To illustrate the story, “A Communal Reckoning,” we commissioned Bronx artist Laura James, a painter and illustrator who specializes in sacred images and scenes of everyday life. James uses vibrant colors and draws on Ethiopian Christian iconography in her work, an influence evident in the wide, almond-shaped eyes of the people she depicts.

“Those eyes—they’re all over in Ethiopian art, but especially in the churches,” she said. “They often have angels painted on the walls, just heads and wings with these great big eyes, and [the idea is] that they’re watching you, they’re protecting you.”

For Together We Rise, the painting featured on the cover, James worked with Fordham Magazine art director Ruth Feldman. She chose to depict the story’s “secular theme with that ancient style,” she said, and with Fordham’s Keating Hall and Edwards Parade in the background.

“It’s not churchy; it’s not a Bible story,” James said of the painting, but she wanted to give people a sense of the spiritual nature of the work of anti-racism, particularly at a Jesuit university. She said that came through to her as she read the cover story, a roundtable conversation among six members of the University’s Board of Trustees.

“To see people, to hear them, to talk and communicate—it’s all very, very important. There are more students in the image than anything else, and it really is up to them to hold people accountable and make sure discussions happen, the listening and the hearing, and the seeing with these eyes,” she said.

“We have to see the humanity and the divinity in one another, because yes, we are all made in the image of God, no matter what color you are.”

James said she paid particular attention to the tone of the conversation depicted on the cover.

“Everybody’s not smiling, ‘Oh, I love you,’” she said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re really looking at each other and saying let’s talk about this. There’s so much to learn. And then we have to do something about it, by the way. We can’t just have all this information and sit on it.’”

‘A Sermon for Our Ancestors’

Together We Rise is not the first time James has mixed sacred and secular with a focus on societal issues. In A Sermon for Our Ancestors (2006), she brought the ancient Ethiopian Christian style to bear on U.S. history, juxtaposing 10 scenes of slavery and the slave trade with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-14).

In one scene (in the top center panel), more than a dozen Black people console each other after witnessing a lynching, as two white men look on, indifferent and unmoved. Above that panel James painted the words of the second Beatitude: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And in the painting’s large central panel, Christ addresses groups of enslaved people, some arriving by ship, others in chains, with the words that follow the blessing on those who are persecuted. “Ye are the salt of the earth,” the text reads in part. “Ye are the light of the world.”

“Representing Christ as an African places him in solidarity” with the enslaved people depicted in the painting, Rebekah Eklund wrote in The Visual Commentary on Scripture. “The work’s title points both to the past (the enslaved Africans) and to present-day African Americans (‘our ancestors’). The message is clear: the suffering slaves, and their present-day descendants who suffer still, are blessed.”

‘Love One Another’

The vigilant, mutually supportive group James depicted for Fordham Magazine is more directly related to another one of her earlier works: Love One Another (2000), a detail from which illustrates the feature story in the print edition of the magazine.

James created this earlier work as part of a series of more than 30 paintings she produced to illustrate a Book of the Gospels published by Liturgy Training Publications. She said the Chicago-based Catholic publisher commissioned her to create artworks that would be more inclusive in their depiction of biblical figures and stories, and more reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of the church itself.

For two decades, the book has been used in Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago and throughout the country and the world. It’s currently in its second edition, James said, and this past May, James’ work on it was the subject of a feature in U.S. Catholic magazine.

“The sacred art of Laura James challenges and inspires,” John Christman wrote in that story. “Her compositions are filled with people navigating the difficult task of reaching fullness of life within a community.”

A Community-Focused Artist

James grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, the youngest of eight daughters of immigrants from Antigua, and she has called the Bronx home for the past 17 years. She said she became more involved in her community after she illustrated a children’s book, Anna Carries Water (Tradewind Books, 2014), and the publisher’s biography for her noted that she lives and works in the Bronx.

Today, she is a member of Bronx Community Board 6, which represents the Bathgate, Belmont, East Tremont, and West Farms neighborhoods, and includes Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. She also promotes the work of other artists as the founding director of BX200: The Bronx Visual Artist Directory, an online database that highlights a curated selection of works by more than 200 Bronx artists, connecting them with collectors, businesses, and other artists worldwide.

In 2020, James collaborated with the nonprofit arts group Chashama to curate four public art exhibitions in the windows of 1 Fordham Plaza, just across the street from the Fordham Metro-North stop and the University’s Rose Hill campus.

James said she designed the installations—including Living Walls, about our connections to the natural world, and Black Lives/Black Matters—to “add a bit of artistic color and happiness to Fordham Road,” and to strengthen pedestrians’ sense of hope and community at “a time when we are all feeling isolated” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to painting scenes from the Bible, James has created works inspired by Buddhism and by the Yoruba religion as well as ancient Egypt, often highlighting the divine feminine. She is currently working on a series of 10 paintings on the theme of race and reparations that she said is inspired in part by a William Faulkner quote, taken from his 1951 novel Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

James said she is encouraged by the sharpened focus on anti-racism not only at Fordham but throughout the country, particularly among students.

“It’s good—and it’s necessary, it really is, because we cannot go back. All of these Black Lives Matter protests, it’s not like it’s a moment that passed, and it’s done now,” she said. “Once students get to places like Fordham or wherever they’re going to better themselves and their families, they’re going to let people know what’s going on. They’re not going to allow the status quo.”

“We have to move forward,” she added. “[Jesus said,] ‘Love one another.’ That was 2,000 years ago. I don’t know how well that has done, but we’re getting there, slowly but surely—and I think faster now, actually.”

View Laura James’ website to learn more about her and her work.

Counting down by sevens in the future that takes shape too soon.

There were six candles placed around the living room and Diane had just put a match to the last of them.

She said, “Is this a situation where we have to think about what we’re going to say before we say it?”

“The semi-darkness. It’s somewhere in the mass mind,” Martin said. “The pause, the sense of having experienced this before. Some kind of natural breakdown or foreign intrusion. A cautionary sense that we inherit from our grandparents or great-grandparents or back beyond. People in the grip of serious threat.”

“Is that who we are?”

“I’m talking too much,” he said.

“I’m grinding out theories and speculations.”

The young man was standing at the window and Diane wondered if he planned to head home to the Bronx. She imagined that he might have to walk all the way, up through East Harlem to one of the bridges. Were pedestrians allowed to cross or were the bridges for cars and buses only? Was anything operating normally out there?

The thought softened her, made her think that she might offer to accommodate him for the night. The sofa, a blanket, not so complicated. Stove dead, refrigerator dead. Heat beginning to fade into the walls. Max Stenner was in his chair, eyes on the blank screen. It seemed to be his turn to speak. She sensed it, nodded and waited.

He said, “Let’s eat now. Or the food will go hard or soft or warm or cold or whatever.” They thought about this. But nobody moved in the direction of the kitchen.

Then Martin said, “Football.” A reminder of how the long afternoon had started. He made a gesture, strange for such an individual, the action in slow motion of a player throwing a football, body poised, left arm thrust forward, providing balance, right arm set back, hand gripping football.

Here was Martin Dekker and there was Diane Lucas standing across the room, puzzled by the apparition.

He seemed lost in the pose but returned eventually to a natural stance. Max was back to his blank screen. The pauses were turning into silences and beginning to feel like the wrong kind of normal. Diane waited for her husband to pour more whiskey but he showed no interest, at least for now. Everything that was simple and declarative, where did it go?

Martin said, “Are we living in a makeshift reality? Have I already said this? A future that isn’t supposed to take form just yet?”

“A power station failed. That’s all,” she said. “Consider the situation in those terms. A facility along the Hudson River.”

“Artificial intelligence that betrays who we are and how we live and think.”

“Lights back on, heat back on, our collective mind back where it was, more or less, in a day or two.”

“The artificial future. The neural interface.”

They seemed determined not to look at each other.

Martin, speaking to no one in particular, raised the subject of his students. Global origins, assorted accents, all smart, specially selected for his course, ready for anything he might say, whatever assignment, whatever proposal he might advance concerning areas of study beyond physics. He’d recited names to them. Thaumatology, ontology, eschatology, epistemology. He could not stop himself. Metaphysics, phenomenology, transcendentalism. He paused and thought and kept going. Teleology, etiology, ontogeny, phylogeny.

They looked, they listened, they sniffed the stale air. This is why they were there, all of them, students and teacher.

“And one of the students recited a dream he’d had. It was a dream of words, not images. Two words. He woke up with those words and just stared into space. Umbrella’d ambuscade. Umbrella with an apostrophe d. And ambuscade. He had to look up the latter word.

How could he dream of a word he’d never encountered? Ambuscade. Ambush. But it was umbrella with an apostrophe d that seemed a true mystery. And the two words joined. Umbrella’d ambuscade.”

He waited for a time. “All this in the Bronx,” he said finally, making Diane smile. “There I stood listening to the young men and women discuss the matter, the students, my students, and I wondered, myself, what to make of the term. Ten men with umbrellas? Preparing an attack? And the student whose dream it was, he was looking at me as if I were responsible for what happened in his sleep. All my fault. Apostrophe d.”

There was a knock on the door. It sounded weary, elevators not working, people having to climb eight flights. Diane was standing right there but paused before reaching for the doorknob.

“I was hoping it was you.”

“It’s us, barely,” Jim Kripps said.

They took off their coats and tossed them on the sofa and Diane gestured to Martin and spoke his name and there were handshakes and half embraces and Max standing with one clenched fist raised in a gesture of greeting. He saw the bandage on Jim’s forehead and threw a few counterfeit punches.

When everyone was seated, here, there, the newcomers spoke of the flight and the events that followed and the spectacle of the midtown streets, the grid system, all emptied out.

“In darkness.”

“No street lights, store lights, high-rise buildings, skyscrapers, all windows everywhere.”

“Dark.”

“Quarter-moon up there somewhere.”

“And you’re back from Rome.”

“We’re back from Paris,” Tessa said.

Diane thought she was beautiful, mixed parentage, her poetry obscure, intimate, impressive.

The couple lived on the Upper West Side, which would have meant a walk through Central Park in total darkness and then a longer walk uptown.

The conversation became labored after a while, shadowed in disquiet. Jim spoke looking down between his feet and Diane waved her arms indicating events taking place somewhere beyond their shallow grasp.

“Food. Time to eat something,” she said. “But first I’m curious about the food they served on your flight. I know I’m babbling. But I ask people this question and they never remember. Ask about the last restaurant meal even if it was a week ago and they can tell me. No problem. Name of restaurant, name of main course, type of wine, country of origin. But food on planes. First class, business class, economy, none of it matters. People do not remember what they ate.”

“Spinach-and-cheese tortellini,” Tessa said.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Diane said, “Our food. Here and now. Football food.”

Martin went with her to the kitchen. The others waited quietly in candlelight. Soon Tessa started counting down slowly by sevens from two hundred and three to zero, deadpan, changing languages along the way, and eventually the food arrived, prepared earlier by Max, and all five individuals sat and ate. The kitchen chair, the rocking chair, the armchair, a side chair, a folding chair. None of the guests offered to go home after the meal even when Jim and Tessa got their coats off the sofa and put them back on, simply needing to get warmer. Martin closed his eyes as he chewed his food.

Was each a mystery to the others, however close their involvement, each individual so naturally encased that he or she escaped a final determination, a fixed appraisal by the others in the room?

Max looked at the screen as he ate and when he was finished eating he put the plate down and kept on looking. He took the bottle of bourbon off the floor and the glass with it and poured himself a drink. He put the bottle down and held the glass in both hands.

Then he stared into the blank screen.

From The Silence: A Novel by Don DeLillo. Copyright © 2020 by Don DeLillo. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and the Robin Straus Agency, Inc.

Don DeLillo, FCRH ’58, is the author of 17 novels, including Libra, Underworld, Falling Man, Zero K, and White Noise, which earned the National Book Award in 1985. He has won the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2013, he earned the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and in 2015, the National Book Foundation awarded him its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Alan Alda, FCRH ’56, has been working on this kind of thing for decades, promoting techniques not only for conveying science more clearly but also for enhancing communication by becoming more attuned to one another. And he draws on his experience as a six-time Emmy Award-winning actor, writer, and director.

“It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another person’s eyes than when a culture is divided so sharply,” he said in accepting a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2019. “Actors can help, at least a little, just by doing what we do.”

Alda’s efforts toward better communication are detailed in his book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating (Random House, 2017), and on Clear + Vivid, the podcast he launched in 2018. At the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, which Alda founded at Stony Brook University, researchers take a page from the playbook for actors by using improvisational exercises to get in a better state for communicating. And they also learn about the importance of deep interpersonal connection.

Alda has noted the importance of such connections in discussing issues like climate change, which often generates fierce arguments about how humanity should respond.

In an interview last year for the WNYC Studios radio show Science Friday, he emphasized trust and openness. “I don’t think I’m really listening unless I’m willing to be changed by you,” Alda said. “And that doesn’t mean that I’m going to agree with what you’re saying, but I might be changed by something about you, some deeply held belief you have, about just living, about your dedication to your children, or something like that, and I might be touched by that.

“That’s more important than hitting you over the head with my argument, I think, because it leads to more interaction.”

And they have their own head of state—Marquetta L. Goodwine, elected Queen Quet, chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, on July 2, 2000, when this nation within a nation was formally established in the presence of international observers.

A native of South Carolina’s St. Helena Island, where she lives today, Queen Quet double-majored in mathematics and computer science at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, working in the latter field during college and for a few years after graduating. But she changed direction in 1996, founding the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition to help her people safeguard their rights and way of life. Their nation exists within a coastal area stretching from Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida.

Queen Quet draws on a kaleidoscopic skill set ranging from art and preservation to mathematics and computer science in advocating for her people. She has written books about them; spoken up for them everywhere from the United Nations to city council meetings; and served as an expert commissioner on the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission established by the federal government in 2006.

Locally, she helps her people with land rights and other issues that tend to come up when native cultures meet rapid development and a rising cost of living. One recent bureaucratic tangle: a municipality putting Gullah/Geechee cemeteries on its delinquent taxes roster. “That has never happened before,” Queen Quet said one morning this past September after making calls about it. “People are asking me, ‘Well, Queen Quet, what’s going on? They’re going to take our graveyards now?’” Such snafus are often resolved amiably, she said.

Harder to resolve, however, is a global problem that is especially dire in the low-lying coastal lands where her people live, and that’s climate change. As rising seas and extreme weather ravage the land and fisheries that are central to Gullah/Geechee lives and livelihoods, she’s helping build support for long-term policies to stem climate change. She also works to mitigate its impacts locally—appealing to local officials to remediate rapid erosion on the Sea Islands, promoting more stewardship of area waterways, and other efforts.

“Gullah/Geechee culture is inextricably tied to the land and the water,” she said. “The land is our family, and the waterway is our bloodline.”

How has climate change affected the Sea Islands?
We’ve seen rapid erosion from sea level rise, and more intense and prevalent tropical storms and hurricanes, in the past 10 years especially. We went from one extreme about 15 years ago, with massive drought, to this overabundance of water—the sea level rise, the rains, the floods, the “king tides,” all coming in at once.

Farmers and the fishing families have suffered financially, whether they’re involved commercially or doing subsistence farming and fishing, which is our natural tradition. We’ve seen agricultural land inundated because of ocean and creek flooding, and now there is ocean acidification and pollution by single-use plastics. People are not catching the same amount of crabs, they’re not picking the same amount of oysters, they’re not getting the same harvest from the sea. So our food security is something that’s been taxed the most.

How does climate change intersect with racial injustice in your part of the country?
This year in the South, we had 100-plus-degree weather for weeks, and as a result our people are suffering because most don’t have health care. Am I having heatstroke? I can’t go to a doctor, I don’t have that kind of money. So of course more people of color, more people of African descent, are dying in heat waves. And mold and mildew are major issues on the Sea Islands. Who can afford to remediate a home if it gets flooded? Two, three generations may be living in there who develop lung problems but don’t realize why. So people then die of other conditions that develop due to long-term mold exposure.

Does racial bias show up in environmental action?
You look back in the history of environmental organizations, and Black people are not reflected visually; the optics show these are white-led organizations, and so therefore they don’t tend to look at communities of culture like the Gullah/Geechee Nation and say those communities and those lives are valuable, so we need to protect them. What you make a priority is what you’re going to resource. For instance, your organization’s not going to budget to help save a part of a Sea Island where Gullah/Geechees live, and protect their fishing industry in that location, if they’re not on your priority list.

What gives you hope?
Having the opportunity to go to the U.N. Climate Change Conference and work with groups advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, and being in the arena with people who are passionate about this topic. In international gatherings, I also see a lot of people of color fighting for their own communities and their own culture. It always gives me hope that it’s not me in a glass box hollering like I’m a mime and nobody can hear me, that someone’s hearing me and I’m making a difference.

One thing that people always hear me say is a statement that came to me as a vision from my ancestors and became the motto for the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, and it’s this: “Hunnuh mus tek cyare de root fa heal de tree” (“You must take care of the root to heal the tree”). If you want to get to the root of a problem, you need to dig for it, because roots that are really solid, they’re not on the surface. I’m ready to work to make sure that the fruit that’s produced from this tree in the future is sustainable and is healthy.

Queen Quet is also quoted in “Rising Temperatures, Rising Concern,” our related article about the Fordham community’s ideas for addressing climate change. 

She related all this not at a policy forum or in front of a class, but during her valedictory address at Encaenia in May 2019, taking advantage of the large, attentive audience at the traditional pre-commencement event for Fordham College at Rose Hill graduates and their families.

“This isn’t a story about what I overcame, or what so many of us have overcome. This is a story about how no one should have to,” said Happel, who majored in environmental studies. “There’s still time to fix this, but only if we start right now. Together, we have the power to solve the climate crisis.”

That crisis is getting more public attention because of nature itself, as wildfires have ravaged the West Coast this year and stoked public concern about extreme weather in a warming world. At Fordham, professors who have spent decades observing the effects of climate change offered insight into how science can help frame the need to take action.

Preserving Ecosystems

To build support for climate action, “you have to explain to people that their own survival depends on it, using economic terms and then health terms,” said Craig Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences.

With species struggling—and possibly failing—to adapt quickly enough to rapid warming, natural processes that sustain humanity could be disrupted in ways we can’t anticipate, he said. In his own research at the Louis Calder Center, Fordham’s biological field station in Armonk, New York, he has seen eastern chipmunk populations drop by about two-thirds over the past two decades.

Warmer temperatures have changed the chemistry of seeds they feed on, preventing the chipmunks from lapsing into an energy-saving state of torpor while hibernating underground. To make it through a wakeful winter, they often need to gather more food than can be found in the forest, where trees are producing fewer seeds because of hotter and drier summers, Frank said. He estimated that nearly 1,000 mammal species use torpor in one way or another. It’s not clear, he said, how many hibernating species could adapt to environments that are changing at “an artificially rapid rate” due to growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“We’re already in a situation where between 20% and 30% of the mammals in the world are threatened with extinction,” a figure that would grow substantially if warming temperatures keep disrupting hibernation, Frank said.

The highest rate of extinction is among plants, said Steven Franks, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences.

He has led or contributed to studies showing how field mustard plants are affected by extreme weather shifts. While they adapt to flower earlier in response to droughts, their seed production suffers, and earlier flowering can leave them more vulnerable to disease, he said. And when the plants respond to wetter periods by evolving to flower later, it’s that much harder for them to readapt when drought returns. The plants used in the studies were harvested in a part of California that, since 2004, has seen several droughts as severe as any in the prior 100 years after seeing only one such drought since 1977.

Drought is having “an enormous effect on many plants, and water scarcity is a really pressing environmental issue,” he said. “The population can be evolving and can even be evolving rapidly, but still not adapting fast enough to keep up with the rate of climate change, and the population still goes extinct.”

The rate of extinctions is accelerating, with about 1 million species—both plants and animals—at risk of dying out, “more than ever before in human history,” according to a 2019 statement by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Many of them could go extinct within decades, the organization said.

Frank highlighted what else could be lost or affected when species die out. “The air that you breathe is a result of natural processes,” he said. “The food that you eat is a result of natural processes. The soil that grows the food is produced by natural process. The water that you drink, that’s a natural process, too. All these are what we call ecosystem services provided to [us].” And yet, “we don’t fully understand how the ecosystems work or how they’re interrelated,” he said.

Using an analogy from the naturalist Aldo Leopold, he likened degraded ecosystems to an airplane losing rivets from one of its wings in midflight. “Each one of these rivets is a species, and we don’t know when the wing is going to fall off,” he said.

Consequences Big and Small

Thomas Daniels, Ph.D., associate research scientist and director of the Calder Center, noted the importance of getting people to care about nature and about future generations—not “by yelling at them,” but by setting an example. National leadership and political will are critical, along with cultivating an appreciation of nature among the young, he said.

Occupying 113 acres, the Calder Center serves as a laboratory where many subtle, still-unfolding impacts of climate change can be seen. Daniels’ own research specialty is ticks, the tiny arachnids that can transmit Lyme disease. Studying their population at the center over the years, he has seen them becoming active earlier in the spring and later into the winter because of rising temperatures. The warming climate has also allowed the Asian tiger mosquito, a possible vector for yellow fever and dengue viruses, to show up in Orange County, New York—“farther north than we expected,” he said.

While this is worrisome, “the larger picture is so much more devastating than vector-borne diseases being an issue,” he said. “The consequences [of climate change] go so far beyond us, and our particular risk in a particular location on a particular day, or in a particular year.”

Those consequences can range widely, from rising seas to food shortages to ocean acidification to an increase in climate refugees who are driven north by rising equatorial temperatures, said physics professor Stephen Holler, Ph.D., who will teach a new honors course on climate change in the spring 2021 semester. Emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity are contributing to the planet’s sixth major extinction event, which follows five others that also correlated with heightened amounts of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, he said. The most recent major extinction was the one that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

He noted the value of showing how people can immediately benefit from actions to curb climate change. As part of the University’s Reimagining Higher Education initiative, launched in spring 2020, his team of faculty and staff members devised a project for communicating climate science through the lens of air pollution and how it affects people who live in the Bronx. It will bring together students from Fordham and from Bronx elementary and high schools to educate the community about air quality, using data from particulate sensors to be placed at the Rose Hill campus and throughout the Bronx.

Their goal is to empower residents to take social or political action about air quality in the borough. The Bronx has some of the country’s highest rates of asthma, which is exacerbated by particulates in the air, Holler said.

Holler’s course will cover social justice aspects of climate change, such as populations displaced from Pacific islands—as well as parts of the U.S.—because of rising seas, in addition to droughts and other environmental impacts.

Taking Action

In her speech at Encaenia, Happel called on her audience to work on climate issues with other members of “Fordham’s amazing global network, [f]rom bankers to biologists, diplomats to dancers.” And she called out one particularly inspiring Fordham graduate, a head of state who is “a powerful voice on the world stage for the rights of island nations.”

That alumna is Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine, chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. A graduate of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, for the past 20 years she has been the elected leader of this internationally recognized nation populating low-lying coastal areas and islands stretching from North Carolina to Florida. “It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that, someday, her country may simply cease to exist,” Happel said.

To avoid that outcome, Queen Quet has become a high-profile voice on climate issues, speaking at the United Nations and testifying before Congress while also working on smaller, more local efforts. (See related story.) In an interview, she touched on the importance of plain language in describing climate change and getting people to care. One of her projects is devising educational materials to explain the concepts of heat islands and ocean acidification. “Just because we throw around these terms in the environmental world, doesn’t mean the average person knows what we’re talking about,” she said.

Immediate actions can counter the feeling that the issue is too complicated and beyond one’s control, Franks said. It’s important to “promote the positive ways … we can change our major patterns of consumption … in a way that’s really going to be sustainable and beneficial for us as well as natural populations,” he said.

One example is choosing energy sources other than fossil fuels, he said. In her current studies toward becoming an environmental lawyer, Happel is learning about the importance of getting involved in local government to ensure clean energy is an option.

“So much of our energy grid is regulated through state public service commissions,” she said. “Even though I think a lot of us focus on national policy, state and local policy have a huge impact on whether you’re able to have clean energy in your neighborhood.”

Happel’s remarks at Encaenia in 2019 were part of the youth-led “Class of 0000” campaign to focus graduation speeches nationwide on the issue of climate action and convey its urgency.

“So many students and parents came up to me after that and thanked me for it, and said they thought it was really important,” Happel said. “So many people are impacted now. I think the landscape has changed so much, just in the past few years.”

See our related story, “Alan Alda on Creating a Good Communications Climate.”

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
When applying to schools, I was unsure whether or not I wanted to pursue a pre-med track or a business degree. Fordham boasted excellent programs with regard to both paths, along with a gorgeous campus placed in New York City. It quickly became my top choice.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
Through the Gabelli School of Business, I was taught the importance of networking and taking advantage of internship opportunities early on. Networking events helped me to land multiple internship roles and gain a better understanding of which profession I wanted to pursue after graduation.

Did you take any courses or have any experiences that helped put you on your current path?
My experience with the Fordham Mentoring Program helped to prepare me for interviews and expand my professional network. Connections I made through this program were pivotal in aligning me with the job I have today. Shout-out to my mentor Tom Hartigan for all his help!

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
The Fordham professor that I admire most is Jackie Jung. I took her ethics of business class [at the Fordham]London [campus], and she not only taught the class extremely valuable information for the workplace but also taught various life lessons. She also used her wide array of professional experience, such as working for the United Nations, to connect a few of my colleagues with very experienced professionals.

Can you paint us a picture of your current responsibilities? What do you hope to accomplish, personally or professionally?
Currently, I am in Pittsburgh, working for PNC. I am in the process of completing a three-year development program that will place me on track to be either an underwriter or assistant relationship manager for the bank. I have just completed my introductory credit training with the bank and will soon begin my first rotation within the Diversified Industries Group (DIG), where I will be refining my credit knowledge and learning how to underwrite for the bank. After working with DIG, I will work with a separate lending vertical in Pittsburgh. Then, I will have the opportunity to relocate with the bank for my relationship management training. At the end of this program, I hope to become an effective relationship manager for PNC, [providing]businesses with loans and capital allocation strategies that help [them]succeed through all economic cycles.

What are you optimistic about?
I am optimistic about my opportunity to continue learning after completing my formal education. PNC has continuously provided me with the resources to expand my knowledge base and personal and professional network while on the job. I think one the best things that anyone can do for themselves is to keep learning, and I feel I am in a situation that will encourage my continued education as my career develops.

Anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
The friends I’ve made through Fordham are something that I wouldn’t trade for the world, and even though I moved outside of the tristate area, I have been able to stay in close contact with so many of them. However, I would love to move back to New York City later in my career to reconnect with my Fordham friends in my day-to-day life.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
A major selling point of Fordham for me was definitely the ability to have both a traditional campus feel while having access to the many resources a major city provides. At the Rose Hill campus, I loved the idea of being able to travel to other boroughs and explore different cultures, landmarks, and entertainment opportunities, and at the same time being able to spend a sunny day relaxing on Eddies Parade with my friends. The possibilities were endless both on and off campus, making Fordham the perfect choice.

I also gravitated toward the small class sizes offered at Fordham. With most classes having only about 25 students, I saw myself being a true part of the University, actively engaging with peers and professors about larger issues facing the world. Fordham was dedicated to seeing its students grow as both individuals and as members of a larger community—one that I am proud to be a part of.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
Fordham allowed me to meet so many wonderful and interesting people from completely different walks of life. Particularly as a political science major, I was always surrounded by diverse experiences and perspectives, and the ability to have constructive conversations on complicated issues with my peers was amazing. In a larger sense, the Fordham community is so incredibly strong and supportive. Fordham students care for and support one another, and the friends I have made will always mean something special.

Did you take any courses or have any experiences that helped put you on your current path?
While not directly related to what I am doing now, my three years at the RamLine call center [reaching out to Fordham alumni and parents of current Fordham students]taught me many important skills and gave me valuable insight into the kinds of work I want to do in the future. As both a student caller and a supervisor, I learned strategies to successfully engage with individuals with vastly different experiences than I [have], listening to them and meeting them where they are at so that they know they are understood and appreciated. More importantly, working at the call center made me realize how proud I was to be a Fordham student. There was never a point when talking about my job or life at school felt forced, and every call was just another opportunity to talk about the people, classes, and opportunities I loved so much. Having graduated, I want to be able to work somewhere and say that I have a true passion for what I’m doing.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
Professor Diane Detournay taught the introductory course to my American studies minor, and it ended up becoming one of the most important experiences I had at Fordham. I think there is a tendency to present U.S. history to kids in simplistic terms, and before coming to college I had never really sat down and considered the larger issues that have and continue to shape America and its people. In Diane’s class, we were primarily tasked with having these conversations, thinking about the institutions and structures in society we take for granted, and how they shape the America we live in today. Never had I had a professor so passionate about the work they were doing, wanting her students to challenge conventional thinking and advocate for needed change. Diane taught me about my duty to be good citizen, and the ideas she presented will always [stay]with me.

What are you doing now, and what do you hope to accomplish, personally or professionally?
Right now, I’m working in the development office of my high school creating communications and media strategies. I am responsible for designing content on our platforms that tells the story of the school while encouraging our immediate and broader communities (alumni, parents, friends) to continue feeling engaged and supporting our mission. Curating our social media presence and publishing articles on our website and in our magazine have been some of my most recent responsibilities.

At night, I am pursuing a graduate degree from Fordham in elections and campaign management. The program has given me a wide look into the opportunities to work in politics, and with the current work I am doing, I am hoping to get involved in the communications planning for candidates running for office.

What are you optimistic about?
I’m optimistic about the kind of world my generation can create. Particularly now, we have seen young people be so passionate about the issues they are fighting for, and [be]truly invested in making the world a better place for all of us. My peers and I care deeply about one another and advocate for our collective well-being, and it is that mindset that will always give me hope.

Anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
I’m excited for the day we can come back to campus and celebrate the end of my senior year. This year was certainly not what anyone was expecting, so I look forward to reconnecting with classmates I haven’t seen in a while and experiencing [what]we would have had in May.

“I personally think that getting involved with internships as early as possible was the largest factor that allowed me to get to my current position,” he said. “I began interning at Santander after sophomore year, and I never really stopped there once I got my foot in the door. It put me in a much better spot than other candidates once a full-time offer was available.”

As a student at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business, Hughes majored in finance with a minor in economics. He was a member of the Student Managed Investment Fund group, about two dozen junior and senior finance majors who work together to invest $1 million of the University’s endowment. He also participated in the Fordham Finance Society, the Investment Banking Society, and played intramural sports. After interning with Santander Bank’s corporate and investment banking team the summer after his sophomore year, Hughes moved to the debt capital management team for an internship during his senior year, which led to a full-time position.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham
Apart from the great campus, the location of Fordham is what really drew me to the school. Being in New York City is a really great aspect of Fordham. While it offers all the positives of having [that traditional]campus [feel], it also offers all the benefits of a city school. This opens a ton of doors from a career perspective and adds a benefit to Fordham that almost no other school can offer.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
The two greatest aspects of Fordham that I’ve seen thus far are, once again, its location but also the Fordham network. Fordham gives students the opportunity to intern in New York City during the school year, which is something that very few schools are able to offer. Additionally, students can easily benefit from a Fordham network that is very willing to help out current students. For other schools, this just isn’t possible, but Fordham’s location and the school’s commitment to getting students involved with the alumni network as early as possible are two great strengths of Fordham.

Did you take any courses or have any experiences that helped put you on your current path?
Going into Fordham, I knew I was likely going to pursue a career in finance. While the coursework early on didn’t cater to my major, I found that some of the clubs I joined provided some really valuable insight into what a career in finance looked like, which I personally found more helpful than the early coursework when trying to decide what path to pursue. Clubs like the Finance Society and the Investment Banking Society were really helpful for me, especially as an undergraduate, since they offered both a view into what that career path looks like, as well as what is required to succeed.

In addition to Fordham’s clubs and coursework, getting involved with internships as early as possible was the largest factor that allowed me to get to my current position. To the extent possible, I think that is something that all students should seek out, especially in the finance area, because it is a really great way to get an advantage over students from other schools.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
One of the most important classes I took at Fordham was my first finance class, Financial Management, with Professor [Kevin] Mirabile. Anyone who has taken [a course with]Professor Mirabile knows how knowledgeable he is, so having him for an introductory finance class was super helpful, since he was able to clearly explain the basic building blocks of finance, while also showing us what the real-world application of those lessons are. He’s also been extremely successful himself in the finance world, and has great insight on the different opportunities that are available to finance students. I took a few other classes with him, and no matter what class I took with him, I always found that he was able to clearly relate the lessons in class to what really goes on in the finance world, which made his classes much more valuable.

Can you paint us a picture of your current responsibilities? What do you hope to accomplish, personally or professionally?
I currently worked for Santander Investment Securities as an analyst for the U.S. debt capital markets team. In short, we’re responsible for bringing our clients to the capital markets to issue debt whenever there is a need or opportunity for them to do so. This includes both pitching ideas to our clients to try to identify those opportunities that match the client’s interests, as well as executing the deals when they decide to come forward with a bond offering.

In terms of what I hope to accomplish, I am still figuring much of that out, but I’ve definitely enjoyed my time at Santander with the DCM team and hope to continue working my way up there.

What are you optimistic about?
From a career perspective, two important aspects that I’ve focused on during my short time working postgrad are that my role gives me valuable work and that I have a good team around me to work with. In my current position, I’ve been lucky enough where both of those boxes are checked, and I think that’s something that all students should seek out. It’s obviously very difficult and probably unrealistic to plan out your career at a young age, but if the role offers valuable work to you and you’re surrounded by a team that provides a good work environment, then I only see reasons to be optimistic about your role, whatever field that may be in.

Anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
I’m always happy to chat with students whatever their interests may be. The Fordham network is a strong one and is a tool that can really help current Fordham students compete with students from other schools, particularly in finance.

“Working at WFUV was hands down, the best decision I ever made,” she said. “It changed the trajectory of my life. I was going to be a business major, and walking into WFUV, I just fell in love with journalism and people and news. And I did not see that one coming. We call it ‘the radio bug.’ And I definitely caught that.”

As an undergraduate, she began as a “day of” reporter, rising through the ranks to eventually become newsroom manager. Migliore reported on everything from gun violence to mold in New York City Housing Authority buildings, earning awards from the New York State Broadcasting Association, the Alliance for Women in Media, and the New York Associated Press.

After graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she landed a job as an overnight news anchor and writer at iHeartMedia in New York.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
My story with Fordham actually started way before I was a senior in high school. My cousin had gotten married at Fordham when I was 16 years old. I wasn’t really thinking about college, and then I went to this wedding at Fordham’s church, and I was like, wow, this is beautiful. I love this place. It’s [in]the city, and the buildings are just so “old world.” Something about it just made me feel like it fit. I worked really hard in high school, because everybody was telling me it’s a really hard school to get into. As I got older, I recognized that it has a huge alumni network and it’s a [strong]academic school. Those were the three things that were really important to me when I was making my college decision—location, academics, and where I would go afterward.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
I know without a doubt, I would have never gotten the radio working experience that I did working at WFUV [if I had gone somewhere else]. Fordham has great programs—the academics, no doubt—but the icing on the cake was WFUV. And that’s something I’m super, super grateful for.

Did you take any courses or have any experiences that helped put you on your current path?
The journalism major paired with WFUV was fantastic. I had great, encouraging professors. The class sizes at Fordham are so great. My biggest class when I got into my major was nine students. When I was taking astrology or astronomy—I think that was the biggest class I had—it was maybe 45 students. So I think another thing I wouldn’t have gotten almost anywhere else is the teacher-student ratio and the small class sizes. I really built great relationships with my professors. And they’ve become great mentors to me. I also wrote a little bit for The Ram, and I was a part of the ampersand for a while. Once I got into journalism, I got into it and wanted to be a writer in any way that I could.

How did you get started at WFUV? Is there someone there you admire the most, and why?
I actually walked into WFUV [initially]and was like, “I’ll clean the toilet.” And they’re like, “No, we don’t do that here. If you want a job as a student, you can decide between news or music or sports.” “Well, I’d be interested in news.”

Somebody gave me the contact of George Bodarky [the station’s news and public affairs director], and I emailed him: “I would love to be a part of your workshop.” And he said, “Well, Natalie, we’d be happy to have you, but if you want to be a part of our workshop, are you willing to work afterward?” And I was like, “What? You want me to work? Absolutely!” So I took his workshop and then I jumped right in as an intern.

George and [Assistant News and Public Affairs Director] Robin Shannon taught me everything I know about news and really just [helped me build]that foundation to where I am today.

How did you land your current job? Can you paint us a picture of your responsibilities?
My current boss is a Fordham alumna, and she worked at WFUV. George encouraged me to reach out to her for freelance work, so when I reached out to her, she said, “Actually, we’re interviewing for a full-time position. Would you be interested?” And I said of course. I’m now an overnight news anchor for iHeartMedia Radio New York, which basically means that I write summaries for the metro area—so Hudson Valley, New York City, New Jersey, New Jersey shore, and Long Island. At the end of my shift, I anchor for Long Island, so I’m a news writer/anchor. It’s a funky schedule. I work from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. But it’s fun, and I really, really enjoy what I’m doing.

What do you hope to accomplish, personally or professionally?
I always wanted to be a long-form reporter from the work that I did at WFUV, so eventually, I’d like to get there. At first, I really wanted to stay in public radio, because WFUV is an NPR affiliate, but commercial radio’s growing. I would love to be able to work on long-form pieces and be a feature reporter or work on podcasts—I definitely find that really interesting.

Fordham has given me a great work life and personal life, because I met some lifelong friends at Fordham.

Anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
I’ve already joined the Young Alumni Committee to [continue to]be part of the Fordham community, either by mentorship or just trying to help Fordham students around the country, whether they graduated just recently or [will be graduating soon]. I would love to be a part and help in any way that I can.

Elsa Au-Yeung

School: Fordham College at Rose Hill

Major: Biological Sciences

Minor: Bioethics

Current Job: Research Associate, Inflammation and Immunology, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

“One of the things I am the most grateful for from my experience at Fordham was actually learning about things not related to my major. Since we are required to take the core curriculum, I was exposed to so many different classes I never would have taken otherwise. These courses refined the way I think about virtually everything. Buddhism in America helped me discover my interest in Buddhism, and Intro to Bioethics challenged many preconceived beliefs I had about the health care industry and controversial ethicists.”

Read more of Elsa Au-Yeung’s story.

Reed Bihary

School: Gabelli School of Business

Major: Business Administration

Concentrations: Finance, Global Business

Minor: Economics

Current Job: Corporate and Institutional Banking Development Program Associate, PNC Financial Services

“Through the Gabelli School of Business, I was immediately taught the importance of networking, which helped me land multiple internships and gain a better understanding of which profession I wanted to pursue after graduation. The Fordham Mentoring Program helped to prepare me for interviews and expand my professional network. Connections I made with alumni through this program were pivotal in aligning me with the job I have today.”

Read more of Reed Bihary’s story.

Natalie Migliore

School: Fordham College at Rose Hill

Major: Journalism

Minor: Communication and Media Studies

Current Job: News Anchor/Writer, iHeartMedia

“Working at WFUV was hands down the best decision I ever made. It changed the trajectory of my life. I was going to be a business major, and walking into WFUV, I just fell in love with journalism. I wouldn’t have known about the position at iHeartMedia if it weren’t for having a connection from Fordham and WFUV. That reinforced [the importance of the]alumni network. Another thing I wouldn’t have gotten almost anywhere else was the small class sizes at Fordham. I built great relationships with my professors, and they’ve become great mentors to me.”

Read more of Natalie Migliore’s story.

John Morin

School: Fordham College at Rose Hill

Major: Political Science

Minors: American Studies, Mathematics

Current Job and Studies: Communications Associate, Regis High School; M.A. Candidate, Elections and Campaign Management, Fordham

“I was always surrounded by diverse experiences and perspectives, and the ability to have constructive conversations on complicated issues with my peers was amazing. The intro course for my American studies minor was one of the most important experiences I had. The professor, Diane Detournay, wanted us to challenge conventional thinking and advocate for needed change. The ideas she presented in class, I will always carry with me.”

Read more of John Morin’s story.

Finley Peay

School: Fordham College at Lincoln Center

Majors: Political Science, American Studies

Concentration: American Catholic Studies

Minor: Theology

Current Studies and Job: M.A. Candidate, Higher Education and Student Affairs, NYU; Graduate Assistant, Columbia University’s Office of University Life

“The biggest thing that I got out of Fordham was the breadth of the mentorship network. I got the best of both worlds participating in academics and student involvement at both Lincoln Center and Rose Hill. I’m still in touch with a lot of the administrators I worked with in the Office for Student Involvement. That’s one of the things I cherish the most: the number of people I met who genuinely care about students.”

Read more of Finley Peay’s story.

Julie Tin

School: Fordham College at Lincoln Center

Major: Psychology

Minor: Mandarin Chinese

Current Job: Human Resources Administrative Assistant, University Settlement, The Door, Broome Street Academy Charter High School

“Right now I work for a family of New York City organizations that give back to immigrant and low-income communities and provide services to disconnected youth. I had interned there during college, but I had little to no experience in the office setting before I was placed in Fordham’s Office of Alumni Relations for work-study. Through the staff’s guidance and instruction, I was able to develop data management, communication, and organizational skills that serve as the core of my professional abilities.”

Read more of Julie Tin’s story.

—Reporting by Chris Gosier, Adam Kaufman, Kelly Kultys, and Sierra McCleary-Harris

A new music recommendation from Russ Borris, music director at WFUV, 90.7 FM, wfuv.org.

“Impossible Weight”
by Deep Sea Diver
From the album Impossible Weight
Jessica Dobson is a wildly talented guitarist who has spent much of her career playing on the road with Beck and recording with the Shins while putting out several releases with her band Deep Sea Diver. Her latest, Impossible Weight, is her strongest and most impressive work to date. The title track instantly hooks you in as she urgently sings the refrain: “But that was then, and this is now.” Her guitar work in the song is edgy and intricate, conjuring comparisons to that of St. Vincent. Throw in the welcome addition of guest Sharon Van Etten, who takes the lead on one verse, and you’ve got depth and dimension, making this one of the best songs of 2020, hands down.