“As the world’s greatest democracy, that more than two-thirds of the people do not trust our government should be a clarion call to us all,” Dr. Skorton told an audience of nearly 20,000 gathered on Edwards Parade on May 21 for the 171st Commencement ceremony. “This crisis in trust affects every aspect of our society.”

At the same time, the world itself is more unpredictable, he said, with increasing economic turmoil, and democratic and humanistic ideals “under siege.” Conversations taking place on college campuses and elsewhere on race, climate change, and income inequality are lacking in civility.

To rebuild trust in our institutions and in one another, he urged the new graduates to use the tools of a democracy–communication, education, laws, and “intolerance of inequality”–to lift the sagging spirit of the nation. Taking inspiration from both a Jesuit education and from Pope Francis’ messages of ending global injustice, he urged graduates to “be part of the virtuous circle” of change.

“Fordham has taught you that education is not only a path to a more satisfying and secure future but as well a tool for the common good,” he said. “We are counting on you.”
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If the new graduates were in want of ways in which to act upon Dr. Skorton’s entreaty, they got it from Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham.

Father McShane acknowledged that many in the Class of 2016 might feel ambivalence upon leaving college, and have “complicated” impulses pulling them in different directions. After offering them a balm (“Relax. You’re going to be just fine.”), he gave up three bits of sage advice: always remember where you came from; always remember where you went to school; and always remember that your New York City experience brings with it a special purpose.

“You were educated in that impossible, chaotic, frenzied, and imperfect city presided over by the Statue of Liberty,” Father McShane said. “Here, we seek to create one nation out of many peoples.” That endeavor—to welcome all people with love, respect, and goodwill—is a noble purpose that has not yet been achieved, he said. ”It is a dream that calls us to work every day to make this city, the mother of immigrants, the true city on a hill.

“Therefore, be bothered that the promise of America has not been fully realized.

“But don’t just be bothered,” he said. “Do something about it. Matter. Make a difference. God did not put you here to be ornaments. You were brought to this moment so you could take on the world, set it on fire, and change it.”

Father McShane said the members of the Class of 2016 have learned the quality of mercy from their parents and their time at Fordham. As they are the graduating during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, such work is their calling.

”Shelter the homeless. Clothe the naked. Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Comfort the sick. Console the dying. Visit the imprisoned. If you make the works of mercy the defining characteristics of your lives … you will be true sons and daughters of Fordham.”

In addition to Dr. Skorton, this year’s recipients of honorary degrees include

• Judith Altmann, vice president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut
• Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, a successful businessman and key supporter of Fordham
• Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, global head of diversity for JPMorgan Chase
• Gregory J. Boyle, SJ, founder and executive director of the gang-intervention group Homeboy Industries
• Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States
• Robert Battle, artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
• Henry Cobb, founding partner at the architecture firm Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners
• Loretta A. Preska, LAW ’73, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

For more commencement coverage, visit our Commencement page.

But it has primed him—the first in his family to graduate from college—to make an impact on the criminal justice system, he said.

And as an added bonus, Xiang, who gets his diploma on Monday, May 23 from the law school, will be doing it in the borough where he was born.

Xiang’s parents immigrated to the Bronx from Guangzhou, China, but eventually moved to Elmhurst, Queens. Xiang grew up there as an only child, and returned to the Bronx for school—he was admitted to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science.

He did his undergraduate studies at Hunter and Stony Brook colleges, where he tried his hand at chemistry before realizing he wanted to spend more time with people. He settled on political science and Asian studies, and as part of his studies, he ventured to Tibet and Western China to study minority populations.

After he earned his degree, Xiang took some time to travel and “figure out” what was next. He lived briefly Texas and San Francisco, and then returned to New York City, where he worked as a bartender and waiter. He briefly considered pursuing a doctorate in Asian studies, but ultimately Fordham Law School attracted him. He said he felt it would deliver concrete results.

“At Stony Brook, I did a lot of research and a lot of writing, and it seemed like law was an area where I could use those skills to further my career,” he said.

Xiang found his calling in law when he was given the opportunity to work in Syracuse for the Honorable Frederick J. Scullin Jr., justice of the Northern District of New York. His colleagues spoke of putting in long hours that they found worthwhile, because they could see the tangible benefits of serving in the community. Xiang became intrigued.

“That’s really what I wanted to do. I’d done a lot of jobs where I worked a lot of long hours, but those jobs didn’t resonate very well with me,” he said. “Law is for a good purpose, and you can see the effects on the community. That matters to me.”

Xiang initially considered doing defense law, but he says he wants to be a prosecutor who is in a position to effect change from within. He credits some of this perspective to having studied in China, where the government is fully in control of the justice system.

When those on the outside pushing for change find no one on the inside is listening, change becomes a Sisyphean task, he said.

“If you only have very conservative prosecutors who believe every small crime should be prosecuted to the full extent, then [you won’t find]more reasonable prosecutors who will balance the sentencing and balance the prosecution,” Xiang said.

“Do you want to really put someone with a small marijuana offense away from their family for five years? Does it benefit their family? Does it do society any good? Is there a sense of justice? These are the questions that you ask yourself.”

He credits professors Mark Costello, adjunct professor of law, Ted Neustadt, legal writing professor and associate director of legal writing, Deborah Denno, PhD, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, and Clare Huntington, associate dean for research and professor of law, for helping guide him. He is also proud to have formed a tight group of friends, many whom are also taking jobs in district attorneys’ offices in New York City. Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island have all recently elected new DAs, which makes prosecutorial work exciting area of law to work these days, he said.

“All my life I’ve been watching New York change, and it’s interesting being part of that progressive front now as an adult,” he said.

“I’m glad I made the choice to go to Fordham because of the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve built. It’s created a foundation for who I want to be.”

“She died before I was born, and seeing the impact on my family made me think about being involved in a profession that helps people coping with loss,” said Fingerhut, who is graduating with a doctorate in counseling psychology from the Graduate School of Education (GSE).

“I wanted to be the person who helped in that moment.”

Born and raised in Forest Hills, Queens, Fingerhut earned a bachelor’s in psychology at the University of Maryland, and began her graduate studies at Fordham in 2009. Under the guidance of Joseph Ponterotto, PhD, professor of counseling psychology, she completed her dissertation, “Consistency of Self-Reported Symptoms and Etiological Events of Afghan/Iraq War Veterans.”

Working at the Veterans Administration in Manhattan, she examined the screening tools the VA uses to assess whether veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She found that self-reporting measures like yes/no questions are unreliable because they fail to distinguish between traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and PTSD, which often has similar symptoms.

“You might have headaches and, because you hear about TBI in football, think [they’re caused] by that,” she said. “But it really was PTSD—because it was terrifying to lose consciousness in the middle of a war zone in Iraq.”

“We need people to know what TBI is and what PTSD is in the veterans’ community, so they can more accurately report their symptoms.”

Self-reporting, however, can be problematic because when people experience a trauma, they may disassociate and be unable to remember all the details. Doctors should expect the same of soldiers who are injured on the battlefield, she said.

“These are the tools that are being used right now, but how can we think about improving them in the future? If we look at medical records in the theater of war, that would be much more accurate because that’s what happened in the moment,” she said.

During her time working on the degree, Fingerhut found herself drawn to people dealing with all sorts of trauma, from child abuse and eating disorders to sexual assault. She credits GSE adjunct professor Christina Doherty, PhD, for helping her set limits for herself and leave her work at the office when, in her first year, she worked at Fordham’s student counseling center.

Working with veterans is particularly rewarding, she said, because while part of trauma recovery is helping the person attach a sense of meaning to the event, veterans often have to wrestle with moral injury as well.

“Someone is telling them to do something, so it’s part of their duty as a soldier. But then they come back here, and that goes against how they think of themselves. They see themselves as good persons, but they know they had to kill people in Iraq,” she said.

“How do you still care about yourself and have compassion for yourself even if you’ve done things that you regret or feel bad about?”

Fingerhut is hoping to continue her work with veterans after graduation during her post-doctoral fellowship.  She plans to work with trauma survivors and start a support group for veterans.

Zoom out to see the journey as a whole, however, and you’ll find that the two paths dovetail. The army captain-turned-religious-educator is graduating with a master’s degree in religious education from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

“It’s wasn’t too much of a switch,” Van Heusen said in a Skype interview from Koneitra, Lebanon. “I felt called to serve people, which is true for both.”

Van Heusen is a member of the Maronite church, an Eastern Catholic church that dates back to fourth-century Syria. Since October, she has been living and volunteering at a monastery in Koneitra to gain a deeper understanding of Maronite origins and witness how the tradition is lived out in the Middle East today.

Her focus in religious education is on youth and young adult ministries. It was from the monastery that she finished her master’s thesis, in which she develops a catechesis program for American Maronite youth.

“I love working with kids,” Van Heusen said. “The younger children understand so much. They still have that awe and wonder. And teenagers have such a thirst to learn, once you can get them talking and asking questions. Even young adults—in the parish [in Worcester, Massachusetts]where I was working, we would just sit sometimes for hours. They would tell me that it’s rare they can find someone who will just sit and talk with them like that.”

Before transitioning to parish work, Van Heusen was serving as an officer in the Army. She graduated from West Point with a bachelor’s of science in chemistry and life sciences, with a concentration in nuclear engineering. She toured widely as a military police officer, participating in force protection and peace and security operations in places such as Iraq, Guantánamo Bay, Kosovo, Israel, and Germany.

However, she couldn’t ignore a growing desire to work more closely with the Maronites, whose Syriac liturgy Van Heusen finds beautiful and “poetic.” Contemplating religious life, Van Heusen left the army and entered a Maronite convent.

She ultimately did not find her vocation with this community, and eventually relocated to Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral in Brooklyn. It was there that she first heard of Catholic Extension, a national organization dedicated to supporting underserved mission dioceses across the country.

She was accepted to the partnership program between Catholic Extension and Fordham, which allows candidates to receive a master’s degree at no cost in exchange for two and a half years working in one of the mission dioceses.

Van Heusen will return from Lebanon in June and relocate to Darlington, Pennsylvania, where she’ll be assisting the pastor at Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Maronite Mission.

“One thing that I’ve loved about Lebanon is the hospitality of the Lebanese people, which is something they’re known for,” Van Heusen said. “I remember one of the sisters trying to teach me the word for ‘hungry’ in Arabic, and I said to her, ‘But Sister, I’m never hungry—I’m always being fed!

“The more I’ve learned, the more I’ve fallen in love with the liturgy and the spirituality.”

The graduating seniors met for the first time recently in Central Park. When they started talking about Fordham, they found they had much in common–like an initial fear of the subway system.

Khan, who is graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill, said she always took the Ram Van to an anthropology class at Lincoln Center—until her professor assigned the class members to observe behavior on the subway.

“You don’t think about it, but the subway is a culture [in] itself,” said Khan. “Now I take the subway a lot.”

Glenn, who grew up in the New Jersey suburbs and is graduating from Fordham College at Lincoln Center, grew accustomed to the subway when he found himself taking it to the Rose Hill campus for intramural basketball.

“Just being on the train between [Manhattan] and the Bronx, you can see a lot of what’s going on,” he said.

Both students commented on the pockets of poverty that the D train passes through in the South Bronx and said that poor neighborhoods are not simply to be passed through.

Through Fordham’s service groups Khan worked with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Concourse House, a transitional home for women. “I like being part of the Bronx community,” she said. “When you step off-campus it’s a different world, but Fordham encourages you to do that.”

Glenn said that Fordham classes and clubs quickly made him aware of the neighbors in need that live across the street from the glamour of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

“Even though Lincoln Center seems like a rich area, there’s poverty just outside our door,” he said. “Fordham encouraged us to wrestle with that and confront it.”

Both students grew up in comfortable circumstances, and both said their parents helped head off difficulties they might have otherwise faced.   

Glenn’s mother raised him on her own after the death on 9/11 of his father, Harry Glenn, a vice president of global communications at Marsh & McLennan. Today, Glenn graduates with a bachelor’s degree in communications and media studies.

He said his mom and dad focused on giving back. His father read to kids in underserved neighborhoods every Saturday. His mother taught him that he, too, should “treat everyone like they are your family by loving and caring for them.”

“Had it not been for the 9/11 scholarship, I would not have received a Fordham education, so I know the importance of scholarship—whatever it looks like, in any shape or form,” he said. “That’s why giving back is such a big thing.”

He joined the student philanthropy committee and is proud to say that the group helps bring “the issue of economic diversity to campus.” He said that the FCLC senior class gift will go toward a Fordham Fund Scholarship.

Khan said she grew up happy, somewhat oblivious to the struggles of her parents. Even though her mother had been a doctor and her father held a doctorate in geology, they found their credentials were useless in the United States and had to start from scratch. For her mother, it meant going back for courses. For her father, it included working at a dry cleaners and as a security guard to support their growing family of six children.

“In my memory my mother was always studying and my father was always working,” she said.

Khan graduates today with a double major in biology and anthropology. She has been accepted into the medical program at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Today her father works as a laboratory manager and her mother is a certified psychiatrist. She said that “on paper” her family looks well off, but the difficult adjustments affected the family savings. She, too, wouldn’t have been able to attend Fordham without the partial scholarship she received.

Kahn was the recipient of the Paul B. Guenther Scholarship—a restricted scholarship with a significant award for each of her four years at Fordham. She also received an award from the Henry Miller Fellowship for International Education during her junior year.

“I am so grateful for that scholarship because it allowed me to be here and have this city experience that I love,” said Khan, who grew up in Yonkers.

While at Fordham, Glenn and Khan both grew spiritually in unexpected ways.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect in the theology classes,” said Khan. “There were a lot of students who didn’t understand Islam, especially in today’s age with all the Islamophobia. It was very difficult to navigate through that, but my theology professors were very open minded and taught with respect.”

Before she went on an Umrah, a Muslim spiritual pilgrimage, she consulted with John T. Dzieglewicz, SJ, associate dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

“I had to take days off and he was so understanding,” Khan said of Father Dzieglewicz. “The Jesuit tradition is about seeking knowledge, so he was very curious and asked me about the Umrah. He encouraged me to have a spiritual journey,and then he blessed me.”

Glenn said his faith grew and his beliefs were challenged.

“Fordham has encouraged me to wrestle with whether I’m a believer or nonbeliever,” he said. “I never had dogma pushed on me.”

Both agreed that their experiences here changed not only their points of view, but the perspective of their classmates as well. 

“I now recognize myself as someone who is economically privileged,” said Glenn. “And I’ve seen a change in the conversation with my classmates that’s not so racially focused but is economically focused as well.”

Glenn took a service trip to Ecuador with Fordham’s Global Outreach (GO) program, which helps a variety of underserved communities, including some in the United States that happen to be primarily white.

“I appreciate that Fordham’s GO spotlights how poverty does not come just in one color,” he said. “I’m really about helping the poor—whatever they look like.”

Khan said her studies revealed bridges that unite people.

“I’m a biology major, and that’s a common denominator because all humans—no matter what their differences—have the same physiological processes,” she said.

According to Louie Dean Valencia García, it was no coincidence that the system there has stood the test of time since 1978—even as countries such as Iraq and Egypt have foundered in their attempts at democracy. What he found was that the Spanish people had been “creating pluralistic or democratic spaces even in the 1960s.”

“[Democracy] was something that was already happening,” said Valencia García, who today is earning a doctorate in history from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. “Franco’s death just allowed for it to be done more so in the open.”

Beyond the tightly controlled media and textbooks of the Franco era, the youth were imagining a better world through comic books, said Valencia García. As part of his doctoral research, he traveled to Spain on grants from the Spanish national government, Santander University, and the U.S. Library of Congress to see notes that Franco’s censors attached to copies of Superman comics. He published his findings in his dissertation, Making a Scene: Comic Books, Punk Rock, Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture, and Creating Democratic Spaces in Franco’s Spain, 1955-1984.

“Lois Lane was a woman who had a job, wore pants, and told Superman what to do, and Superman was dangerous because he had a double identity,” said Valencia García. “He often rejected Lois Lane’s advancements and was represented as an asexual character, so he was queer in some way.”

“Fascism is about masculinity. It’s about women producing for the country. So men who bow down to women and who are not necessarily adhering to the norms of the dictatorship, and women who are also transgressing them―these behaviors are anti-fascist.”

Valencia García has been reading comic books regularly since he was 11, thanks in part to his mother, who took him to the store every week and who never imagined he’d continue to read them as an adult. He credits the late Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Magis Distinguished Professor of History at Fordham and his adviser, for encouraging him to research them for his dissertation.

“People will say, ‘You study comic books? That’s a little weird.’ But it’s studying questions about mass production, technology, capitalism, and American culture abroad that’s operating under a dictatorship,” he said, “and what it means to be a young person in a global society.”

Indeed, if it’s a trivial topic, Harvard University missed the message. In July, Valencia García will begin a three-year term as lecturer in the school’s department of history and literature. He’ll teach one or two classes a semester of his own design (he’s leaning toward a class about graphic novels in the 20th century in Europe) to about 10 students. He’ll also mentor two to three students who have an interest in youth culture movements like Occupy Wall Street.

“It gives me time to do research and gives me time to turn my dissertation into a book,” said Valencia García, to whom Fordham has been a supportive home for seven years. “It’s phenomenal.”

When Schmidt-Nowara (who’d moved on to Tufts University but still remained Valencia Garcia’s adviser) died suddenly in 2015, Valencia García said he was overwhelmed by the support he received from all corners of the University. History professor and chair of the urban studies program Rosemary Wakeman, PhD, stepped in to replace Schmidt-Nowara as Valencia García’s adviser.

“Literally everybody in the history department backed me up immediately, and they’ve been there the whole time,” he said.

Sarah Allison (Rose Hill): Allison dedicated much of her time to the Dorothy Day Center and the circulation of its social justice values with her fellow Fordham students.  As a Social Justice Leader, she has focused on the issues of police brutality and institutionalized racism. 

Zann Ballsun-Simms (Lincoln Center): Ballsun-Simms has worked with Fordham freshmen as a leader in the Urban Plunge program, as well as assisting rural Ghanaian students in the construction of a school.  She was a program coordinator with the Met Council on Housing, where she helped organize rallies, protests, and marches that drew thousands.

Chris Hennessy (Lincoln Center): As a Social Justice Leader, Hennessy worked to connect Fordham with the community outside the campus on social justice issues. He has taken a leadership role in the Urban Plunge program, the Hurricane Sandy relief programs, and numerous on-campus events, such as talk backs and black outs.

Scarly Rodriguez (Rose Hill): Rodriguez has been a coordinator with Fordham’s History Makers Program since even before her enrollment at Fordham. Since then, her work has extended from the local sphere, as a volunteer at the Bronx Teen Health Center, to the international, in India with Global Outreach and in El Salvador with the Casa de la Solidaridad.

Emily Tormey (Rose Hill): In her time at Fordham, Tormey has advanced from Urban Plunge and College Access, to initiatives such as Global Outreach and the Social Justice Leaders. She was the chapter Director of “Strive for College” and the Fordham Club. As a graduate, she will continue her service work with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

— Kiran Singh contributed to the reporting

“I was reading the textbooks straight through in order to do well, making lists of what to finish and crossing things off when they were done,” said Baig, now a sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill. “It seemed organized, but did I actually understand it?”

When it took her two full days to read seven chapters for a biology test, it became clear to Baig she needed to either cut back, or regroup and seek help on how to achieve her ambitions.

Seeking A Path Forward

Through Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP) office, Baig was introduced to Julia Escobar, then a Gabelli School junior, as someone who might be able to offer advice. Like her, Escobar was focused on completing a pre-health concentration with a major in business. When facing her own workload worries, Escobar had heard the “cut back your course load” suggestions from counselors. But she wasn’t compromising, and she advised Baig to stick to her dream, too.

“Julia took me in and said, ‘This is what it is going to be like,’” recalls Baig. “She told me, ‘Don’t let people put you down and say you can’t do it, because it definitely can get done.’ She gave me a 4-year plan on an Excel chart of how everything would go.”

And that, says Baig, was all in their first meeting. “She didn’t even know who I was!”

Over the next few months, Escobar helped guide Baig on what programs to apply for in the summer, how to get recommendation letters, and even what classes she should take and what clubs to join.

“Ultimately, I was her peer-peer resource, giving her all my knowledge so she could have a more seamless college experience,” said Escobar.

Fast forward one year, and Baig and Escobar speak gratefully of their mentor-mentee relationship and the successes it has brought them both. While the C-STEP Summer Scholars experience gave them a bit of common ground amid a student population of 15,000, staying friends has been a matter of mutual respect and admiration, the students say.

“Julia had done everything I was trying to do,” said Baig. “And she understands in a different manner than the counselors. She sees things from the perspective of a student who has walked the same path.”

From One Student to Another

You could say the importance of student-to-student support at a university is exemplified through Baig and Escobar’s story. Both were standouts at their high schools who struggled upon reaching college. Baig was a native of the Bronx who attended the Manhattan Center for Science and Math in Spanish Harlem; Escobar attended a large suburban public high school in Arvada, Colorado.

“I was valedictorian, and it was no big deal,” said Escobar. “I didn’t study much. So I come here (to Fordham) and it was like, ‘oh wow, this is tough.’ In my first semester biology, I was getting D’s across the board.”

Not one to be told she can’t achieve, Escobar took the matter into her own hands and sought out ways to raise her performance. With an app called Quizlet, she began to concentrate on trying out the scientific concepts through problems rather than reading through the material, a strategy she also passed on to Baig.

That and other strategies have worked for them both, academically. Escobar is graduating with a 3.76, and Baig’s biology scores, which she says had been in the 80s, moved into the 90s when she began to incorporate Escobar’s suggestions. She has a 3.6 overall presently.

This is not to say that it’s easy, by any means, the students emphasize. Escobar and Baig both carry heavy credit loads: Escobar, to complete a double major at the Gabelli School, has averaged 20 credits a semester; Baig has averaged 18 to 20 per semester in her combination pre-health and economics coursework at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

More important than academics has been building peer networks, said Escobar. She, too, has sought support from other students who are pursuing an equally rigorous academic schedule. As a junior, she co-founded the Business Innovations in Healthcare Club (BHIC), which consists of students engaged in any kind of business and pre-health curriculum. Escobar got Baig involved, and next semester Baig will serve on their executive board.

“We are the total nontraditionals in the Gabelli School,” said Escobar of the BHIC students. “On the business side, many students don’t understand that there are not just financial services at banks; there are also financial services at hospitals. Healthcare business administration is one of those things that is completely overlooked and that is not the sexiest of professions, but is a great profession.”

The admiration that has developed between the two women has enhanced both of their college experiences, they said. On a recent weekend, Escobar took Baig along with her to “Impressions Day” at Columbia College of Dental Medicine, which she will be attending next year after she graduates on May 21. She wanted to give Baig the chance to see if she might have an interest in dentistry.

She describes Baig as “sweet and kindhearted” in a way that she says has helped her be a more conscientious person.

And Baig says she is inspired by Escobar’s energy, generosity, and willingness to help in ways that only another student could.

“I’ve had a lot of support from adults,” said Baig, “but I feel like when it comes from a student it’s more of a practical situation.”

Dr. Skorton will be awarded an honorary doctorate during the commencement ceremonies, as will eight other people who have distinguished themselves in business, law, the arts, or public service. See here for full details on Fordham’s commencement ceremonies.

Honorary doctorates of humane letters will be awarded to Dr. Skorton and to Judith Altmann, vice president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut; Gregory Boyle, SJ, head of the gang-intervention group Homeboy Industries; Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, a successful businessman and key supporter of Fordham; Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, global head of diversity for JPMorgan Chase; and Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

An honorary doctorate of laws will be awarded to Loretta A. Preska, LAW ’73, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Honorary doctorates of fine arts will be awarded to Robert Battle, artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and to Henry Cobb, founding partner at the architecture firm Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners and co-designer of Fordham Law School’s new building.

Cobb and Preska will receive their honorary doctorates at the law school’s diploma ceremony, to be held Monday, May 23, at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan. All other honorary doctorates will be awarded at the main University commencement on May 21.

Preska will speak at Fordham Law School’s diploma ceremony. David will speak at the Gabelli School of Business’ diploma ceremony for master’s degree candidates, to be held May 23 at the Beacon Theatre. Father Boyle will speak at the diploma ceremony for the Graduate School of Social Service, to be held May 23 at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall.

David Skorton became the first physician to lead the Smithsonian Institution when he began his tenure in July 2015. He oversees 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoo, and various research centers devoted to astrophysics, tropical research, the natural environment, and other areas.

During his tenure, Dr. Skorton has made arts programming a priority at the Smithsonian, and he continues to advocate for a greater national commitment to arts and humanities education. In an address at the National Press Club in December, he called for reversing what he called our nation’s “disinterest and disinvestment in the arts and humanities” while also preserving the nation’s commitment to science.

As he put it, “This commitment must be based on an understanding that the arts and humanities complement science and that together they us make better thinkers, better decision makers, and better citizens.”

Dr. Skorton earned both his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his medical degree from Northwestern University before completing his residency and fellowship in cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1979. He then joined the faculty of the University of Iowa, where he held professorships in internal medicine, biomedical engineering, and other fields before serving as the university’s president from 2003 to 2006.

In 2006 he was named president of Cornell University, where under his leadership the university joined with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to win a competition to develop a new campus, Cornell Tech, on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. He also won praise as a highly effective fundraising at both Cornell and the University of Iowa.

Dr. Skorton has also served as a professor in Cornell’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and in the departments of medicine and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is a pioneer in applying computer analysis and processing to improve cardiac imaging, and has published two major texts and numerous other writings on cardiac imaging and image processing.

He is also an amateur flute and saxophone player who once co-hosted a weekly Latin jazz program on the University of Iowa’s public radio station.

Other Honorary Degree Recipients:

Judith Altmann is a Holocaust survivor who shares her story widely in Connecticut and Westchester County schools as a way of encouraging young people to make a better world. Born in 1924 in Jasina, Czechoslovakia, she was confined in Nazi camps at Auschwitz, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and Bergen Belsen in 1944 and 1945. She is a vice president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut and recipient of the Anti-Defamation League’s Daniel R. Ginsberg Humanitarian Award for 2013.

Robert Battle is artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which offers a BFA in dance in conjunction with Fordham. Renowned for his challenging, athletic, and lyrical choreography, Battle was named one of the Masters of African American Choreography by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005, among his other honors. He established the Ailey company’s New Directions Choreography Lab to nurture emerging talents, and continues to expand the company’s community outreach and education programs.

Gregory Boyle, SJ, is executive director of Homeboy Industries, one of the nation’s largest gang-intervention organizations. Hundreds of former gang members have changed their lives by taking advantage of the organization’s work program and its services including education, legal help, and substance abuse counseling. Father Boyle is an internationally recognized expert on gang intervention approaches and author of The New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press, 2011).

Henry N. Cobb is a founding partner at the award-winning architecture firm Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners. Along with his colleague Yvonne Szeto, he designed the new 22-story Fordham Law School and McKeon Residence Hall building at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. His many other distinctive projects include the iconic John Hancock Tower over Boston’s historic Copley Square, which earned the prestigious Twenty-Five-Year Award from the American Institute of Architects.

Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, chairman and CEO of Vista Capital, is a successful engineer, businessman, entrepreneur, and Fordham trustee emeritus who is one of the University community’s most vital and longstanding supporters. He played a pivotal role in the expansion of Fordham Prep as one of its trustees from 1983 to 1995, and his extraordinary financial support for Fordham was recognized in 2013 with the renaming of the Administration Building at the Rose Hill campus in his honor. He served on the Fordham University Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2003.

Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, managing director and global head of diversity for JP Morgan Chase, has been widely recognized for integrating diversity efforts throughout the company over the past 15 years. With her help, the company was named to Black Enterprise’s 2015 list of the most diverse companies, and she herself has received honors including the YMCA’s Black Achievers in Industry award. She serves on the advisory board for the Gabelli School of Business and was named the school’s Alumna of the Year for 2015.

Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, is a passionate advocate for expanding health care access. Sister Carol was recognized by President Obama for helping to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, and Pope Benedict XVI bestowed on her the Cross for the Church and Pontiff to honor her humanitarian efforts. Since 2005 she has been president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, a membership organization comprising more than 600 Catholic hospitals and 1,400 other health ministries.

Loretta A. Preska, LAW ’73, is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In more than two decades as a judge she has ruled on many high-profile cases, such as those involving computer hacking, sentencing of a Somali pirate involved in hijacking a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, and the parody of an Annie Leibovitz photograph. She is a steadfast and generous supporter of Fordham who received Fordham Law School’s Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Award and the Fordham Law Alumni Association’s Medal of Achievement. A member of the Fordham University Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2013, she is now a trustee fellow.