Gillan Larkin said Gillan lived a “full life” and was beloved by many.

“It may sound like I’m painting a beautiful picture of someone who is gone, or that it’s just his daughter saying it, but everyone who knew him says that he was one in a billion,” said Gillan Larkin.

Born a mere stone’s throw from what would become Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, Gillan was as much of a Fordham Ram as one could meet. He met his beloved wife Paula on campus after she was admitted into the first class of Thomas More College. She was a junior and he was a senior. He graduated in 1967, she graduated in 1968, and they were married in 1969. He would go on to get his Ph.D. at Fordham in 1974 from the Graduate School of Education.

Gillan Larkin described her father as a “positive, upbeat, kind, interested, generous, selfless, and patient person.” Indeed, online and on social media, similar tributes have been pouring in from alumni who were touched by a dean that many have described as a consummate gentleman.

Juan D. Y. Gutierrez, PCS ’15, recalled bringing his son to a New York Giants game with tickets donated by Gillan to a FordhamVets raffle. Once at the stadium, Gillan was there to greet them and watch the game together.

“It was the first-ever football game my son and I watched in person. Thank you, Mr. Gillan,” Gutierrez wrote on the University’s Facebook wall.

Throughout his time at Fordham, Gillan had a knack for taking on growth opportunities. He served at PCS when the school was still referred to as the School of General Studies and Continuing Education. He lobbied to change the name to Ignatius College, to honor St. Ignatius, a non-traditional student. There, he inspired non-raditional students to continue with their studies like the school’s namesake.

“I was just thinking of him about a month ago and how much he helped me during my time at Fordham,” Lennette Octaviani, PCS ’07, wrote on Facebook. “He was my dean when I was in what used to be Ignatius College. He was truly a great man and I couldn’t thank him enough for all his help. I was able to graduate because of him.”

Gillan’s efforts in Westchester helped further the mission and visibility of the University’s Westchester campus north of the city, said Grant Grastorf, Ed.D., the academic operations administrator there.

“As an alumnus and former dean, he strongly believed in a liberal arts education,” said Grastorf. “Many former students frequently stopped by to visit him and he was often writing recommendations to graduate school and jobs.  He encouraged me to get my doctorate as well.  He wanted everyone to succeed.”

His daughter recalled that Gillan was constantly going to a variety of business association breakfasts throughout the county.

“He waved the Fordham flag in Westchester with business people and let them know that Fordham was a presence,” she said. “He was not a morning person, and the business people always have 8 a.m. breakfasts, but he’d go to all kinds of things like that.”

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D., the former dean of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Services, is a Westchester resident who co-founded the FordhamVets Initiative with Gillan.

Today, the initiative has evolved into the Office of Military and Veterans’ Services and has two full-time employees. Matthew Butler, PCS ‘16, directs the office. Butler noted that Fordham was one of the early adopters of the Yellow Ribbon Program (an education benefit offered specifically to eligible veterans and dependents under the Post-9/11 GI Bill) before the red tape between higher education and the Veterans Administration had yet to be untangled.

“The VA is one of the largest bureaucracies there is, so somebody needed to take a leadership position, to put their arms around the complexity of making sure that the benefits were working for the veterans and for Fordham, so that they could concentrate on their studies and not worry about if the paperwork was done properly,” Butler said of Gillan’s role in navigating the complex process. Since the Yellow Ribbon program was adopted in 2009, more than 1,000 veterans have graduated from the University, Butler said.

Gillan also helped the University understand what would be needed to support veterans to make the transition to higher education and integrate on campus.

“The program opened the door to folks like myself to go back to school, who would’ve never been able to afford to come to Fordham or New York City,” said Butler. “But Mike was also aware that we needed to make sure that the veterans felt like complete members of the community. You know, that’s something. That’s a legacy that I continue to build on to make sure that our veterans have all the rights and privileges as full members of the community.”

Vaughan recalled that he and Gillan came up with the idea for the initiative after Gillan had been talking to officials in the state capital about veterans’ education and Vaughan had just returned from a conference held by the VA in Washington, D.C., on the same subject.

“It was almost simultaneously that we said we have to talk about this, and we did, and then we met with someone he knew from the Department of Veterans Affairs with the state, and then we met of course with the then-provost [Stephen Freeman, Ph.D.], then Father McShane, who said, ‘Go ahead.’ And then, as they say, the rest was history.”

Vaughan said over time the two formed a bond over their shared interest in adult learning. He added that Gillan’s efforts helped Fordham build ongoing opportunities for returning students, but he also focused on making sure students got work when they got their degrees. He said the many breakfasts he attended opened opportunities in Westchester business for Fordham graduates. And he made sure that their experience wasn’t merely transactional.

“Separate from an education, because he knew we had a great education, he really wanted our older and nontraditional students to participate in the University in a meaningful way so that their education wasn’t just something that they came and did, but that they really felt that they were a part of Fordham, came back to Fordham, and really let them know that Fordham cared about them. I think Mike carried that forward in ways that were immeasurable.”’

Gillan is survived by his wife Paula, children Kristina Bach and Michelle Larkin, both of Yonkers, as well as grandchildren Reece, Emily, and James. He spent his last few years, as in years past, enjoying the Jersey Shore and cheering on the New York Giants, said Gillan Larkin.

Gillan’s wake was held on May 31 at Westchester Funeral Home in Eastchester, New York, and his funeral Mass was held on June 1 at Annunciation Church in Crestwood, New York.

Collectively, these scholars form the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, a consortium of educators aiming to improve the Ed.D., a doctorate in education, and spread the new system to schools across the nation. Instead of concentrating on research, the newly designed doctorate emphasizes practice-based work that can help leaders in education—particularly principals—transform school districts and communities. Behind the project are more than 100 colleges and schools of education across the United States and Canada, including Fordham. 

After joining CPED in 2012, Fordham’s Graduate School of Education redesigned its 53-year-old doctorate of education in educational leadership, administration, and policy—its only Ed.D. program—to follow CPED’s new structure. The Ed.D. program is now in the second of three development phases: “implementing,” meaning the program is in progress, but has no graduates yet. It will most likely reach the “experienced” phase when its first cohort under the new framework graduates in 2021. 

The problem with the old Ed.D. was that it was too similar to the Ph.D.—too research-based, without enough time to tackle real problems in the students’ local communities, said Fordham educators and students.

“The Ed.D. is like the gold star in education, particularly for practitioners [in K-12 school systems]. The Ph.D. is the gold star for researchers and people [in higher education], but for practitioners like myself, you have achieved the gold star if you get an Ed.D., particularly from a reputable, accredited university,” said Ainsley Rudolfo, a member of the first student cohort under the new framework and executive director for programs and partnerships at the New York City Department of Education.

The new Ed.D. emphasizes social injustice and encourages students to tackle a persistent problem in their field. The students’ final project, the “dissertation in practice,” focuses on “a complex problem of practice that school and district leaders face and the investigation and solving of those problems,” said Margaret Terry Orr, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s Ed.D. program and associate professor in educational leadership, administration, and policy.

“You use research to investigate the problem or practice, but it should be an authentic problem that you face in your school or district. It’s not just some theory-driven idea,” Orr said. “The benefit is that you are really preparing leaders who are able to transform schools, districts, and communities in support of student learning.”

The revamped program also stresses the importance of “improvement science,” an academic approach that uses six principles to improve teaching and learning. 

“It fits so well with the day-to-day workings of being an administrator in a school. Every day, you have problems to solve,” said Trisha Nugent Fitzgerald, a member of Fordham’s first student cohort under the new Ed.D. and a principal in Pelham, New York. “Improvement science has you drill down to figure out what the root cause of the problem is, what’s feasible and within your realm of being able to fix in your district or school, and then trying out interventions, looking at the data, and then revising your solution and your intervention until you reach something sustainable that works over time.” 

Fordham is also collaborating with the Carnegie Foundation on the Improvement Leadership Education and Development (iLEAD) project, an initiative aiming to integrate improvement science principles into leadership development and educational practice. Fordham is among 12 universities chosen nationwide to collaborate with CPED on this project. 

Fitzgerald said she picked Fordham’s Ed.D. program because of its new emphasis on “theory in practice.” 

“You go to work every day and you have to solve your problems and make your schools and your districts better—how do you do that? That theory in practice was really important to me,” said Fitzgerald, principal of Hutchinson Elementary School. 

Her school serves students from kindergarten through second grade, including a small group that was performing poorly in mathematics, she said. She and her colleagues initially thought the issue was they didn’t have enough math support. But after considering the improvement science model, she said she found a potential solution.

“Being able to uncover what the data was actually talking about and pointing to different curricular pieces and interventions that classroom teachers could do, it wasn’t that we had to spend millions of dollars hiring somebody,” Fitzgerald said. “We just had to tweak a little bit of the way we work.” 

The ranking of employers in the region was published May 1 by The Journal News/lohud.com, which conducted the survey last fall in partnership with Philadelphia-based WorkplaceDynamics. Fifteen employers were ranked, and Fordham Westchester placed first out of the 11 smaller ones, the largest of which had 176 employees. Four larger employers were grouped separately.

Grant Grastorf, academic operations administrator for Fordham Westchester, said it was a “great honor” to see such recognition for community-building efforts at the campus.

At a reception held on May 3 to mark the honor, employees cited several things that make Fordham Westchester a great place to work: the small, beautiful, easily navigable campus; the shared sense of mission; the frequent employee gatherings to mark birthdays or other occasions; and an atmosphere of genuine care and concern for one another.

“I think people are celebrated here. It really has that feel,” said Kathleen Rund, program administrator for Fordham’s online Master of Social Work program.

Chanelle Hyde, an executive secretary, called it a vibrant place where bosses are “very receptive” to helping employees grow.

“If you’re looking for assistance, people are there at the ready,” said Hyde, who works in marketing for School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS). “You’re able to soak up so much knowledge from your peers, from your mentors. It’s just a really wonderful place to work, a wonderful environment to build your career.”

Located in West Harrison, N.Y., the 78-employee campus houses four institutes along with branches of PCS, the Gabelli School of Business, and Fordham’s graduate schools of education and social service.

Lower Hudson employers were invited to take part in the survey if they were nominated by three of their workers. Public, private, nonprofit, or governmental firms that employed at least 35 people were eligible. More than 3,500 people at 29 employers responded.

Questions covered several areas including pay and benefits, training, work/life balance, and opportunities to learn and grow, as well as employee engagement measures like retention and motivation.

Across the companies surveyed, employees ranked pay and benefits as least important. Ranked most important were two organizational health measures: “alignment,” or the company’s direction, values, and leaders, and “connection,” or feeling appreciated and feeling that their work is meaningful.

“Time and time again, our research has proven that what’s most important to [employees]is a strong belief in where the organization is headed, how it’s going to get there, and the feeling that everyone is in it together,” said Doug Claffey, CEO of WorkplaceDynamics, according to The Journal News.

Glenn Berman, director of admissions and marketing for PCS, noted the lack of friction and competition among different units at the campus.

“We support one another. We’re always talking up other’s programs,” he said. “We have a single goal, and that is to raise the awareness about the fact that there is a Westchester campus. We all have our own individual responsibilities, but the overarching mission we all do share in [is]that we really believe that this is a great place to work and go to school, and we want more people to know about it.”