling her and her sister that they “came from nothing” and they’d “amount to nothing.”

“I remember holding my sister’s face in my hands, telling her, ‘Don’t listen to them, they don’t know what they’re talking about.’”

For the young McKay, school became her “great escape.” Growing up, she rarely missed a day. After high school she enrolled at the State University of New York at New Paltz, but found that her education had left her ill prepared for college life. After struggling for two years, she returned home to Harlem, where she found an apartment and a job.

She also stepped in to help her sister, who had two older children, was pregnant with a third, and was struggling with an addiction. After the birth, child services was threatening to take her sister’s baby, who was born addicted, and put it in foster care. So McKay adopted the newborn.

“I said, ‘we can’t continue this, this is a cycle and we need to break the cycle.’”

Even though her career rose at a steady clip—she worked at Paine Webber, Bear Stearns, Mariner Investments, and finally at Guggenheim Securities where she works now—the desire to finish college was still nagging at her. So on a friend’s encouragement she came to Fordham.

“I thought if she could do, then I can do it,” she said.

She is hoping that her graduation will come as a surprise to many in the family, including her sister, whose steady recovery over the years has made her proud. With her degree, she hopes to help children overcome abuses like those she and her sister faced.

Although she does not blame anyone for her “unfortunate circumstances” while growing up, remnants of her childhood remain. She said fear of failure sometimes nags at her.

“I still never believed I could do this, but at Fordham the deans and professors really believed in me,” she said.

Dear graduating friends of Fordham:

I am delighted to be able to address these words to you in this solemn moment of your graduation from this prestigious university. I thank Fr. McShane and his colleagues for the honor that you give me by conferring an academic degree upon me.

I want to briefly reflect with you on mercy and its wonderful ability to change hearts through kindness.

Recently the Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, analyzed the impact of Pope Francis in a worldly society that is fragmented and searching for meaning. As evident in the media and elsewhere, society is currently polarized and it sometimes seems that history is walking backwards. Without a doubt we are facing what some call, “a new world” and it would seem that the old world is collapsing. What does this signify for you, dear graduates?

First of all, a territory to explore is fraught with fear and risk, but also adventure. In the twenty first century it would seem that there is nothing else to explore. But humanity continues to change; it is not static. People change. New ways of being in the world continue to be formulated. And you should be prepared for this. Territory to explore.

In the second place: Seeing humanity as it is today, interpreting in depth what is happening as a way of understanding people. Communication goes beyond the internet and the ipads. We need to speak and interpret the current language of today’s world. Language assumes a dispatcher and a recipient. If we are not in the right frequency, the recipient many times doesn’t understand us. Then we ask ourselves: How do we understand humanity if we do not know the language of today’s world? That is why we always need to learn anew.

In the third place: New opportunities. What exists are new opportunities, not only problems. Where we see problems it is best to see opportunities. People need experiences of salvation because we live in a turbulent world. You have a whole world to discover. But you also face new risks: The one who’s paralyzed in front of risks loses opportunities.  We can make our risks manageable. And it is here when we can remember the new direction that Pope Francis give us: “The Church’s primary task is to bear witness to the mercy of God and to encourage generous reactions of solidarity in order to open a future of hope. For where hope increases, energy and commitment to building a more human and just social order also grows”.

Before a culture of violence and death this is what we propose: The culture of the good. No more discrimination, no more anti-semitism, no more hatred, no more violence.

How loud the words of the Pope resonate when he held up “men and women with others and for others; true models in the service of others”. Then the Sovereign Pontiff told us something fundamental, with which I would like to conclude: “In your society, which is deeply marked by secularization, I encourage you also to be present in public debate, in all the areas where humanity is at issue, to make God’s mercy and his tenderness for every creature visible.”

Yes, dear friends, let us remain committed to work with courage and heroism for “the cause of the human being”. In this way, and only in this way, will we all exhibit the transparency of God’s mercy, mercy that is love, a love that starts at home.

To be spiritual is to live life according to the Spirit, what can be called a transcendent humanism. Transcendent humanism flows from the tradition of a Christian mysticism that can appear paradoxical. Yes, it is centered on the search of God through Jesus, but it is also centered on human experience and in the search for fraternal love. it lives in the hope for the Kingdom that will have no end, but it fully embraces the work of the Kingdom in history and in society today. Yes, it receives faith as a gift from God, faith that is irreducible to any human experience, but it also acknowledges that faith takes shape in the context of particular culture, each with its own challenges and commitments.

Transcendent humanism acknowledges that the experience of God is inseparable from commitment to all that is human, and that commitment must also be to the experience of God. Without doubt, transcendent humanism is the “place” in which the mercy of Christ is incarnate and becomes practical, in love towards brothers and sisters and in the preferential love for the poor and the suffering. It is in the world as it is that the mystical becomes incarnate, in a spirit of Christian realism based on the demands of the practice of faith and love, in commitment to our brothers and sisters, in service to the poor.

The Pope tells us that parishes and communities must “become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference.” He reminds us that a merciful heart does not mean a weak heart. Anyone who wishes to be merciful must have a strong and steadfast heart, closed to the tempter but open to God. And the mercy to which we are called embraces all of creation, which God entrusted to us so that we keep it, not exploit it or worse still, destroy it. This reminds us that we, as believers, have an obligation to care for our common home, from which we receive many homes.

The encyclical letter Laudato Si, cannot be forgotten. Yes, it cannot be forgotten. For Pope Francis, mercy is not just an abstract word, but a face that we recognize, contemplate and serve. And as such he manifested it in the Bull of Mercy which he called the Jubilee:  “Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God. Nothing in Him is lacking in compassion”. And then he added:  “His person is nothing but love, a love given gratuitously. The signs he works, especially in favor of sinners, the poor, the marginalized, the sick, and the suffering, are all meant to teach mercy. Everything in him speaks of mercy. Nothing in him is devoid of compassion.”

In conclusion, I congratulate you once again on your graduation. I express my best wishes to your families and to you so that this new stage of your life may be filled with mercy and that God will continue to transform your hearts to build a culture of kindness.

]]> 68054 https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/class-of-2017-urged-to-face-unsettling-times-with-a-merciful-heart/ Sat, 20 May 2017 18:24:48 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=67996 Under slate gray skies, Fordham’s Class of 2017 was challenged by a clear call to embrace love, charity, and mercy in tackling head-on the problems of a turbulent, unpredictable, and unsettling world.

“Where we see problems, it is best to see opportunities. People need experiences of salvation because we live in a turbulent world,” said his Eminence Óscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, delivering the keynote address (full remarks here) to an estimated crowd of 20,000 gathered at the Rose Hill campus for the University’s 172nd commencement.

“You have a whole world to discover. But you also face new risks: The one who’s paralyzed in front of risks loses opportunities.”

Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, a key adviser to Pope Francis and a robust Catholic voice for addressing global poverty and social injustice, was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters during the ceremony on Edwards Parade. He encouraged the 5,077 graduates to “be present in public debate, in all the areas where humanity is at issue,” and to make God’s mercy and tenderness visible for every creature.

To be spiritual is to live life according to the Holy Spirit, he said, through “transcendent humanism,” a seemingly paradoxical tradition of Christian mysticism that is centered on both the search for God through Jesus, and on human experience in the search for fraternal love.

“Transcendental humanism acknowledges that the experience of God is inseparable from commitment to all that is human,” he said, including “the preferential love for the poor and the suffering.” He encouraged the graduates, therefore, to face today’s fragmented, polarized society “committed to work with courage and heroism for the cause of the human being.”

“Before a culture of violence and death this is what we propose: The culture of good.”

A Call to Live Well

In his address to those graduating in the University’s Dodransbicentennial year, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, sounded a cautionary note, acknowledging that the world today is difficult, discouraging, challenging, and often destructive. As Fordham students and New Yorkers “by birth or by adoption,” the Class of 2017 has been personally affected by current events.

“You learned that when a rock is thrown in the Gaza Strip, a heart is broken in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and when a bomb goes off on the London tube, we shudder on the Number 4 line at Grand Central,” he said.

“When children starve in a refugee camp anywhere in the world, the streets of Manhattan stream with tearful demonstrators, and when there is political unrest in Korea, the news unsettles your friends whose families live in Korean communities all over the city.”

The key, he said, is to “embrace the motto ‘living well is the best revenge’ by becoming society’s standouts, guides, and [society’s] conscience.” He told the graduates to live lives “not marked by conspicuous consumption but conspicuous compassion.”

“Remember that the principles in your heart are worth nothing if they are locked away in your hearts,” he said. “Set them loose and let them direct your every action. You will transform the world with your gritty New York generosity; your hard won, discerning wisdom; and your daring compassion.”

New York Senator Charles Schumer, in brief remarks before Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, likewise urged students to embrace the unknown, as he said their generation is uniquely qualified to tackle today’s challenges.

[doptg id=”85″]In addition to the cardinal, this year’s recipients of honorary degrees include:

Anne Anderson, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States;

Joseph Cammarosano, FCRH ’47, GSAS ’56, longtime Fordham faculty member;

Anthony P. Carter, former vice president for global diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer for Johnson & Johnson;

Michael Dowling, the president and CEO of Northwell Health;

Jane Iannucelli, S.C., president of the order of the Sisters of Charity;

Gregory Long, CEO and the William C. Steere Sr. President of the New York Botanical Garden;

and Eric T. Schneiderman, attorney general of New York State.