Below are the Fordham News team’s favorite posts of 2020. We’re grateful and privileged to share Fordham’s stories with you each week. Thanks for reading!

‘From Our Hearts:’ Finding Togetherness and Practicing Compassion During Ramadan
Ayesha Akhtar, Assistant Director of Communications

This year has been challenging. My family lost our cousin to COVID in March; he was only 23 years old when he passed. I was pregnant during Ramadan this year, so I didn’t participate in the ritual of fasting. However, the spirit of Ramadan still resonates with me. Yes, the pandemic has shut down so much of our lives in New York City, but it has made room for important things, too. Rest, reflection, poetry, family. Ramadan remains a time “that we do things from our hearts,” said Mohamed Alsiadi, director of the Arabic Language and Cultural Studies program at Fordham. For me, this pandemic year was filled with heart.

This piece is dedicated to the loving memory of my cousin Hafiz Robel Ahmed, who held the most high close to his heart.

Black Lives Matter Inspired Cultural Shift in Entertainment Industry, Says Media Studies Professor
Diana Chan, Communications Coordinator

It was a pleasure to interview professor Brandy Monk-Payton, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the responsibility of the media to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement. I learned a lot from her and our conversation, especially about the future of the industry and the importance of casting people of color both on and off the screen.

Erin Flynn: Body of Ice, Feet of Fire
Taylor Ha, Staff Writer, Fordham News

I shot, directed, and produced a video about Erin Flynn, an Irish step dancer and (now) Fordham alumna. I loved interviewing her about her 17 years of dancing, as well as shooting scenes in Keating Hall’s dance studio and beyond and recording slo-mo shots with my department’s new camera, a SONY A7R III. However, the pandemic canceled the event where I would’ve shot my final footage. On March 9, we came up with a last-minute plan: I rode the subway to Queens, hugging my equipment close to my body in a possibly infected car, and recorded Erin at an outside event. A week later, I published her video. On Facebook, the video has received more than 13,700 views, 420 likes, and 90 shares. Her story resonated with thousands of people during a dark time when we were afraid to leave our homes.

Fordham Alumni on the Front Lines of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Kelly Kultys, Staff Writer, Fordham News and Fordham Magazine; Assistant Editor; University Marketing and Communications

About a month after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, I had the opportunity, along with the rest of the Fordham Magazine team, to share the stories of Fordham alumni who were at the heart of battling this disease. Our goal was to bring the front lines of the pandemic to our readers, to show them what our doctors, nurses, and other health care workers were facing 24/7. The ability to share their experiences, their challenges, and their emotions about the pandemic made for the most moving story I had the chance to work on this year.

Bronx History Makers Rewrite the Narrative
Tom Stoelker, Senior Staff Writer, Fordham News

For those of us who love the Bronx—and there are a lot of us—this story and video remind us why: the people. The piece is about Bronx high schoolers, mentored by four Fordham undergraduates, who presented research that challenged negative stereotypes of the borough. “We live in the Bronx, we grew up here, but we have all of these outside influences that even affect how we see ourselves,” says scholar Harley Lopez, a junior at Manhattan Hunter Science High School. At the end of the video Gregory Jost, adjunct professor and faculty supervisor for the project, said that the young people of color who participated were the borough’s biggest asset, to which Fordham College at Rose Hill junior Emily Romero replied, “Yeah, so, we’re worthy!”

Suburbanites Need to Be Part of Racism Conversation, Says Professor
Patrick Verel, Associate Editor, Fordham News

If there is one takeaway about racism that I’ve learned this year, it’s that white Americans need to have a conversation about it, and we have to be willing to confront painful truths about ourselves. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to talk to about this subject than recently retired professor Roger Panetta, who was way more open and honest about the subject than I could have hoped for.

Social Media Posts

Father McShane’s Photo Essays
Rachel Roman, Assistant Director of Social Media

At a time when everything was so scary and unknown, Father McShane’s quarantine photo essays, beginning with this one from Easter Sunday, were a source of comfort and familiarity. The photos were hauntingly beautiful and made me reminisce about my time spent on campus as a student, alumna, and administrator. #AlwaysARam

 

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TikTok: Campus Beauty
Diana Chan

These TikTok videos showing off the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses got thousands of views. And we got to bring a little Fordham pride to all the Rams that were missing being on campus this semester.

@fordhamuniversityWe can’t stop showing off Rose Hill : Ella McGarvey #fordham #college #campus #nyc♬ Campus – Vampire Weekend

@fordhamuniversityDon’t you just love the Lincoln Center campus?! : @emilyih_ #fordham #college #campus #nyc♬ Campus – Vampire Weekend

“Given the increased threat that COVID-19 poses to the most vulnerable members of the Amsterdam community, Fordham would like to be of assistance,” said Lesley Massiah-Arthur, associate vice president and special assistant to the president for government relations.

The University has worked annually with residents of the housing project—which is adjacent to Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus on West 60th Street—to provide Thanksgiving meals and other things that the residents need during the holidays.

Through the Office of Government and Urban Affairs and the Office of the Vice President for Administration, this year the University donated 300 Foamy IQ wall hand sanitizers, 25 bottles of 12-oz hand sanitizers, 800 face masks, and 150 boxes of latex gloves. Supplies were split evenly between the Amsterdam Houses and the Amsterdam Addition.

A monetary donation of $1,000 toward the Addition’s Thanksgiving programming was also included; it was used to purchase turkeys and pies.

“The residents and the community are so grateful. The kids truly appreciate it. Fordham has been nothing but an absolute blessing,” said Patricia Ryan, president of the Amsterdam Addition Tenants Association. “Thanks to Fordham University, the residents, the children, the seniors are very happy. We are just so appreciative for that.”

“It was right at the heart of our postseason tournaments for college basketball, men’s and women’s, and right before the NCAA tournament … so it was kind of a big deal when those got canceled.”

Since then, the spring seasons for all sports were canceled by the Atlantic 10 and the Patriot League, the two conferences Fordham competes in. Sports that normally take place during the fall season have been rescheduled for next spring.

“I’ve got to give credit to both of our commissioners in both those leagues,” Kull said. “They were two of the first five or so throughout all athletic conferences to suspend fall sports and I thought that was strong leadership. I thought that was extremely helpful in terms of us being able to protect our student-athletes, protect our families and parents, and give them information and direction.”

Mental Health and Well-Being

As soon as the news about the postponement of the fall season was announced, Kull said he and his team began checking in with student-athletes and their families about how they were handling the news.

“We’ve had an extensive amount of communication—all of our coaches are having Zoom calls with our student-athletes on a weekly basis so I join many of those,” he said.

Kull said he was concerned about the mental health of many of his athletes who are so used to having jam-packed schedules and access to gyms and training centers.

“The mental health piece for me was a real priority for our student-athletes,” he said. “I worried a lot about them because they are very active—they’re practicing three hours a day. They’re lifting, running, doing strength conditioning. They had their classes, sometimes they’re watching video and preparing for competitions, so all of a sudden, [they’re] going straight back maybe to their home or their hometown and not even being able to go to a local gym to run on a treadmill.”

Kull said they worked with two of Fordham’s psychologists to set up town halls to allow students to address their concerns.

Off the Field

While it’s not something anyone would wish for, Kull said, the pandemic has allowed him to focus on off-the-field programs and issues.

“It has allowed me to really fully dive into our finances—our budget management, our resource allocation, our prioritization—and of course, the challenges of social injustice, which we’re putting a lot of effort into, which is so important,” he said.

Kull said they started a task force for social injustice about two months ago, which has allowed a group of student-athletes, coaches, and staff to discuss discrimination, race, and bias, and how those affect students involved in athletics.

The department issued a statement in June that said it is “committed to fostering an inclusive space that has zero tolerance for intolerance.”

“We are committed to organizing bias education and racial justice training for all Fordham Athletics coaches and staff,” the statement read, “committed to supporting Fordham SAAC with their initiatives in The Bronx; committed to implementing a protocol for reporting racist and prejudice acts in our community.”

Kull said that commitment has inspired ongoing discussion.

“It continues to be a very strong conversation on a daily basis for myself and our athletic department of how we can be better and better support our student-athletes, especially those that are Black or of a minority race,” he said. “We’re in the process here of finalizing an action plan that hopefully we’ll be able to roll out in a few weeks once our student-athletes return to campus.”

His team has also been able to add to the programs the department offers off the field, including leadership training and internship connections.

“Career Services, student development, the mental health, the overall health and wellness of our students— in an odd way, it’s been an opportunity for us to reprioritize,” he said, adding that he is working on a new strategic plan.

A Sense of Normalcy

Kull said his plans have included making sure student-athletes returning to campus are following New York State guidelines, including quarantine and testing. (Update: On Aug. 25, the athletics department released its COVID-19 health and safety plan, which details measures and precautions to keep student-athletes safe.)

“We have a significant amount of student-athletes coming from the 38 “hot states,” and we have 44 international students that we’ve been working with,” he said “So [it’s] a lot of moving parts in terms of each individual case,” he said, adding that he’s been working closely with colleagues in student affairs, residential life, and admissions. The plan for the fall is to have no competitions, he said, but in accordance with state health guidelines, there will be some practices and workouts to give student-athletes some sense of normalcy.

“At least it allows them to get back because they literally haven’t been playing or been together in almost five months now, so at least it’s a step in the right direction,” Kull said.

While the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to all spring sport senior student-athletes, Kull said about 19 out of 36 senior student-athletes chose to take advantage of that eligibility at Fordham this coming year.

“Each of them was different—a lot of them had plans after graduation with internships and jobs lined up, or some were going to different programs to get their master’s,” he said. “So [we’re] excited to bring some of them back but obviously it continues to be challenging.”

Despite the challenges, Kull said he and his team are hoping to provide the best atmosphere they can for their student-athletes this season.

“I’m continuing to focus and prioritize the health and safety of our student-athletes,” he said. “I know it’s been a challenging time for many folks. So first and foremost is a strong and productive opening and return to campus for all of our students, not just our student-athletes, and the ability to kind of give back some sort of normalcy to them. We want to get them back healthy and safe, and for our athletes, we want to continue to provide them the best student-athlete experience that we can.”

“It’s not just me telling them to do squats,” said Robilotta, GSE ’20, who works at the Reece School, a special education elementary school in East Harlem. “It’s Captain America showing them how to do squats, jumping jacks, and jumping rope without a rope.”

Robilotta is among thousands of teachers across the city who have been forced to find new ways to engage students amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As of now, schools under the New York City Department of Education will open this fall with a blended learning model: on-site instruction for part of the week and remote instruction for the rest. In phone interviews, Robilotta and his fellow alumni and faculty from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education reflected on their recent experiences with remote instruction and described how educators can be better prepared to face the new school year this fall.

‘Where Does the Line Get Drawn’?

Robilotta said some students loved the theme-based YouTube exercise videos that he screenshared in their remote gym classes. But others missed playing basketball, football, and Gaga ball with their classmates. Many students didn’t show up to class at all. Robilotta, who expected up to 36 students per class, said he saw as many as 15 students and as little as zero. It’s disheartening, but he knows his students and their families are dealing with a lot at home, he said. 

Robilotta said he favors hybrid instruction—a blend of in-person and remote instruction—because it gives families the choice to send their children back to school this fall, especially essential workers and those without childcare. But that doesn’t solve every problem. How does a child safely commute to school on a crowded bus or subway? How will he teach physical education when it’s too cold or wet to play outdoors? And how do you keep everyone in the school building safe?

“What’s the difference between me remoting in from the gym or an office than me remoting in from home?” Robilotta said. “And where does the line get drawn for who comes into the building and who stays home?”

For veteran teachers like Robilotta, teaching in a pandemic was tough. But for many novice teachers like Maureen Dougherty, GSE ’20, dealing with COVID-19 was a new bombshell. 

This past school year, Dougherty co-taught 30 second graders at Success Academy in the Bronx. When remote instruction started, Dougherty and a colleague split their class into two cohorts on Google Classroom and delivered live instruction through BlueJeans, a video conferencing platform. In their last online session, they reunited the whole class and played a slideshow of student photos from the school year. 

“You could see them laughing and giggling and beaming over seeing themselves … It was emotional for me and my co-teacher who put this together,” Dougherty said. “It was emotional for the kids, too, because I know they missed being all together and seeing their friends.”

But Doughterty said she’s worried about getting to know her new set of students virtually in a few weeks. 

“I think what made remote learning work last year was I had already established these relationships with my students. I knew their strengths, I knew what they struggled with, I knew their families,” said Dougherty, who will start school remotely. “Despite all the uncertainty surrounding the fall, the summer has been a bit of a gift because now I have all this time to prepare for the fall—to have somewhat of a sense of what’s coming.” 

Diverse Strengths, Needs, and Perspectives

As autumn approaches, educators are preparing for another school year in a world where COVID-19 still exists. Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., professor of childhood special education and chair of the childhood special education division at GSE, said she recently gave advice to 50 GSE students who might be teaching students with disabilities in a hybrid classroom.

“They really need to think about how they’re going to set up their classrooms … How many students they can accommodate while social distancing, things they need to prepare—hand sanitizer, masks—what kinds of policies are going to take place in their classrooms,” Cho said. 

But special education teachers were already facing unique challenges with their students. Many children with disabilities have behavioral issues, and it’s difficult to keep them all focused in the same room—and even harder from behind a computer screen, said Cho. 

“Keeping them all online and teaching them together remotely [as a class]—that’s not even possible,” said Cho. “[Teachers need to] tutor each individual student twenty or thirty minutes at a time online.” 

All educators need to maximize the positives of both in-person and remote environments, said GSE interim dean Akane Zusho, Ph.D. In a physical classroom, it’s easier to promote interpersonal relationships, collaboration, and connection. There’s a “more palpable sense of belonging,” and you can feel the energy of people around you, said Zusho. Educators should take advantage of their one-on-one time with students in person, she said. 

Meanwhile, schools teaching remotely should take advantage of available technology. Zusho recalled when she taught statistics at Fordham and posted videos where she explained tough concepts. Her students appreciated having the ability to pause her lessons and learn at their own pace, she said. 

“Technology is awful when teachers and faculty don’t really think about those constraints and affordances and basically just lecture. You’re not really taking advantage of all the things that you could do. And by doing that, you’re leaving a lot of kids behind,” Zusho said. “Leverage the power of technology or the physical classroom to make learning effective for all students.” 

Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Ed.D., assistant professor in the educational leadership, administration, and policy division, agreed that educators need to maximize their limited in-person time with students. One way to do that is to organize hands-on activities that connect students’ personal lives to what they’re learning in school, she said. For example, elementary school students can participate in circle time and connect their personal lives to what they’re learning in school. 

“While covering content and meeting grade level expectations is very important, I think that it’s imperative for educators to make time for students to process their experiences,” Stosich said. “Children of all ages are grappling with not only the challenges presented by the pandemic and fears for their parents’ livelihoods, but also concerns about racial injustice. It’s important for educators to not sweep anything under the rug, but to really create an open space for dialogue.” 

It’s also important for school leaders to listen to everyone on their team, from teacher aides to the senior classroom teacher, said Shaundrika Langley-Grey, MC’95, GSS’96, principal of the Nassau BOCES Jerusalem Avenue Elementary School on Long Island. It’s been difficult for the whole team to adjust to online instruction and make it more engaging for students, she said, but together, they can make it work. 

“Everyone brings a different perspective and brings different solutions,” said Langley-Grey, a current Ed.D. student at GSE. “We all need to adapt and recognize that together, we can make [this school year]happen.” 

“We’re in this historic moment where a world pandemic; racial tensions and a momentum for racial equity and justice, action, and change; and the polarized political situation coalesce into a perfect storm of human stress,” said Joseph G. Ponterotto, Ph.D., a professor of counseling psychology at Fordham.

Ponterotto and his colleagues in the Graduate School of Education described in phone interviews the struggles that students and school counselors across New York City have experienced throughout the pandemic and how they can be better prepared when schools reopen this fall. 

Losing a ‘Safe Haven’

School was once a “safe haven”—a place where some students could escape their unstable family lives, said school counselors. But when schools closed across New York City in March, students faced their struggles all the time. Some lost loved ones to COVID-19. And school counselors said that if students confided in them by phone or Zoom, it was difficult to offer comfort.

“You can’t offer that hug. You can’t give them that in a virtual platform,” said Michelle Santana, FCRH ’10, GSE ’17, assistant director of the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) for middle and high schoolers at the Rose Hill campus and a school counselor by training. “That was definitely challenging—finding ways to help with those little things that mean so much.”

But there are creative ways to come together, said Santana. This past spring, she hosted a virtual lounge where students could stop by—the same way they used to in her office at Rose Hill—to maintain a sense of community. 

In a school south of the Bronx, middle school students struggled with similar issues, said another school counselor. Some experienced isolation, especially those who didn’t have many close friends before the pandemic. Others slipped into unhealthy habits—sleeping into the afternoon and staying up late at night. When COVID-19 cases steadily decreased, students who were trapped in their apartments for months were allowed more freedom. But many chose to stay inside. 

“Something new that we’ve seen are kids who don’t know how to re-enter [society],” said Seth Kritzman, GSE ’12, a school counselor at Lower Manhattan Community Middle School and an adjunct instructor at Fordham. “Parents say they just don’t want to. Students are kind of in this shell.” 

Virtual counseling sessions can be tough, too, because of a lack of privacy. After a video chat, some students type messages to Kritzman that their families can’t hear. Kritzman said he’s trying to support his students by listening and offering coping mechanisms. But he says he’s worried about how to meet the needs of all students—and their families. 

“The whole family could be in crisis. Middle school stuff can be traumatic, but this is a whole other realm and not necessarily something we’re trained for as school counselors,” said Kritzman. “Because of the pandemic, everything that’s happening can be tied to school. Where do you draw the line? What is the role of school counselor versus when do you get outside help?” 

Juggling Two Pandemics: COVID-19 and Racism

The pandemic is one layer of stress for students. The other, counselors and faculty said, is the death of George Floyd and the ensuing national protests against police brutality and racial injustice over the past few months. 

“Students of color, particularly Black and Latinx … are also having to cope with how to process what they see on their screens and things that they themselves have experienced,” said Kip Thompson, Ph.D., clinical coordinator and assistant professor of counseling psychology. 

To draw strength, Black adolescents and young adults should get in touch with “their higher power,” nurture family relationships, and pursue what brings them joy, said Thompson, whose research interests include Black American college student mental health.  

“It’s really important that in these challenging, uncertain times, the young Black person really taps into what brings them power, joy, and inspiration,” Thompson said. 

Meanwhile, school counselors should reflect on their own identities to better serve their students, said Ponterotto. 

“[We need to] understand stages of racial identity, of what power and privilege is, and how to develop a nonracist identity as a white teacher or counselor,” said Ponterotto. “It’s white men in power, the heterosexual population, and the Christian population taking responsibility for their own history of oppressing others that we all have been guilty of, given the environment we were raised in, and deconstructing our own identity to help us be effective teachers and counselors for others.”

Advice on Remote Counseling from GSE Faculty

After reflecting on personal experiences with clients throughout the pandemic, GSE faculty shared tips on how to improve remote counseling and support for students of all ages. 

Play therapy is possible if you think outside the box. Elementary school students and counselors can play a game of charades during each counseling session. On Zoom, they can use the whiteboard feature to play pictionary or hangman. They can even play a game of Battleship or bingo, as long as they both have the hard materials in front of them. Or they can conduct a scavenger hunt around a student’s room to help the student practice emotional self-expression and self-awareness, said Alea Holman, Ph.D., assistant professor of school psychology. 

Privacy is key. It’s important to utilize HIPAA-compliant platforms in a quiet, safe space to help ensure confidentiality with a client. If a student is living in a home where they can’t speak comfortably about certain topics—an LGBTQ student living in a non-affirmative environment, for example—they can communicate via email or chat, said Eric C. Chen, Ph.D., professor of counseling psychology. 

Counseling on an online platform can be surprisingly effective. “Some people told me that they feel more comfortable expressing themselves with a remote format because it removes a layer of self-consciousness and exposure in the interaction,” said Holman. A phone call can also strip away a layer of self-consciousness from students who don’t want to see their faces on screen, she said. 

Parents can play a crucial role. “One thing I suggest to my school counselors is to have Zoom meetings with parents to demonstrate to them … how the school counselor talks to the kids about uncertainty, confusion, and giving voice to feelings,” said Ponterotto. “We have to be able to process kids’ fears.” 

Self-care is critical for counselors. It seems like a selfish thought, said Margo A. Jackson, Ph.D., professor of counseling psychology. But consider this analogy: If you’re on a plane and the oxygen masks drop, you have to put yours on before you can help your child or whoever is next to you, she said. “When [counselors]are stretched to the limit … then we cannot be of help to others,” Jackson explained. “In fact, we could do harm.”

Be compassionate to yourself and others. Resilience is a “muscle” that requires daily exercise. “Count your blessings. Reward yourself with simple daily pleasures, such as reading a poem, having a bike ride, watching clouds float by, that you enjoy in life. Recognize your strengths and think about a few individuals who have made a difference in your life over the years or those who have nurtured and supported you in the past,” said Chen. “And imagine what your future will be like a year from now—picture how you will remember that you have survived and thrived during those moments of darkness and anguish.” 

“As with racial justice, as with climate change, when it comes to public health crises, cities tend to be on the frontlines,” said Nestor Davidson, the Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use, and Property Law and faculty director at the Urban Law Center.

Davidson said that one set of questions the Urban Law Center looks at, particularly in times of crisis like this, are those of authority and power.

“Who can act? Who is prevented from acting? What levels of government take responsibility for what kinds of things?” he said. “Even though it’s still early, one of the emerging lessons from the pandemic is that we have a system of federalism that isn’t necessarily as well-suited as it could be to responding to this kind of a crisis. We’ve had an incredibly fragmented response.”

Even though cities are often the first to grapple with “an issue like a pandemic, and it’s often where the effects of crises like this are felt most deeply,” Davidson said city leaders are sometimes challenged when it comes to their authority to act.

“We’ve had conflicts where cities have wanted to take more aggressive steps to protect public health, and you’ve had some states preventing that, and some states reversing course now,” he said.

Overcrowding vs. Density

Annika Hinze, Ph.D., director of Urban Studies at Fordham, said that while there’s no question New York City in particular was dramatically impacted by the pandemic, neighborhoods with overcrowding, or a high number of people per household, bore the brunt of the crisis more than those that are simply considered densely populated areas, containing high-rise, residential buildings.

Using data collected by the Furman Center at New York University, Hinze was able to analyze how different neighborhoods were impacted by the pandemic as well as the impact on certain demographic groups, such as those determined by race and economic status. She found that those in overcrowded situations, likemultiple people living in tight quarters, had higher rates of infection than those living in densely populated areas where overcrowding is not as common.

“The neighborhoods with the highest density in New York City had almost half of the infection rate of those with lower densities, meaning that Manhattan, which is the densest borough in the city, had the lowest infection rates of all five boroughs, and that the outer boroughs, especially Queens and the Bronx, had severely higher infection rates than Manhattan,” she said. “So housing density seems to not be the culprit with COVID-19 infection rates; it was overcrowding.”

Hinze has been working to analyze how overcrowding has contributed to the virus’s spread in other areas of the country. She’s been collecting data from Finney and Ford counties in Kansas, which are home to meatpacking plants, as well as data from Tulare and Kern counties in California, which are home to many agricultural workers. While she’s still collecting the Kansas data, the California data has shown that areas where workers live in tight quarters also have higher rates of infection.

“There was definitely a correlation between overcrowding in the census data and COVID-19 infection rates. Tulare and Kern counties, they’re among the most rural counties in California, yet they were as of June, number 8 and 11 respectively in the state for COVID-19 infections,” she said.

Social Distancing: ‘A Luxury Good’

One of the reasons why parts of cities with overcrowding have seen higher rates, according to Hinze, is because some of the best measures to combat COVID-19, including social distancing and easy access to hand washing, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning products, aren’t possible.

“I think social distancing in many ways is a luxury good, and maybe we’ve been talking about this too little as a country,” she said. “If we look at the numbers for New York City, [the highest number of cases]are in many poor and immigrant neighborhoods in Queens and in the Bronx where people don’t have, essentially, the luxury of social distancing.”

By contrast, some of the wealthiest city dwellers were able to take social distancing measures a step further and move out of the urban areas, at least temporarily, Davidson pointed out.

“Cities are great engines of growth and innovation and economic power and that’s become increasingly true as our society has kind of shifted in a post-industrial way,” he said. “At the same time, they’re places of great inequality, and again, something like a pandemic shines a very bright light on pre-existing inequality … certainly in a time when statistics show that, over time, more than 400,000 New Yorkers have left the city.”

The Cost of Leaving

Hugh Kelly, Ph.D., CRE, the chair of the Fordham Real Estate Institute, cautioned against people seeking “long-term” solutions, like moving, to “short-term” problems.

“If it made sense pre-COVID, then why wouldn’t you have done it pre-COVID?” he said.

While Kelly said that he expected the real estate market, particularly in cities, to take a hit in the near future due to social distancing and other public health guidance, he didn’t expect those trends to continue long-term.

“In the near-term, it’s clear that things like density, mass transit dependence, high-rise building forms are disadvantageous in the midst of the height of the pandemic,” he said. “For the short-term, metropolitan areas that are more sprawling, more low-rise, automobile-dependent, and have the ability to have the built-in equivalent of social distancing have the advantage and that’s probably the case for the next 12 months or so.”

Premature Predictions of the “Death of Cities”

But Kelly said that he believes that after we’ve adjusted to living with social distancing measures, or once effective treatments and vaccinations are available, the characteristics of cities that made them appealing in the first place will still be thee.

“The elements that have made for the most vibrant and the most successful cities … are going to reassert themselves,” he said. ‘The vibrancy that comes with businesses and people interacting with each other—that’s what promotes innovation. Innovation produces productivity and productivity produces profits and that’s what attracts businesses and people to places to work.”

Both Davidson and Kelly said they’ve seen the predictions that this will be the “death of cities” before, including after the 9/11 terrorists attacks at the World Trade Center.

This same round of articles was written after 9/11, Davidson said, noting that after the city rebounded, there were also conversations about too many people wanting to live there. And those are really problems as well. We have to think about housing affordability, and we have to think about unequal access to opportunity, and all the real challenges in cities that are successful.”

Looking Toward a Better Future

Cities won’t look exactly the same as they did before the pandemic, the professors said, as they tend to take something from each of the crises they endured.

Hinze said she hopes that policy makers see how crowded dwellings and other symptoms of inequality have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and that they look to address them in the future.

“It’s most important,” she said, to “make sure that people do not live in these conditions and to sort of provide them with enough of a social safety net so they can live in conditions that are safe,” she said.

Other aspects of life in the city will also likely see some major changes. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, announced on Aug. 3 that the Open Restaurants initiative, which allows restaurants to take over certain streets and sidewalks for outdoor dining, will return next summer.

“You think about ways in which cities are repurposing public space, and taking advantage of a moment where cars haven’t been as dominant a part of the landscape at the local level. Maybe that means we’re going to have more walkable cities, maybe that means we’re going to have a greater embrace of the importance of public space,” Davidson said.

Kelly said from a real estate perspective, he could see offices refitting themselves to allow more space per employee, as well as apartments getting reconfigured to allow for some type of work-from-home model.

“There’s a sea change in that the square footage per employee, which has been going down for about 25 years, begins to reverse itself and becomes a larger space allocation,” he said.

He added that shared office spaces like WeWork will probably no longer appeal to people because social distancing would be too complicated.

Kelly pointed to one major sign he’s looking for to know that New York City has fully re-emerged—food trucks.

“When the food trucks are back on the street, people are coming back,” he said. “It means two things. That there are enough people coming into the central areas to support those food trucks and, even more, the food truck operators feel that they can do so safely.”

As the United States struggles to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, the race to create a vaccine is rivaled perhaps only by efforts to test everyone for the virus and deliver results in a timely manner.

According to a new study by Fordham economists, the government’s failure to provide widely available, timely, accurate testing has resulted in another problem. Because there are still people who have the virus but haven’t been tested, it has hobbled the government’s ability to accurately predict how many American will die from the virus in the future.

Testing Bias

In Adjusted Bias-free Forecasts of Covid-19 Deaths for July 13 and July 20, a paper published on the Social Science Research Network on July 23, Hrishikesh D. Vinod, Ph.D., and doctoral student Katherine Theiss, shared the findings of a model that they say takes into account this skewed data, or “testing bias,” and makes a more accurate prediction of future deaths. (Update: Vinod and Theiss have published new forecasts with predictions through Election Day.)

Theiss and Vinod, a professor of economics and the director of Fordham’s Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy (IEEP), first published findings on the subject on July 7 in A Novel Solution to Biased Data in COVID-19 Incidence Studies. Adjusted Bias-free Forecasts is the fourth supplement to that publication, and it relies on what is known as an “autoregressive distributed lag model.”

“We are unaware of how many people truly have this infection, so that leads to issues when trying to predict disease outcomes,” said Theiss, who joined the economics doctoral program last year and is specializing in econometrics.

“If we’re trying to predict the amount of deaths in the future from the cumulative amount of Covid infections, what we’re currently doing is off, because we’re not tracking how many people actually have the infection. We only know what the tests are telling us.”

How Likely Is It That a Randomly Chosen Person Will Be Tested?

The paper rested on two equations. Since the country cannot test everyone yet, the first equation calculated the likelihood that a randomly chosen person in the United States will be tested for the virus. In the second equation, researchers used the results of the first equation to make predictions about what the future will look like.

To develop the first equation, they looked at socioeconomic and demographic variables, such as the share of hospital employees per capita in individual states, the percentage of residents who take public transit, the prevalence of hypertension, household income, and the percentage of residents who are uninsured.

Since data is not available for specific people, they generated simulated data for 500,000 individuals, and assigned each individual to a state based on the weighted probability of residence. To generate that probability, they took each state’s total population and divided it by the entire United States population.

Each simulated individual was assigned a testing index of 1 or 0 based on the weighted probability that they were tested for Covid-19 in their assigned state, which was in turn determined by taking the cumulative number of tests administered in each state and dividing it by the total state population.
Combined with socioeconomic, health, and demographic variables for the individual based on state of residence, they were able to develop a model that predicts the likelihood of a random person getting tested for Covid-19 on a statewide level.

High Testing Bias in Some States

The results, which change week to week based on statewide data, are not encouraging for some states. From the first equation, one can estimate the level of bias in state-level reporting of infections. In particular, states like Texas and Utah have stood out as having especially high levels of testing biases from April 20 to June 15. New York, by contrast, currently has one of the lowest biases, on account of its more robust testing regimen.

Theiss said variations between states are thought to be the result of the difference in time it took for states to implement mass testing strategies; New York has pushed relatively strong testing efforts since the initial outbreak, while some Southern states began later. Not surprisingly, those same states are seeing spikes in infections. The good news is that data shows a decrease in testing bias overall, which Thiess said points to improvements in testing administration and access.

Making Predictions After Adjusting for Bias

The second equation predicts future deaths from past infections after controlling for the bias associated with testing. The bias-adjusted model predicts future deaths in the United States more accurately than does the same model currently used by researchers, which is not corrected for testing bias. Using data through July 20, the unadjusted model underestimated U.S. deaths for the week ending July 27 by 5%. After correcting for the bias, the Fordham adjusted model overpredicted total deaths, but only by 1.6%.

County-Level Predictions Recommended

Vinod and Theiss use state-level data in their model to predict future nation-wide death count. While they plan to provide state-level predictions of deaths each week, they urge elected officials and public health professionals from each state to use their model to conduct similar analyses using county (census tract)-level data. By using local data, elected officials can obtain even more accurate state-level predictions of deaths, they said. In addition, their model could easily be used to predict alternative outcomes of interest, such as the demand for hospital beds and particular devices (e.g., ventilators).

Vinod and Theiss hope that their proposed methodology for predicting disease outcomes can help inform policy decisions.

“We believe that as we reopen and make these important decisions, we should take into account what’s going to happen in the future, and not only what’s happening now,” Theiss said.

Despite the many serious challenges New Yorkers faced during the early days of the pandemic, the pivot to mobile learning did not disrupt the commitment of English language learners or their teachers, said James Stabler-Havener, director of Fordham’s Institute of American Language and Culture (IALC).

“Students and teachers persisted with their classes and far exceeded the city’s benchmarks for educational gains. This is a testimony to the resilience and grit of our neighbors and the creativity of the Institute’s staff,” said Stabler-Havener.

For more than three decades, IALC has offered English courses to college students from around the world. In 2018, IALC extended its courses to the Bronx community for free. Since then, more than 450 people have participated in the program, which has also provided free career workshops and programs on immigrant rights.

Supporting Vulnerable New Yorkers

In 2019, Fordham was awarded a grant of $116,679 from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation to support the ESL program, which taught more than 200 students in 2019-2020. The grant funded instruction for approximately 70 students, helped secure a new class location—the Immaculate Conception Church on East Gunhill Road—and created additional evening classes at the Rose Hill campus for students who work during the day.

“We are so grateful for the support of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation,” said Stabler-Havener. “We’re proud to partner with them in their work to support immigrants and help them succeed.”

Classes started in person in late winter. But when the pandemic struck New York City in March, the Community ESL program—and its students, many of whom are essential workers—took a major hit.

More than 40% of students and staff contracted the new coronavirus, according to survey results from late June. Thirty-seven percent reported they had between one and 12 infected family members, while 6.4% said they had lost up to four family members due to complications from the virus. Meanwhile, they watched neighbors and church community members become hospitalized or die from the virus.

“My husband and I were left without a job, and we could not apply to economic benefits due to our immigration status,” Raysa, a 47-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic, wrote in an email. “My husband, my sister-in-law, and my cousin and I had COVID-19. Many of my friends died in New York and the Dominican Republic.”

Students with children studying remotely from home said they struggled to find space and time to concentrate on their own studies. But they were determined to complete their classes, said IALC staff members. In mid-March, the Community ESL program transitioned to delivering instruction via WhatsApp, a free messaging app available on any cell phone. For the students—many of whom lacked personal computers or the internet at home—it was the most convenient platform.

Every week, students met in three-hour classes on the app. They watched tutorial videos recorded by their teachers and completed digital worksheets. They checked their answers against online answer keys and asked peers and teachers for help via text message. But students and staff also used the app to ensure that they were all safe and healthy.

A Way to Check In

“When we first heard about students who got infected with Covid, we kept track of those students to provide resources—to say, hey, do you have food in your pantry? Can we register you for food services that the city is providing? Have you been tested? Have you gone to the hospital?” said Community ESL Program Coordinator Jesús Aceves-Loza. “It was not only the ESL instruction that we offered, but also keeping track of those students and their family members who were affected by Covid. That flourished out of the community we created on WhatsApp.”

Aceves-Loza recalled students who called or texted him to confirm they had COVID-19 and couldn’t make it to class, yet promised to complete the day’s exercises. Another student, whose husband was receiving therapy for a separate condition after being in the hospital for three months, also continued her studies, he said.

“Those are tiny examples of people who have developed resilience and a desire to be better and to overcome obstacles, and to live to the best of their abilities,” said Aceves-Loza. “When there’s a will, there’s a way.”

‘We Took Care of Each Other’

In emailed testimonials, students described how the ESL program impacted their lives.

Raysa said she can now pick up the phone at work, talk with clients, and speak with her doctor without translation. For student Ramiro Perez, a 29-year-old construction worker from Guatemala, the program helped him communicate better with his coworkers. And for Silva, a 27-year-old woman from Albania, the program helped her become more active outside her home.

“As a mother who takes care of her daughter and stays at home, [the program]has made me active and more social with people who are not in my community,” Silva wrote.

As the students learned English, Yimeng Li, one of three ESL teachers who taught during the pandemic, said she saw her students grow and stay optimistic.

“Even though most of my adult ESL students faced challenges due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, they were still eager to continue their English language learning,” said Li, a 2019 alumna from the Graduate School of Education. “Even though I couldn’t meet and greet my students due to social distancing, our hearts were always together. And no matter how difficult the problems might be, all the students and instructors had positive attitudes … We took care of each other.”

At the end of April, Li and her students held their last class together. Li messaged them a thank-you note on WhatsApp, recorded with her own voice. In their final lesson, she asked them to write their own thank-you note in English to someone. A few students chose Li.

“I will always carry you in my heart. Hopefully one day we will meet again,” a student wrote to Li and her colleagues in a handwritten note. “God bless you, Jesus, Xiomara, and all those who make this program possible.”

“Food is life. And for a family in the restaurant business, we stand by that very strongly,” said Cristina Rocco, a rising junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who serves meals with her father and two older brothers.

The idea was born a few months ago, when Cristina’s older brother Alex, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, lost his job as a chef at a high-end New York City restaurant. Along with many others in the food industry, he’d become unemployed due to the pandemic. But Alex still wanted to use his expertise to help others. 

On April 20, Alex and his family began serving meals in Bridgeport, a place where more than 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, through their new not-for-profit called CT Central Kitchen. The organization, which receives funding through a GoFundMe page, was founded to help out the local community in a time of crisis. 

No strangers to the restaurant industry, the Roccos know how to feed a crowd. Their family has three generations of experience, starting with Cristina’s grandfather, who owned a coffee shop in the Bronx, followed by Michael and his two brothers, who started the Planet Pizza chain that now has nine locations in Fairfield and Westchester counties, said Cristina. 

Every Monday, the family serves around 250 free plates of chicken, beans, and rice from a food truck to Bridgeport community members, including local health care workers. With the help of their state representative Christopher Rosario, they have identified and traveled to the areas where their food is needed the most.

On May 25, the Rocco family distributed 200 hot meals on East Main Street and donated leftover platters to a nearby family shelter. The following Monday, they worked in tandem with the Southwest Community Health Center, where they gave out free meals and the health center provided free water bottles, masks, and gloves to community members. Most recently, Pepsi donated more than 800 cans of water to accompany CT Central Kitchen’s future meals, said Cristina. 

Each trip is a combined family effort. Every week, Alex and his father, Michael Rocco, GABELLI ’90, prepare the food, including 140 pounds of chicken. Cristina oversees their publicity and social media efforts and helps distribute food. Their brother Serafim Rocco, GABELLI ’18 and ’19, who now works as an assurance associate at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, helps the family manage its resources.

On May 31, state and local leaders honored the Rocco family for establishing CT Central Kitchen. 

“CT Central Kitchen, Alex and his family—they’re heroes during this time, feeding people, making life better. We can all follow that model,” Senator Richard Blumenthal said at a small ceremony in Bridgeport, which was also attended by Joseph P. Ganim, the city’s mayor. 

The pandemic has been stressful for many people, but there are plenty of ways to help out your local community, said Cristina. 

“I’ve seen friends, and even on the news or social media, people going to local hospitals and delivering trays of food. Delivering one tray of food … that goes a long way,” she said. “Even if you can’t go [in person], there’s a lot of online places and venues that need support and donations to help provide [resources]during this time.”

Anne Fernald’s “Whatever” Soup

Anne Fernald, Ph.D., professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, has maintained her Sunday night efforts to cook for the work week. “I realized that if I did not do it, I would revert to my natural diet, which is bread and cheese with some butter,” she says. “I do nothing but teach and cook these days and, in a welcome development, my husband has been cooking a tiny bit, too.” Her favorite recipe hails from The New York Times’ Samin Nosrat. It’s called Whatever You Want Soup, and it “serves as a canvas for any kind of chunky soup,” Nosrat writes. Here is Fernald’s take on it.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter, olive oil, or neutral-tasting oil
2 medium onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
Kosher salt
6 to 8 cups meat, vegetables, or other add-ins
Ground turkey
Shredded cabbage
Carrots, cut into rounds
Tomato, chopped
Green onion, sliced
1 1⁄2pounds raw, boneless chicken (optional)
8 cups water or chicken stock, preferably homemade

Steps
1. Set a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-high heat and add 4 tablespoons butter or oil. When the butter melts or the oil shimmers, add onions and garlic, and a generous pinch of salt.
2. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender, about 15 minutes.
3. Place the meat, vegetables, and other add-ins in the pot, along with the raw chicken (if using), and add enough liquid to cover. Season with salt. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
4. Cook until the flavors have come together and the vegetables and greens are tender, about 20 minutes more. If you added raw chicken, remove it from the soup when cooked, allow to cool, shred, and return to the soup. Taste and adjust for salt.
5. Add more hot liquid if needed to thin the soup to desired consistency. Taste and adjust for salt.
6. Serve hot, and garnish as desired.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings l Time: About 45 minutes
Base recipe courtesy of Samin Nosrat/The New York Times

The Raffetto Family’s Pink Rice

Raffetto’s has been selling made-in-house pasta and other Italian specialties on New York City’s Houston Street since 1906, spanning four generations of the family. The two most recent generations include brothers Richard, FCRH ’82, and Andrew, FCRH ’84, and Andrew’s daughter Sarah, PCS ’13. Romana Raffetto, Richard and Andrew’s mother, made this dish many times over the years. The Raffettos still make it regularly, Sarah says, because it is so delicious, comforting, and easy. “We use the Reggiano crumbs because, like Nonna taught us, we try not to waste anything, and while cutting wheels of cheese for retail we save the broken crumbs for future recipes.”

Ingredients
1 cup Arborio rice
1 ice cream scoop of salt (a common measurement in our kitchen)
4 tablespoons (1⁄2 stick) butter
4 tablespoons Raffetto’s tomato and basil sauce (or a similar sauce of your choice)
Parmigiano-Reggiano crumbs to taste

Steps
1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add rice, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.
2. While the rice is cooking, you can get the butter ready by melting it in a bowl. Otherwise, make sure that the butter is out long enough to soften so it will melt easily when the rice is done cooking.
3. When the rice is cooked, strain with a fine mesh strainer and add to the bowl with butter. Stir in Raffetto’s tomato and basil sauce (or any red sauce) in tablespoon increments, adding more or less as desired.
4. Stir in Parmigiano and eat immediately while everything is warm and the cheese melts, resulting in a beautiful light pink color with chunks of tomatoes.

Note: “Nonna Romana hardly ever measured anything,” Sarah says. “She was a casual cook who
knew by eye more than numbers. Modify slightly to your needs and enjoy!”

Yield: 4 to 6 servings l Time: About 20 minutes

Taylor Ha’s Whipped Coffee

Fordham graduate student and Fordham News staff writer Taylor Ha recently recorded herself making a drink that’s gone viral amid the pandemic. Whipped coffee, a four- ingredient beverage that originated in South Korea, was recently featured on TikTok’s trending page, with more than 312,000 videos using the hashtag #whippedcoffee, according to ABC News. In their home kitchen, Ha and her mother created their own version of the popular drink, complete with a slow-motion video of the production process. They also made spaghetti aglio e olio. “Both were delicious and super satisfying to make,” Ha says. “I’ll admit I didn’t actually cook, since I was filming everything, but it was nice to bond with my mom at home.”

Ingredients
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons instant ground coffee
2 tablespoons freshly boiled water
1 cup almond milk or any other milk (enough to fill a glass 3⁄4 of the way up)

Steps
1. Combine the sugar, instant coffee, and boiled water in a small bowl, whisking the mixture until it becomes silky smooth and turns a light shade of brown. Set aside.
2. Place a few ice cubes in a glass cup and fill the cup three-quarters full with almond milk.
3. Add a few dollops of whipped coffee on top and gently stir the whole thing.

Daejah Woolery’s Jamaican Dumplings with Jerk Chicken and Butternut Squash

When Fordham College at Lincoln Center sophomore Daejah Woolery moved off campus, she started cooking more. She says she doesn’t always have the time to make elaborate dishes, but as a Jamaican, “food is super important to the culture,” so she makes an extra effort to cook from scratch. “I’m excited to make this for my family and show them my slight twist on Jamaican boiled dumplings with chicken!”

Ingredients
Boiled dumplings
2 cups flour
5 teaspoons salt
1⁄4 cup cornmeal
1⁄2 cup cold water
Jerk seasoning (Note: bottled jerk seasoning can be substituted.)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 to 3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
Butternut squash, as much as you like, cut into cubes
Chicken, any cut, as much as you like, cut into cubes
(Note: I typically use 2 boneless chicken breasts and 12 oz. frozen, pureed butternut squash.)

Steps
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Combine flour, salt, cornmeal, and cold water. Adjust until you have a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands.
3. Make small disc-like shapes and drop them into the boiling water for about 10 minutes. Try not to overcrowd your pot! Remove from heat and set aside. Or they can remain in the water with the heat off.
4. Combine all jerk seasoning ingredients and set aside.
5. Bring another large pot of water to a boil and add squash cubes.
6. When squash is softened, after about 15-20 minutes, puree or mash it finely.
7. Heat pureed squash in a saucepan on medium-low heat and add some of your jerk seasoning to taste. Switch to low heat after you see bubbles. Add about 1⁄4 cup of water if you want a thinner sauce.
8. Season the chicken with jerk seasoning and cook it however you like; throw it in the air fryer if you’re in a rush or sauté it like I usually do.
9. Once the chicken is cooked, add it to the saucepan with the squash and resist the urge to eat it immediately. Let it simmer together on medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Make sure the chicken gets surrounded by the sauce. The sweet and nutty taste of the squash will interact really well with the jerk seasoning.
10. Transfer the dumplings to a plate and put some chicken and squash directly on top!

Yield: 4 servings l Time: About 60 minutes

Clint Ramos’ Filipino Chicken Adobo

Clint Ramos, head of design and production in the Fordham Theatre program, has won several awards, including a Tony and an Obie, for his set and costume designs. He posted a photo of his chicken adobo on Instagram that prompted inquiries about the recipe. With roots in the activist street theater scene in Manila, he advises that one eat the dish while pondering “how much of what you enjoyed was indigenous or a result of Spanish colonialism.”

Ingredients
2 pounds boneless chicken thighs (I like skin but you can also do skinless)
4 dried bay leaves
8 tablespoons dark soy sauce (I use Kikkoman)
8 tablespoons coconut vinegar (apple cider vinegar will also do well)
8 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
11⁄2 cups water
3 tablespoons cooking (canola or any high heat) oil
1⁄4 teaspoon salt (optional—the salinity from the soy may be enough)
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Steps
1. Marinate chicken in soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic for at least 3 hours or overnight in the fridge.
2. Separate chicken from marinade, removing as much of the liquid as possible. Save all of the marinade (this will be your braising liquid).
3. Heat oil in a pan on medium-high heat and brown chicken on both sides (about 2 minutes per side).
4. In the same pan, pour in the marinade (garlic and all) and water. Bring to a boil.
5. Add bay leaves and peppercorns and reduce heat to low to simmer.
6. Simmer for 30 minutes or until chicken is tender. I completely cover it for 15 minutes and let some of the steam out for the remaining 15 with a wooden spoon lodged between lid and pot. Important: Watch that the liquid reduces to a slightly thickened sauce but not completely.
7. Add sugar and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
8. Serve over hot white or brown rice and enjoy!

Yield: 6 to 8 servings l Time: About 60 minutes

Loren Avellino’s Banana Lace Cookies

As a first-generation Italian-American woman, Loren Avellino, FCLC ’07, says she practically grew up in the kitchen. In fact, when she got the opportunity to live in McMahon Hall for the summer as an orientation coordinator at the Lincoln Center campus, she hosted pasta nights for fellow summer residents. Today, she has a degree in culinary arts, a catering company, and a food blog. She recently started a video cooking series on her Instagram page, @lo_go_cook. “When I’m in the kitchen, my anxiety seems to melt away, and if I can take others on that journey with me, especially during these uncertain times, then I’ve done a tiny part to help during this crisis,” Avellino says.

Ingredients
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon white or apple cider vinegar
1 cup mashed brown bananas (about 2 large bananas)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup almond flour*
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate chips
*Almond flour is important for crispy, lacy cookies (see tip on next page about using only all-purpose flour)

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add the vinegar and vanilla and continue to beat until incorporated. The vinegar helps to offset the sweetness of the ripe bananas.
3. Add the baking soda in with the mashed bananas, then mix into the butter mixture.
4. Whisk together the all-purpose flour, almond flour, and salt. Add to the batter and mix until just combined.
5. Fold the dark chocolate chips into the batter.
6. Drop tablespoon-size amounts of batter onto parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet, making sure they are about 2 inches apart. You should have 42 to 48 cookies.
7. Bake 12 to 14 minutes until the edges are dark brown. (The dark color is important for crispy cookies). Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for at least 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Tip: You could use only all-purpose flour, but the cookies will be denser and less crispy than the almond flour version.

Yield: 42 to 48 cookies l Time: About 45 minutes

B.A. Van Sise’s Ricotta Gnocchi with Roasted Pepper Sauce

Photojournalist B.A. Van Sise, FCLC ’05, jokes that his mother preferred food “so heavy that a black hole would not easily escape its pull.” For her homemade gnocchi, she’d replace the potato with rich, creamy ricotta and make the supple dough herself, rolling it and cutting it by hand. “It’s an easy activity that does not need but asks for six hands,” Van Sise says. “Recruit your kids for help, if you’ve got them. Trust me: they’ll remember it, fondly.”

Ingredients
Pasta
2 pounds ricotta cheese
4 eggs
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
Sauce
1 16 oz. jar roasted red peppers
1⁄2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons garlic
2 tablespoons butter
1⁄2 teaspoon dried basil
black pepper

Steps
1. In a large mixing bowl, mix the ricotta and eggs. Gradually add the flour, salt, and pepper.
2. Knead well on a floured board and roll into finger-sized long rolls, then cut into pieces about 3⁄4 inch long.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the gnocchi, stirring gently from time to time to make sure they don’t mingle too much. Cook for 8 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a blender, add the roasted red peppers as well as about 2 tablespoons of liquid from the jar, and puree.
5. In a saucepan, sauté the garlic and butter for approximately 2 minutes until both the butter and garlic soften; add the pureed peppers, the basil, and a little bit of black pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the heavy cream and simmer for 5 more.
6. Cover the drained gnocchi with the sauce, and either serve right away or put into a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes to crisp them up.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings l Time: About 40 minutes

Serving Those Who Are Hungry

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in the number of people who can’t afford food and are at risk of going hungry. Fordham graduates are among the many professionals working to meet the challenges of this deepening public health crisis. Read our interviews with Camesha Grant, Ph.D., GSS ’00, ’07, vice president of community connection and reach at the Food Bank for New York City; and Janet Miller, GSS ’97, senior vice president at CAMBA, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that provides social services to New Yorkers in need.

Additional reporting by Tom Stoelker.

She and other Fordham experts offered advice for coping with the psychological effects of this pandemic while also strengthening overall well-being.

Give Thanks

David Marcotte, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, clinical psychologist, and associate professor who teaches a popular undergraduate course on the psychology of well-being and living  a happy life.

“Negative events are like a sponge” in the mind, he told students in one class session last year. “When [sponges]get wet, they start getting bigger and bigger, and if we’re not doing something to counteract that, the sponge gets so big that it fills our head.”

He begins each class with a five- minute mindfulness meditation and teaches other techniques for building resilience and keeping calm. Gratitude is better than optimism, hope, or even compassion for boosting mental health and satisfaction, he said.

Studies have shown that people who practice gratitude generally fare better than people who don’t. They cope better with stress, take a rosier view of life—and recover faster from illness.

Journal writing is one of many ways to practice gratitude. Carol Gibney, GSS ’03, an associate director of campus ministry at Fordham, said that she and her friends have started a daily text thread, sharing “three things that we’re grateful for.”

Find Community and a Sense of Purpose

In times of crisis, “what we know is important is a sense of family and community and connection,” even if it’s attained virtually, Mamber said.

Dr. Philip A. Pizzo, FCRH ’66, a pediatric oncologist and immunologist and former dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, has called for physicians to prescribe ways for their patients to foster this sense of community and connection. In a January 2020 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he noted that poor social relationships are tied to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes.

“Having a purpose, seeking social engagement, and fostering wellness through positive lifestyle choices (e.g., exercise, nutrition, mindfulness) are important in reducing morbidity and mortality and improving the life journey,” he wrote. “These variables are important at all stages of life and particularly for those in midlife and older.”

Volunteer

Finding ways to help  others,  like making phone calls to seniors or sewing protective masks, can provide purpose and address the sense of helplessness associated with not knowing what to do, Mamber said.

It’s also a way to cope with any sense of guilt at being spared others’ suffering, said Hilary Jacobs Hendel, GSS ’04, a psychotherapist and author of It’s Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self (Random House and Penguin UK, 2018).

Helping others could mean bringing food to a neighbor’s doorstep, for instance, or simply doing your part to contain the virus, she said. “Just taking care of your family and staying at home is being a good citizen,” she said.

Feel Your Emotions

Hendel emphasized the need to address and validate the emotions triggered by distressing news. It could be as simple as taking five minutes a few times a day to tune in to them. “If you start to just block the emotions, eventually it’s going to make one feel worse,” possibly leading to anxiety and depression, she said.

One tool for addressing strong emotions is the change triangle. Detailed in It’s Not Always Depression, it’s a way to identify blocked emotions, work through them, and keep them from becoming debilitating, Hendel said. Other techniques for managing anxiety include going to a quiet room, closing your eyes, and imagining a favorite place as experienced through all five senses.

Change Your State of Mind

Also helpful is keeping a list of “state changers” such as exercising, taking a bath, playing with a pet, calling a friend, watching a funny show— anything that can reliably help you feel better, Hendel said.

“The tiniest bits of relief are good enough just to take the edge off,” she said. “If the nervous system is firing away ‘danger, danger, danger,’ releasing adrenaline into the system, we don’t have conscious control over it. All we have conscious control over is how to try to calm it.”

She noted the many support groups that can be found online, as well as apps that help with meditation. Also useful are simple things like positive self-talk or mantras—“this is temporary,” “one day at a time.”

Take Time to Grieve

It’s important to balance empathy for others’ travails with self-care, she said, noting that highly sympathetic people can be “triggered all day long by the suffering.”

“Find your own balance, because it’s unique for everybody,” she said. “It’s an ongoing lifetime practice of getting to know yourself and what you need and what’s best for you.”

Be Kind to Yourself and Your Loved Ones

Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services at Fordham, noted the importance of self-compassion.

“The current circumstances will likely make it more challenging for us to stay on track or get things done as effectively as we might have wanted or planned for,”  he said. “Being kinder, gentler, and more patient with ourselves when this happens will go a long way toward preserving and enhancing our mental health and well-being.”

Also, parents should be sensitive to all the events—concerts, plays, sporting events, graduations—that their children are missing because of school closures, said John Craven, Ph.D., associate professor of education in the Graduate School of Education.

“The impact of this pandemic on students emotionally may run in deep, quiet waters,” he said.

Go On a News Diet

Mamber advised moderating one’s consumption of pandemic-related news to avoid being overwhelmed. “I have to monitor that for myself, something I learned during 9/11. You feel compelled to watch the news to learn what’s going on, but find it hard to disconnect. Finding the right balance will help support your natural resilience.”

Hendel recommended scheduling news watching for the least disruptive time of day (not right before bed if it impedes your sleep). Ng recommended focusing on more factual news rather than sensational pieces that could spread misinformation.

Get Outside If You Can

Unless there’s a public advisory to the contrary, “social distancing doesn’t mean never leaving our homes, going for a walk, shopping for groceries, or interacting at all with others,” Ng said. “What it does mean, though, is that we’ll need to be doing these in a more limited, intentional, and conscientious manner.”

Gibney said one of her favorite ways to feel centered is to explore nature. “The great outdoors always speaks to me. Looking at the clouds, looking at a tree, being aware of nature’s beauty— [these]are ways that can help people find consolation,” she said.

And then, sometimes, consolation comes from displays of community. Mamber said it’s been inspiring to hear people in her Manhattan neighborhood open their windows and call out in support of health care workers every night at 7 p.m.

“It’s amazing to hear that, to know that people in that moment are apart, yet together,” she said. “Creating something beautiful, a new social ritual and structure, out of the uncertainty and fear gives us hope for the future.“

When to Seek Help

Seeking help is “a sign of strength and maturity rather than weakness,” said Jeffrey Ng, director of counseling and psychological services at Fordham. He encourages people to seek professional help for any of the following:

• persistent sadness, anxiety, anger, irritability, hopelessness, or feelings of being overwhelmed;
• sustained loss of interest in social or pleasurable activities;
• significant impairments or changes in daily functioning, such as sleep, appetite, or hygiene;
• thoughts about death, dying, or suicide; or
• impulsive, reckless, or risky behaviors, such as substance abuse or self-injury.

Mental health resources have been posted online by these and other organizations:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov
• The American Psychiatry Association: psychiatry.org
• The American Psychological Association: apa.org