Traina delivered her talk, “This Year’s Model: Updating Dulles,” after being installed as the second Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Chair in Catholic Theology. The chair was established in 2009 in honor of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., who was the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham from 1988 until his death in 2008. The first holder of the chair, Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., professor emeritus of theology, was also present.

Traina began by noting that Cardinal Dulles’ groundbreaking book, Models of the Church, (Penguin Random House, 1973) was a perfect example of his “creative approach to ecclesiology,” because its use of models instead of strict definitions offered a path forward.

“His vocation was to help ordinary Christians understand and be inspired by the church so that we could embody it. Divided over gender and sexuality, abortion, racism, war, economics, and even sacraments, we need his wisdom now more than ever,” she said.

Dulles’ book described the church in terms of different models: an institution, a mystical communion, a sacrament, a herald, a servant, and a community of disciples. It was published right after the conclusion of Vatican Council II, which, Traina said, “let a thousand ecclesiological flowers bloom,” and encouraged Catholics to think about different ways of communing with God.

To the many ideas put forth about the church during Vatican II, she said, “Dulles replied that we should run toward multiplicity, not away from it. Because the church is a mystery—a graced reality beyond our full experience or knowledge in this life—only by embracing many simultaneously true visions of the church could we even begin to capture the church’s full reality,” she said.

The Woman by the Well

Traina said that during his life, Dulles knew that his own ideas—groundbreaking as they were at the time—would need to evolve. Building on his work, she suggested that an image of a Samaritan woman meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John, when seen through the lens of queer and feminist theology, inspires a vision of inclusiveness that the church aspires to but fails to live up to.

In the story, the woman was Jewish, as Jesus was, but as a resident of Samaria, she would have been eyed with suspicion by residents of Jerusalem. In the story, Jesus stops in the town and encounters the woman who, by virtue of being alone at noon, must be someone of “ill-repute.” 

He offers her “living water,” in exchange for a drink from the well, but it is not until he tells her that he knows about her five husbands and her lover that she recognizes him as a prophet. Traina noted that womanist scripture scholar Wil Gafney has said that this is where “Jesus shows up in the place where private lives become public fodder…. where those who have been stigmatized and isolated because of who they loved and how they loved, thirst.” 

“Jesus welcomes all whose loves the world shames,” Traina said.

What’s also relevant is that for a time, Samarians had worshiped the gods of five foreign tribes, even though, as the woman explains to Jesus, they firmly expected the Messiah. His knowledge of her “five husbands” is what lets him pass her test, proving he is the messiah.

“The question is not whether the Samaritan woman is worthy of Jesus, but whether he is worthy of her,” Traina said.  

In addition to showing that a person who is “only a lay person” can be theologically sophisticated, Traina also noted that the woman points out that Samaritans worship on a mountain, and not in Jerusalem, as the Orthodox Jews do.

“Jesus could have responded by saying, ‘That’s OK, we’re inclusive, from now on you can worship with us in Jerusalem; we welcome you to join us there.’” she said.

“Instead, he says, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. … the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.’”

John’s message, she said, is that Jesus preserves diversity:  Samaria does not have to follow the style of Jerusalem to be faithful, but neither does Jerusalem have to follow the style of Samaria. The same goes for Christians of all varieties today.

She noted that the time is right to reexamine Dulles’ models, because in recent years, American Catholics have given into a temptation that Dulles himself emphatically condemned, “sliding from acknowledging the church’s institutional dimension to equating church with “institution”—at the expense of its other essential characters.”

This has led to clericalism, which places all power in the hands of clergy; juridicism, which leads to excessive policing of who is “in” and therefore eligible for the benefit of the sacraments; and triumphalism, which Dulles wrote “dramatizes the Church as an army set in array against Satan and the powers of evil,” Traina said. 

Catholics can look to the example of the woman at the well as they wrestle with the ways that race and sexuality get in the way of true inclusivity, she said.

“With respect to God, the distinction between Jerusalem and the mountain, between Israel and Samaria, has dissolved, for the Samaritans but also for the Jews in Jerusalem.  There is no inside, no outside. Rather, there is just “spirit and truth.”

The April 29 event was the deans’ second forum for alumni on their commitment to furthering the University’s action plan for addressing racism and educating for justice. Fordham announced the plan in June 2020 after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice prompted members of the Fordham community to describe their own experiences of discrimination on campus.

“We’re asking hard questions, addressing proposals that have come forward, and moving forward indeed with hope and confidence into a future … that is marked by greater inclusivity, greater diversity, and greater commitment shared to building a much more just world as we educate for justice and seek to eradicate racism,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, in opening remarks.

Father McShane and the four deans were joined by moderator Valerie Irick Rainford, FCRH ’86, a Fordham trustee who is spearheading anti-racism training efforts within the University, and Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s chief diversity officer.

The panelists spoke of changes underway in the curriculum, recruitment of faculty and students, new programs, and other efforts to embed anti-racism in the University and effect permanent change.

“For students to come here from different backgrounds, it is vitally important that they feel that this institution represents them, that they do not feel like … they are here on sort of sufferance, that they feel that their communities are a part and parcel of what makes Fordham tick, what makes Fordham an excellent place,” said Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Faculty Diversity, Community Connections

Stovall emphasized the importance of forging links between the University and the diverse, vibrant communities surrounding the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. Zapata noted current efforts like a collaboration with the Bronx Book Festival and a speaker series focused on Bronx writers facilitated by faculty. “We are an institution of this wonderful borough, and I think that’s something we need to talk about a little bit more,” he said.

In efforts to diversify the faculty, Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, said 50% of the arts and sciences faculty members recruited to begin this academic year are people of color. In addition, Fordham announced the creation of the Margaret Peil Distinguished Chair in African and African American Studies and is currently recruiting for a newly created postdoctoral fellowship in critical race studies in the sociology and anthropology department, as well as a new position in the English department—a rhetoric specialist—to support the faculty’s work on revising the composition program toward anti-racist learning objectives and pedagogy.

Arts and Sciences also announced the creation of a new affiliate program in African and African American studies to elevate that department’s visibility and foster an interdisciplinary approach to anti-racism, Badowska said. Fifteen faculty members across departments have committed to joining the initiative.

On the point of hiring diverse faculty, Rainford noted that “once you hire those individuals, I think it’s also about inclusion and access.”

Stovall said a newly formed group of Fordham faculty members of color would be meeting soon to discuss diversity among faculty and at the University generally. “I think these leaders are going to have an awful lot to say, and it’s going to be up to us to listen,” he said.

He pointed out the importance of integration, “one of the terms we tend not to talk about.”

“Ultimately, what we are all about in this endeavor is producing an integrated educational experience and ultimately an integrated society,” he said. “Study after study has shown, in despite of people’s fears of integration, that actually integrated education benefits not just students of color but all students, and makes them stronger students.”

“This is a major pathway towards the ultimate goal of Fordham University,” he said.

Zapata said his office is offering a grant program titled Teaching Race Across the Curriculum to help academic departments integrate questions of race within their courses, particularly those that all students take.

“Students want to see themselves in the people that teach them, that they encounter throughout [the University], but they also want to see themselves in the curriculum. They’ve talked a lot about that,” he said.

Expanding Scholarship and Internship Opportunities

Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, pointed to the Office of Undergraduate Admission’s “above-and-beyond” efforts to increase diversity among incoming students. Changes this year include an effort “to appreciate and value a wider range of student experiences in the admissions process,” she said, as well as new events for prospective students of color who would be part of the fall 2021 entering class.

Also important, Auricchio said, is the recently created Trustee Diversity Scholarship Fund, which grew out of a scholarship fund that Rainford founded. “Before we could even announce it, we were starting to get donations,” Rainford said.

A new Cultural Engagement Internships program, funded by Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Fordham College at Rose Hill, has created paid internships that place students with New York nonprofits and cultural organizations that mostly serve communities of color or advance the work of anti-racism. “This opens up the internship opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to afford” to take unpaid internships, Auricchio said.

And diversity in the yearlong Matteo Ricci Seminar for high-achieving students on both campuses has grown by opening it up to all students who want to apply, rather than relying on a select pool of students recommended by faculty, she said; she also cited the importance of bringing on Assistant Dean Mica McKnight, a woman of color, as co-leader for the Fordham College at Lincoln Center program.

Supporting Students

In other efforts on the undergraduate level, Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, said administrators on both campuses are developing a program to support first-generation students—61% of whom are students of color—and their families as the students navigate college life. At Rose Hill, the college is expanding access to undergraduate research opportunities by developing a one-credit course on the ins and outs of conducting research, such as developing a proposal and finding a mentor, Mast said.

“It’s … so important that we intentionally support students as they are and who they are, when they get to Fordham and when they’re at Fordham—that we are transparent and effective in this work,” she said.

In a culmination of longstanding efforts to increase diversity in the college’s Honors Program, 60% of students offered admission this year are either BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or people of color) or first-generation students, Mast said.

The University has also secured a planning grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to join a national learning community aimed at building capacity for developing inclusive, equitable, anti-racist approaches to STEM education—in first-year “gateway” courses, in particular—to support students who are underrepresented in these fields, she said.

The panelists took questions, including one about why the University doesn’t have an Asian American studies program with a major and minor offered. Badowska said she had met with members of the faculty—which would have to propose any new program, according to University statutes—about surveying the existing classes and resources to see what might be offered immediately while they work on developing a program.

“It is the curriculum that reveals who we are, and it is our academic programs that say we’re an anti-racist university or we are not an anti-racist university,” she said. “So that’s one of the reasons why an Asian American studies program is so critical for us to develop at this moment.”

Eradicating Racism

In response to another question—“Do you really believe that racism can be eradicated at Fordham?”—Rainford spoke of a long-term effort.

“There are some that still believe that racism doesn’t exist,” said Rainford, who is Black. “But the fact of the matter is, it’s in the fabric of everything in the country.”

“It will take time and effort, and we will not eradicate racism in our lifetime, but we certainly can help advance racial equity,” such as through the efforts the deans described, she said.

Zapata responded, “It’s going to take courage, the courage to … listen to the experiences of people who don’t always feel they have a chance to voice their experiences.”

Stovall said, “We currently live in a world where scientists are literally talking about creating human immortality in less than a century. So in that kind of world, I think all sorts of things are possible, including eradicating racism.”

Hurdles to Surmount

Asked about obstacles the University faces, Mast mentioned funding—for staffing, on-campus housing, and financial aid, for instance.

Badowska spoke of the challenges that would be inherent in changing the University’s culture to a point where everyone in the arts and sciences community would possess the five competencies that the deans have proposed:

• Knowledge about racism, white privilege, and related topics;
• Self-knowledge and a commitment to self-work and continuous learning in these areas;
• Commitment to disrupting microaggressions and racist dynamics in the classroom, the workplace, and beyond;
• Commitment to systemic change through examining policies and practices to make sure they support racial equity; and
• Reimagined community and allyship, or a capacity to form equitable partnerships and alliances across racial lines.

“We know that we have a long road before we can say that everyone has these five capacities, but we’ve identified them,” she said.

The event drew 64 attendees, nearly all of whom stayed nearly a half-hour beyond the event’s one-hour allotted time.

“That, I think, shows the great hunger and thirst that the people of Fordham have for this great work that we’re about together,” Father McShane said. “One of the things we have to remind ourselves is that this is a beginning, and that’s an important observation and an important thing for us to own. We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are up for it and will keep at it.”

Among the books that she penned before retiring in 1986 were The Ghanaian Factory Worker: Industrial Man in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1972) and Cities and Suburbs: Urban Life in West Africa (Africana Publishing, 1981).

Her legacy also includes a bequest for her alma mater that will be used to establish a new distinguished chair in African and African American Studies.

The Margaret Peil Distinguished Chair will be open to scholars of any field—such as political science, history, cultural studies, literature, or sociology—who are devoted to the area of African and African American Studies, said Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences. Peil’s generosity will help the University strengthen its commitment to the work of anti-racism, she said.

“It’s about making visible the University’s commitment to developing leaders in social justice, of which racial justice is an extremely prominent part. It’s very urgent and timely,” she said.

The chair is unique both because of the source of its funding and what the University hopes its holder will achieve. Peil was a native of Racine, Wisconsin, who was described in her obituary as a devout Catholic who attended Mass every day. In her lifetime, she visited well over 100 countries, from Bhutan to New Zealand, and she was so enamored with Africa that she tended a lush garden shaped like the continent that she opened up to the public for 20 years.

Amir Idris, Ph.D., who has served as chair of Fordham’s Department of African and African American Studies for the past eight years, said he likewise hoped the holder of the chair would embrace a global perspective on helping advance the cause of African and African American Studies around the world.

“I expect the person who will be hired will not only produce his or her own research and create research initiatives in the University, but also play a leadership role as well,” he said.

“We are living in a transformative movement, and we need transformative actions. I think it’s a good step in the right direction,” he said, noting that he looks forward to beginning “the hard work of translating the endowed chair into reality to fulfill our mission and the mission of the University.”

Badowska echoed the sentiment. Rather than focus on the specific trajectory of intellectual academic inquiry in a narrow field, she said she hopes the recipient would aim to have a grander, institutional impact.

“This is an opportunity to build on Dr. Peil’s vision in support of the University’s mission to form future citizens while emphasizing the anti-racism and social justice commitments that are at the heart of the institution’s formation of its students,” she said.

Robots have become so sophisticated and such an integral part of our lives, it was perhaps inevitable that the notion of granting them legal protections has become the subject of major debate. In fact, the European Parliament took one step in this direction when it passed a resolution in 2017 to attribute legal personality to intelligent robots.

On Nov. 18, Louis Caruana, S.J., a philosophy professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory, addressed the challenges presented by these sorts of actions in his lecture, “Exploring Conceptual Plasticity: Should We Attribute Legal Personality to Intelligent Machines?” The  St. Ignatius Loyola Chair Lecture was presented by Fordham’s Jesuit Community, philosophy department, and the office of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Watch below.

With these words, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, introduced an online discussion with Fordham’s deans of the arts of sciences on Tuesday evening, Oct. 13. The event, titled “Eradicating Racism in Arts and Sciences at Fordham University,” was moderated by Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86, a member of the University’s Board of Trustees and the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies.

“The purpose of today’s session is to open a dialogue with the Fordham community,” said Rainford, a former managing director and head of Advancing Black Leaders strategy at JPMorgan Chase. A Fordham graduate, she began working with the deans this past summer to address issues of racism and inequity, and she is spearheading anti-racism trainings within the University as part of Fordham’s action plan for addressing racism. “We see this as a series of conversations, and today is just the start.”

Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, said the four deans’ efforts unite undergraduate and graduate programs at the University. “We as a leadership team in arts and sciences have committed ourselves to the work of anti-racism,” she said.

During the event, the deans addressed several questions that had been submitted in advance, including one from someone who asked why such a discussion was necessary at Fordham.

Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, responded by noting that this past spring, after the May 25 killing of George Floyd galvanized nationwide protests against racial injustice, Fordham “started hearing an outpouring of testimonials” from students and alumni of color who described their experiences of discrimination on campus. She cited two Instagram accounts, in particular: Black at Fordham and Let’s Talk About It Fordham.

“Hundreds of stories were told on these Instagram accounts, and my fellow deans and I read every single one of them,” Auricchio said. “These social media posts were a wake-up call. They prompted us to start having conversations that we might never have had before … with an ear to learning where there might be opportunity for change.”

Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., became dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in July, and said that anti-racism work “was part of my introduction to Fordham University.”

“I was literally hired the same week that George Floyd was murdered,” Stovall said. “For me, being an African American dean at Fordham has called up both opportunities and responsibilities. It has meant that I have to think about what other members of the African American community are experiencing and the ways in which my position can be an asset to that community and, through that community, an asset to Fordham as a whole.”

Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, noted that Stovall, in the deans’ first training session together, had challenged his colleagues: “He said, ‘Why now? Why are you committed to this now? And how do I know that you’re going to carry through that commitment?’”

“It was an opportunity to be humble,” Mast said.

She told the audience that she and her fellow deans have heard from Fordham’s students that they want Fordham to commit to combating anti-Blackness and racism at the University. To that end, deans and faculty have engaged in brainstorming sessions and role-playing activities “to discern, perceive, and disrupt racism,” she said, using a phrase that Badowska coined to describe the deans’ approach to the problem.

“We’re reckoning with ourselves, with our history of being indoctrinated with racism,” Mast said. “We need to educate ourselves so we can educate others.”

As part of that reckoning, the four deans and their staffs have undertaken a joint self-education, working with two consultants, Kathy Obear, Ed.D., and Michelle Loyd-Paige, Ph.D. The deans noted that Rainford has been instrumental in pushing them to engage in this process in a way that will benefit the Fordham arts and sciences community as a whole.

Several people in the audience wanted to know how anti-racism would be reflected in the University’s curriculum, and Badowska described some of those efforts.

“There is an initiative to really review and explore the existing core curriculum,” she said, noting that while that process will take some time, departments are already exploring pilot-level curriculum initiatives with the assistance of Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s chief diversity officer, special assistant to the president for diversity, and associate vice president for academic affairs. And since faculty are central to any curricular initiatives, she also described broad efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty, stating that of 26 arts and sciences faculty members hired this year, 46% reported their race as non-white.

The deans, in recent communications to arts and sciences faculty, also highlighted initiatives like the formation of the Deans’ Anti-Racism Advisory Committee, and efforts to develop and implement anti-racism trainings for faculty and first-year students.

Throughout the conversation, the panelists made clear that while work has already started to bring anti-racism to the forefront of Fordham’s arts and sciences education, there is much more to be done, and that these must be ongoing conversations with and among all members of the Fordham community, including alumni.

“We are learning now from one another in ways that are very important, and sometimes very hard, very uncomfortable,” Father McShane said at the close of the discussion. “But they are necessary for us. This endeavor is mission-central, mission-critical, mission-essential.”

Stovall is currently the dean of the Humanities Division and a distinguished professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before he joined UCSC in 2015, he was dean of the Undergraduate Division of Letters and Science at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2016 to 2017, he served as president of the American Historical Association, the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States.

“I am thrilled to come to Fordham, a great university in a great city. I look forward to working with our graduate students in arts and sciences as well as the other deans of the university,” said Stovall.

“Most of all, I look forward to learning more about what makes this university so special; getting to know its faculty, staff, and students; and becoming a part of the Fordham community.”

Fordham Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., praised Stovall’s scholarship, leadership, and dedication to lifting up minority scholars and calling out injustice.

“In Dr. Stovall, Fordham has found a world-renowned scholar, an experienced administrator, and a public intellectual with a fierce commitment to social justice. A key theme in his professional life—as both a historian and an administrator—has been equity and inclusion,” Jacobs said in an announcement to the Fordham community. He noted that Stovall has challenged not only racial barriers but also those that separate academics from the broader society.

“Among the first African Americans in the U.S. to achieve prominence in European history, he has provided encouragement and mentorship for other minority scholars to follow in his stead,” Jacobs said.

Stovall earned a Ph.D. in modern European/French history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of 10 books and numerous articles in the field of modern French history, with a specialization in transnational history, labor, colonialism, and race. His latest book, White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea (Princeton University Press, 2021), is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Others include Transnational France: The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Westview 2015) and Paris and the Spirit of 1919: Consumer Struggles, Transnationalism, and Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

In his new role as dean of GSAS, Stovall will serve as chief academic officer of a school that offers degrees in 29 different fields of study. He’ll work in close partnership with the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, and the dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Stovall will succeed Melissa Labonte, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, who has served as interim dean of GSAS since January 2019. Former GSAS Dean Eva Badowska, Ph.D., now serves as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Politics is to Hank Sheinkopf, Ph.D, as air is to the rest of us. Over the course of the last 35 years, Sheinkopf has worked on an estimated 700 political campaigns on four continents, in 15 nations, and in 44 American states.

His clients have included former President Bill Clinton, Leonel Fernandez, the former president of the Dominican Republic; and Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico. New York City holds a special place in his heart though; he also worked on behalf of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

This month, he’s adding another client to his list: Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), where he’s teaching a three-session master class titled New York City and Dynamic Change. He’ll also be teaching a full graduate course at Fordham this spring.

Fordham News talked with him recently about his plans for the master class, which was open to all GSAS students and kicked off on Oct. 11.

How did this class come about?

I got an opportunity to meet Stephen Freedman [Fordham’s late provost, who died in July]. We started talking and the next thing I know, he said ‘We would really need to have a longer discussion,’ and I was talking to Dean [Eva] Badowska [dean of the Graduate School of arts and Sciences]. I knew Dr. Freedman because of Tom Dunne [vice president for administration], who has been my friend for 45 years. I immediately felt at home and at ease, and Dr. Freeman felt the same way. And, unfortunately, he passed not long after our meeting. I also know a lot about Fordham from my brother, who is an alumnus, and I like teaching. I’ve had a pretty extraordinary life and career, so I hope that I can give students something that may not get from other people

The topics that you’re going to address in your three sessions are displacement in neighborhood change, demographic change and political/institutional response, and criminal justice after Rikers. How did you pick them?

There’s a sense among many that gentrification is really displacement, and that the redefinition of what this city is is having an adverse impact. I want to explore how we got there, and I want to talk about the solution to the original displacement, which was NYCHA. I will be joined in that discussion by Greg Floyd, the leader of Local 237 Teamsters, who has represented the NYCHA workers. I think he brings a perspective that’s quite different from what the city has to say. I think there is also this sense of powerlessness about how things work that the younger people feel. It seemed important to talk about where that begins, which is housing and the ability to have a decent roof over your head.

The second course made sense after the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez victory over Joe Crowley. It seems logical that we talk about what those kinds of changes mean, how the institutions of New York City are at risk, and whether it’s a generational shift. Is it a shift of power? Is it a response to the neighborhoods changing?

I picked the Rikers topic because criminal justice reform is a significant discussion that people are having. There has been a lot of material written by authors like Patrick Sharkey at New York University and others on the change of criminal justice, the closing of Rikers, and the rethinking of what role jails and other city facilities and the police should have.

You could teach this course all by yourself. Why are you bringing guest speakers like Floyd, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Tom Robbins, and Judge George Grasso of the Bronx County New York City Criminal Court to class?

I believe you’ve got to take the theoretical and make it practical. We learn theory, but we don’t put it to use. What makes people do the things they do? How do we make this work? Under what conditions? Why is the theory important at all? If you can’t put it to practice, why do you do it?

If there’s any truth about democracy that we need to remember, it’s that it is not a theoretical activity. It requires participation. It requires noise. It requires discussion. And what I am trying to do is explain power in ways that help people understand it. To explain why that which we must cherish is, frankly, under attack, not just in Washington but also at home. The power of the state is being used to redefine what housing should look like, what criminal justice should look like and redefine what institutions should or should not do.

What does this all have to do with “dynamic change?”

Cities by definition are dynamic and moving When they stop moving, they stop being dynamic, and things happen that we really don’t want to see happen. Detroit is an example. When the dynamic moves in the wrong direction, stasis takes over. I think dynamic change is something that cities experience today. I think we need to look at it in a way that’s not threatening. And that we have to manage it in our own lives and in the larger polity, so that we can benefit from it. What’s happening now, in my view, is that we are not benefiting the way that we should. We’re not angry enough about what’s going on around us, and we ought to be.

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. 

The grant will help expand the quality and quantity of the national cybersecurity workforce, said Hayajneh. One of the main challenging issues in educating cybersecurity professionals is the availability of affordable and advanced hands-on experiments that can be integrated into cybersecurity curriculum. This grant will address this issue by designing affordable and advanced hands-on experiments for key challenging Knowledge Units for Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE)/ CAE-2Y and CAE-CO.

An additional central goal is to design the lab environment and the hands-on experiences to be easily replicated and adopted by other designated CAE-C institutions and other cybersecurity institutions.

The FCC was established with three primary goals: to manage, lead, and advance cybersecurity through educational programs, research, grant work, events, and community outreach.

“We are now starting to see the fruit of the support the FCC has received from the administration, faculty, and students,” said Hayajneh, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at Fordham. “I would like to think of this as a great first step for many more grants to come.”

This latest NSA grant exemplifies Fordham’s developing expertise in the cybersecurity field, said Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). The University offers an interdisciplinary master’s in cybersecurity through GSAS and other cyber-related disciplines and departments within the Gabelli School of Business’ Center for Digital Transformation, Fordham Law’s Center on Law and Information Policy, and the FCC.

The NSA designated Fordham as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) in March 2017.

At a June 1 event titled, “The Future of Cybersecurity,” a panel of experienced information security experts shared insights about cyberthreats that have arisen from the digital revolution, and how cybersecurity practitioners can help organizations mitigate risks as today’s hacks become more hazardous, complex, and widespread.

The event, which was co-sponsored by the Fordham Center for Cybersecurity and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), was also a celebration of the launch of the center and the University’s recent designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said the event aligned with Fordham’s mission of promoting wisdom and learning in the new century.

“Cybersecurity is also a perfect example of a 21^st-century discipline, or a cluster of disciplines that require multiple avenues of research to be fully grasped,” he said.

Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s Center for Cybersecurity, said the center seeks to make cybersecurity a major focus everywhere, both “in the institution and beyond it.”

Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of GSAS, said the center aims to help create a society that’s safe from cyberattacks without compromising the virtues that it stands for, including privacy, individual rights, democracy, and ethics.

 “While we’re creating and educating intellectuals and experts in the area, we’re also going to be contributing to an area of research that is going to help us build better systems,” she said.

A “people and operations” issue

Panelists said the recent ransomware known, as “WannaCry,” which affected about 40 National Health Service (NHS) organizations and more than 200,000 computers in at least 150 countries, was a wake-up call to organizations that neglect “patching,” or routine security updates. Without these types of updates, which aim to fix vulnerabilities in software and operating systems, many users are open to malicious hacks, the panelists said.

Nick Levay, chief information security officer of the Council on Foreign Relations, said many users were also still operating the out-of-date Windows XP, which had seized deploying patches in 2014.

“The bedrock [to]build a security program on is really a good operational practice,” said Levay.

Lance James, chief scientist at Flashpoint, a global Business Risk Intelligence (BRI) company, said some cybersecurity breaches “were not a technology problem,” but a “people and operations issue.” He argued that attacks like “WannaCry” are similar to a server failure, and require just as much preparation.

“The impact is the same,” he said. “It’s trying to lock you down and shut you out.”

Assessing and mitigating risks

From the medical field to the financial sector, cybersecurity has become an issue across industries. Thomas Ryan, a software security solutions architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said that in recent years, many medical equipment and devices like insulin pumps, pacemakers, and defibrillators have been crippled by cyberthreats, because manufacturers don’t always assess cyber flaws effectively.

“Everybody thinks there’s a silver bullet,” he said.

Levay said support people often create applications that aren’t ‘upgradeable,’ which poses a security risk.

 “I like to remind my applications people that they’re on the front line,” he said. “We’re going to find problems, and they can fix them. But if we can’t get those fixes out there, then we’ve got a problem.”

According to the panelists, cybersecurity isn’t just about securing networks and computers; it’s also about securing business and processes. But Joel Rosenblatt, director of computer and network security at Columbia University, cautioned against developing elaborate systems that cost more than the value of what is being protected.

“Understand where you are and what you’re trying to do, and make sure that what you’re securing matches your environment,” he said.

Mapping the future of cybersecurity

 As the cybersecurity field expands, James said he is particularly excited about machine learning, an application of artificial intelligence using algorithms, as well as longstanding practices like cryptography.

“That’s going to introduce innovation,” he said, adding that analytical skills are valuable in the field.

Panelists said a practitioner’s ability investigate and identify threats, and provide key metrics about detection, mitigation, and containment, can help to improve how organizations respond to cyberattacks. While many organizations are aware that cyberattacks exist, today’s cybersecurity professionals must go beyond awareness to create a culture of cybersecurity in the workplace.

“It’s always the people, the process and [then]the technology,” said Ryan.

No one attending expected the intellectual exercise to become a book, but now it has.

Of Elephants and Toothaches: Ethics, Politics, and Religion in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s ‘Decalogue’ (Fordham University Press, 2016), a collection of essays on the director’s work, was co-edited by two of that seminar’s attendees: Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Francesca Parmeggiani, Ph.D., an associate professor of Italian and comparative literature.

The book release coincided with the re-release by the Criterion Collection of Kieślowski’s Decalogue, a 10-part series of short films initially created for television. Each of the 10 segments is loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments, said Badowska, who remembers seeing the initial release of the series on television in her native Poland in 1988.

“I never expected this would become a scholarly project,” she said. “I have a very visceral relationship to these films.”

Badowska said that while Kieślowski intended the series to transcend its particular time and place, it could not divorce itself from its historical setting completely. The language and visuals place it distinctively in Poland in the late 1980s. This tension between universal themes and visual and linguistic specificity gave rise to the unique title of the book.

Kieślowski once said that his films were as universal as a toothache: It doesn’t matter where you’re from; the pain is the same. He argued that the themes of the Decalogue are ones that anyone could relate to: jealousy, love, hate, and joy.

But Kieślowski also once spoke of a somewhat dubious childhood memory: seeing an elephant loose on the streets of Kraków. The image is as distinct to a time and place as it is odd, said Badowska, and “instantiates the haptic cinematography and belief in the concretizing power of the image in Kieślowski’s films.” She cited a scene in which a dying man lay in his hospital bed, focusing on a leak in the ceiling. The leak and its accompanying “drip, drip, drip” place the viewer in a structure that is representative of the crumbling infrastructure of Communist Poland in the late 1980s.

“His intention was to talk about universal and ethical dilemmas, but the film technique makes the dilemmas palpable, almost hyperreal, with a hypermaterialistic approach,” she said. “It’s not just any water dripping,” Badowska, a scholar of language and literature, co-wrote with Parmeggiani in the introduction to the book.

The professors have each written a chapter on a particular episode. Parmeggiani’s chapter is titled “Decalogue Seven: A Tale of Love, Failing Words, and Moving Images.” Badowska’s chapter focuses on Decalogue Six, which loosely examines the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.”

In Decalogue Six, a young man spies on and eventually falls in love with an older female lover. Badowska notes that the woman addresses her young lover in the familiar second-person singular, “you,” while he addresses her in the third-person singular “Pani,” or madam. When he says, “I love you,” the film’s subtitle reads as “I love Madam.”

Badowska said that such a subtitle misses the nuance of the exchange, as do many of the subtitles.

For Badowska, it is the specificity and nuance found in the Polish dialogue, which is missing in the English subtitles, that supports the stronger argument—that his work is of a particular time and place, rather than of universal intent. It’s a language that Badowska understands as intimately as she does English. For all of the Decalogue’s universality, the film remains intimately tied to Poland in the late 1980s.