Dr. Skorton will be awarded an honorary doctorate during the commencement ceremonies, as will eight other people who have distinguished themselves in business, law, the arts, or public service. See here for full details on Fordham’s commencement ceremonies.

Honorary doctorates of humane letters will be awarded to Dr. Skorton and to Judith Altmann, vice president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut; Gregory Boyle, SJ, head of the gang-intervention group Homeboy Industries; Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, a successful businessman and key supporter of Fordham; Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, global head of diversity for JPMorgan Chase; and Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

An honorary doctorate of laws will be awarded to Loretta A. Preska, LAW ’73, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Honorary doctorates of fine arts will be awarded to Robert Battle, artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and to Henry Cobb, founding partner at the architecture firm Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners and co-designer of Fordham Law School’s new building.

Cobb and Preska will receive their honorary doctorates at the law school’s diploma ceremony, to be held Monday, May 23, at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan. All other honorary doctorates will be awarded at the main University commencement on May 21.

Preska will speak at Fordham Law School’s diploma ceremony. David will speak at the Gabelli School of Business’ diploma ceremony for master’s degree candidates, to be held May 23 at the Beacon Theatre. Father Boyle will speak at the diploma ceremony for the Graduate School of Social Service, to be held May 23 at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall.

David Skorton became the first physician to lead the Smithsonian Institution when he began his tenure in July 2015. He oversees 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoo, and various research centers devoted to astrophysics, tropical research, the natural environment, and other areas.

During his tenure, Dr. Skorton has made arts programming a priority at the Smithsonian, and he continues to advocate for a greater national commitment to arts and humanities education. In an address at the National Press Club in December, he called for reversing what he called our nation’s “disinterest and disinvestment in the arts and humanities” while also preserving the nation’s commitment to science.

As he put it, “This commitment must be based on an understanding that the arts and humanities complement science and that together they us make better thinkers, better decision makers, and better citizens.”

Dr. Skorton earned both his bachelor’s degree in psychology and his medical degree from Northwestern University before completing his residency and fellowship in cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1979. He then joined the faculty of the University of Iowa, where he held professorships in internal medicine, biomedical engineering, and other fields before serving as the university’s president from 2003 to 2006.

In 2006 he was named president of Cornell University, where under his leadership the university joined with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to win a competition to develop a new campus, Cornell Tech, on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. He also won praise as a highly effective fundraising at both Cornell and the University of Iowa.

Dr. Skorton has also served as a professor in Cornell’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and in the departments of medicine and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is a pioneer in applying computer analysis and processing to improve cardiac imaging, and has published two major texts and numerous other writings on cardiac imaging and image processing.

He is also an amateur flute and saxophone player who once co-hosted a weekly Latin jazz program on the University of Iowa’s public radio station.

Other Honorary Degree Recipients:

Judith Altmann is a Holocaust survivor who shares her story widely in Connecticut and Westchester County schools as a way of encouraging young people to make a better world. Born in 1924 in Jasina, Czechoslovakia, she was confined in Nazi camps at Auschwitz, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and Bergen Belsen in 1944 and 1945. She is a vice president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut and recipient of the Anti-Defamation League’s Daniel R. Ginsberg Humanitarian Award for 2013.

Robert Battle is artistic director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which offers a BFA in dance in conjunction with Fordham. Renowned for his challenging, athletic, and lyrical choreography, Battle was named one of the Masters of African American Choreography by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005, among his other honors. He established the Ailey company’s New Directions Choreography Lab to nurture emerging talents, and continues to expand the company’s community outreach and education programs.

Gregory Boyle, SJ, is executive director of Homeboy Industries, one of the nation’s largest gang-intervention organizations. Hundreds of former gang members have changed their lives by taking advantage of the organization’s work program and its services including education, legal help, and substance abuse counseling. Father Boyle is an internationally recognized expert on gang intervention approaches and author of The New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press, 2011).

Henry N. Cobb is a founding partner at the award-winning architecture firm Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners. Along with his colleague Yvonne Szeto, he designed the new 22-story Fordham Law School and McKeon Residence Hall building at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. His many other distinctive projects include the iconic John Hancock Tower over Boston’s historic Copley Square, which earned the prestigious Twenty-Five-Year Award from the American Institute of Architects.

Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, chairman and CEO of Vista Capital, is a successful engineer, businessman, entrepreneur, and Fordham trustee emeritus who is one of the University community’s most vital and longstanding supporters. He played a pivotal role in the expansion of Fordham Prep as one of its trustees from 1983 to 1995, and his extraordinary financial support for Fordham was recognized in 2013 with the renaming of the Administration Building at the Rose Hill campus in his honor. He served on the Fordham University Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2003.

Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, managing director and global head of diversity for JP Morgan Chase, has been widely recognized for integrating diversity efforts throughout the company over the past 15 years. With her help, the company was named to Black Enterprise’s 2015 list of the most diverse companies, and she herself has received honors including the YMCA’s Black Achievers in Industry award. She serves on the advisory board for the Gabelli School of Business and was named the school’s Alumna of the Year for 2015.

Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, is a passionate advocate for expanding health care access. Sister Carol was recognized by President Obama for helping to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, and Pope Benedict XVI bestowed on her the Cross for the Church and Pontiff to honor her humanitarian efforts. Since 2005 she has been president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, a membership organization comprising more than 600 Catholic hospitals and 1,400 other health ministries.

Loretta A. Preska, LAW ’73, is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In more than two decades as a judge she has ruled on many high-profile cases, such as those involving computer hacking, sentencing of a Somali pirate involved in hijacking a U.S.-flagged cargo ship, and the parody of an Annie Leibovitz photograph. She is a steadfast and generous supporter of Fordham who received Fordham Law School’s Louis J. Lefkowitz Public Service Award and the Fordham Law Alumni Association’s Medal of Achievement. A member of the Fordham University Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2013, she is now a trustee fellow.

Then there is Gregory Boyle, S.J., who stands by society’s despised, readily thrown out and demonized—the criminals, gang members and drug lords.

At its Oct. 21 Sapientia et Doctrina celebration, the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE) honored Father Boyle with a Gaudium et Spes award, given annually to a Catholic who contributes both to the religious community and the human community.

Father Boyle, known to his “homeboys” as Father Greg, has worked for 25 years in a Los Angeles barrio that has the city’s highest concentration of gang activity. To help stem violence and set gang members on a better course, Father Boyle founded Jobs for a Future in 1988 and Homeboy Industries in 1992, creating industries in which rival gang members worked side by side for an honest paycheck.

“I buried my first young person killed because of this (gang) sadness in 1988, and I buried my 178th on Wednesday (Oct. 19),” Father Boyle said. “I’ve seen a lot of horrible things in my life, and had to give [last]blessings.”

But his life with the gangs, Father Boyle said, has been his blessing from God. He told a story about “Bandit,” who, after years of selling crack on the streets, came to his office and said “I’m tired of being tired.” From an entry-level job, Bandit came to supervise a Homeboy warehouse, and bought a house, married and had kids.

Today, Homeboy Industries runs a bakery, a silkscreen factory, a solar panel training program, a diner and a café. The organization helps some 15,000 people per year find their worth beyond the dead end of street life.

“They’ve taught me everything of value, really,” said Father Boyle, author of Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press, 2010). “In the last couple of years, they have even taught me how to text,” he said to laughter. “I’m grateful . . . it sure beats the heck out of actually talking to people.”

Father Boyle’s humor underscored a deeper message.

“Honest to God, they used to shoot bullets at each other, but now they shoot text messages. And there is a word for that, and that word is kinship.

“You don’t hold the bar and ask somebody to measure up. You just show up and hold the mirror and tell people the truth, knowing that your truth is my truth, and my truth is a gang member’s truth, and it all happens to be the same truth—that you are exactly what God had in mind when God made you.”

Among the night’s other honorees were Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., president emeritus of Fordham; andWilliam H. Sadlier, Inc. religious publishers; recipients of GRE’s Founders Awards. Carmen Ana Casal de Unanue received the Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J., Award for Service to the Hispanic community.

Sapientia et Doctrina awards for exemplary service to the church were presented to: Mary Bivona of Catholic Charities; Monsignor Neil Connolly of St. Mary’s Parish on Manhattan’s Lower East Side;Kay Furlani (GRE ’88) of the Archdiocese of New York; Holy Rosary Church, site of the Don Bosco Center; Patricia Keck of the Hartford Archdiocese; Maryann McHugh, C.S.J., of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Queens; Michael Hayes (GRE ’05), founder of bustedhalo.com; Elena Procario-Foley, Ph.D., Driscoll Professor Jewish-Catholic Studies at Iona College; and Catherine Ryan, a Franciscan Sister of Peace.

Gregory Boyle, S.J., and several others were honored on Oct. 21 for service to the church and to humanity at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education’s (GRE) Sixth annual Sapientia et Doctrina event.

Pictured below are the awardees, including Father Boyle (top center) and Joseph O’Hare, S.J., president Emeritus of Fordham (to Father Boyle’s left). Father Boyle is also pictured with Msgr. Joseph Quinn, vice president for mission and ministry.

Coverage of the event will appear in an upcoming edition of INSIDE FORDHAM.

–Janet Sassi

“Call me when you get out, right away. If you delay, you’ll get popped again; you’ll get arrested.”

Then he hands them his card.

In the two decades since Father Boyle began working with members of the city’s more than 250 street gangs, he’s given out millions of cards, hoping that the recipients will respond to his promise of employment and a second chance at life.

By any measure, he has succeeded. His efforts have blossomed into Homeboy Industries, an organization that employs gang members in various revenue-generating enterprises. It is the largest gang-intervention organization in the country.

Hundreds of youth have turned away from crime and violence, embraced a positive lifestyle and gone from Homeboy-run businesses to the mainstream workforce, said Father Boyle, who told his stories of helping gang members find new hope in a presentation on Oct. 9 at Duane Library.

The event was sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.

“God is compassionate, loving kindness, and all we’re asked to do is be in the world that God is,” he told the packed house at the library’s Tognino Hall.

“Our goal is to create a circle of kinship such that God might recognize it, and the only way to enlarge this circle is to stand at the margins with the poor and the disregarded and the powerless,” he continued.

That means whenever gang members want to find honest work, they go to Father Boyle and he sets them up at a Homeboy enterprise, which includes a silk-screening factory, bakery, maintenance company or cafe, or other business that will teach them useful skills.

Not only are the businesses profitable—the silkscreen company, for example, produced revenue of $1.1 million last year—but his efforts are quietly expanding the options for Los Angeles’ roughly 26,000 gang members.

The only stipulation is “no hanging, banging or slanging,” Father Boyle said, referring to the types of criminal activity pursued by gangs.

When things go wrong with his “homeboys” and “homegirls,” as they sometimes do, he presides over their funerals—159 at last count.

He said that success in dealing with gang membership comes from treating it like a drug or alcohol addiction—and by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them when the rest of society scorns.

He tells them, “You are exactly what God had in mind when he made you.”

“You tell them the truth, and then you want them to become that truth,” he said. “And when they become it, it changes their lives. No bullet can pierce that; no prison walls can keep that out; and even death can not put an end to that.”

Although Father Boyle has received accolades from all corners of society—including First Lady Laura Bush, who invited him and three homeboys to dine at the White House—his efforts continue to be hampered by Los Angeles police.

“What Homeboy Industries does flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says gang members don’t want to work,” he said. “Tell that to the thousands that come to my office.”

He also finds it difficult to qualify for federal funds earmarked for faith-based initiatives, because his message is one of jobs and a new life, not Jesus, church and religion.

“Nobody’s going around here giving a message—they’re becoming that message,” Father Boyle said. “Because Jesus was not a man for others; he was one with others because there was no daylight between him and the people on the margins with whom he chose to stand.”