“Amid the chaos currently afflicting higher education, there is another slow-moving disaster that has us all worried. The pandemic inflicted untold injury on the educational achievements of young people. In higher education, we already see the results on high school students, but we fret even more about the impact on little kids, the disruption of that all-important early childhood education. It is a ticking time bomb that cannot wait to be addressed until students come to our campuses, or worse, fail to come to college at all. Unless the nation does something, we all will take a serious hit in global competitiveness, to say nothing of our children’s opportunities. 

Here is an idea. Let’s build a National Tutoring Corp. For decades we have discussed the benefits of national service, the kind of purpose-driven experience that would bond young people across the country.  We may now face a crisis urgent enough to convince us to act. We should create a small army of tutors to help our children catch up from the pandemic gaps in their education.“

“We worked so hard for so long to ensure that children born into poverty could slowly but steadily catch up. Now they’ve fallen massively behind, and yet again we risk wasting their talent and crushing their dreams. I fear the next assessment of fourth and eighth graders during the 2023-24 school year will inspire more hand-wringing when its results are released.“

“[W]hen we look at those generations forged in the fires of suffering and crisis, we see the generations who mattered most to history. Class of 2024, you have become fiercely focused on what matters. You have refused to accept the brokenness of the world. You face the challenges ahead with courage. You look for truth with curiosity and openness. And today, especially today, you remember to find joy. There’s nothing more Jesuit than that,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University. 

A crowd of more than 700 gathered at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Dec. 1 to once again ring in the Christmas season at Fordham University.

With the Fordham choir singing and lights twinkling from every corner of the Koch Theater Promenade, the annual President’s Club Christmas Reception appeared to be joining the city in gearing up for a “megawatt” Christmas, said Fordham President Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

And yet, Father McShane said, a far smaller display captures the true sentiment of the season.

“Our eye more than anywhere else is drawn to the most unassuming, most understated of Christmas lights—the candle in the window,” he told alumni, parents, staff, and other members of the Fordham community.

However, there is more to the seemingly innocent Christmas candle than meets the eye, Father McShane said. During the time of British persecution against the Catholic Church in Ireland, Irish Catholics would place candles in their windows as a secret welcome to priests, to whom they would offer hospitality in exchange for a celebration of the Eucharist.

With this subversive-yet-sacred history in mind, the image of Christmas candle was chosen to adorn the 2014 Fordham Christmas ornament, Father McShane said, because “it is a symbol that speaks volumes about who we are, what we believe in, and what we do.”

“Fordham has been about the sacred work of being ‘subversive’ for nearly 175 years, providing a different kind of education,” he said. “At the heart of Fordham is a passionate conviction that the core of a transformative and liberating education must be the encounter between the human heart and God.”

Father McShane thanked those gathered for the generosity that has helped sustain this mission.

“Your generosity is making a Fordham education affordable and accessible,” he said. “You have made it possible for Fordham to keep the candle in the window.”

Like father like son. Right? Well, what if the son is autistic?

“When you have a son it’s like, ‘Finally, I get to make a better version of me,’” said Charles Jones, producer and director of a new documentary, Autistic Like Me, that takes a paternal perspective on parenting kids with autism.

The film will have its New York City premiere at the Lincoln Center campus’ Pope Auditorium this Thurs., Dec. 4 at 6:45 p.m. The event is free for Fordham students and faculty and, for everyone else, tickets are available here.

“We’re supposed to be the torch carriers, the protectors, the providers, and there are a lot of women who are uncomfortable when men can’t be that,” he said.

While a child’s autism affects everyone in the family, the father’s struggle often gets overlooked, said Jones, whose son has autism. His film explores a group of fathers as they open up to one another about the fear, disappointment, and ultimately the acceptance of a very different parenting experience than they had envisioned.

Jones, who is a Navy veteran, knows about being tough. He said that when faced with the reality of raising a child with autism, most of the men he interviewed tried to hide their feelings.

“Men typically hold it in and that does nothing but hurt the family,” he said. “But it takes a lot of strength to show how you’re feeling.”

Jones noted that most of the caretakers for autistic children are women, whether in the home or in the health care system. He added that current research has shown that autistic children benefit by interacting equally with men, but gender imbalances remain. Some men even shirk the responsibility of taking their kids to therapy because the rewards are barely perceptible.

“I hate to say it, but sometimes you’re going from below zero to just below zero—and there’s no carrot at the end,” he said. “But you have to do it. This is your child and there’s love there.”

The screening is being sponsored by Fordham’s Autism Speaks and Circle K, the college student arm of Kiwanis International.

https://vimeo.com/96078988

Entrepreneurship. These days, it seems everyone – particularly young people – are clamoring for a shot at founding the next great startup, and being their own boss.

But what’s the best way to achieve entrepreneur status?

Recently, an article in the Wall Street Journal touched on the importance of networking and support systems while downplaying the importance of choice of school and grades in college.

This piqued the interest of Christine Janssen, Ph.D., director of the Entrepreneurial Programat the Gabelli School of Business and co-director of both Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Fordham Foundry, a small-business incubator in the Bronx launched in 2012 in partnership with New York City government agencies.

So, in a guest OpEd with VC-List, a blog for the venture capital industry, Janssen dishes out her own advice:

“Where you go to school is important. Aspiring entrepreneurs should choose a school that possesses more than a longstanding reputation and brand recognition. What can really differentiate one’s experience and outcome are resources, mentors, and access to non-traditional learning experiences that the school can offer,” Janssen wrote in her piece, “How Should College Play a Role in Educating Future Entrepreneurs?”

Janssen also doled out advice for how best to educate for budding and aspiring entrepreneurs:

• Entrepreneurs evolve from any given major, but I would also propose that students should be able to customize their educational experience. While there are certain subjects that all aspiring entrepreneurs should master (accounting, finance, communications, management and just about anything related to technology), college can no longer be a one-size-fits-all proposition.
• Do not ignore grades. A student’s grades don’t necessarily reflect what they have learned or if what was learned is relevant, but a healthy transcript still is a reflection of a student’s effort and commitment. I would certainly select someone with a 4.0 grade point average over a 2.8 GPA any day to join my startup.
• Network. In every core class in my entrepreneurship program, students are REQUIRED to attend professional networking events – and they may not be university-sponsored events or events on campus. That’s too easy. My job is to expose them to the real world and begin building a toolbox of skills and resources so when they complete my program they will have dozens of relationships (and potential mentors) established to help them build out their careers – whether launching a new venture, working at a startup, or being the innovation catalyst at a larger organization. Pushing students out of their comfort zones is a one small step for students, one giant leap for new business creation.

Read the rest of her piece at VC-List, and watch this video about a couple of young students–two brothers–who created and ran a boot camp for young teen entrepreneurs, with help from the Fordham Foundry.

Just as the football team was taking the Patriot League Title and the women’s basketball is gearing up for what is sure to be yet another winning season, theFordham Rams Sailing Team was ranked among the top 10 in a coaches’ poll taken by Sailing World Magazine.

With little of the fanfare rightfully accorded to the University’s varsity teams, Fordham Sailing is a club team that has quietly been improving since it was reintroduced to the University after a 27-year hiatus.

Breaking the Top 10 ranking of the Intercollegiate Sailing Association of North America (ICSA) is a first for the team. It’s No. 7 position of the ICSA’s 230 varsity and club coed teams is made all the sweeter in that it also makes Fordham the No. 1 ranking among the 194 club teams. In addition, the team bested several nautical colleges, including U.S. Naval Academy, SUNY Maritime, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Club director Joe Sullivan, FCRH ‘58, said that he and several other alumni had been scouring the country to recruit students with a sailing background. The results are a diverse group of men and women from around the country.

Sullivan said the team was founded in 1950, became varsity in 1955, and continued through 1971 before being dropped. In 1999 Sullivan and his fellow alumni went to then athletic director Frank McLaughlin with a proposal to start up the team again. With McLaughlin’s blessing the team signed 102 players, 29 of whom had sailing experience, and seven of whom would go on to build the beginnings of today’s winning team.

Today the club is a member of the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA), one of seven regional conferences of ICSA. The team operates out of the Morris Yacht Club on City Island.

For several years Sullivan pitched in with coaching, together with former Head Coach Reed Johnson, but happily ceded his position this past June to current Head Coach Johnnny Norfleet after a three-person search committee helped snag Norfleet from the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson recruited most of the current roster that Norfleet took to the top ten.

“Johnny was the unanimous choice,” said Sullivan.

Sullivan said that from the standpoint of “men and women for others” the team has raised funds for the Children’s Tumor Foundation and pitched in with clean-up on City Island after Hurricane Sandy.

“The admissions office is happy because our kids come from all over the country, their geographical diversity is superb,” he said. “And they’re great students, I’ll bet we’ve got the highest GPA of any team on campus.”

Here’s how the rankings played out:

1. Yale
2. Georgetown
3. Boston College
4. Charleston
5. Tufts
6. Dartmouth
7. FORDHAM
8. Roger Williams
9. Harvard
10. Stanford

Here’s the article:

As a social worker at New Alternatives For Children in Manhattan, she helps kids who have severe physical, emotional, and behavioral challenges and developmental disabilities. They come from all five boroughs of New York City, and many of them live at the poverty level, Whitlock says. She connects them with a range of health and social services, helping them find the support they need to remain at home with their family or, in some cases, find an adoptive family.

“I really love [working in]child welfare,” she says. “I think the biggest impact a social worker can make is with a child, before other outside factors come in. Nothing will keep you more grounded.”

Whitlock’s path to social work was one lined with detours and transformative experiences. A native of Cheshire, Connecticut, she dreamed of becoming an artist. At Roger Williams University, she majored in visual arts, later adding minors in marine biology and sociology. “I was totally lost,” she says. “I wanted to do everything.”

After graduating in 2003, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a paralegal at a law firm, conducting research on low-income housing policy. Three years later, she left for New York City to take a job at the Nonprofit Finance Fund, analyzing social impact data and reviewing loans for nonprofit clients. She also would be close to her younger brother, Mark, who was living in the city while attending Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Not long after she moved to the city, Mark was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Whitlock shared an apartment with her brother and supported him while he was undergoing treatments. After 18 months battling the disease, Mark passed away on May 19, 2010, two weeks before his law school graduation day.

“I had an awesome journey with him,” says Whitlock, who is an active volunteer with the National Brain Tumor Society. “Something happened to me while he was sick. That experience, I couldn’t go back to my office job. I wanted to do something more meaningful.”

She enrolled in Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) and found an immediate camaraderie with her fellow students. Like her, she says, they all had a significant reason for wanting to be a social worker. In the MSW program, she studied leadership and macro policy, and completed internships at the Brooklyn Family Defense Project and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center.