“Everyone brings something important to the table, regardless of the level of education you have,” said J.D. Lewis, Ph.D., a biological sciences professor who is leading the Fordham team in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Inclusive Excellence 3 Learning (IE3) Community. “Through this collaborative effort, we want to figure out how to teach STEM in a way that is accessible, relevant, and interesting to all our students.” 

Fordham is among more than 100 institutions involved in the IE3 Community. The goal of the initiative is to improve STEM teaching and learning in higher education, especially for first-generation college students, transfer students, and students from underrepresented backgrounds. 

More Inclusive Intro STEM Classes

After applying to be part of the initiative in 2019, Fordham was accepted into the inaugural cohort in 2021. The institutions were grouped into seven clusters, each with an assigned goal. The goal of Fordham’s cluster is to make introductory STEM course content more inclusive. Ultimately, Fordham wants students who better reflect the racial and intersectional diversity of the Bronx community to enter STEM disciplines and graduate at rates comparable to those of majority students, said Lewis. 

Lewis leads Fordham’s IE3 leadership team, which is currently planning the details of the project. They are joined by Dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center Laura Auricchio, Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill Maura Mast, Associate Professor of Chemistry Robert Beer, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Patricio Meneses, and CSTEP Director Michael Molina.

One of the team’s goals is to build on the University’s previous successes with mentoring and early research experiences, especially Project TRUE, the ASPIRES Scholars program, the Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Program, and Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, said Lewis. For example, they are currently working with CSTEP to include more CSTEP students in research opportunities earlier on in their time at Fordham, said Lewis. 

The team will also assess the University’s data on students taking STEM classes, starting with the biology department. They are planning on studying student outcomes, including the DFW rate—the number of students who earn D’s or F’s or withdraw from the course, said Lewis. They may also interview introductory biology instructors and students to understand the support they might need, said Lewis. 

“From them, we can get a sense of what’s working, what isn’t, what they’re struggling with, what they’re concerned about, and where and why they may not feel included,” Lewis said.  

Earlier Research Opportunities Built Into the Curriculum

In addition, the team is working on integrating student-directed research earlier in the STEM major. Upperclassmen typically conduct their own research in labs on campus, said Lewis, but their team is revising the curriculum so that they can introduce research to students as early as their first year of college. For example, the biology department recently introduced “research modules,” a new component in an introductory biology lab that gives students more creative freedom, said Lewis. 

“Instead of students simply following a manual type of lab activity, they are doing research where we don’t know the answer beforehand. They are experiencing those eureka moments, while still learning biology skills,” Lewis said. “Instead of waiting to work in a lab as a junior, they’re doing research that is yielding an unknown result—now, as a second-semester first-year student.” 

This fall, Fordham will finalize its project plan in collaboration with 14 other universities. Over the next six years, they will work together to achieve their goal through nearly $8 million in shared funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a science philanthropy organization founded by aviator and industrialist Howard R. Hughes. 

“We want all Fordham students and prospective students to see and feel that they can be successful in a STEM major and career,” Lewis said. “I hope that our data will lead us to what that should look like.”

The award is given to leaders in the social work, mental health, and diversity and inclusion fields who have done significant work to advance the profession of social work. Recipients are executive-level leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to the LSWC cause and who continuously champion the work of social workers and adjacent professions.

Zapata grew up in the NYCHA Chelsea Houses just two miles from the Fordham Lincoln Center campus; much of the work he does hits close to home. The work of the coalition, he said, mirrors his own commitment to helping communities in need.

“I was truly humbled to learn that I was selected as an honoree by the Latino Social Work Coalition, an organization that focuses on the needs of some of the most vulnerable and underserved populations in our city,” he said.

The coalition was formed in 2002 with the primary goal of raising awareness of the shortage of culturally and linguistically competent professionals—Latinx social workers—needed to address the needs of New York’s diverse, largely immigrant, low-income, and rapidly growing Latinx community. Zapata said their work is vital.

“For 20 years the coalition has fostered partnerships to ensure that social workers of all backgrounds are trained to holistically serve the needs of NYC’s complex, ever-evolving, yet consistently misunderstood Latinx community,” he said. “Not simply clinical knowledge–which is vital, but how that knowledge might apply specifically to a third-generation monolingual English working-class Afro-Puerto Rican male high school student, or a 23-year-old Dominican-Ecuadorean woman who is a recent college graduate, or to a recently arrived Mexican immigrant and father of two who speaks both Spanish and Nahuatl. Their work truly aligns with Fordham’s mission and commitment to justice for others. To be recognized by such an organization for my work as an educator is a true honor.”

Since joining Fordham University in 2018, Zapata has been a champion for Black and Latinx students and faculty of color. He’s created critical partnerships with local Bronx organizations—like the ongoing lecture series with The Bronx is Reading that brought authors like Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer to campus. He’s also helped to move Fordham forward by shaping the larger conversations around diversity and inclusion on campus and beyond. 

“Rafael Zapata has shown an extraordinary and heartfelt commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion since coming to Fordham. We are grateful to have a leader of his caliber at the University, especially during this time of self-examination for the University and the nation generally,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “I congratulate him on this honor by the Latino Social Work Coalition, and I thank him once again for all he has done and continues to do to address the needs of people of color at Fordham and in our communities.”

Elaine Congress, associate dean of the Graduate School of Social Service and board member of LSWC, called Zapata a “superstar.”  Congress worked closely with Zapata for a conference in 2018, the 50th anniversary of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which changed the face of immigration in America.

“I thought he was such a leader. So often we focus on problems, but he really works on application, and that’s something he’s done at Fordham. So much of us in academia are very intellectualized, and it’s fine for us to do research and just talk about the problem. Rafael turns it into action—creating all these programs and encouraging diversity.”

Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86, is the driving force behind the new Diversity Fund, which will provide financial aid to economically disadvantaged undergraduates and those from underrepresented groups who are living on campus. 

“The difficulty of getting into college if you don’t have the ability to pay is enormous. The ability to stay in college without the proper means is even harder. And if you’ve managed to get in, there’s also the setback of working and paying off student loans,” said Rainford, a Fordham alumna and University trustee who spent 17 years paying off her student loans. “It’s disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx students, and Fordham needs to give these students a more equitable opportunity to attend. This fund was intended to do some of that.”

The goal of the new fund is to encourage a diverse student body, Rainford said. She explained that it will provide “last-dollar” financial aid, including funding for student housing, to undergraduate students at the Rose Hill or Lincoln Center campuses. Funds can also be used for University-accredited study abroad programs. 

“It’s almost like a top-off fund,” Rainford said. “There’s a student that wants to come to Fordham, we want them to come to Fordham, and we do not want them turning down a Fordham education because they don’t have that final $2,000 or $5,000.” 

Rainford, a Bronx native who overcame many hardships as a young woman, is now the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies, a consulting firm that helps senior leaders increase diversity and inclusion within their companies. She was previously a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the company’s Advancing Black Leaders strategy, and a 21-year veteran at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she became the first Black female senior vice president. 

Two years ago, Rainford created the Valerie Irick Rainford Scholarship Fund to help students of color attend Fordham. But she said there were still many students who didn’t receive enough financial aid. Rainford said she wanted to multiply her initial effort, especially after a year marked by racial unrest. So at the end of 2020, she set the wheels in motion for the Diversity Fund. 

“There’s something to be said about diversity in the leadership positions. This is the kind of thing you can do and spark others to do when you have a seat at the table,” said Rainford, who joined the Board of Trustees in 2019. 

Several other trustees have already donated to the fund, including Thomas J. Regan, S.J., co-chair of the board’s Mission and Social Justice Committee and rector of Fordham’s Jesuit community. 

“The Jesuits at Spellman are happy to contribute to the Diversity Fund in the hope of advancing the University’s goal to make Fordham the most diverse and welcoming community it can be,” Father Regan said. 

Rainford said anyone can contribute to the fund, and she challenges more members of the Fordham community—alumni, parents, families, friends, corporate sponsors—to help her meet this new commitment. 

“The goal is to have others match what I’m trying to do: to create more opportunities for students of color to attend an elite school when they may not have the funding to,” Rainford said. “Funding should not be the thing that keeps them from going to college. This is intended to close that gap.”  

Make a gift to the Diversity Fund here. Visit the 2021 Fordham Giving Day website for more information.

“The virtual college fair will include the opportunity to connect with representatives from 50+ private colleges from across New York as well as workshops, offered in English and Spanish, on the college process and financial aid,” reads the online event posting. “Individual virtual appointments with financial aid experts will also be available in English and Spanish.”

Workshops include a Fordham-sponsored mentoring session for young men of color with University alumni and working professionals who are also men of color (and requires pre-registration) as well as sessions on how to pay and prep for college. 

This year’s fair was sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, and Fordham. In years past, the fair has been held on Fordham’s campus. 

Register for the fair here.

“We wanted to get into quality education, the ability to move around the city in our communities, the ability to get jobs, get paid, live in the community, get married, have children. And I think … we realized we could make a difference if we did it ourselves.”

These words come from Judith “Judy” Heumann, a 72-year-old pioneer of the disability rights movement recently featured in TIME’s list of the most influential women of the past century. Heumann reflected on her life of activism at Fordham’s fifth annual Distinguished Lecture on Disability, “The Disability Rights Movement: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Need to Go,” in a Zoom webinar on Oct. 14. 

A Five-Year-Old ‘Fire Hazard’ Girl

Heumann became New York City public schools’ first teacher in a wheelchair after winning a landmark court case. She helped spearhead the passage and implementation of federal civil rights legislation for disabled people, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504, a federal law that prevents discrimination against individuals with disabilities. She also served in various leadership roles, including the World Bank’s first adviser on disability and development and the first special adviser for international disability rights under the Obama administration. In recent years, she has been working to change the portrayals of disabled people in the media as a senior fellow for the Ford Foundation. 

At the beginning of the webinar, she recalled that when she was a five-year-old girl with polio, the principal of a local school told her she couldn’t attend classes because she was a “fire hazard.”

“As I was getting older and meeting other disabled people, in my special ed classes and then at camp, it was becoming very apparent that we were facing discrimination without any real group of people speaking up against discrimination,” said Heumann, who had joined students earlier that day for a Q&A about the recent film Crip Camp, which featured the stories of disabled teens—including Heumann—at camp in the 1970s and their role in igniting the disabilities civil rights movement.

In that same period, she said, she also saw scores of people on TV standing up for civil and women’s rights across the country. They inspired her to lead demonstrations, start new organizations, and use legislation to fight discrimination directed toward the disability community, all while working closely with the community, religious leaders, and labor unions.

“All [these]types of activities were what enabled congressional representatives and U.S. senators to understand that the discrimination that disabled people were facing was not something that happened once in a while,” Heumann said. “It happened in every community, in every state—and it happened regularly.” 

Ongoing Obstacles for the Disability Community

In the wake of much progress, the disability community continues to struggle, said Heumann. Many Americans don’t realize they have a disability protected by law; others face stigmas and repercussions related to their disability, she said. There is a disproportionate number of disabled individuals in juvenile and adult facilities—people who may not have ended up in prison if they’d received “appropriate services along the way.” There isn’t enough money being dedicated to education for both nondisabled children and disabled children on local, state, and countrywide levels, she said, and many teachers-in-training at colleges and universities are not taught how to teach students in inclusive settings. 

Toward the end of the evening, the moderator of the event, Navena Chaitoo, FCRH ’13, a research manager at New York City mayor’s office of criminal justice, asked Heumann how people could take specific steps to help the disability community. 

“We’re talking about stronger parent training programs. We’re talking about better programs in universities for teachers, principals, and superintendents,” Heumann said. “We’re talking about our local school boards. Who are the people that you’re electing? … Are they fighting for you and your kids with disabilities?” 

“It all gets, to me, back to voting and knowing the people who are running for office and being more demanding and working collaboratively together.”

‘We Need to Normalize This’

In a Q&A, an audience member asked Heumann how society could lower stigmas around “invisible disabilities” like mental illness. 

“You look at Covid right now, and we’re talking about people having increased anxiety, increased depression, other mental health disabilities, and our inability to speak about this is both harmful to the individual person, to the family, and to the community at large. And so I think like with each category of disabled people, we need to normalize this,” Heumann said. She added that that specific movement needs to be led by people who have psychosocial disabilities themselves, like Andrew Imparato, executive director at Disability Rights California, who has openly spoken about his experience with bipolar disorder. She emphasized that we need to listen to people’s experiences and try our best to understand them. Lastly, she noted the importance of advocacy across generations and for youths, including students, to stand up for themselves. 

“Most importantly is allowing people the space and giving people the protections that they need,” Heumann said. “We have 61 million disabled people in the United States. If 5 million of us on a regular basis were speaking up and speaking out, it would have an amazing impact.” 

The live Zoom lecture, which featured two American Sign Language interpreters and live captioning, comes under two key initiatives on disability at Fordham: the disability studies minor and the research consortium on disability. The event was organized by the Faculty Working Group on Disability and co-sponsored by the offices of the provost and chief diversity officer, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Law, the Gabelli School of Business, the Graduate School of Social Service, and the departments of economics and English. 

Watch the full webinar in the video below: 

Below you will find the annual report of the Chief Diversity Officer. You will find here that the University is moving forward on multiple fronts in pursuit of greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. That said, it is not everything we can do, nor is it everything we intend to do. This work—dismantling racism, especially structural racism—is neither linear nor ever finished. This is why I refer to the action plan for confronting racism and educating for justice as iterative and ongoing.

I want to speak directly to the Black people and other people of color in the Fordham community. I know this has been a difficult year for you in many ways. The killing of Black people by police, the disproportionate harm that communities of color have suffered during the pandemic, and the upswelling of racism across the country have burdened you uniquely. I know this, as does every member of the Board of Trustees, every member of the administration, and every member of the faculty and staff. While no single institution is capable of curing these social ills, I promise you that Fordham is committed to doing its part to combat racism and anti-Blackness.

We will not be able to address every issue before us in the 2020-2021 school year: there is simply too much to accomplish in a single academic year. But we will devote all the resources we can—both in funding and staff time—to this very important work.

I hope you will take heart at the progress laid out in the annual report from the Chief Diversity Officer, and trust that we are committed to doing more, always.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

—————————————————————

To the Members of the University Community:

This has been a year like no other. It is with great humility that I share with you an overview of the work of our office during the past academic year while providing a vision and preliminary update regarding the critical work to come. 

The work of any office concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion is, at its core, focused on the identification and disruption of patterns of exclusion and marginalization, and the norms, systems, and structures that produce and perpetuate them. This work also involves identifying and promoting new and existing norms, policies, and practices that foster justice, success, and belonging, consistent with our mission and most deeply held values. This is what we have striven to do since my arrival as Fordham’s inaugural Special Assistant to the President, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Chief Diversity Officer in January 2018. 

Building on the work of the previous three semesters, last year we made important strides in a number of strategic DEI areas: 

Students and Student/Community Programs 

• We supported a range of outstanding events and programs organized by and for students and student organizations, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL), the Fordham Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), and numerous academic departments. 
• In January 2020, with the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Center for Community Engaged Learning, we launched Martin Luther King, Jr. Week, featuring events on the theme: The Radical King. 
• We launched a prototype version of a non-credit first-year experience course, New York is My Campus, at both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. 
• We continued to build a strong partnership with #TheBronxIsReading and the Bronx Book Festival. 

Faculty and Staff Diversity 

• Forty Five percent of all new tenured and tenure-track hires this year are persons of color, with particular success in the Arts & Sciences and the Graduate School of Education. This is the result of our continuing work in conducting active, engaged faculty searches, working closely with academic departments, and partnering with a range of disciplinary- and area-specific organizations. 
• We continued to collaborate with Human Resources to build a more robust infrastructure for administrative search and selection processes, and to partner with colleagues from Mission Integration and Planning to conduct diversity and mission-focused search committee training. 

Capacity Building 

• The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council finalized the Fordham DEI Strategic Framework to inform DEI planning across the university. 
• The Office of Admissions hired their inaugural Associate Director of Diversity Initiatives, Mary Balingit, who joined Fordham in early March 2020. 

Faculty Development and Pedagogy 

• We continued to work closely with Dr. Anne Fernald, Professor and Special Advisor to the Provost for Faculty Development, in hosting inclusive pedagogy workshops, including one at the beginning of the academic year on Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Practice. 
• Graduate students are creating and participating in anti-racist pedagogy workshops. 
• There are currently 421 Fordham faculty, graduate students, post-docs, and administrators who have taken advantage of our institutional membership in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, providing access to a range of faculty development resources. We also supported an additional 18 Fordham faculty to participate in the Faculty Success Program, bringing the total number of participants to 45 since Spring 2018. Learn about member resources. 

Policy

• In May, Fordham adopted a Test-Optional Admissions Policy for undergraduate students starting with the Fall 2021 entering class. 
• More recently, Fordham announced the adoption of a Chosen Name Policy. 

AND THEN CAME COVID-19 

In early March, the COVID-19 pandemic had an abrupt and devastating impact on our institution, city, and region. We suffered the loss of countless family and friends, as well as frayed bonds with our loved ones that make us truly human – all in order to beat back this dreadful disease. The pandemic shed light on what is both beautiful and deeply troubling about our human relations. On the one hand, there was profound compassion, courage, and collective action to care for one another in a time of crisis. On the other was xenophobia directed against Asians and Asian Americans, and the disease’s disproportionate impact on already vulnerable populations: the aged, people of color, the poor, the lonely, essential workers, caretakers, persons with disabilities, and those with already compromised immune systems. 

THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD 

On May 25, our country was further rocked by the video recorded murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis Police, sparking nation-wide protests against contemporary and historic police and vigilante violence against Black people in the United States. As difficult as 2020 has been, the events of the year have allowed more and more people and institutions to witness – many for the first time – the debasing and deadly nature of systems of racial and economic inequality in the United States. As a result, they have begun to take more serious steps to address long-standing, deeply-rooted challenges at the individual and systemic level. 

THE WORK AHEAD 

While this work is certainly not new at Fordham, as evidenced by Father McShane’s November 2016 Diversity Action Plan, it has taken on a new urgency among students, faculty and staff, as well as alumni and members of the communities surrounding our campuses. 

Father McShane’s June 29th Action Plan, Addressing Racism/Educating for Justice, highlighted both ongoing priorities, as well as a bolder set of initiatives, to help us more fully live out our mission. Several initiatives are already underway, including: 

• A series of outstanding summer and fall events hosted by the Fordham Law School Center on Race, Law and Justice. 
• ASILI, in collaboration with other student organizations, offered programming over the summer via Instagram Live and other social media platforms. 
• Numerous schools, divisions, and departments are developing and implementing plans to conduct anti-racism training for their students, staff, and faculty. 
• The Office of Human Resources is currently working on developing University-wide training on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
• Fordham will be co-sponsoring a series of events this fall on issues of race, identity, and community in partnership with the Bronx Book Festival. 
• Advanced conversations with students, faculty, and deans from various academic departments are taking place regarding curriculum, with many potentially supported by Teaching Race Across the Curriculum (TRAC) grants. That program will be officially announced within the next two weeks. 
• The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council convened on Friday, September 4th, to begin to map out challenges, opportunities, and strategies in support of Father McShane’s June 29 Action Plan, and for on-going outreach and discussion throughout the Fordham community. 

With the fall semester officially underway, planning and strategy meetings with key stakeholders across the University are taking place with greater frequency, helping to move us from aspiration, to prioritization, to action and eventual implementation. There will be more specifics to report in the coming weeks and months, and we promise to share news of progress and relevant developments as they unfold. Importantly, we also invite your ideas to help our community heal, continue to learn and grow, and work collaboratively toward sustainable, systemic change, and racial justice. 

Yet, this will continue to be a year like no other. While we in the state, region, and city of New York have – for the time being – beaten the disease back, COVID is still among us, and must continue to be navigated with the utmost care. Moreover, the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, unarmed and in front of his children, by a Kenosha, WI, police officer, is yet another reminder of the urgency of this moment in the struggle for racial justice. Let us go forward, together, in love and solidarity, affirming in all that we do that BLACK LIVES MATTER, moved by the words and example of a previous generation of New York City youth fighting for justice: Pa’lante, Siempre Pa’lante. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Rafael A. Zapata 

Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs & Chief Diversity Officer 

Hughes, who earned a B.A. in studio art and English at Fordham College at Lincoln Center and an M.F.A. in painting at the University of Chicago, exhibits her work frequently, including at the recent I Contain Multitudes show at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. That exhibition invited viewers to “consider how multiculturalism impacts their lives, and how it relates to the issues of immigration and diversity in today’s society.”

She spoke with FORDHAM magazine about her own background, her artistic process, and how people’s stories inform her work.

In a statement about your work, you wrote about the idea of blending in terms of your own multicultural background. What is that background, exactly?
My father is an immigrant from India. My mother is German, but she was born here. So, German Indian.

An American family.
An American family. Two religions. I’ve always felt that I’ve had that duality in my world, and I kind of straddled both religions, the cultural differences. But also my mother grew up on a farm, my father grew up in the city. I currently live in a more pastoral setting, but I have my studio in the city. And I think I gain energy from both of those environments, and I like to bridge them.

How does your own sense of multiculturalism inform what comes out in your work?
I think it’s probably the heart of my work. It’s become the heart of my subject matter dealing with relationships between people, and how we get along, and how we form community, and how we understand each other. My Common Threads series is really about that, using the threads as a natural metaphor for shared experiences as we discuss things and start to unfold who we are and where we’re from, and find those links.

Picasso used to joke that it took him four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn to paint like a child. Have you always created abstract pieces, or has that developed over time?
I always knew I was an abstract painter at heart. I can show you my very first oil painting, done at 16. But I always struggled with subject matter, what I was going to paint. And, to me, my abstraction has to come from a story. It comes from a place or an experience that I’ve observed, or a story I’ve heard, or somebody I know. So, I never feel good about a work that I’ve done if it’s purely moving color and shape around. It needs to have a place to come from, an origin.

For better or for worse, in America multiculturalism is often defined by color. Your work is all about the interplay of color. Is this metaphor intended?
In my Blends series, it is intentional. The paintings to me are portraits, but they’re simple until you look closer and you see that there are a lot of layers of color. But the color is very important, because they’re blended together in a way that creates, for me, a new beautiful shape. So, all the colors together are important. Each one has a role to play with the other.

When you say they’re portraits, what does that mean?
That, again, goes to that multiculturalism question. I’ve been, for three years now, collecting stories from friends and acquaintances of their cultural and ethnic backgrounds and compiling them in a book. Those stories, of family experiences or things that would be important to an individual in their family’s cultural background, are very important to the paintings. The paintings, then, are a composite portrait of many people, because they’re blended together, blended histories.

So, tell me a little bit about the story behind this painting [Blend 23md] and how it went from being his or her or their story to becoming that visual abstract portrait you created.
I’m going to read you the story, but I’m going to take out names because I always tell the people sharing the stories that they’ll be anonymous.

I’m half Mexican and half Irish. I lived in Mexico as a kid and moved here for first grade. I was back in Mexico over winter break, and I ran into a woman who had not seen me since I was 5 years old. She watched me speaking with my daughter and wife in English and blinked at me with amazement, saying, “The last time I saw you, you didn’t even know how to speak English.” It was a powerful reminder of how my life has changed since moving here. My daughter is a quarter Mexican, quarter Polish, quarter Irish, and quarter Scottish. When we landed in Minnesota after being away, she saw her breath from the cold and said, “This is what home should look like.” We are having very different childhoods.

That’s an example of the stories that I collect, and I like to exhibit the stories with the paintings.

So then how does that story, which is a lovely and charming and American story, actually become that visual representation?
I might choose a color that the story evokes for me at the moment and then build off that color, playing with complements, usually. Most of the time, I know the person who has written the story. I might know their profile or the way they walk or the way they sit, so shapes kind of get dictated by that. And then I start to play with how those different shapes interact with each other on the panel.

But the shapes are not necessarily representative of the story part for part. I don’t think I need to be that literal, because in the end it’s an abstract portrait and it’s open to interpretation. I think colors portray emotion, colors and shapes have presence, and the interaction is important. Some of the stories have tension, some of them have anger, some of them have sorrow. I don’t necessarily want to portray those things; I really want to create a collection of new images.

You make your pieces with resin, which is unusual. What is your process?
I always start out with one color. The medium I’m working with starts to cure in 45 minutes, it starts to set up, so I have a very quick open time with it. I have to know what I’m doing to control the shapes. It’s still moving when I leave, but the shape that I make is really important to me. Then I let it cure before I do the next color. So I build them up in a series from the back to the top.

Baltimore has a complicated multicultural history. Do you think that that’s likely to, over the course of the years, create an evolution in your work?
I have lived here for a year now, and as an artist, you’re always a little isolated from the place you exist in, because you’re working in your studio. At the same time, I get energy from the place I live in, so I like coming into the city, I like seeing what’s going on, seeing certain people on the street, on the corners every day. It’s just that sort of dynamic place that I enjoy and like to observe, but, as opposed to any other place I’ve lived, I feel like it’s taking a long time and will take longer to understand the city, and I don’t want to make any assumptions.

It’s complicated, and complex.
I wanted to be here. The building itself is cobbled together—it’s old, some of the walls are new, but it’s repaired, you can see things that are screwed down. I painted the floor when I moved in because I needed that sense of serenity, I guess, because my work is complicated, but, as you can see, there are exposed brick walls with remnants of work that’s been done here. I enjoy that; I think that’s important to a place. I like seeing other people’s notes to each other on the wall. Things were made here, which is great to me. I think that Baltimore is a city of people who reinvent themselves, at least in this neighborhood. There’s a creative force, a do-it-yourself mentality here that is vibrant and alive.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by B.A. Van Sise, FCLC ’05.

Hughes’ artwork will be featured in “Layers of Existence,” an exhibition at Walker Fine Art in Denver from Nov. 8, 2019, through Jan. 4, 2020. 

This complex topic was the subject of a candid and lively panel discussion at a recent Fordham Alumni Career Workshop titled “How to Succeed as a Diverse Candidate.”

Fordham MBA candidate Bliss Griffin moderated the event, which featured alumni working in finance, communications, health care, and software engineering. Griffin, a former actor and a trainer for diversity and inclusion programs, laid the groundwork for the discussion by noting that diversity is “absolutely more than things that are visible,” and it can include everything from age, race, and gender to educational or geographical background.

One major takeaway was a piece of advice from Karthy Bhatt, GABELLI ’18, a product manager at clinical lab company Quest Diagnostics: “Get comfortable with the uncomfortable,” she told several dozen Fordham students and recent graduates in the audience. Conversations about diversity can be tough, but they’re necessary.

Know Your Self-Worth

Bhatt and others touched on some of the disagreeable situations that can arise when you’re the only employee of your race, gender, sexual orientation, or age group at your job. These ranged from racist comments made about minority family members to insensitive remarks about accents.

“Sometimes [turning those uncomfortable situations around is] not as easy as having a conversation, and sometimes it is,” Bhatt said. “So I do find them happening in the workplace, but I think for myself, having that self-awareness and the emotional intelligence to handle those situations helps. I know myself, I know my self-worth, and I know what I bring to the table. And when you show people that piece of you, it does start to change mindsets, but it’s not easy.”

And at times, change can seem far off or slow in coming. Until workplaces themselves start to look more varied, diverse employees can find themselves living in a duality—code-switching or being a slightly different version of themselves depending on the context, said Brandon Stanford, GABELLI ’18.

“Your duty is to [extend] your hand down and bring [other diverse] people up because there are not enough of us here,” he said. “That’s the only way you get this political capital that will be a way to move the needle.”

Finding Mentors and Affinity Groups

When it comes to advancing in your career, all the panelists were largely in agreement: It’s your connections with others—whether they are mentors or peers—that will help you move forward.

“It’s all about networking,” Stanford said. “You have to talk to people; there is no way around that.”

In Stanford’s case, he forged new links via LinkedIn with those whose careers he admired. One of those connections ultimately led to his current position as a senior consultant at Ernst & Young—a departure from his previous career in education where he worked his way up to director of operations for a charter school network.

Mentors can also provide advice and guidance as you navigate your career trajectory, which is key for advancement, said Bhatt. She has prioritized making sure those advisers offer a variety of perspectives, too.

“I think there is so much value in mentorship,” Bhatt said. “I took it upon myself to reach out and find those mentors at my workplace and outside of my workplace. … I was very purposeful about picking my mentors and making sure that that group was diverse as well. So my mentors range [and include] different races, women and men, different age groups. It also should be someone that you not only aspire to be, but you aspire to emulate their characteristics.”

Affinity groups at a workplace—those focused on gender, race, sexuality, or other commonalities—can also provide excellent support networks to diverse candidates, the panelists said. And if your workplace doesn’t have one? You can always take charge and create one either at your job or elsewhere. Panelist Victor Luciano, PCS ’02, vice president of sales at Spanish-language TV network Azteca América, did just that at Fordham. He currently chairs MOSAIC, the alumni affinity chapter that looks to support diversity and inclusion in the Fordham community.

Jemina Molines, a Fordham sophomore and the vice president of the Black Students Alliance at the Lincoln Center campus, said she was inspired by the panelists and their stories.

“I think these events are a system of support for students, and it helps us to know that there are [people]like us that have gone through difficult things but have been able to get past that and go on to their respective fields and be successful,” Molines said.

Bottom line: starting conversations on diversity can pave the way for changing the images of what accomplishments look like—and who can achieve them.

Lorelle Reid, FCRH ’14, who transitioned from a career as a model to a software engineer, summed it up this way in her advice to attendees: “You don’t have to look a certain way to succeed in a certain way.”

—Kelsey Butler, FCLC ’10