A region’s second-place franchise can emerge from shadows if an owner is willing to shell out cash, Fordham University professor Mark Conrad said, citing the NBA’s Steve Ballmer, who has remarkably made L.A. Clippers games fashionable events.

“The focus of New York baseball could be shifting now,” said Conrad, who teaches sports law at Fordham’s business school.

“The Mets were run like a minor league team for years under [former owner Fred]Wilpon. And now you have [Cohen] coming with a Steve Ballmer mentality: ‘This is my thing, and I will do what it takes.’ It’s a new incarnation of a George Steinbrenner.” 

“People get excited about the $2 T-shirt” and don’t think about the impact on factory workers making the clothing, Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham, told Fordham Now.

But industry leaders are looking to help companies and consumers change, in part by incorporating more sustainable practices that are better for workers and the planet.

Three Fordham graduates in the fashion and beauty worlds shared some industry and personal insights at a recent Fordham Women’s Summit.

Corporate and Consumer Responsibility Is a ‘Give and Take’

Georgeanne Siller, GABELLI ’17, an assistant buyer for women’s apparel at Macy’s, said that customers can be “catalysts for positive change” in the fashion and beauty world through their buying habits. However, oftentimes she feels “an undue amount of responsibility falls on consumers when it’s really the companies that need to be driving the change.”

“I think that there’s a lot of company influence on consumers, things like seeing the popularity of TikTok hauls, where fashion influencers will just buy an insane amount of clothing at one time,” she said, adding that influencers can end up buying tons of products each week “looking for dupes or cheaper alternatives.”

“There’s a lot of give and take, I think, with the consumers and the companies, and I think the responsibility definitely tips towards the companies, but consumers can still be a powerful voice for that change,” she said.

Companies Can Do More to Source Sustainably Created, Long-Lasting Materials

Fast fashion usually involves “cheaply produced and priced garments” that are designed and produced quickly, according to Earth.org, an environmental news organization.

Claudia Rondinelli, FCLC ’91, head of global materials, leather, and trims at Ralph Lauren, said the company is working to “take a more proactive approach when we’re talking about material research and materials we’re using—specifically on handbags and footwear—but also in apparel.”

This means sourcing materials that will last longer, leading to less turnover and waste, as well as materials that are made sustainably, such as by using recycled products.

“It is really [about] selecting materials that are truly making a difference, and focus[ing] on the circular life of the material, not just looking at it from a short term, on how it might look like it’s less impactful on the environment, but really looking at end of life,” Rondinelli said.

Stacey Ferrara, GABELLI ’10, director of strategic initiatives and operations for Estée Lauder, said the company is working to make its sourcing practices more sustainable.

“We really want to help the communities [where] we live, work, and we source our ingredients from,” she said. “We’re partnering with organizations around the world, assisting women who are sourcing our ingredients—we’re working with them to make their lives better and help them get the tools that they need to succeed.”

An Eco-Friendly Approach to Packaging Materials Can Help Reduce Fashion and Beauty Industry Waste

One way Estée Lauder is looking to reduce waste is through their packaging, Ferrara said.

“By 2025, we aim to have at least 75% of our materials be recyclable, reusable, refillable—and refillable is something that I really am hoping is going to be a trend,” she said.

Ferrara said that this is a practice she’s incorporating at home and is starting to see it more with beauty companies, where people can bring their containers and have them refilled.

Poets&Quants calculates its scores based on a weighted average of rankings from five major sources: U.S. News & World Report, The Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, LinkedIn, and The Princeton Review. These rankings take into account factors such as long-term career outcomes, student experience, admission statistics, starting compensation for graduates, campus environment, and professor quality.

STEM-Designated Fordham MBA Program Offers Tech Skills

The full-time MBA program is STEM-designated, helping students to develop the technical and analytical skills they’ll need to succeed in an increasingly tech-dominated economy. The program features a “Gabelli Launch Month,” a month-long pre-semester initiative where incoming students participate in workshops, networking events, and projects designed to prepare them for the academic and professional challenges ahead.

“Over the past year, we’ve focused on enhancing key aspects of the program, such as experiential learning opportunities, career outcomes, and global exposure,” said Alex Markle, the full-time MBA program’s director. “I’m proud of this momentum and excited to see how we continue to build on this success.”

Both Gabelli School MBA programs offer a Jesuit business education in the heart of New York City. Admissions are selective, with the full-time MBA enrolling approximately 60 students each year, and the EMBA enrolling cohorts of approximately 30. This small cohort size allows for more personalized attention and a closer-knit student community, faculty said. 

A Focus on Values

Francis Petit, the EMBA program’s director, says the program’s success is a product of Fordham’s Jesuit values. 

“Our goal has always been, as the Jesuit EMBA Program of New York, to offer a cura personalis approach to our students that is unique, personalized, and transformative,” said Petit. “We are very proud of our dynamic EMBA students and alumni, along with our committed faculty and staff.”

“I’m grateful that they gave me a shot to come here,” said Bernard Anderson, a mixer at Greyston. “[When I] came here,” Anderson said, “I stopped going to jail.”

He and other employees who have flourished at Greyston tell its story in a documentary recently co-produced by Gabelli School of Business professor Michael Pirson, Ph.D. It’s the latest outgrowth of research by him and his colleagues about how businesses can succeed by tuning in to their employees’ humanity.

Addressing the Great Resignation

Key to this approach is promoting employees’ dignity, according to an Oct. 30 Harvard Business Review article co-authored by Pirson, Gabelli School professor Ayse Yemiscigil, Ph.D., and Donna Hicks, Ph.D., an associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

The article describes how to lead an organization with dignity—by defining it clearly, recognizing people’s inherent value, and acknowledging dignity violations, among other things. The goal is creating workspaces “where people feel seen and heard, and where they can collaborate at the next level” because of it, said Pirson, the James A. F. Stoner Endowed Chair in Global Sustainability at the Gabelli School.

Yemiscigil said it’s an urgent topic because of the so-called Great Resignation and “the epidemic of low employee engagement.”

“There are all sorts of indicators showing that the way that we manage and lead organizations is not working for the majority of people,” she said.

Creating a dignity culture, Pirson and Yemiscigil said, involves such things as listening to understand people, acknowledging employees as whole human beings, and giving employees a greater voice in the organization. “It doesn’t take long” for this culture to take hold if there’s enough intention and commitment, Pirson said.

Inspired by Sesame Street

Helping companies make this shift is the idea behind the documentaries Pirson started co-producing about four years ago after he happened to meet some of the (human) cast members of Sesame Street through a Gabelli School connection. Inspired by the show’s emphasis on human potential, he set out to feature companies that exemplify humanistic management, working with co-producer Alison Bartlett, a writer, director, and Emmy-nominated actress who was a Sesame Street cast member.

His second short film, Zen Brownie, focuses on Greyston Bakery, a supplier of Ben & Jerry’s founded in 1982 by Bernie Glassman, a physicist and Buddhist monk. (One of Glassman’s friends, Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges, narrates.) The bakery’s dignity-based open hiring policy creates “a virtuous cycle of trustworthiness,” Pirson says in the film. “Trust that you place in other people typically gets trust back” and often inspires the recipient to want to live up to that, he says.

Studying Student Behavior

His team has shown the documentaries at film festivals; they’re looking for a distributor and planning a few more films. He and Yemiscigil are also working on studies, soon to be submitted to the Journal of Business Ethics, that show how dignity can boost employees’ motivation and engagement as well as teams’ performance. Some of their findings come from a study of 800 Gabelli School students preparing for a consulting competition, working in teams.

Dignity is important not only for companies but for society because it frees us to think more about large-scale problems, Pirson said, giving climate change as an example.

Without “dignity wounds” occupying our minds, he said, “we move from a defensiveness into a space of abundance where we can create, and that is what’s necessary for our species to actually survive.”

This was the first time the Gabelli School has been named in this ranking, and its inclusion reflects investments Fordham has made to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit, said Dennis Hanno, Ph.D., who leads the school’s entrepreneurship programming.

“We are gaining momentum,” he said. “We’re dedicating more resources both in our curriculum and in places like the Fordham Foundry,” Hanno said. He noted that the Foundry, which helps students and alumni start viable, sustainable companies, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. 

Hanno cited The Ground Floor course as one example of how first-year students are exposed to entrepreneurship. Every student who takes it pitches a new business idea to a panel of judges at the end of the semester.

The Princeton Review entrepreneurship rating follows other impressive rankings for Fordham’s business school. Poets & Quants ranked the school 21st among the best undergraduate business schools in the country for 2024. In September, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Gabelli School 77th in the country. It also singled out specific undergraduate business programs: The school ranked 13th for finance, 17th for international business, 14th for marketing, 21st for accounting, and 21st for entrepreneurship. 

Hanno also noted that entrepreneurship at Fordham extends beyond the Gabelli School. The Fordham Foundry, for instance, holds a separate pitch challenge that is open to all students.

“Whether you’re in business school or not, you’re going to have opportunities here from day one to connect with people who have been entrepreneurs and have worked with entrepreneurs of all different kinds,” said Hanno.

He noted that an expansive view of entrepreneurship can be seen in the work of faculty such as Gabelli School professor Michael Pirson, Ph.D., whose research encompasses humanistic management and sustainable models of business. 

“We embrace a broader definition of entrepreneurship to include social impact as a major focus of what we do,” said Hanno, who created a Fordham course called Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rwanda. He took a group of students to the African nation last spring. 

 “So if you want to change the world, Fordham is the place for you.”

Designed for working professionals, the 30-credit degree will give students the scientific knowledge and technical skills needed to succeed in a growing field where groundbreaking developments such as gene editing and personalized medicine are advancing at a rapid pace.

The degree can be completed in one year and offers three tracks: The first, Business and Law/Regulatory, will start in January. Two others, Biochemical/Biomolecular Technologies, and Data Analytics/Informatics, will be open for enrollment in September 2025. A fourth, generalized track that allows students to personalize their interests will also be open in September.

Biotechnology Is a Growing Field

Falguni Sen, Ph.D., head of Fordham’s Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center, said hiring in the field of biotechnology is expected to increase.

“We see the potential for major growth taking place broadly in the life sciences areas, which includes biotechnology,” said Sen, who oversees the program.

Statistics paint an encouraging picture of the field. According to IBIS World Industry Reports, the market size of the U.S. biotechnology industry grew 7.7% per year on average between 2018 and 2023.

The industry, which combines engineering and natural sciences to create commercially viable therapeutics, is also important to New York City’s economy. In December, Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation offering tax incentives for growing biotech companies to create jobs in the city. According to the city’s Economic Development Corporation, an estimated 16,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the field by 2026.

What Can You Do with a Biotechnology Degree?

Sen said the specialization tracks were specifically tailored to the areas of the field where there are opportunities. A student who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and aspires to be a scientist or scientist’s assistant would benefit from the Biochemical/Biomolecular Technologies concentration. Someone who is already working in the industry and wants to include a focus on AI, on the other hand, might be drawn to the Data Analytics/Informatics specialization. 

“The informatics track allows you to become a specialist in the analytics side, but you’re not just a run-of-the-mill analytics person. You’ll be an analytics person who knows the biotech industry. That gives you a leg up,” said Sen.

Sen noted that because biotechnology is a fertile area for startup businesses, the Business and Law/Regulatory track was designed for anyone who is working in the industry and wants to strike off on their own.

“They might have a Ph.D. already, but they have an idea and really want to be an entrepreneur. They need to know what the regulatory system is, how to get venture money, how to do all of that,” he said.

Other fields graduates will be equipped for include finance, government, compliance, and biopharma. 

Practical Biotech Degree Offers Flexibility and Hybrid Learning 

Classes are a hybrid of in-person instruction and online learning, with flexible schedules designed for working professionals. 

Several new courses, such as AI in Biotech, Marketing in Biotech, and Strategic Entrepreneurship and Business Development, have been created specifically for the degree. 

“What’s wonderful about this degree is that there is a core of five courses that really give you a sense of how this industry is structured, how it makes money, what its peculiarities are, and all the possibilities that are out there,” said Sen.

“You can take all of this knowledge and harness it for whatever direction you want to take.”

The program is being offered through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and leverages the expertise of faculty from the GSAS, the Gabelli School of Business, and Fordham Law.

For prospective students, sustainability is a significant concern. Of the nearly 8,000 high school students surveyed by The Princeton Review in 2024, 61% said their college decision would be swayed by information about the school’s commitment to the environment. “We are seeing substantive interest among college applicants in attending green colleges,” said Rob Franek, the publication’s editor-in-chief.

What Makes a ‘Green College?’

The list cited a few sustainability highlights at Fordham, including its sustainability committee and dedicated sustainability officer as well as its process for tracking and reporting on greenhouse gas emissions. Fordham has made substantial investments in reducing its emissions. As of December 2023, the university had nearly 3,000 solar panels generating renewable energy. 

Fordham’s investments in updating its dining options also has an eye on sustainability. The dining halls offer plant-based options, and feature water-saving, food-waste reducing hydroponic gardens where workers snip fresh herbs for use in meals.

Fordham students can gain valuable experience in sustainable practices through internships, including one internship geared toward lowering Fordham’s carbon footprint, as well as through their coursework. Students can earn degrees in sustainable fields like environmental science, or pursue other academic paths with an environmental focus. For example, the Gabelli School of Business offers a sustainable business minor, and Fordham students can work directly with the community on environmental issues through the Center for Community Engaged Learning. 

One such opportunity came last year when the city’s Department of Transportation awarded the center a $25,000 grant to gather community input on how best to fix the Cross Bronx Expressway. Emissions from the busy roadway have long been blamed for poor health outcomes in the Bronx. Julie Gafney, the center’s director, said she envisions multiple opportunities for students to get involved with the project, from city planning to architecture to visual arts.  

Fordham also received a $50 million grant from the EPA in 2023 to partner with community groups serving people disproportionately impacted by pollution, climate change, and other environmental stressors. 

The Green Colleges List 

The Princeton Review chose the colleges on its Green Colleges List based on surveys of administrators about sustainability-related policies, practices, and programs, and student surveys about “green” campus experiences. 

As a group, the colleges on the list derived 28% of their energy from clean or renewable sources and diverted 46% of their waste from incinerators or landfills. 

Last month Fordham celebrated Yan’s appointment to the Robert Bendheim Chair in Economics and Financial Policy, which was established in 1996 with a gift from the Leon Lowenstein Foundation. He found time to talk about his work before leaving for a trip to China and Taiwan to meet with Gabelli School graduates and potential donors interested in supporting the school’s research.

Your current area of research is ESG—the environmental, social, and governance issues that corporations consider when making business decisions. Why are you drawn to this field and how does the Gabelli School emphasize this in its course offerings? 

That’s part of the strategic research area of the Gabelli School. And also, of course, it’s something I’m passionate about. I spend a lot of time doing this research, trying to see what’s going on, what is wrong, and how we should be trying to educate the students, the market, and the investors. 

Financial Markets and Responsibility is a core course for our Master’s in Finance program and one of the classes I teach. It serves as the starting point for our students to approach [ESG] in more holistic ways and in more scientific ways. And then after this core course, we have electives which are taught by adjuncts working in the field because the ESG landscape has been changing all the time. So those professionals…help our students to really get a hold of the most contemporary issues and challenges. 

The Gabelli School [also]has a student-managed investment fund course that includes an ESG fund. This gives students first-hand experience in managing the portfolio in a sustainable way.

You delivered a lecture on ESG at your installation ceremony. What were the key takeaways?

The takeaway is that ESG is always part of strategic management. It used to be more opportunistic to game the system a little bit and to focus on one [pillar]while sacrificing another one. The recent development seems like the firms, they don’t do this trade-off anymore. My conjecture is, the financial market has become more sophisticated so they can recognize such opportunistic behavior [and they don’t reward it].

There seems to be a backlash against ESG right now. In 2022 Ron DeSantis associated the term with “woke capital.” At the start of this year, The Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline, “The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG.” What’s happening here?

I think it’s just unfortunate, right? It’s a lot of political pressure…but many firms—Unilever, Microsoft—are still [practicing ESG]. They have chief sustainability officers, CSOs. So it tells you they still want to do it. And many people talk about climate risk and how to help the climate. So that’s still there. ESG as a term could be in trouble. But as a practice, I still think many firms are still practicing it, although they may use a different phrase. 

You teach at a Jesuit institution and you received your Ph.D. from one. What is it about this tradition that speaks to you?

Cura personalis [care for the whole person], that’s the key part. Of course there are different ways to talk about a whole human being, but I think one way [is]: just do the right thing. In the current world, you have so much information, different extremes, social media. Sometimes you get lost. I think we’re just trying to [teach]students—think about what’s the right thing to do…follow your value system.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

“A University can be no greater than its faculty,” said Fordham Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., during opening remarks. “At the time each of you were hired, we selected you because we saw

great potential in you as a teaching scholar … we were confident that over time, you would demonstrate the fulfillment of your potential.”

It was the third annual faculty celebration, a tradition that began in 2022.

Eighteen faculty members were recognized at the ceremony. Each was introduced by their college’s dean: Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center; Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business; Ji Seon Lee, Ph.D., acting dean of the Graduate School of Education; Debra McPhee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Social Service; Bennett Capers, associate dean for research at Fordham Law School; Ann Gaylin, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Bob Hume, Ph.D., acting dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. 

The deans also read out a list of the faculty members’ accomplishments, ranging from publications in prestigious academic journals to bringing in millions in grant funding for research to the University. 

President Tania Tetlow delivered closing remarks, congratulating the faculty members and thanking them for their service to Fordham, on behalf of the University and its students.

The honorees promoted to professor were as follows: 

• Christopher Aubin, Ph.D. (Physics and Engineering Physics)
• Lauri Goldkind, Ph.D. (Graduate School of Social Service)
• Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D. (Computer and Information Science)
• Robert Hernández, Ph.D. (English)
• Ron Lazebnik (School of Law)

The faculty members who earned tenure were: 

• Norrinda Brown (School of Law)
• Natasha Burke, Ph.D. (Psychology)
• Rufus Burnett Jr., Ph.D. (Theology)
• Leah Feuerstahler, Ph.D. (Psychology)
• Elizabeth Gil, Ph.D. (Graduate School of Education)
• Lauren Kopajtic, Ph.D. (Philosophy)
• Elizabeth Matthews, Ph.D. (Graduate School of Social Service)
• Dominik Molitor, Ph.D. (Gabelli School of Business)
• Brandy Monk-Payton, Ph.D. (Communication and Media Studies)
• Rahbel Rahman-Tahir, Ph.D. (Graduate School of Social Service)
• Fadi Skeiker, Ph.D. (Theatre)
• Nicholas Smyth, Ph.D. (Philosophy)
• Laura Specker Sullivan, Ph.D. (Philosophy)

“This program has shown me how important it is to be organized because it’s so massive,” said Cintron, a Bronx native majoring in finance.

That program is the Gabelli School’s Corporate Communications High School Pipeline Program, begun six years ago to help students from underrepresented groups enroll at Fordham or comparable schools, thereby increasing their presence in university classrooms and in the world of business.

Scholarship Support

A key part of the program is scholarships. As a student co-leader, Cintron receives the Gabelli Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarship, established in 2021 to support students who, like Cintron, took part in the program as high schoolers and serve the program in administrative roles as students at Fordham.

It has proved to be a critical piece of his financial aid, said Cintron. “The scholarship has lifted a huge financial burden and created a sense of security for my mom and me,” he said. “I have so many opportunities and resources at Fordham, and to have lost those resources because I can’t pay tuition would be heartbreaking.”

The pipeline program prepares students for business school through mentoring, corporate site visits, a class on the Fordham campus, and a business class taught in the high schools by Gabelli School students to prepare the high schoolers for a year-end pitch proposal competition.

Over the past six years, the program has served approximately 300 high schoolers, and nearly 100 Gabelli School students have served in the program. About two dozen of the high schoolers are either enrolled at Fordham or have recently graduated, said Clarence E. Ball III, former director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Gabelli School, who founded and built the pipeline program.

Dramatic Growth

The program has grown dramatically, he said—since beginning in 2018 with 12 students at Cardinal Hayes High School, Cintron’s alma mater, it has expanded to six Catholic high schools in the Bronx and East Harlem. Because of that growth, Cintron was extra busy last year managing other Fordham students who joined the program as mentors and classroom instructors.

Thanks to a spate of alumni donations in recent years, the Gabelli School will soon be able to award scholarship funds to more students who, like Cintron, play leadership roles in the pipeline program, Ball said.

Leadership Skills and an Internship at Citi

As he looks ahead to his career, Cintron is grateful that being able to attend Fordham helped him land an internship at Citi this past summer. And his experience at the head of a high school classroom should come in handy as well.

“Leading a classroom is very transferable to leading any group, and just understanding how to get through to people, how to get the group back on track,” he said.

“Introducing new technology is always a major challenge in any organization, and AI is pretty complex,” W. Raghupathi, professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, told Forbes. “The scale, complexity and difficulty in implementation and deployment, the upgrades, support, etc are technology-related issues. Further, privacy, security, trust, user and client acceptance are key challenges. Justifying the cost — and we do not have good measurement models — is a major challenge.”

It’s likely even too soon to tell whether the rewards of AI are outweighing the risks, Raghupathi states. “There is a lag between deployment of applications and their impact on the business. Specific applications like low-level automation find success but high-level applications that support strategy are yet to translate into tangible benefits.”

It’s going to take time — perhaps years — “to assess the impact and benefits of complex applications versus simple applications automating specific routine and repetitive tasks,” Raghupathi points out. “Measuring the benefit is new and we do not have benchmarks or quantitative models.”