E. Gerald Corrigan – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Tue, 11 Jun 2024 19:19:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png E. Gerald Corrigan – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 Celebrating the Life of E. Gerald Corrigan https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/fordham-celebrates-the-life-of-e-gerald-corrigan/ Wed, 03 May 2023 19:18:08 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=172841 Celebration of Life,E. Gerald Corrigan President Tetlow speaking at podium, another women next to her in a pink jacket. Father McShane speaking at podium, women standing next to him in pink jacket. President Tetlow sitting at table, man next to her smiling covering his mouth. Man talking at podium. Man in gray suit and red and dark blue striped tie. Man standing speaking with microphone, women in pink jacket next to him in the background. Man with mic in bottom corner of picture, screen behind him. Two men and two women talking with each other standing. Wide shot of entire room, people sitting at circle tables eating. Father McShane speaking with another man. Pointing his finger at him.

On May 1 at the Lincoln Center campus, Cathy Minehan hosted a celebration of the life of her late husband, E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and former partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he also became chairman of the firm’s international advisers and the first nonexecutive chairman of what is now Goldman Sachs Bank. A two-time Fordham graduate with master’s and doctoral degrees from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Corrigan served as a University trustee and championed students and faculty with major gifts for scholarships and an endowed chair in international business and finance. He was also a proud supporter of Jesuit education, crediting his own Jesuit schooling as instrumental to the critical thinking skills he brought to his career. Corrigan died on May 17, 2022, at age 80.

Speaking at the event, fittingly held at the E. Gerald Corrigan Conference Center, were Fordham President Tania Tetlow; Fordham President Emeritus Joseph M. McShane, S.J.; former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein; former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Gary Stern; former Secretary of Finance of Mexico Guillermo Ortiz; and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

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E. Gerald Corrigan, a Risk Manager Who Excelled in Public Service and on Wall Street, Dies at 80 https://now.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/e-gerald-corrigan-a-risk-manager-who-excelled-in-public-service-and-on-wall-street-dies-at-80/ Sun, 22 May 2022 13:50:31 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=160738 Photo by Chris TaggartE. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., who earned master’s and doctoral degrees in economics at Fordham during the 1960s, served as a University trustee, and had a long, exceptional career in both public service and on Wall Street, died on May 17 at NewBridge on the Charles in Dedham, Mass., where he was in care for Alzheimer’s disease. He was 80 years old.

“Jerry was known as one of the most honest and wise men in international business,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, in an announcement to the University community about Corrigan’s passing. “He always said his Jesuit education equipped him to work through thorny finance questions and make good decisions. Thanks to him, our students and alumni are better prepared as well.”

Corrigan accepted a position as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1968, when he was a doctoral candidate at Fordham. He had taught at the University the year before, and although he planned to return to a career in teaching, he instead rose through the ranks of some of the country’s most prominent economic institutions.

In 1979, Corrigan left the New York Fed—where he had become vice president for planning and domestic open market operations—to serve as special assistant to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker in Washington, D.C. The following year, he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where he served until 1984.

On January 1, 1985, Corrigan returned to the New York Fed as chief executive officer and vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. When the stock market crashed on October 19, 1987—a day that would become known as Black Monday—Corrigan played a pivotal role in getting the market back on its feet by convincing bank lenders to provide liquidity for the financial system.

“Let me tell you, unless you’ve been there, you can’t begin to understand how difficult the decision-making is in those circumstances,” Corrigan told Fordham Magazine in 2009. “You have imperfect information. You have very little time. And you know that inaction is action.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, greets E. Gerald Corrigan and his wife, Cathy E. Minehan, during a celebration in Corrigan’s honor. Photo by Chris Taggart
Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, greets E. Gerald Corrigan and his wife, Cathy E. Minehan, during a celebration in Corrigan’s honor. Photo by Chris Taggart

After nine years leading the New York Fed, Corrigan moved to the private sector in 1994, when he became a managing director at Goldman Sachs. He was named a partner at the firm two years later. Until his retirement in 2016, he wore many hats as a senior member of then-CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s executive team. Corrigan was chair of the company’s two deposit-gathering banks in New York and London, and he co-chaired several committees tasked with analyzing risk, including the Global Risk Management Committee.

In 2008, as a member of the firm’s Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group at Goldman Sachs, he helped develop what many saw as a blueprint for global financial system reform, and as co-chair of Goldman’s Business Standards Committee, he worked to strengthen relationships with clients who were reeling from the financial crisis.

In his 2014 memoir, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner described Corrigan “as a kind of John Madden of finance—big, gruff, old-school, a well-respected student of the game, with a similarly animated rhythm to his commentary.”

When Corrigan retired, Blankfein and Gary Cohn, then president of Goldman Sachs, wrote in a companywide memo, “We have benefited enormously from his leadership in the global financial community, experience as a central banker, extensive knowledge of the complexities of financial systems and exceptional judgment.”

An Ardent Champion of a Fordham Jesuit Education

Corrigan was born on June 13, 1941, in Waterbury, Connecticut, to an innkeeper and a librarian. He received his bachelor’s degree from Fairfield University in 1963, at which point he began his graduate studies at Fordham, earning master’s and doctoral degrees in economics in 1965 and 1971, respectively. While studying at Fordham, Corrigan lived off campus, in a walk-up on 183rd Street and Park Avenue in the Bronx, and balanced his classes with a job bagging groceries at an A&P on Webster Avenue.

At Fordham, he developed a strong bond with Joseph Cammarosano, Ph.D., an economics professor and administrator at Fordham who had served as an economist in the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. Together, they worked on an economic development study of the Bronx while Corrigan completed his master’s degree.

“He was a pied piper,” Cammarosano said of his former student, who recruited and led 50 students who took part in the study, knocking on doors in neighborhoods around the Fordham campus to get information. “Jerry was a very charismatic young man, and he had a can-do attitude. … Before I was through half a sentence, Jerry would know exactly what I wanted.”

In a 2009 interview with Fordham Magazine, Cammarosano also noted Corrigan’s humility, saying, “Jerry is a Jesuit product. He’s not one to promote himself openly. He promotes himself through what he does.” Cammarosano also remembered Corrigan’s competitive spirit, including his “sharp elbows under the basketball hoop.”

For his part, Corrigan credited his Jesuit education, both at Fordham and Fairfield, as instrumental to the critical thinking skills he brought to his career.

“The philosophy of education that’s been associated with the Jesuits for hundreds of years puts great emphasis on liberal arts and humanities,” Corrigan said. “But it puts even greater emphasis on simple, straightforward propositions of trying to teach people how to think. That’s the genius of it.”

And while Corrigan did not pursue a career in teaching, he stayed connected to Fordham in many ways and was one of its most ardent champions.

A member of the University’s Board of Trustees from 1987 to 1989, he made several generous gifts to benefit Fordham students and faculty. In 2000, he established the E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Endowed Scholarship Fund, which provides support to full-time Fordham students who demonstrate both academic excellence and financial need, with preference given to minority students. Seven years later, he made another gift to further support the scholarship fund and to create an endowed professorship, the Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance at the Gabelli School of Business.

E. Gerald Corrigan, third from right, poses with recipients of the E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Endowed Scholarship Fund.
E. Gerald Corrigan, third from right, poses with recipients of the E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Endowed Scholarship Fund. Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Along with the scholarship fund and endowed professorship, Corrigan’s name lives on at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, where the Lowenstein Center’s 12th floor was officially christened the E. Gerald Corrigan Conference Center in a 2013 ceremony. He was inducted into the Fordham University Hall of Honor in 2012, and one year later, he received the Fordham Founder’s Award, given to people whose “personal and professional lives reflect the highest aspirations of the University’s defining traditions, as an institution dedicated to wisdom and learning in the service of others.”

In addition to his gifts to the University, Corrigan was generous with his time, coming back to campus often to share his experience with students. In April 2005, he spoke to more than 120 students, alumni, and faculty of the Department of Economics. He delivered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Gannon Lecture in 2006. And in a 2010 lecture titled “Leadership: Making the Right Things Happen,” Corrigan spoke to a Fordham audience about the criteria that make for truly great leaders.

“They recognize and embrace the proposition that there is a time when the public interest must come first—before the natural and appropriate responsibility to further the interests of shareholders and other private concerns,” Corrigan said.

“They understand that there are principles that should never be breached. They have the courage of their convictions and the drive to do what is right for its own sake. Lastly, they are men and women of superior integrity.”

‘Working Toward the Good of the World’

In addition to his devotion to the Fordham community, Corrigan supported many other institutions. He was a trustee of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1981 to 1986, and he served two terms on the board of Fairfield University before being named a trustee emeritus of his undergraduate alma mater. In 2004, he established the Ernesto Zedillo Scholarship at Fairfield, and in 2007, he endowed a new professorship at the university, the Corrigan-Minehan Professorship in Political Science, named after him and his wife, Cathy E. Minehan, who served as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 1994 to 2007.

He also funded scholarships at the University of Rochester, and among his and Minehan’s other philanthropic gifts was one to Massachusetts General Hospital in 2012 that supports innovation and research in the Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program and throughout the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center. Along with Minehan, Corrigan was a trustee of the Challenger Foundation (formerly known as the Corrigan Foundation), which supports education, health and human services, and research in international economics and finance.

Corrigan was a member of numerous committees and associations, including the Bretton Woods Committee, the Group of Thirty, the American Economic Association, the American Management Association, the Joint Council on Economic Education, the Council of Foreign Relations (which he led as director from 1993 to 1995), and the Economic Club of New York. He was also named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In a life filled with professional success and accolades, those who knew Corrigan point out his love for quiet moments with his family or while fly fishing and golfing, as well as his honesty and grounded nature.

“Jerry was a person who solved problems,” Minehan said. “He would step into a situation, and his clear way of thinking—which I know he attributed to his Jesuit education—was always the gold star in terms of how to get through a crisis and how to prevent a crisis from happening again.”

She added that the Jesuit focus on the common good was something he took to heart.

“Being all about working toward the good of the world—that really spoke volumes to Jerry, and that’s what his life was about.”

Along with Minehan, Corrigan is survived by two children from a previous marriage, Elizabeth Corrigan and Karen Corrigan Tate; two stepchildren, Brian Minehan and Melissa Minehan Walters; a sister, Patricia Carlascio; and five grandchildren.

A private funeral Mass for close family and friends will be held on Monday, May 23, at 10 a.m.  and will be livestreamed on YouTube. A celebration of his life will be held in New York City at a later date.

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University Mourns Loss of Joseph Cammarosano, ‘the Beating Heart of Fordham’ https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/university-mourns-loss-of-joseph-cammarosano-the-beating-heart-of-fordham/ Wed, 03 Jun 2020 21:26:27 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=137140 Joseph Cammarosano, Ph.D., a Fordham professor emeritus and administrator whose tough and thoughtful leadership guided the University through some of its most pivotal moments, died on May 19 at South Nassau Community Hospital in Oceanside, New York, after suffering congestive heart failure. He was 97.

“Dr. C,” as students and colleagues knew him, served as a professor of economics, the University’s first faculty senate president, and an executive vice president during his 60-year-plus tenure.

“Joe was the beating heart of Fordham. He was supremely competent, tough-minded, and unfailingly kind and generous. He cared for the Fordham community deeply and was intensely loyal to the institution and its faculty, students, and staff,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“Until the end, he was deeply involved in University life, and kept in touch with us as much as possible in his gentle but forceful way. We will all miss his sage advice and goodwill.”

Over many years and many leadership roles, Cammarosano contributed to major changes in the University’s finances, governance, and physical expansion.

Joseph Cammarosano's photo in the 1948 Fordham Maroon yearbook.
In the 1948 Maroon yearbook, Cammarosano’s classmates noted how his “infectious grin belies his serious application to school work.”

He enrolled at Fordham as a freshman in 1941 and used to joke that he “only missed the first 100 years” of the University’s history. In 1975, on the occasion of his stepping down as executive vice president to return to teaching, James Finlay, S.J., then the University’s president, said, “If Fordham is alive and flourishing today, it is due to no one more than to Joe.”

Cammarosano was born on March 12, 1923, and raised in Mount Vernon, New York. Although he enrolled at Fordham in 1941, World War II interrupted his studies, and he served as a member of the Army Signal Corps until 1945, when he returned to Fordham. He graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1947 with a degree in economics and went to work as a U.S. customs inspector. After getting a master’s degree at NYU, he returned to Fordham, where he began teaching economics in 1955. He earned a doctorate from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the subject in 1956.

Leadership During Turbulent Years

In the 1970s and '80s, Cammarosano (center) led a campaign for the re-greening of Fordham, helping to restore Edwards Parade to glory.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Cammarosano (center) led a campaign for the re-greening of Fordham, helping to restore Edwards Parade to glory.

In 1961, he joined the Kennedy administration as an economist in the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, then moved on to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. When he returned to Fordham a few years later, he was elected as the first president of the newly formed faculty senate in 1965.

In 1968—a period of financial turmoil for the University—he was named executive vice president. He was one of the key figures in bringing Fordham back from the brink of bankruptcy. That year, the University was operating at $2 million deficit; by 1970, it had been transformed into a $2 million surplus, thanks in part to the advent of Bundy Aid (support for private colleges from New York state), the opening of what became Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and Cammarosano’s fiscal discipline.

Roger Wines, Ph.D., FCRH ’54, a professor emeritus of history at Fordham, served on Cammarosano’s budget committee at the time and worked with him as a member of the faculty senate.

“His committee … was told to cut the University budget 20% in three weeks,” Wines said at a 2015 dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Faculty Senate. “He succeeded in meeting that goal, freezing salaries and hiring, slashing administrative costs and a number of positions. Not one classroom teacher was fired. Financial crisis was averted.”

Joseph Cammarosano in the classroom during the 1970s. He joined the Fordham faculty in 1955.
Cammarosano in the classroom during the 1970s.

Wines said Cammarosano also played a central role in helping the University make the difficult transition from Jesuit oversight to governance by a board of trustees with several lay members.

“Joe played an effective central role, because he gained the trust of the faculty, of the Jesuit community, and the lay adviser members of the Board of Trustees,” he said.

“That trust was vital in guiding the University through the tumultuous years 1968 to 70, years when the University faced financial bankruptcy, student unrest, religious reform currents relating to the Vatican II Council, and protests against the Vietnam War.”

In an interview with Fordham Magazine in 2015, Cammarosano recalled how his office was occupied by students several times in 1969 and 1970 as protests against the Vietnam War roiled the country.

“The students took over the switchboard at one point, and when someone called for me, they said, ‘No, he’s no longer with us, we fired him.’ I almost wished they had fired me!” he said, laughing.

Monsignor Thomas J. Shelley, Ph.D., professor emeritus of theology and the author of Fordham: A History of the Jesuit University of New York: 1841–2003 (Fordham University Press, 2016), noted that Father Finlay was not engaging in hyperbole when he told the Jesuits’ Superior General, Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J., in 1975 that Cammarosano was “the person mainly responsible for the survival of the University.”

“At a time when we had so much trouble with finances and campus demonstrations, he was a rock of strength,” he said.

“I think it’s true that was the worst financial crisis the University ever experienced. It was a time when the South Bronx was burning, and it had made it up to Fordham Road, so that was another factor.”

A Dynamic Teacher with Boundless Energy

In 2016, Cammarosano celebrated 75 years on campus and 60 years of teaching.

In 1976, Cammarosano was honored at the University’s faculty convocation as an “exacting taskmaster” who earned his students’ appreciation by preparing “meticulously” and lecturing “dynamically.” Cammarosano served as executive vice president twice; the second time was to assist the newly appointed president of the University, Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., who took office in 1984. But he returned to teaching once again.

E. Gerald Corrigan, GSAS ’65, ’71, a managing director of Goldman Sachs and a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, studied with Cammarosano during the 1960s, helping him produce economic studies of the Bronx and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“He’s a dynamo,” Corrigan told Fordham Magazine, recalling how his mentor would deliver “two-hour lectures nonstop at a fevered pitch.”

In 2017, when Cammarosano—then in his 62nd year as a member of the faculty—received an honorary degree at the University’s 172nd Commencement, his citation noted “the personal attention that he gives his students in the classical Jesuit model of cura personalis.”

Dominick Salvatore, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of economics who first met Cammarosano when he joined the economics faculty in 1971, remembered him as a gentleman, scholar, and all-around wonderful human being.

Joseph Cammarosano and Tino Martinez
Cammarosano accompanied Tino Martinez at Fordham’s 172nd Commencement, where he received an honorary degree. Photo by Bruce Gilbert

“The greatest compliment that students could pay to me was for them to tell me I reminded them of Joe Cammarosano,” he said.

“The students loved him and he was a rigorous teacher. He demanded things but was always jovial. I’m no young spring chicken myself, but very often I had to remind myself that I was talking to an over-90-year-old person because it was so easy to assume he was 65 or 70,” he said.

Mary Burke, Ph.D., a senior lecturer of economics, said that when one spoke to Cammarosano, he was so full of life and energy, one could be forgiven for assuming he’d be around forever.

“His office is next to mine, and every day he had classes, his office door would be open. He would be there until 5, 6, or 7 p.m. As long as there was a student who wanted to ask a question or just talk, he would be there for them,” she said, noting that conversations related to the Yankees could go on especially long.

“I met Dr. Cammarosano when I was a student. Now, I have known him as a mentor, advisor, and a dear friend.”

Cammarosano continued to teach well after many peers had retired, most recently in the fall of 2018. He submitted his formal letter of retirement in February. Matthew McCrane, GABELLI ’19, took Introduction to Macroeconomics with him, and recalled the boundless energy that belied his age.

“It was a privilege to have been taught by someone who has taught so many alumni before me. It was like I was experiencing a staple part of Fordham. In a way, it’s like I can connect with much older alumni as a result of having had him in class,” he said.

Making a Mark as an Administrator

 Stephie Mukherjee and Joseph Cammarosano
Cammarosano and Stephie Mukherjee, who calls him the father of Fordham’s HEOP program. Photo courtesy of Stephie Mukherjee

Stephie Mukherjee, assistant dean and director of Fordham’s Higher Education Opportunity Program at Rose Hill (HEOP), called Cammarosano a “giant” and “Father of Fordham” for his outsized influence on the University. He was responsible for bringing HEOP to Fordham when the state program was created in 1969, and on numerous occasions, he stepped in to save it when funding was threatened, she said.

“He believed in the students, he believed in the underprivileged, he believed in people, and I’m grateful that he believed in me. He knew that this job is my passion, it’s not just a job,” she said.

“He was such a kindhearted, warm, wonderful person. He touched so many people’s lives.”

Sheldon Marcus, Ed.D., professor of educational leadership at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), recalls trying to get funds approved by Cammarosano in the 1970s to reimburse an administrator for weekend hours spent working. The paperwork for the request came back with Cammarosano’s bold script: “Rejected.”

Joseph Cammarosono
“In this photo, he went over to strangers wearing Fordham graduation robes at an outside dining area to congratulate them in 2015,” his daughter, Nancy said. “It was pretty funny. But he was genuinely excited for them and wanted to offer best wishes.” Photo courtesy of Nancy Hartzband

When he went to see Cammarosano in his office, Marcus was greeted with more colorful language that seemed to indicate his case was lost. But then Cammarosano asked for the papers back, scratched out “rejected,” and added, “approved.”

Marcus said he started to leave, “happy to walk out of his office with my head still on.” But Cammarosano said, “Wait a minute.” He put his arm around Marcus and said, “Shelly, you’ve been working too hard, go home this weekend and don’t do another thing; get some rest.”

“He was just the most humane guy behind that tough rough exterior,” said Marcus. “It has been a pleasure to be at Fordham because of people like him; he just made it family.”

Family Above All

Cammarosano’s daughter Nancy Hartzband, FCRH ’77, LAW ’83, said her father was very connected to his own family, including his five grandchildren.

“I think it was such a good relationship because he dealt with young people his whole life, which he loved. He knew them one on one, he guided them, he was a very important figure in each of their lives,” she said.

“He set the bar really high for all of us in terms of morals. Whenever I’m in doubt, I ask, ‘What would my dad do?”

She too marveled at his stamina, noting that two years ago he published An Overview of the Development of Economic Thought (Lexington Books, 2018), the last of his three books about the ideas of economist John Maynard Kenyes.

“I mean, who does that? At that age, I’ll be happy to be sitting in my rocking chair,” she said laughing.

“But that was him. He always wanted to learn, he always wanted to do something new.”

Cammarosano still had an apartment in his native Mount Vernon, she said, but had recently moved in with his son in Island Park, New York.

She said her father was a devout Catholic who maintained his connection to Fordham for eight decades because he believed strongly in its Jesuit mission.

“We always knew we were very special because of the person he was at the University,” she said.

“He was just an incredible presence in our lives. He was almost larger than life.”

Cammarasano with his family
Cammarasano with his five grandchildren in 2005.
“I think it was such a good relationship because he dealt with young people his whole life, which he loved.,” said his daughter, Nancy. Photo courtesy of Nancy Hartzband

Cammarosano is survived by Hartzband and her three children as well as his son, Joseph R. Cammarosano, FCRH ’78, LAW ’81, Joseph’s wife, Mary, and their two children. Two of his grandchildren are alumni as well: Danielle Cammarosano, GABELLI ’19, and Alex Hartzband, LAW ’15. Cammarosano’s wife, Rosalie, died in 1991 and his son Louis T. Cammarosano, FCRH ’74, LAW ’78, died in 2014.

He was interred at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, after a private funeral service. The University will also hold a memorial mass in his honor at a date in the future.

To hear Cammarosano talk about working and living in the Bronx over the years, listen to his interview with the Bronx Italian American History Initiative.

—Tom Stoeker contributed reporting.

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Catching up with Dr. C https://now.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/dr-c/ Fri, 04 Dec 2015 21:16:26 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=35557 The affable, tough-minded Joseph Cammarosano, FCRH ’47, GSAS ’56, has seen nearly 75 years of Fordham history—and left his mark on much of it.

“If Fordham is alive and flourishing today, it is due to no one more than to Joe.”

That’s what James Finlay, SJ, Fordham’s 30th president, said 40 years ago about Joseph Cammarosano, PhD, the economist, professor, and administrator whose steady hand helped guide the University through the turbulent late 1960s, when student unrest and fiscal troubles threatened to sink colleges across the country.

The 92-year-old Cammarosano—affectionately known as Dr. C—gave up his administrative duties in the late 1980s, but he’s still teaching. And next year, when Fordham begins a yearlong celebration of its 175th anniversary, he’ll be marking his 75th.

“I only missed the first 100 years,” says Cammarosano, who enrolled at Fordham as a freshman in 1941. “In those days, the squirrels outnumbered the students—and they didn’t pay tuition!”

Formed by Family

Joseph Cammarosano's photo in the 1948 Fordham Maroon yearbook.
In the 1948 Maroon yearbook, Cammarosano’s classmates noted how his “infectious grin belies his serious application to school work.”

Cammarosano grew up in Mount Vernon, New York, just across the Bronx’s northern border. “My father was a contractor, and my mother was a very fine seamstress,” he says, recalling how his parents, who emigrated from Sorrento, Italy, worked hard to give him and his brother opportunities they themselves didn’t have. “My mom ultimately did the heavy lifting,” he says, “because my dad, although he was a great role model for me, passed on rather early in my life.”

War interrupted Cammarosano’s studies at Fordham. By 1943, he was a member of the Army Signal Corps, serving mostly in England and Belgium. “The war ended just before I was ready to load up and go to Japan,” he says, so he returned to Fordham instead, enrolling in an accelerated program. “It was hurry up and run. We’d already lost three years in the service.” He graduated magna cum laude in 1947 and went to work as a U.S. customs inspector. After getting a master’s degree at NYU, he returned to Fordham, where he began teaching economics in 1955, earning a doctorate in the subject the following year.

Fiscal Crisis Averted

In 1961, Cammarosano took a consequential sabbatical, joining the Kennedy administration as an economist in the U.S. Bureau of the Budget. A year later, he worked in the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Bolstered by his government service, he was elected president of the Fordham Faculty Senate in 1965, the first to hold that position. And as the University started to encounter serious financial problems in the late 1960s, he was put in a place to help.

By June 1968, Fordham was operating at a $2 million deficit, and Cammarosano, who’d been chair of the faculty budget committee, was named executive vice president. Together with the University’s treasurer, Brother James Kenny, SJ, and the academic president, Paul Reiss, PhD, GSAS ’54, he fought to help Fordham avoid bankruptcy.

“How did I get into this mess?” he asks now. “Out of the Bureau of the Budget. I knew what budgeting was all about, and that’s what I put into practice. I learned something from President Kennedy. He put a strict limit on the budget. Everyone thought he was a spendthrift, and he wanted to prove the contrary.”

During the late ’60s, nobody could have accused Cammarosano of being a spendthrift. Tightfisted was more like it.

“I always wore a black hat, and Father Walsh, to the extent that he could, wore the white hat, although it was probably a gray hat,” he says, referring to Michael Walsh, SJ, president of Fordham from 1969 to 1972.

Cammarosano put a stop to all new construction. Maintenance was deferred. He even posted signs on the Xerox machines: “Why don’t you try carbon?” Like Cammarosano, the suggestion was unfailingly polite. He says it was more psychological ploy than cost-saving measure. “I wanted people to know we were in dire straits, and we had to pull ourselves out of this.”

By 1970, Fordham’s $2 million deficit had been transformed into a $2 million surplus, thanks in part to the advent of Bundy Aid (support for private colleges from New York state), the opening of what became Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and Cammarosano’s fiscal discipline.

“No one lost a single job,” he says. “I felt if we could hold expenses down, do no more than we did last year, and with a very modest tuition increase and the Lincoln Center campus coming on stream, we may make it in very short order. That was the formula.”

A Campus in Turmoil

As the fiscal crisis cooled, student protests intensified on campus. “It pretty much had to do with the Vietnam War and the ROTC’s presence on campus,” Cammarosano says of the wave of demonstrations in 1969 and 1970. “The students took over my office two or three times. I’d come in in the morning, and my windows would be smashed. There was a fire in the McGinley Center. They did a lot of damage.”

Cammarosano was surprised and disappointed by the students’ behavior (“it wasn’t the way they behaved in class”), but he could understand their grievances to a point. “I could relate to them, but don’t take it out on us,” he told them. “I would stop the war, but I had no control.”

In the 1970s and '80s, Cammarosano (center) led a campaign for the re-greening of Fordham, helping to restore Edwards Parade to glory.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Cammarosano (center) led a campaign for the re-greening of Fordham, helping to restore Edwards Parade to glory.

Characteristically, he found some humor in the situation. “The students took over the switchboard at one point, and when someone called for me, they said, ‘No, he’s no longer with us, we fired him.’ I almost wished they had fired me!” he says, laughing.

To deal effectively with the unrest, he says, “You had to be reserved, to know when to hold back, when to move forward. We took a lot of hits, but I’m glad we were able to keep our perspective. And we survived.”

Not all of Cammarosano’s “old Fordham war stories,” as he calls them, are as heavy as the financial crisis or student protests. He also fought to transform Edwards Parade, which he says had become “a dog patch.” During the 1970s and ’80s, he initiated periodic “spring offensives for the re-greening of Fordham,” joining facilities workers as they seeded grass, pruned and planted trees, and constructed footpaths.

“I used to say, keeping that grass green means 100 students,” he says, referring to Edwards Parade’s appeal to prospective undergraduates. These days, he’s impressed by the landscaping prowess of the facilities team. “I keep an eye on it, and they’re doing a great job.”

The Dynamo

Joseph Cammarosano in the classroom during the 1970s. He joined the Fordham faculty in 1955.
Cammarosano in the classroom during the 1970s.

Some of Cammarosano’s greatest contributions to Fordham, however, have been more personal than institutional. At the Faculty Convocation in fall 1976, the University honored him not only for his administrative skills but also for his work in the classroom, calling him an “exacting taskmaster” who earned his students’ appreciation by preparing “meticulously” and lecturing “dynamically.”

E. Gerald Corrigan, GSAS ’65, ’71, a managing director of Goldman Sachs and a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, studied with Cammarosano during the 1960s, helping him produce economic studies of the Bronx and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“He’s a dynamo,” Corrigan says, recalling how his Fordham mentor would deliver “two-hour lectures nonstop at a fevered pitch.”

Cammarosano is quick to celebrate his many students and colleagues, including all six University presidents since the mid-’60s, each of whom has come to him for counsel. A firstborn son of Italian immigrants, he’s now the head of a three-generation Fordham family.

“All three of my kids are Fordham graduates,” he says. “My daughter’s son graduated from the Law School last May, and now I have a granddaughter in the Gabelli School of Business.”

And he is particularly grateful to the Jesuits with whom he has studied and worked for nearly 75 years.

“They’ve been a great influence on my life,” he says. “The way they deport themselves, you couldn’t help but emulate them.”

Roger Wines, PhD, FCRH ’54, professor emeritus of history at Fordham, served on Cammarosano’s budget committee during the fiscal crisis and worked with him as a member of the Faculty Senate.

“His whole life of service without pretensions is really a tribute not only to Joe but to the old-time Jesuits who were our dedicated teachers at Fordham,” Wines says. “They taught us by example about working selflessly for a good cause. Realistically, but selflessly.”

Last May, at a dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Faculty Senate, Wines delivered a tribute to Cammarosano, keeping it brief, he says, so as not to embarrass his friend, calling him “a mentor, a man of character, a good family man, husband of his late wife Rosalie, father, grandfather, and … a talented scholar and teacher.”

“There are not enough words to express adequately the appreciation owed to him by several generations of Fordham faculty and students,” Wines concluded. “Let us just say two: Thank you.”

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University Celebrates 2012 Hall of Honor Inductees https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/university-celebrates-2012-hall-of-honor-inductees-2/ Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:03:07 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=30473 hall-of-honorOn Oct. 22, Fordham University welcomed four new inductees into the University’s Hall of Honor.

The inductees were honored at a black tie reception at the New York Botanical Garden across from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. They are: the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., former Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society; Alan Alda, FCRH ’56; E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71; and Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77. Alda and Washington could not attend the evening’s festivities, but family members of Cardinal Dulles were on hand.

The Hall of Honor recognizes the accomplishments of alumni whose lives have exemplified and brought recognition to the ideals to which the University is devoted.

Avery Cardinal Dulles was a professor at Fordham from 1988 until his death in 2008. In his capacity as the McGinley Chair, he delivered a total of 39 lectures on subjects that ranged from the death penalty to human rights, and church reform. He was the first American theologian who was not a bishop to be appointed to the College of Cardinals.

Bronx-born actor Alan Alda is a six-time Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner who has also been nominated for an Oscar and a Tony. Generations of Americans remember him for his portrayal of Captain Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H, and he is consistently rated one of the greatest television actors of all time.

On presenting Corrigan with his framed citation, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, called his support for the University “magnanimous.” E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., has built a career in finance that spans the public and private sectors, where he is equally respected for his deep knowledge and skill in assessing risk and establishing stability. Corrigan served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1985 to 1993, where his swift action following the 1987 Black Monday market collapse is widely credited with preventing further catastrophe.

One of America’s greatest actors, Denzel Washington has been a champion of theater education at Fordham. The two-time Oscar winner served on the University’s Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2000, and returns occasionally to the Lincoln Center campus to inspire theater students with his advice and success (see pg. 1). In 2011, he endowed the Denzel Washington Chair in Theater with a $2 million gift to Fordham, and made a $250,000 gift to establish a scholarship fund for theater students.

The honorees’ names will be inscribed in the main corridor of the administration building on the Rose Hill campus.

The University also inducted 21 new members into its Archbishop Hughes Society, recognizing them as men and women whose spiritual, financial and intellectual gifts have helped the University realize its mission.

— Nicole LaRosa

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Goldman Sachs Director Examines Building Blocks of Leadership https://now.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/goldman-sachs-director-examines-building-blocks-of-leadership/ Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:20:08 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=32780 There are scores of books published each year on effective leadership techniques. What can be learned from a man who has never read any of them?

As it turns out, quite a lot.

On Jan. 26, roughly 140 people were treated to thoughts on leadership from E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D. (GSAS ’65, ’71), managing director of Goldman Sachs and Co., who spoke as part of the Flaum Leadership Lecture Series.

In his hour-long address, “Leadership: Making the Right Things Happen,” Corrigan gave his assessment of great leaders, listed the characteristics they possess, and recalled personal experiences with mentors who fit those qualifications.

But first he started with a confession.

“I have never read any books about leadership, and after I finish what I have to say tonight, you might conclude that I should have read some of them,” he said, jokingly.

In more than 40 years working at the top levels of international finance, most notably as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1984 to 1993, there is little doubt that Corrigan knows his subject matter.

Effective leaders, he said, exhibit the following traits:

• the ability to listen;
• patience;
• pragmatism;
• sharing, rather than the monopolizing, information;
• respectfully but effectively mentoring the development of young people;
• championing diversity in all forms;
• commanding the respect of peers as well as competitors.

“These are necessary—but not sufficient—criteria that make up truly great leaders,” he said, adding that top leaders carry three traits that place them in a class by themselves.

“They recognize and embrace proposition that there will be a time when the public interest must come first—before the natural and appropriate responsibility to further the interests of shareholders and other private concerns,” Corrigan said.

“They understand that there are principles and standards that should never be breached. They have the courage of their convictions and the drive to do what is right for its own sake.

“Lastly, they are men and women of superior integrity,” he said.

Corrigan then related his personal experiences with four outstanding individuals.

“Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987, dedicated his entire life to public service and upholding the public interest,” he said.

Corrigan told the audience about accompanying Volcker on a fishing trip in June 1980, a time when the nation was facing 20 percent interest rates and 10 percent unemployment.

The group had stopped for breakfast in Ennis, Mont. Conversation in the establishment, which was filled with roughly 50 cowboys, came to a halt when the economists entered. Corrigan feared the worst when one of the cowboys approached their table and reached into his pocket.

“He pulled out his wallet, took out a $20 bill and asked Volcker, ‘Mr. Chairman, could you autograph this for me?'” he recalled. “Many others withdrew bills from their wallets and did the same.

“These cowboys could recognize what this man Volcker was doing—that he was going to be the one to deal with the problem of inflation, to step up and do the job that needed doing.”

Gordon Richardson, governor of the Bank of England from 1973 to 1983, also left a mark on Corrigan.

“Gord Richardson was the most eloquent public speaker I have ever witnessed,” he said. “He would give these talks on economics, like the importance of independent central banks, and effortlessly lace in topics from every facet of human existence.”

Lewis Preston, president of the World Bank from 1991 to 1995, likewise, was an inspiration to Corrigan. “He redefined the role of the World Bank in mitigating hunger and poverty around the globe,” he said.

Finally, Cyrus Vance, secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, was a model of quiet strength and integrity.

“Cy Vance had utter faith in the power of diplomacy to trump the threat of confrontation,” he said. “When he was Carter’s secretary of state and Carter decided on a military mission to rescue the hostages in Iran, Cy made his case against it. He lost. And as a matter of personal conviction, he resigned.

“That’s not easy to do,” he said.

Although those four men differed in their management and leadership styles, each shared a trait that Corrigan called “presence.”

“Each of them could walk into a room full of strangers and the entire room could instantly tell they were looking at a true leader,” he said. “I have had the incredible good fortune to work with and to learn from these four exceptional humans.”

The Flaum Leadership Lecture Series was founded by Sander Flaum to provide students in the Graduate School of Business Administration at Fordham with opportunities to connect with notable leaders from the world of business.

– Joseph McLaughlin

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Tognino Family Makes $3.5 Million Gift to Fordham https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/tognino-family-makes-3-5-million-gift-to-fordham-2/ Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:37:28 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=34637 John N. and Norma Tognino have made a $3.5 million gift to the University, and the Great Hall at Duane Library on the Rose Hill campus has been renamed in their honor, the University announced on Oct. 11.

“John and Norma Tognino’s longstanding service and generosity to Fordham have been nothing short of remarkable,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University. “They have been tireless supporters of the University’s mission, and our achievements are rightly considered their achievements, as well. Indeed, we are proud to count them as members of the Fordham family, and proud that the Great Hall will now bear their names.”

The gift and renaming of the second-floor facility was announced in the Great Hall during the inaugural Archbishop Hughes Society Dinner for some of the University’s largest benefactors.
“We are grateful for this opportunity to say thank you to Fordham,” said John Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman and chief executive officer of the Pepper Financial Group. “We are honored to be joining the Archbishop Hughes Society. It is difficult to express what this means to our family but suffice it to say we will always cherish tonight. Norma and I both hope that we can, in a small way, help Fordham fulfill its mission and ensure continuing generations of students the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”

Tognino spent 36 years at Merrill Lynch & Co., where he held numerous positions, including managing director for global equities and managing director for international equities.
After retiring from Merrill Lynch in 1993, Tognino served as president and chief executive officer of the Security Traders Association and executive vice president of capital markets and trading at Charles Schwab & Co. In 1991, Tognino was appointed executive vice president of global sales and member affairs at Nasdaq.

Over the years, Tognino has maintained strong ties to his alma mater. He has served as chairman of Fordham’s Board of Directors and the Executive Committee since 2004 and established the Tognino Family Scholarship, which provides financial support to Fordham College of Liberal Studies and College of Business Administration students, and the Tognino Endowment for Disability Services, which supports special-needs students.

The $3.5 million gift by the Togninos comes in the wake of other large donations in recent months. In March, E. Gerald Corrigan (GSAS ’65, ’71), Ph.D., made a $5 million gift to fund initiatives at both Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Graduate School of Business Administration. And Fordham Law School announced last winter that James Leitner (LAW ’82) and his wife, Sandra, had made a $3.1 million gift to establish a second Leitner Family Chair in International Human Rights and fund other initiatives.

The facility that will now be known as the John and Norma Tognino Hall had been the main floor of Fordham’s library. For more than 70 years, Duane Library served as an architectural and intellectual centerpiece of the Rose Hill campus. The building was closed in 1997 when the William D. Walsh Family Library opened, and renovation of the building began shortly thereafter.

Although Duane Library is not an official city landmark, it was treated as such during its three-year, $12 million restoration. The building was reopened in May of 2004 and now houses the Department of Theology, the Office of Admission, the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, a visitors’ center, lecture rooms and a University Commons.

In 2005, the New York Landmarks Conservancy awarded Fordham a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Project Award for excellence in historic preservation for its renovation of Duane Library. A venue for conferences and lectures, the second-floor hall features a 47-foot-high sloped ceiling and a stained-glass window designed to represent the Jesuit tradition of education.

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Economics Alumnus Donates $5 Million to Fordham University https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/economics-alumnus-donates-5-million-to-fordham-university/ Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:08:47 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=15532
E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71
Photo by Peter Freed

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D. (GSAS ’65, ’71), has made a $5 million gift to Fordham University, funding critical initiatives at both Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA). The gift will create an endowed professorship, the Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance, at GBA, and will further endow the existing E. Gerald Corrigan Endowed Scholarship Fund.

“This gift is especially meaningful given Dr. Corrigan’s world class reputation, his distinguished career, and his many accomplishments,” said Howard P. Tuckman, Ph.D., dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Business Administration. “We are thrilled that his generosity will help the Fordham business schools achieve their joint goal of having a world-recognized finance and economics program and providing an outstanding education for their students.”

John N. Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman of the Fordham University Board of Trustees, announced the gift at the Sixth Annual Fordham Founder’s Award Dinner, held at the Waldorf=Astoria in Manhattan on March 26. Because Corrigan was traveling in Russia on the evening of the Fordham Founder’s Award Dinner, his daughter, Karen Corrigan, accepted the University’s thanks on his behalf.

The Corrigan chair will add to Fordham’s reputation as a global business center, with a focus on global economic and business research and policy. Working with Fordham’s partners in China, Spain, Belgium and Ireland, the chair will allow students to benefit from the experience of problem-solving in the areas of global entrepreneurship, business and government policy and consulting strategy. Corrigan’s gift will also further endow the E. Gerald Corrigan Endowed Scholarship Fund, which has provided significant scholarship support to minority students for nearly a decade. With this gift, the fund will now also support academic research assistantships at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Corrigan received his master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He is a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and has been a managing director of Goldman Sachs since 1994. Corrigan has served on the Fordham University Board of Trustees, and has been a mentor and educator to Fordham students.

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