“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.” 

“When you become a mother, you think of so many things—the world that you’re bringing your child into, that they’re growing up in, and what it’s going to be like. I still think a little bit in that way,” said Meaghan Barakett, whose 2-year-old son died from Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood in 2020. “Brett and I wanted to do something to help make the world a better place—the world that Lincoln would have been living in. And we hope that our scholarship recipients want to do their part to make the world a better place, in their own way.”

The gift, made through the Brett and Meaghan Barakett Foundation this past December, will primarily support the Lincoln Barakett Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will provide financial aid for students at the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS); preference will be given to first-generation college students and those from economically disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds. The rest of the gift will support the Fordham Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund and the Fordham Fund Trustee Initiative, which provides financial resources for academic programs, student financial aid, and extracurricular initiatives.

“Brett and I believe in doing our part to give back,” said Barakett. “We want to do as much as we can to help support those who are trying to help society as part of GSS and Fordham.”

Barakett is the founder and executive director of One Girl, Inc., a nonprofit that helps young women grow as leaders through charity, advocacy, and community organizing. She is also an anti-cyberbullying advocate who has pushed for passage of the E-Impersonation Prevention Act, New York Senate Bill S5871-A, which would elevate the crime to a felony. In addition, Barakett is a two-time beauty pageant winner who won the Miss New York USA title in 2005 and Mrs. New York America in 2010.

An alumna of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service with a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership, Barakett has continued to stay involved with the University. In 2016, the same year she graduated from Fordham, her nonprofit, One Girl, and GSS’s Institute for Women & Girls hosted the first “Women in Charge” conference, which turned into an annual event held for several years. In recent years, Barakett has served as a panelist in Fordham’s 2018 Women’s Philanthropy Summit and a member of the President’s Council. Last year, she joined the University’s Board of Trustees.

“Lincoln was my inspiration for everything. He still is. To name something in his honor is an incredible privilege, and it makes me happy to know that Fordham students will be recipients of something that has our son’s name attached to it,” said Barakett. “Hopefully this scholarship fund can help his spirit to live on.”

They were married in 2007. Though they never overlapped at Fordham—Trevor graduated in 1999 and Antoinette in 2003—they agree that there was a comfort in being with someone who “shared the same passion and pride for the place we attended college.” In fact, for their second date they chose to see Man on Fire. “The reason,” says Trevor, “is because Denzel Washington [the film’s star]went to Fordham!”

“Trevor was the first person I met who understood the importance of my staying connected to Fordham and my high school volunteer work,” Antoinette says. “People wearing ‘F’ hats and shirts are popular in our lives.”

Fordham Beginnings

The couple first came to Fordham from opposite coasts. An Astoria native, Antoinette says the University has always been a presence in her life. She grew up knowing family members, neighbors, and teachers who are Fordham alumni. But it wasn’t until she toured the Rose Hill campus during her senior year of high school that “I knew I’d found my home,” she says.

“At Fordham, I was not just a number but an actual person,” says Antoinette, who commuted to campus. When her parents would pick her up at the Bathgate Avenue entrance, Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., then president of Fordham, “would come over to say hello and have a conversation,” she recalls. “I don’t think presidents at other schools do that.”

Growing up in Novato, California, Trevor didn’t know much about Fordham until he was recruited for the water polo team. Now a managing director at Signature Bank, he says that Fordham “turned out to be a tremendous call” in terms of his experience as a student-athlete, financial aid support, and an education that “set me up for success in the world of finance.”

Giving Back

Together and individually, Antoinette and Trevor have spent a lot of time supporting Fordham causes. They were both longtime active members of the Young Alumni Committee—an advisory and programming board for graduates of the past 10 years—and advised students through the Fordham Mentoring Program. Trevor still supports the water polo team. And together they’ve supported HEOP, the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, and Founder’s scholarship students; participated on Jubilee reunion class committees; and supported several athletics programs.

A newer family tradition is attending Fordham games on campus as well as regional alumni chapter events around California, on Long Island, and in Westchester with their daughter, 3-year-old Aria. Antoinette is a self-employed accountant who works from home to be with her.

“I know how important it is to help our future leaders of tomorrow, and I love volunteering with people and collaborating to improve,” Antoinette says. 

Shared Roots

Besides being passionate about similar causes, the couple shares a certain Fordham mentality that they say brings strength to their marriage.

“A Jesuit education and the Fordham experience definitely provides us with a core of our relationship. We choose to live and lead by example,” Antoinette says. “Marriage is a mix of individual and teamwork. That’s why I say you should find ‘the partner,’ because ‘the one’ is not realistic. Find someone who supports you, helps you be happy, and is open to you and the inevitable change that happens.”

Trevor agrees. “I think one of our strengths is that we both realize when something is important to the other person, and we support that,” he says.

“Plus, we are both big Star Wars and Marvel fans.” 

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?

Antoinette: I love being a mom to a toddler. I recognize that I’m her role model, even her caped crusader—sometimes I wear a cape! I set an example for her in the only way I was taught—through volunteerism and advocacy work on social justice projects. It’s the change for the greater good. Yes, I’m also an accountant. But I say I do accounting for fun and my real job is volunteering. I like knowing that Aria can look back and see results of what I did to make the world better for her generation.

Trevor: I’m most passionate about my daughter, Aria. The best part of my week is watching her progress in swimming, and now mixed martial arts. She is only 3 and has been promoted into a swim class with 5-year-olds! She has zero fear of the water and can already swim about five yards by herself if I let her go. If I tie a noodle around her, she can swim an entire length in a 25-yard pool.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Antoinette: Jeff Gray, my former work-study boss at Fordham [who is now senior vice president for student affairs], once told me that sometimes when you become overwhelmed by everything happening, you focus on one thing and forget to see how things work and affect each other—the big and little pieces. You need to learn to step back and then look in at the big picture, he said. Only then can you fully see what you are missing.

Trevor: My junior year of high school, my water polo coach told me that a big shot is just a little shot who kept shooting. I know it is a famous quote [by writer Christopher Morley], but that was the first time I had ever heard it. Playing sports teaches you a lot of things, but for me the most important is to never be scared to shoot your shot.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
Antoinette: In New York, it’s Rockefeller Center and the tree. I’m probably biased since it’s where my first full-time role was after graduating from Fordham. It’s also where my husband picked me up for our first lunch date. It’s a place that everyone in the world is drawn to visit. Now we take our daughter to visit the tree annually. It’s a nod to how places that are so chaotic or crowded can still be symbols of faith in the holidays, togetherness, and our own true wish that something better will come in the next year.

My favorite spot in the world is walking the beach and watching the sunset in Waikiki. They have fireworks on Friday nights at the Hilton Hawaiian, and I think it’s gorgeous to sit in the sand and watch the waves hitting the beach while the cool air gently blows. Trevor’s grandparents lived there for more than 30 years, and we would go every summer when we first got married. Hopefully we’ll return this fall for the Fordham football game.

Trevor: My favorite places in New York are Astoria and Fordham. Both places just kill it from a restaurant standpoint. I would say that Bahari Estiatorio in Astoria is hands down the best Greek restaurant on the planet, and Omonia is the best bakery in New York City; its baklava cheesecake is ridiculous. Fordham obviously always means a lot to me. I love the campus; it just always seems warm and inviting. Being a water polo player, the uniqueness of having a 38-meter pool is now something I smile about as well. Most pools are either 25-yard short-courses or 50-meter long-courses. NCAA Division I and international water polo are played at 30 meters, so Fordham’s unique pool still works.

Like Antoinette, my favorite spot outside of New York is Hawaii, specifically Waikiki. My Oma and Opa lived there for basically my entire childhood and through my early adult years. Perfection is sitting with a Mai Tai in the beautiful Hawaiian sun!

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
Antoinette: Gone with the Wind shows how you can go from rich to poor, poor to rich, but still have faith and a fire within to excel. Life is full of trials and tribulations. It’s not life if you can’t take the ups and downs. It takes perseverance to stay focused and overcome in order to build or rebuild. You always need to be able to self-reflect and be grateful for who and what you have in your life. Sadly, Scarlett was not able to find balance between work and life. She was always focused on someone else, but he was not worth all of the effort she spent trying to win his love. Scarlett had everything and lost the one who loved her the most. But with conviction, she concludes that she will get him back.

Trevor: I read a lot of books, but this is a tough question. It’s not my favorite, but the book I read as a kid and read again recently that probably stuck with me the most is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I think as you rise up the ladder, it’s important to keep the lessons that Dickens tried to impart in the back of your head.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
Antoinette: Joseph Cammarosano, longtime professor of economics. He taught us that “it’s not about making a living, but making a life worth living.” He helped New York state create the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) for academically and economically disadvantaged students, an invaluable program to those who qualify. I credit much of my passion for volunteerism, philanthropic efforts, and even political focus, especially in education, to Dr. C’s teaching. I don’t think you can get more Jesuit than him inspiring others to follow the core principle of men and women for and with others. I also love and admire Donna Rapaccioli [now dean of the Gabelli School], not just as my former accounting professor but for the exemplary woman she is ethically and for all of the amazing relationships and advancements she has created and continues to grow (work in progress). I hope to see more women in business, especially finance!

Trevor: Another tough question. My favorite professor at Fordham was a history professor named Robert Jones. While my concentration was finance, I have always loved history. I think I took all of my electives in classes that he taught.

Now Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, and Thomas P. Salice, GABELLI ’82, have made another investment in Fordham and its students. Their latest gift—$2 million—will support several important initiatives, leading with student scholarship as a part of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid.

The Salices are among the University’s most generous alumni. In addition to other gifts, they donated to Fordham’s last capital campaign, Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham, to build the Salice and Conley residence hall on the Rose Hill campus, named in honor of their parents. The residence has housed hundreds of Fordham students since 2010.

Susan says there’s a good reason why they give.  

“We both required scholarship dollars in order to be able to attend Fordham,” she said. She was one of the first members of her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, as was Tom the first to attend college in his family.

“If Fordham hadn’t come through, our lives would likely be quite different. We felt that the Jesuit education and values we received and embraced at Fordham made a significant difference in our lives individually—and, of course, together. That’s very powerful when you think about it.”

She has fond memories from her four years at Fordham—tutoring middle school students in the Bronx, working the grill at the McDonald’s on Fordham Road, studying for what seemed like endless hours in the library, sitting at Sunday night Mass at the University Church with her future husband. She also recalled a more recent special moment from last May—the day she and her husband saw their daughter graduate from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service. But perhaps most importantly, she feels the weight of her Fordham education at work in the skills she developed as an undergrad: leadership, curiosity, and awareness of the world around her.

“I graduated from Fordham being much more community-aware, world-aware. You question everything, interested in understanding the why,” she said, “and understanding that you have an opportunity and a responsibility to become engaged difference makers in the community and the world at large, for the greater good.”

Tom, a Fordham trustee fellow, went on to become co-founder and managing member of a private equity firm SFW Capital Partners, and the chairman of its investment committee; Susan became a vice president at Diversified Investment Advisors, a retirement investment firm.

Today, Susan devotes much of her time and resources to the causes that are important to her and her family. She is co-chair of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid and a University trustee. She also serves on other nonprofit boards. In 2017, she was also a keynote speaker at Fordham’s first annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit.

“Giving [to scholarships]  is an opportunity to change a life—to make an impact in whatever capacity you are able to do so,” she said in her keynote speech.

“Many people can usually afford more than they think they can—and I mean that in a very simple way,” she added. “Perhaps one can give up Starbucks for a week and donate that money. Over the course of a year, that amount can add up and have an important impact.”

She encourages potential donors to reconnect with their alma mater and recall how it felt to be a young, 20-something college kid with all the possibilities in the world.

“When you first graduate, you’re busy. You’re working. You may be raising a family,” she said. “But if you are able to make time to go back to campus, listen to a lecture, attend an event, actually talk to students and professors, you’re going to reconnect with Fordham. You will see the promise students hold in their faces and the potential each has to live as women and men for others.”

Less than one year ago, Guzman earned her master’s degree from the Graduate School of Education(GSE); a year before that she’d graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill, where she was a George and Marie Doty Founder’s Scholar. And yet, despite being less than six months on the job, she exuded the confidence and authority of a teaching veteran.

She credits the Five-Year Integrated Teacher Education Track with getting her acclimated to daily life in a classroom.

“The undergraduate program blends right into the graduate program,” she said. “When you’re an undergrad, the focus is on getting you comfortable being in classroom three days a week at different grade levels, so you can think about which kids you blend well with and where you’ll teach best.”

She said that’s how she realized that second and third grade were the right fit for her.

“Second and third grade is fun for me because they’re still small and they still love school,” she said. “A lot of middle schoolers are a bit too cool for school, whereas these younger students still have an innocence about them that’s really special. They love learning about the world and themselves.”

Guzman, who is the first in her family to graduate from college, said that she discovered her passion for teaching as a sophomore through the Fordham chapters of Generation Citizen and Jumpstart.

“Those clubs put us in classrooms that really opened my eyes to the inequity in New York City classrooms,” she said. “I was assigned to a classroom that used old textbooks, whereas other school districts like the one I went to have iPads and tablets.”

She said that as first-generation college student, she values education and wants to make sure students of all backgrounds get the same chance she did. She said she was thankful that she received the needed scholarships to make it happen.

“I wouldn’t be in this classroom if I hadn’t received the [Joseph C.] Zoller scholarship,” she said. “What’s unique about that scholarship is that it’s a community of teachers, so there were teachers who were really interested in my development and offered tips and tricks about being in the classroom all day, every day.”

GSE also gave her the theoretical underpinning that helped develop her approach to creating a “community of learners.”

“When a lot of us were in [middle and high]school, we learned the procedures of things, ‘You do this, and you do this next, and then this next,’” she said. “That is fine—if the questions and the problems always look exactly the same. But when they don’t, that’s where procedural teaching falls short.

“At Fordham, I learned concepts of teaching, such as ‘Why this works,’—and that pushes a student to think at a deeper level and a conceptual level.”

Such conceptual thinking doesn’t stop at the three R’s, however. It extends to getting the students to envision going to college, too. At the back of her classroom, Guzman has Fordham pennants and Fordham Ram gear. Each homeroom at Harlem Success Academy has an aspirant college, usually the teacher’s alma mater.

“They love to hear why Fordham is important to me, and that gives them a concrete impression of college,” she said.

And for those that make the trek from Harlem Success Academy to the University’s campuses, they’ll be in the Fordham Class of 2032.