Fordham’s donors, alumni, and friends gathered on Nov. 8 not only to honor the Founder’s Scholars—Fordham students whose scholarships are supported by the event—but also to pay tribute to the evening’s honorees: Emanuel “Manny” Chirico, GABELLI ’79, PAR; his wife Joanne M. Chirico, PAR; and Joseph H. Moglia, FCRH ’71.

“I would like to thank all of you for supporting this long-overdue annual celebration of our beloved University,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

Father McShane noted that there was “eager longing” for this Founder’s Dinner, in part because of the last 18 months but also because it kicked off the new campaign for the student experience.

“We also celebrate the public launch of the Cura Personalis campaign, a campaign that will make it possible for the University to continue to redeem the promise that it has made to its students for 180 years: the promise to provide them with the kind of personal, empowering, and transformative care that has always been the hallmark of a Fordham education,” he said. “I am happy to tell you that, thanks to the generosity that you have already shown, we have already raised $170 million toward the $350 million goal. And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

All attendees were required to be fully vaccinated and wear a mask when entering The Glasshouse, which featured sweeping views overlooking the Hudson, outdoor terraces, and an airy ballroom lit by modern chandeliers.

Supporting the Students

David Ushery, the anchor for NBC 4 New York’s 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekday newscasts, emceed the Founder’s Dinner, which began in 2002 and has raised more than $42 million to support the Fordham Founder’s Scholarship Fund. Ushery received an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2019, and his wife, Isabel Rivera-Ushery, is a 1990 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

“You have supported 130 Fordham students through this program—students who would not have benefited from our fine Jesuit education without your support and generosity,” Ushery told the more than 1,000 attendees. “You have impacted the scholars’ career paths as they are ‘setting the world on fire.’ Your impact on them guides their impact on others.”

The New Campaign

That impact will be taken to new levels through the University’s new fundraising campaign. Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, which aims to enhance the student experience as well as prepare students to work for social justice and be leaders in today’s world. The campaign pledges to renew Fordham’s commitment to care for the whole student as a unique, complex person and to nurture their gifts accordingly.

The campaign features four main pillars: access and affordability, academic excellence, student wellness and success, and athletics—with diversity, equity, and inclusion goals embedded in each of them. The night also featured the debut of a new campaign video that highlights the student experience at Fordham.

Founder’s Scholar Sydney Veazie, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said that the Jesuit value of cura personalis, or care of the whole person, has been an essential part of her experience at Fordham. At Fordham, Veazie said, the Latin noun cura is transformed into a verb—something that students, faculty, and staff put into action.

“[Cura Personalis] becomes an active call, a mission statement, and a defining feature of this University to care for the students who call it home—to attend to us and to our needs,” said Veazie, a double major in international political economy and classical civilization. “Each student can expect personalized care, personalized attention during our time here.”

Veazie, a Fordham tour guide who currently volunteers as a team lead for the Fordham chapter of Consult Your Community and at Belmont High School, said she plans to take the lessons of cura personalis that she learned at Fordham and carry them forward.

“I’ll be going to law school in the fall of 2022, and I eventually hope to work in government and politics and infuse cura into everything I do,” she said.

Veazie said that none of this would have been possible for her or her fellow Founder’s Scholars without the support of those in attendance.

“I cannot stress enough how important this kind of investment is,” she said. “Fordham’s emphasis on cura personalis yields a student body, a community, that itches to pay forward the lessons, the care, and the holistic development we’ve received during our time here.”

Thomas Reuter, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill and United Student Government president, served as student MC for the second half of the program. He said the campaign will help ensure that all students feel at home at Fordham and that they’re able to take advantage of the opportunities the University offers.

“This campaign will invest in what we love most about Fordham…its student-centered Jesuit, Catholic education that nurtures the whole person,” he said. “This campaign will renew and enhance our distinctive educational experience that has transformed lives since Fordham was founded in 1841.”

Honorees

Father McShane expressed gratitude to the evening’s honorees for their efforts to support Fordham’s mission and its students.

“You are extraordinary … you are generous with your time, treasure, and talent … and you stand as exemplars of the renewal of the University in its identity and mission,” he said.

Manny Chirico, a titan of the fashion industry, is the longtime chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., the world’s second-largest apparel company; he plans to retire next month. Chirico served as the company’s CEO beginning in 2006 and as its board chairman since 2007. He currently serves on the boards of Montefiore Medical Center and Save the Children, while Joanne serves as the vice president of the Parish Council at Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe, New York, and is on the board of Montfort Academy.

Manny, who is also a Fordham trustee, recalled that when he was a senior at Fordham, he took a philosophy class with a Jesuit professor who quoted St. Ignatius Loyola: “Go forth and set the world on fire.”

“I really like that quote, it sounded like something Vince Lombardi would say just before he sent his team out to play in the Super Bowl,” Chirico said. “I had no idea what it meant, but I wrote it down in my notebook.”

Chirico said that he asked the priest what this quote actually meant.

“In typical Jesuit fashion, he said to me, ‘Young man, that’s what you need to figure out,’” he said. “So for the last 40 years, I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to go forth and set the world on fire—I’m still working on it—but I do realize that there is no formula and no set answer. It’s a challenge to make a difference in the small things we do every day.”

Joe Moglia has combined his love of finance and football throughout his life, working as a championship-winning defensive coordinator at Dartmouth before joining the MBA training program at Merrill Lynch and eventually becoming CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade, a post he held for more than 24 years, before returning to football as the head coach at Coastal Carolina University. Moglia currently serves as the chair of athletics at Coastal Carolina and board chairman of Fundamental Global Investors and Capital Wealth Advisors.

When he was a senior at Fordham, Moglia took a job coaching at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, and said that he wanted to provide his players with something more than just a desire to win.

“How do you lay the foundation upon which those boys become men?” he said.

“We created a philosophy that said, ‘A real man, a real woman, a real leader, stands on their own two feet, takes responsibility for themselves, always treats others with dignity and respect, and deals with the consequences of their actions,” he said.

Moglia said that this mindset and philosophy came from Fordham.

“This is a university for others, that loves others, so for me, for whatever I may have accomplished in my life, at the end of the day I’m so incredibly proud to be part of Fordham … and hopefully as I go forward, I continue to make Fordham proud,” he said.

The Chiricos and Moglia were originally supposed to be honored in 2020, but that Founder’s Dinner was canceled due to the pandemic. They were also recognized earlier this year at a virtual toast for scholars and honorees.

The night also featured several performances: Tyler Tagliaferro, a 2017 graduate of the Fordham College at Lincoln Center, played the bagpipes as guests walked in; the Young People’s Chorus of New York City performed; Jesira Rodriguez, a Fordham College at Lincoln Center senior and a Founder’s Scholar, sang the national anthem; and the Fordham Ramblers closed the evening with an a cappella rendition of “The Ram,” Fordham’s fight song.

Father McShane called on those in attendance to honor the members of the Fordham community who preceded them by investing in and supporting current students.

“You were formed by and now possess the intangibles that make for Fordham’s greatness, and that distinguish Fordham from other universities,” he said. “You are men and women for others. You are men and women of character, grit, determination, integrity, expansiveness of heart, and restlessness of spirit. And so, I turn to you to enable Fordham to make the kind of rich transformative experience that you received here available to your younger brothers and sisters.”

“It has been, as we New Yorkers would say, ‘a hell of a year.’ And yet, we, Fordham, did not surrender,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, raising a glass from his office at the Rose Hill campus to his computer screen during the virtual event. “Against all odds, and thanks in no small measure to your great generosity, we were once again able to lean into the moment and to move forward with a sense of purpose and with defiant hope … On behalf of everyone at Fordham, especially our students, I thank you for your ongoing support—support that enabled us to prevail and to dream of a future filled with hope.”

The event offered an immediate way to celebrate the scholars, donors, and honorees this spring, when the Founder’s Dinner would normally take place. The in-person dinner has been rescheduled for Nov. 8, with plans for the usual Founder’s fanfare at a new Manhattan venue—the Glasshouse—pending guidance from city and state authorities.

More than 100 members of the Fordham community gathered on Zoom to salute the 2021 Fordham Founder’s Award recipients: Emanuel (Manny) Chirico, GABELLI ’79, PAR, chairman and former CEO of the global apparel company PVH Corp., and his wife, Joanne M. Chirico, PAR, and Joseph H. (Joe) Moglia, FCRH ’71, former CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade, chairman of Fundamental Global Investors and Capital Wealth Advisors, chairman of FG New America Acquisition Corp., and chair of athletics and executive advisor to the president at Coastal Carolina University.

“Although we’re not together in person, we are thrilled to be together virtually to celebrate,” said Darlene Luccio Jordan, FCRH ’89, Fordham trustee and Founder’s Dinner co-chair. “We have, this evening, our Founder’s honorees, past and present, and all of you: our generous donors and our Fordham Founder’s scholars, representatives of the University’s most diverse scholarship fund.” 

This past year, the University raised $2,658,795 for the Fordham Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund—the largest amount raised since the first Fordham Founder’s Dinner in 2002—and celebrated the close of Faith and Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid. The newest fundraising campaign, which will focus on the student experience, will be launched at the rescheduled 2021 Founder’s Dinner, said Luccio, co-chair of the new campaign.

Then and Now: A Video Update from 17 Former Founder’s Scholars 

The virtual reception began with the screening of a pre-recorded video featuring former Founder’s Scholars who provided updates on their careers and growing families, from as near as the South Bronx and as far away as Belgium. Among them was an aspiring family medicine physician at University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, a director of strategy at The New York Times, a communications strategist who works with the European Commission, and a Harvard Law School graduate and current director on Barclays’ litigation team in New York, where she lives with her husband, a fellow Fordham alumnus, and their two-year-old daughter.

“As you can see and hear, not only are they all over the United States and the world, but they are having incredible experiences in making impacts on our society,” said Luccio, a Founder’s 2012 honoree, directly addressing the donors on the Zoom call. “And I know all of you are just as proud as I am to be a part of this incredible group in supporting these absolutely amazing young men and women.” 

An Aspiring Cosmologist, A Woman Leader in Global Business, and A Future Ambassador

Three of the current 48 Founder’s scholars shared their stories and gratitude in real time. They reflected on how their Fordham scholarships helped them pursue their career goals amid the pandemic and beyond. 

Benjamin Coco, FCRH ’23, said he is able to attend Fordham for a fifth year to finish his double degree in physics and English and double minor in math and philosophy, thanks to the Founder’s Scholarship. 

“I was inspired by former Founder’s Award recipient, Alex Trebek, to pursue as much knowledge as I can,” said Coco, who plans on pursuing a doctorate in astrophysics. “This universe is filled with countless mysteries, and I hope to discover many of them. I want to express my most sincere gratitude to all of you for making this happen for me.” 

For Kristen Harb, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business and a California native, the pandemic posed a series of challenges. Despite the distance and three-hour time zone difference, Harb worked with her classmates to create the first club at the Lincoln Center campus focused on empowering women in finance and economics, where she helped to mentor more than 120 students. 

“In May, I will receive much more than a degree in global business,” said Harb. “In the past year, I have learned so much about what I am capable of in times of hardship and how my Jesuit education has prepared me to thrive in the face of adversity—and for that, I am eternally grateful.” 

The third and final student speaker, Tauland Kaca, FCLC ’21, shared a personal anecdote. When he was 8 years old, his family immigrated to the U.S. from Albania, a former communist regime that limited his parents’ career paths. Kaca said his parents sacrificed their livelihoods and family ties at home to give him and his older brother access to greater opportunities abroad. But a lack of resources began to jeopardize their hopes for their two sons. 

“Since my parents endured many financial burdens to support my brother, who also went to Fordham and then to Columbia for his master’s, I decided to commute from Brooklyn to the Lincoln Center campus. Regardless, it didn’t take long for me to realize the financial strain my Fordham education was placing on my family … When I received the Fordham Founder’s scholarship last year, those worries faded away. This is especially true amid the pandemic, since my parents have been laid off for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, my dreams have yet to be derailed,” said Kaca, who is considering becoming a judge or a foreign ambassador. “I want to thank you for your support, but most importantly, I want to thank you for your willingness to help students like myself work towards their dreams, free of financial worry.” 

‘This Evening is Our Gift to You’ 

The hour-long evening reception included several other components, including an opening prayer from Fordham trustee Thomas J. Regan, S.J.; pre-recorded performances from Fordham’s Satin Dolls, Ramblers, and the University Choir; and a virtual wine tasting conducted by Gabriella Macari, GABELLI ’09, general manager of Macari Vineyards on the North Folk of Long Island. Two Founder’s scholars, Sydney Veazie, FCRH ’22, and Cameron Chiulli, GABELLI ’21, also livened up the night with several Fordham-related trivia questions, which guests participated in via Zoom’s poll feature.

“This evening is our gift to you. The 48 Founder’s scholars are so grateful that we are still learning, thriving, and dreaming at Fordham with your generous support,” said the evening’s emcee, Founder’s scholar Stevie Rosignol-Cortez, FCLC ’21, a political science student from Texas and an aspiring foreign correspondent.

At the end of the night, Father McShane and Bob Daleo, GABELLI ’72, chair of Fordham’s Board of Trustees and co-chair of the Founder’s Dinner, offered several toasts to the three Founder’s 2021 honorees; the previous Founder’s award recipients, many of whom joined the virtual reception; and Bill Baker, president emeritus of Thirteen-WNET and Fordham’s journalist-in-residence, who retired this year from his 12-year-long role as the Founder’s Dinner emcee. 

“My friends, let me end with a final toast to the evening,” said Father McShane. “To Fordham: may she always be what she was founded to be—a daring and dangerous school where character has been formed, talent has been nurtured, and hope has been borne for 180 years.” 

The Fordham Founder’s scholar is currently on the national tour of the Broadway show Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The tour started last fall, so the Fordham College at Rose Hill junior had to take exams to complete the semester between rehearsals, performances, and travel.

Louissaint said she was grateful that her professors worked with her to coordinate her classwork remotely. She finished papers, read e-books, and persevered with the support of her fellow cast members.

“They appreciated my tenacity,” said Louissaint, a first-generation college student who was born in Haiti. “I kept my 3.5 GPA, so I’m still on track to graduate next year.”

With 19 one-week performances underway this spring, Louissaint has taken a leave of absence this semester. But despite the lure of the professional stage, she has no plans to abandon her education.

Marla Louissant performing in 2016 at Declaration of Sentiments: The Remix 

Education as Foundation

While her parents are very supportive of her artistic endeavors, she said, they want to make sure she’s educated in a field that’s not as volatile as the arts. Having not had the chance at a college degree themselves, her parents see the value in a foundational education, she said.

“My family wants me to have a more solid career, something else that can help support us,” she said.

Louissaint was raised in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, near 158th and Amsterdam Ave. The extended family lives in the same neighborhood: Louissaint’s grandmother lives downstairs and her aunt lives next door. Louissaint helps pay for her grandmother’s rent as well as her own college tuition. Before landing the role in Beautiful, she worked desk jobs as a temp in various companies.

“My family can’t help me out, and a girl’s gotta eat,” she said with a laugh.

She recalled receiving an email just before she went into a computer systems class, saying she’d been selected to be a Fordham Founder’s scholar. “I called my mother and shouted ‘Amnwey!’”— which is Creole for “Oh my god!” “Wow!” and “Look here!”

A Day in the Life of the Theater

While on tour, Louissaint’s typical day starts with breakfast and a walk around whatever city she’s touring in.

“I like to see what the city has to offer,” she said. “It’s easy to want to sit around and catch up on TV shows, but I like to explore the cities because chances are I won’t be visiting again.”

She then makes her way back to the hotel to warm up her voice for 20 minutes or more, “depending on how long that cast was out on the town the night before,” she said.

Then it’s off to the gym for a couple of hours before the show.

“It’s important to condition my body, especially if I have to dance to the song ‘Locomotion’ once, sometimes twice a day,” she said.

Every day she says she sets aside time at lunch to call family back home.

“I find a cute cafe to eat in and get to dialing my mom, dad, sister, grandmas, and everybody I haven’t heard from in a while,” she said.

Even though she’ll be on tour, Louissaint said she’ll be at the Fordham Founder’s Gala on March 19. She looks forward to seeing her family, and reassuring them that she’s still committed to getting her degree. 

Where Art and Science Meet

While Louissaint said she was always proficient in math, she said she didn’t discover her acting talents until she was a junior in high school. There, she won a best actress award in The National High School Musical Theater Awards. She got an agent and was soon performing off-Broadway opposite James Earl Jones in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

While it may seem that her chosen fields of theater and computer science have little to do with each other, she said she sees the connection.

“You always have to use creative thinking [in both]acting and writing code,” she said.

Another similar factor, she said, is staying power. If something goes wrong onstage, the show must go on. She said the same persistence is required in writing code.

“It’s fight or flight in both fields,” she said.