Appropriate for this time of uncertainty—the event was one of the last held on campus before the University canceled events due to the new coronavirus—the day’s keynote lecture focused on anxiety and environmental stressors. David Marcotte, S.J., associate professor of psychology, known for his teachings on the psychology of well-being, was asked to deliver the Romero Lecture, sponsored by the Romero Center of Camden, New Jersey. Teresa Garibay, director of the Romero Center Ministries, said it was the first time a Romero lecture was given outside of South Jersey and not to their local supporters. For several years, students from Fordham volunteered with the center’s Urban Challenge Program, a service-learning retreat that brings students into contact with Camden’s underserved communities. Fordham students who participated in the program over winter break were on hand to welcome Romero Center staff to campus.

“We have had a relationship with Fordham for years, but for this lecture, it is a very different audience,” she said. “It’s nice to see professors and students who came and volunteered in January.”

Father Marcotte’s lecture followed the panel of Fordham professors who discussed how they were integrating community-engaged scholarship into their classrooms. He encouraged the audience to foster a “culture of engagement,” but he reminded participants to maintain their own well-being. Seeing the need and suffering of fellow community members can take a toll on students and faculty alike, he said.

He said humankind has made significant progress, including a global poverty rate that dropped from 90% in 1900 to 10% today and a literacy rate of 90% worldwide for those under 25 years of age. And yet, while global challenges have become more integrated, worldwide responses have become more fragmented.

“We may enjoy many advances, but they’re not universal,” he said.

He noted that 91% of American young people from 15 to 21 years of age experience some physical or emotional symptoms of stress. Anecdotally, he said, his own students say they are under a lot of stress in school, but mostly affected by factors off-campus. Specifically, he cited an American Psychological Association study that found that 75% of young people are scared of mass shootings, 57% are concerned about deportation, and 53% experienced sexual harassment. He emphasized that the World Health Organization defines well-being not simply as an absence of disease or physical harm, but also of being mentally well with the ability to thrive. He charged the crowd with taking care of themselves first before going about their business of engaging with others.

“In building programs for both students and for the community, the more you can focus on building on strengths and abilities, I think you’ll get further down the road than trying to fix weaknesses later,” he said.

It’s a notion that Arto Woodley, Ed.D., executive director of Community Engaged Learning, referred to as an “asset-based approach” to community engagement.

“Community leaders are not waiting for us to save them,” he said. “Their needs will always exist and we don’t have the capacity to help that, but the question should be, ‘How can we strategically combine our assets with their assets to build great capacity?”

He noted that many of the professors who participated in the morning session found that by teaming with community organizations, they and their students developed as “humble listeners.”

Michael “Mick” McCarthy, S.J., vice president for Mission Integration and Planning, said the new service-learning courses took professors well beyond their stated disciplines.

“They’re incredibly creative and they are all moving past their own expertise in ways that are pedagogically very helpful in advancing the mission of the University,” said Father McCarthy.

But several in the audience, including Woodley, said they hoped the symposium would advance service learning beyond the perception of novelty courses.

“The faculty need more incentives than disincentives, but they have all these barriers,” he said. “Most departments will say wait till you’re tenured before doing this kind of work, but this is an institution that says it values this work. We need to work it into the tenure system.”

Jackie Reich, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies and member of the Reimagining Higher Education Initiative, echoed a recent talk at the University given by Cathy N. Davidson, Ph.D., author of The New Education (Basic Books, 2017). Davidson suggested reworking the academic reward system so that there is parity between all aspects of a faculty member’s work.

“We need to restructure the academic reward system of teaching, research, and service so that they’re not separate silos,” said Reich. “We need to bring those all together and I think community-engaged learning and scholarship provides such a great model for that. We need to create a reward system for faculty who do this kind of work because it is so labor-intensive.”

An afternoon session examined the very specific angle of community-engaged learning with a panel of scholars teaching and researching within the criminal justice system. Professors from Columbia University, Nassau Community College, Pace University, Fordham, and the nonprofit Prison-to-College Pipeline discussed the challenges and opportunities of each of their programs.

The symposium wrapped up with a breakout session of roundtable conversations focused on defining engaged scholarship specifically at Fordham. Fordham College at Rose Hill junior Nathaniel Guenther went so far as to say that community-engaged learning should become part of the core curriculum, particularly for first-year students.

“I was able to voice my opinions on what community-engaged learning has meant to me in the past and what improvements can be made on in the future,” he said of the session. “To have my opinions heard by Fordham alumni and professors looking to expand these kinds of courses was helpful for both parties.”

Such is the crux of the urban experience, circa 2019, according to speakers at “The Global Metropolis: Power and Policy in the 21st Century,” a panel held at Fordham’s School of Law on Feb. 6.

The discussion, part of the Maloney Library’s Behind the Book series, featured the Urban Law Center’s faculty director, Nestor Davidson, and associate director, Geeta Tewari, co-editors of Global Perspectives in Urban Law: The Legal Power of Cities (Routledge, 2018), as well as Annika Hinze, Ph.D., director of the Urban Studies program and co-author of City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America, 10th Edition (Routledge, 2018). David J. Goodwin, GSAS’ 12, the author of Left Bank of the Hudson: Jersey City and the Artists of 111 1st Street (Fordham University Press, 2017), creator of the three-year-old series, and assistant director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, moderated the panel.

Small But Significant Victories

An issue that often brings this divide to light is immigration. One way that cities can assert their positions, said Davidson, is through the courts. Municipalities that had declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants have gained a small degree of power through recent legal victories, he said. The court battles came as the Trump administration has tried to punish cities for refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by withholding unrelated funds.

“The targeting of the current administration so specifically against cities was such an indefensible overreach from a legal perspective. Whatever you think of the policy, half a dozen courts have looked at it and struck it down as unconstitutional,” said Davidson, who is also the Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use, and Property Law at the Law School.

“So that has given cities a toehold, legally, for a certain level of more political power.”

He also noted that although it’s been nearly a generation since the mayor of a major city has ascended to a level of national elected office, they have influenced major policy areas nonetheless.

“Think about what Bloomberg did here in New York when it comes to public health. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) has adopted a lot of the measures that were pioneered here with obesity and sugary drinks. We were that classic laboratory of experimentalism,” he said.

Where Partisanship is Unwelcome

That experimentalism cuts across ideological lines. Tewari, who also publishes fiction, said that when she and Davidson edited Global Perspectives, they were careful to give the eleven papers included in the book an unbiased take.

“In my fiction, my characters are partisan, and have certain political and social views [they express], whereas in our work at the urban law center and in our volumes, we strive to take into account all sides of arguments. Our goal is to get to the heart of the issue in a focused way,” she said.

The notion that urban politics in the United States is constantly evolving as a dynamic interaction between governmental power, private actors, and a politics of identity, is a key aspect of City Politics, which was originally published in 1994. For Hinze, an associate professor of political science, editing the latest edition had extra resonance. The first author, Dennis R. Judd, Ph.D., professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a mentor of hers in graduate school. In addition to revising data, she added sections related to the 2016 presidential election, race, and violence.

“It was certainly different because I knew there was another name on the cover that was carrying half the reputation of this book, so it was some extra pressure not to screw up. At first, it was intimidating, but then there was a lot of freedom to say ‘Well, this is something I really want to bring out,’” she said.

Tackling Big Problems Together

During the Q&A part of the discussion, one audience member wondered if, perhaps the federal government had an interest in preventing cities from defying it on big issues. Hinze said she thought it did, but noted it would be difficult to do so without undermining local democracy. And in any case, she said, cities are actually well suited to tackle big problems through groups like the Global Parliament of Mayors, a coalition of mayors from around the globe. Immigration becomes a more pressing concern for mayors, for instance, when members of immigrant communities fear they may be deported and are thus less likely to work with the police to solve crimes.

“Cities are not in a legal position to rival federal or national governments, but at the same time, they can have this really useful cross-fertilization process, where mayors get together and they talk. We’re seeing the bike share program right now that’s taking off in cities all over the world. That was a Dutch program that just took off just by being disseminated and shared by mayors.”

Davidson said a bigger cause for concern is that urban dwellers forget their suburban and rural brethren who are not benefitting from the renaissance that cities are experiencing today.

“We’re at a point in globalization where people who live in Singapore and Johannesburg and London have more in common with people who live in Manhattan than perhaps people who live in Manhattan have with people who live in upstate, rural New York,” he said.

These divides can be seen on a global scale as well. Both Brexit and the 2016 United States presidential election exposed stark ideological differences along geographical lines within one nation.

“There is a risk of exacerbating the traditional urban/rural conflict,” he said.

“When that goes global, there are some real challenges.”

With this in mind, a new collaboration spanning four schools across Fordham will revitalize the way real estate education is delivered at the University.

“Real estate is one of the largest industries in the city and in the country overall,” said Nestor Davidson, associate dean for academic affairs at the law school and co-director of the Fordham Urban Law Center.

“To be a successful real estate professional today, you have to be able to navigate multiple aspects—marketing, management, finance, law, policy. As a university, we’re well-suited to build that platform.”

Building that very platform is at the heart of FIRE, Davidson said. Its first objective has been to spotlight each school’s approach to substantive and pedagogical questions concerning real estate, and to examine how these approaches might formulate a holistic real estate education.

“This gets into questions of housing, of inequality, of what it means to be a city today,” Davidson said. “As the Jesuit university of New York City, Fordham has always been in the city and of the city… And, as a university, we have an obligation to engage with these questions.”

Second, FIRE has been reaching out to alumni from law, business, and the humanities who work in real estate to serve as resources and mentors for current Fordham students seeking careers in the industry.

The alumni will also benefit from the initiative, said Kevin Mirabile, DPS, clinical assistant professor of finance and business economics at the Gabelli School. Ultimately, the members of FIRE hope to establish executive education opportunities for working professionals.

These opportunities would be cross-disciplinary—much the same as the real estate industry itself.

“Once alumni graduate from their respective schools, the lines get blurred in terms of the actual work they do,” Mirabile said. “Often, a person in this field is called upon to have some legal knowledge, an understanding of urban economy, of accounting, and more.

“There’s a whole universe of people who go on to operate in a field outside of their original academic discipline or who need to manage people across disciplines. We think that’s an audience that would like to come back to Fordham for lifelong learning opportunities,” he said.

FIRE’s goals to offer continuing education and to align the University’s diverse real estate pedagogies are pertinent as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, said Rosemary Wakeman, PhD, director of the urban studies program. Real estate professionals will need to be prepared to grapple with these manifold challenges.

“It’s not just the number of people coming into cities, but what happens to the building and real estate industries under the pressures of housing demands, gentrification, commercial development,” Wakeman said.

“These are not just industry questions. These are also social and cultural questions, and they’re important ones for everyone involved… It’s an industry you have to deal with from a wide variety of lenses.” 

Like so many tech phrases that have been trending over the past few years, the term “smart cities” takes a complex concept and boils it down to a buzz tag.

“It’s is an umbrella term that covers a whole range of tech changes happening in cities, from how governments interact with their citizens to how they make use of their data,” said Nestor Davidson, professor of law and director of the Fordham Urban Law Center.

Davidson was putting the finishing touches on a symposium titled “Smart Law for Smart Cities: Regulation, Technology, and the Future of Cities.” The event will be held at Fordham Law School on Feb. 27 and 28, and is co-organized by the Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Fordham Urban Studies Program, the Center on Law and Information Policy, and the Center for Digital Transformation.

“The programs worked really hard together to bring in panelists that could engage in a very interdisciplinary dialogue,” said R.P. Raghupathi, Ph.D., director of the Center for Digital Transformation and professor of business analytics in the Schools of Business. “Our program focuses more on the tech and application, so we’re dealing a lot with data.”

The symposium will primarily explore the regulatory landscape for potentially disruptive advances in urban governance from a variety of sectors, including energy, sustainability, surveillance, and healthcare.

“Whether it’s on the data side or on the infrastructure side, there are concerns that laws could become a barrier to progress,” said Davidson. “My sense is that the legal side isn’t as prominent a part of the conversation as it should be.”

Davidson said that with technology advancing so rapidly, the pace of law remains at a pre-digital grind. Legal reform that can respond to the pace of change and yet allow for thoughtful deliberation is becoming increasingly important, he said.

Much of the conversation on smart cities focuses on privacy concerns. Davidson cited the example of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent initiative to reduce traffic deaths by installing cameras. The initiative has been celebrated by pedestrian and cycling activists, but has also become a cause for privacy advocates. In Great Britain, Davidson said, there is currently a national conversation about the pros and cons of security camera surveillance—yet cameras are already ubiquitous.

“The best we can do now is to have a dialogue before the technology is already there and we can’t participate,” he said. “People need to understand the benefits and the costs before it all becomes a reality.”

Data gathered by urban surveillance cameras reflects larger policy concerns, such as who has access to it. Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law and director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, will moderate a panel on surveillance data.

Davidson said smart city technology could potentially foster openness by creating community conversations that extend beyond local libraries and church basements, while at the same time giving community boards access to the city’s data. One panel, “Perspectives from the Public Sector,” will feature Manhattan Borough President Gail Brewer, who recently launched an initiative to train community board members on parsing the city’s data. Brewer has been a longtime advocate for opening the government’s data closet, having sponsored the city’s open data legislation in 2012.

“We have to make city data usable and we have to be able to coordinate the various agencies,” said Brewer, who noted that city agencies often use different terminology for the same thing-—for example, to describe building locations. “Community boards have none of this expertise, but we have a posse of people who care about tech and government (and) who can help them sort through the data.”

If knowledge is power then educating the public will be key. A panel moderated by Rosemary Wakeman, Ph.D., professor of history and director of the Urban Studies Program, will focus on resident engagement.

“It’s one thing to access the data, but it’s another to have power over it,” said Wakeman.

In addition, there are concerns regarding equal access to broadband. Another panel will explore this “new digital divide” and how the technology will affect people’s everyday lives.

“Smart cities have almost a utopian quality; it makes it seem as though things will be good and happy and perfect,” said Wakeman. “But there’s also a specter of dystopia where everyone could become part of a systemized grid.”

The Fordham Urban Law Journal will publish a selection of articles and essays from participants. Panelists said that they hope the articles will lay the groundwork for a scholarly discourse on the role of law in the technological transformation of urban governance.

“I can’t wait to see the results and how we can begin to implement them,” said Brewer.

“New York City is an economic engine and one of the most efficient places in the world to make money,” said Jackson. “We can’t possibly make the city so secure without destroying the very reason we want to live here in the first place.”

The daylong conference, sponsored by the Fordham Urban Law Journal, the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, and the William and Burton Cooper Chair on Urban Legal Issues, examined the impact the threat of terrorism has had on urban architecture and design, constitutional rights, and security in American cities.

Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security barricades were erected around potential terrorist targets and access was limited at many public places.

“The security parameters…that are so central to the response for 9/11…fundamentally endanger our ability to build cities in the spirit that has created their greatness,” said David Dixon, an urban designer at Goody Clancy & Associates in Boston, Mass., and a panelist at the conference. “It is the buildings and spaces that promote the free exchange of ideas and that are the bedrock of great cities.”

Peter Marcuse, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, echoed that belief and explained that the attacks prompted a shift in priorities in major cities that has “distorted” their planning processes.

There are efforts underway to limit the adverse impact of security measures at public places. Patricia Gallagher, executive director for the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington, D.C. and a panelist said, that her commission provides planning guidance for federal land and buildings in and around Washington, D.C. Utilizing street furniture, benches, lampposts, bus shelters, water fountains, garden walls, planters and fencing, the commission strives to improve security while not undermining the form and function of public places.