“In this new role, Vanessa will be a critical partner in implementing the shared vision and mission of Fordham University in London, which includes offering distinctive academic programs, developing strategic institutional partnerships, and establishing the London campus as a vibrant and visible hub for Fordham’s multifaceted activities in the region,” Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., said in a statement.

A Londoner and a Ram 

Beever is a Londoner living in the city’s Twickenham district. She served for nine years as the deputy head at the business school of another Catholic institution, St. Mary’s University. She last served at London South Bank University, which is comparable in size to Fordham; she had been director of education and student experience there since 2018. In addition to her experience in higher education, she holds significant legal experience in New York and London, where she worked for the firm Shearman & Sterling. She earned an LL.B in law from the University of Bristol and graduated magna cum laude from Fordham’s LL.M. program in International Business and Trade Law.

“I relish the opportunity to reestablish connections with Fordham and to make a significant contribution to its ongoing success and development,” said Beever.

Of her time as a student at Fordham she said, “The professors were very keen for us to share our experiences from our own countries—different legal traditions and approaches.”

She said that experience underpinned her work in corporate finance at Sherman & Sterling, where she worked as a transactional lawyer across a variety of cultures and jurisdictions. She’s confident that cross-cultural experience will serve her well in her new role.

“I was an English woman practicing U.S. and New York law, working with European clients and U.S. investment bankers. This project management expertise will help me as I am working across many functions at Fordham,” she said. “So, for example, I might have worked with a European company where the client had no familiarity with the Securities and Exchange Commission requirements in the U.S. Now, similarly, I’m sure I have colleagues in New York who won’t have any idea of the U.K.’s Quality Assurance Agency [for Higher Education]requirements, but I’m very confident I can guide them through.”

Indeed, one of the first items on Beever’s desk will be to usher potential master’s degree programs through that governing body, colloquially known as the QAA.  But, she said, her primary concern will rest with the undergraduate students already there, and the 300 or so undergraduates arriving this spring.

Fordham has offered programs in London for over 15 years. In 2018, the University moved its London offerings to a new campus in the Clerkenwell area. Fordham London’s programs are split between the Gabelli School of Business and the liberal arts, with liberal arts courses are open to all undergraduates from Fordham College at Rose Hill, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Gabelli School, and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies. Students take 15 credits a semester.

Changes at an Inflection Point

Among the many changes well underway at the campus is Beever’s very role itself, which replaces the British-inflected position of “head” with that of senior director, reflecting an emphasis on the many administrative realities of operating an overseas campus for a large New York-based institution like Fordham, said Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Ellen Fahey-Smith, Ed.D.

Fahey-Smith chaired the executive search committee tasked with finding a leader who could work well with academic deans in New York and liaise with governing bodies like the QAA—while also ensuring that students, faculty, and staff adhere to U.K. health protocols in an ever-shifting post-pandemic landscape.

Other changes include physical renovations to the building. The pandemic opened up the opportunity to reconfigure former theatrical spaces into more classroom space while the building sat empty. The renovations, as well as robust online programming, were overseen in part by Mark Simmons, who was operating as the interim head after Richard P. Salmi, S.J., stepped down in June 2020.

Fahey-Smith said the provost’s office will also continue to work with the International and Study Abroad Programs Office to find ways to continue some of the innovative online opportunities that were created as a result of the pandemic.

“What we learned from the pandemic is that it’s not necessarily business as usual any longer, and that holds true for Fordham London,” she said. “Whether it’s through lectures or the Gabelli London speaker series, which was really a phenomenal success, the online programs really brought the two cities so much closer together.”

Fahey-Smith clarified that any continuation of online programming would require bringing a variety of stakeholders to the table in today’s new normal. She said that was a strength of Beever’s which impressed the Fordham London Advisory Board.

Andrea Mennillo, who chairs that board, said its members are excited to welcome Beever to the Fordham family.

“We are confident that Vanessa will bring talent and experience to support Fordham’s advancement internationally,” Mennillo said. 

Diversity of Thought

Greg Minson, FCRH ’98, the global COO of real estate at Goldman Sachs in London and vice-chair of the Fordham London Advisory Board, said that it’s a big plus to see a woman take the helm. Many on the board cited Beever’s background, both inside and outside of academia, as an important asset that will help move Fordham London forward.

“Vanessa hasn’t been in academia her entire career, and anytime there is significant change, like there is now, diversity of thought is hugely powerful,” Minson said. “She has a very fresh perspective and can react to a changing environment.”

Minson is an Irish Catholic from the New York tri-state area who graduated from Fordham when it was still more of a regional school filled with students from similar backgrounds. His first day on the job in downtown Manhattan was something of a culture shock, as he joined a large, diverse, international firm, and it took him time to adjust to the different cultures. He added that he hopes that students attending Fordham London won’t be coddled by a home-away-from-home environment. Rather, he’d like to see them challenged with international perspectives that prepare them for a diverse and global workforce.

An International Hub in an International City

Minson’s perspective gels with Beever’s view of her hometown.

“London is so well connected to Europe as well as to the rest of the world. It’s ideally located geographically, but also academically and intellectually to many different cultures,” she said. “It is also an extraordinarily diverse city,” she said. “I will be encouraging students to explore and go to different neighborhoods and eat the food, shop the shops, and to hang out and see what’s going on.”

She added that there will also be opportunities for Fordham to collaborate with other London-based institutions that will help enrich the students’ experience.

“Fordham was an absolutely transformative experience for me,” she said. “It had really good programming that allowed me to get a fantastic job in New York and make my career. I’m hoping that I can contribute to the success of students who come here.”

In memorializing Fordham’s late provost, Stephen Freedman, several speakers at a Sept. 6 Service of Remembrance struck parallel themes about their friend, mentor, colleague, husband, and dad, who died suddenly on July 2 at the age of 68.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, added to that list of roles, calling Freedman a biologist, polymath, unshakable optimist, Jewish scholar with an Ignatian heart, United Airlines’ best customer, New Yorker by adoption, defender of the poor, champion of liberal arts, Fordham Ram, and “hugger—hugger of donors, hugger of students, hugger of anyone within hugging distance.”

“Stephen was the nearly perfect citizen of the University and of every university that was blessed by his presence in the course of his long career,” said Father McShane. “We were ennobled by his presence, challenged by his dreams, guided by his wisdom, consoled by his love, and enriched beyond measure by his friendship.”

Choosing Life

Eve Keller, Ph.D., president of the Fordham Faculty Senate, said that she had sat across the table from Freedman in boardrooms and restaurants, where he mastered his roles as both mediator and friend.

Keller highlighted Freedman’s Jewish faith by quoting a portion of the Torah from Nitzavim, Deuteronomy: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live—so that you may live, you and your seed.”

She noted that rabbinic commentaries typically contextualize the verse as a summing up of preceding texts on rewards and punishments for the Israelites. But Keller chose to focus on particular words in the concluding command: “choose life so you may live.”

“[It] draws my attention away from context and prompts me to read the phrase not as an admonition about obedience, but as an exhortation about choice,” she said. “Choose life, do not merely live it, because to in order to live, in order to really live, you need to actively and consciously engage life in all its pulsing frenetic fullness.”

She then paused to compose herself before continuing.

“Stephen Freedman opted for life,” she said. “Though Lord knows we did our best to beat him up, even at times to beat him down, but Stephen was always on the side of life, always up for another conversation, another hug, another bottle of rather good wine. ‘Tell me about you. Tell me how you are.’”

A Yiddish-Speaking Ignatian 

Freedman’s journey from scrawny Yiddish-speaking Canadian to nattily dressed leader at a Jesuit institution was noted by many as point of pride for both him and the University. It was a cross-cultural adventure that was recalled, in part, by Rabbi Eleanor G. Smith, M.D., Freedman’s former rabbi who led the service in the University Church. Smith first met Freedman when she was an aspiring doctor at Loyola University in Chicago and he was dean of Mundelein College there.

“He introduced me to every single nun on campus,” she said of her friend, who spent four decades of his career at Jesuit universities.

According to John Pelissero, Ph.D., provost emeritus at Loyola Chicago, he made an impression on 99-year-old Sister Jean Dolores Smith, the iconic chaplain for Loyola’s men’s basketball team and assistant dean at the college. On starting his position as dean, he asked her if there were any issues that needed his attention. She gave him a “scouting report,” a piece of paper with 17 issues that needed to be addressed. A year later he returned a crumpled piece of paper with all 17 issues checked off.

“Stephen always respected my good advice,” Sister Jean recently told Pelissero.

Rabbi Smith recalled a trip she took with Freedman to meet a Jesuit M.D. who lived an hour’s drive from Loyola’s campus. Once there, a lunch commenced, with deep discussions on faith and medicine.

“Then we drove an hour back, like that was his job,” she said. “He held my call to medicine with me and lovingly shepherded me through his neck of the woods and is partly responsible for that dream coming to life.”

Conversations

“He led by conversation, not by memorandum,” said Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

She too saw Freedman as a mentor, someone who encouraged her journey to becoming dean not with pep talks, but with probing questions that made her zero in on her goal.

“Are you sure Eva, are you really sure?” he’d ask.

“How this question always undid me,” she said, though she added that it also reassured her. “He didn’t so much care that the next step should be perfectly right; he cared that I should have thought about it. He wanted, as he said, ‘to see fire in the belly,’ but he had no patience for unquestioned self-confidence or unanalyzed certainty.”

Badowska spoke of a University photo of Freedman on the steps of Keating presiding over commencement ceremonies. In the photo, a smidge of pink material could be seen between a crisp shirt collar and his blue academic robes. It was a Hawaiian lei, she said.

“What was this Jewish provost at a Jesuit Catholic university doing wearing a lei under his academic regalia?” she asked. “And he said, ‘This is to remind me this is a happy day.’”

He loved the pomp and circumstance of academic life, she said, but needed to remind himself of the joy of the occasion. Accordingly, many of the deans and dignitaries on the altar at the service wore leis too. She said Freedman always dreamed about relaxing on a Hawaiian beach, though in truth, the notion was very much out of character.

“He was just about the last person who could sit quietly on a beach relaxing with fruity tropical drinks—and anyway he was into red wine,” she said.

Restless Spirit

Indeed, Freedman’s son, Zachary Freedman, Ph.D., assistant professor of plant science at West Virginia University, recalled physically active rather than restful family vacations. On ski trips, he and his father were the first on the slopes when the lifts opened, skiing up and down the mountain all day until the lifts stopped running, “when it felt like your legs were going to fall off.”

“Lunch breaks were for the weak,” said Zachary.

Zachary said his father was a “first-generation college student, an immigrant, an outsider, and an American success story.” He was born April 7, 1950, to Sam and Sylvia Freedman of Montreal, Quebec. Freedman’s own father was an orphan-turned-Golden Glove boxer and his mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants. His first language was Yiddish.

The family owned a gas station and repair shop where they put in very long hours. Freedman started pumping gas when he was 13. Zachary said this was where his father developed his work ethic.

Freedman met his wife, Eileen Shore, at Loyola College in Montreal (now Concordia University), where they were both biology majors. The two became “best friends for 50 years and married for 44,” Zachary said. He said that his father often said that his most joyous days were when Zachary and his brother Noah were born. His darkest day was when his mother, “his center of gravity,” died suddenly at the age of 60.

“The journey of grieving his mom’s death solidified in him a sense that our time on earth is finite and too short, and that life is precious and should be experienced and enjoyed to the fullest extent,” said Zachary.

“He did all the things great dads do, red light green light, duck duck goose,” he said. There were basketball games, and “super fun days” that once included trips to Chucky Cheese’s and WWF and eventually evolved into adult golf outings and Cubs games. And then there was the final “super fun week” in Beijing, China, where Zachary and Noah joined their dad on a work trip, where he was laying the groundwork for Fordham’s international strategy.

“He was so proud to show us around that ancient city that he had gotten to know and love over the years,” he said.

“If there’s any comfort to be sought in my dad’s premature death, it’s that he most definitely lived life to the fullest, he gave it everything that he had,” he said. “In doing so, my dad naturally and effortlessly embodied several Jesuit values: cura personalis, care of the whole person; women and men for others, my dad was always ready and eager to help another.

“But I would argue most of all my dad embodied magis, or simply more, striving for better, striving for excellence, no matter what.” 

Preceding the service, members of the Freedman family and several members of the Board of Trustees dedicated the Freedman Conference Room at Cunniffe House. Below is the memorial plaque. 

Freedman joined Fordham in 2007 as senior vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer. He was appointed provost in 2010.

“For more than a decade, Stephen served Fordham tirelessly. He was known for his devotion to the faculty, students, and the academic community, and for his commitment to research and a global university,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“He was a warm and insightful friend and colleague, and a man of deep conviction and rectitude. Stephen’s death is a grievous loss not just for his family and Fordham friends, but for everyone who knew him. We will miss him terribly.”

As provost, Freedman oversaw the operations of the University’s nine schools as well as the Fordham Libraries, Fordham University Press, WFUV, institutional research, prestigious fellowships, and Fordham’s efforts in international education.

Pioneering Partnerships at Home and Abroad

Freedman saw tremendous potential in establishing and strengthening partnerships between Fordham and other world-class institutions, whether they be across Southern Boulevard in the Bronx or across the Atlantic in London.

A professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in addition to his role as provost, Freedman was instrumental in forging the Bronx Science Consortium—a research partnership between the University, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Yeshiva University, the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society, Montefiore Medical Center, and the New York Botanical Garden. The consortium offered numerous hands-on opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to collaborate with some of the top researchers in the world.

Further abroad, he oversaw the progress of Fordham’s new London Centre campus, set to open this fall. In December 2017, when the University signed the lease on the new space, Freedman noted the many possibilities for scholarship beyond the traditional semester abroad.

“London will not merely be a campus for Fordham students to study away,” he said, “but a destination for students from other universities across Europe and Asia, and a hub of global scholarship. London, and our programs in Beijing and Pretoria, are templates for expanding the Fordham mission outside of New York City, and outside of the United States.”

Freedman traveled extensively on Fordham’s behalf, overseeing the University’s international programs—and developing new ones. In May, he led the first Fordham Faculty Research Abroad Program at Sophia University in Tokyo. That same month, he celebrated the 20th anniversary of Fordham’s Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) program in China.

International Strategy

“He would often say that one of the responsibilities that the board gave him when he became provost was to develop an international strategy for Fordham, and so he took that seriously,” said Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim vice president and chief academic officer in the Office of the Provost.

“He was incredibly innovative in establishing partnerships, online learning … he was a visionary. He was not stuck in the traditional ways of thinking about higher ed. He was really committed to making Fordham a global institution,” said Crystal. “He also put a lot of importance in his mentoring of me and other administrators and faculty at Fordham. … He was just incredibly selfless. He had so much heart.”

Ellen Fahey-Smith, associate vice president and chief of staff in the Office of the Provost, said Freedman “touched the hearts and minds of friends and colleagues throughout the world.”

“His legacy will endure in the transformative academic excellence he has insisted upon at Fordham, a place he cherished and called home,” said Fahey-Smith, who worked with Freedman for more than 10 years. “I will miss him deeply.”

‘A Deeply Spiritual Man’

Freedman worked closely with his faculty colleagues to develop new ideas and initiatives at home as well as abroad.

“He was very committed to the faculty,” said Magda Teter, Ph.D., the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies and professor of history at Fordham. “Once a faculty member too, he understood our work and the challenges we face. He was very strongly supportive and extremely warm,” she said through tears.

Teter said Freedman was “one of the key figures” in the development of Fordham’s Jewish Studies program, which Teter directs. She also said he was extremely proud to be the Jewish provost of a Jesuit university.

“He would always bring it up as a mark of pride in Fordham. He felt it spoke volumes about Fordham and its ethos of inclusion,” she said.

“He was a deeply spiritual man. When we were in Jerusalem together in 2016, it was a deeply moving experience for him, even though it was not his first time,” she said. “That’s why it worked for him to be a provost at Fordham—that commitment to faith.”

When he joined the Fordham faculty in 2007, Freedman told FORDHAM magazine that he’s “always seen science and religion as complementary.”

“My own scientific and religious backgrounds have enhanced each other, and I think informed discussions between theologians and scientists play a critical role in the shaping of ideas,” he said.

A native of Montreal, Freedman earned a B.S. from Loyola of Montreal, an M.S. in environmental studies from York University in Toronto, and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of California at Irvine. He also completed the United Nations Graduate Study Program in Geneva.

He has spent nearly his entire career at Jesuit Universities; for 24 years he was at Loyola University of Chicago, where he taught biology and served as dean of Mundelein College. From 2002 until 2007, he was academic vice president at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

Freedman is survived by his wife, Eileen; his sons, Zac and Noah; and his grandson Aaron. Fordham will hold a memorial service to honor him in the fall.

Feature photo by Chris Taggart