Fordham rose to number 32 for study abroad among U.S. doctoral-level institutions, according to this year’s Open Doors report on undergraduate study abroad participation. Approximately 40% of Fordham undergraduate students participate in a study abroad program.

For Joseph Rienti, director of the university’s international and study abroad programs, it’s exciting to see the participation rate begin to recover after the pandemic. Before international travel paused, around 50% of Fordham undergraduates took part in a study abroad experience. 

Global diversity is a longstanding value in Jesuit education, Rienti said, and study abroad programs help fulfill the University’s mission. 

“Study abroad broadens student perspectives and deepens their knowledge. We do that in our classrooms in New York, but there’s no better way to do that than to leave your comfort zone and learn from professors and students in another country,” Rienti said. 

A Study Abroad Option for Every Student

The wide variety of study abroad programs available to Fordham students makes it easier to participate, Rienti said. 

Fordham has major study abroad outposts in London, U.K., and Granada, Spain, and offers access to study abroad programs in over 50 countries on six continents. In the 2024-25 academic year, over 1,000 undergraduate students are studying abroad in 30 different countries.

Students can choose immersive “direct enroll” programs, where they learn alongside locals at esteemed universities across the globe, or “island programs” with classes designed to cater to American study abroad students. The university also offers short-term study abroad opportunities, typically ranging from one to four weeks, and special focus programs that integrate a central theme or academic topic, such as the 14-week theater intensive at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts, or the CNN Academy journalism intensive at University College Dublin. 

Now that federal, state, and University financial aid dollars can be applied to study abroad expenses, participation is more accessible than ever for students of all backgrounds. Students who qualify for financial aid such as a Pell grant, student loan, or tuition remission can use that aid to fund a study abroad experience. For those who do not receive financial aid, there are study abroad-specific scholarships available. 

The Open Doors Report includes data from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State, and the Institute of International Education.

The study published last month in the Journal of Urban Health shows that the child populations in some neighborhoods are not being tested as completely as they should be, said Khalifa Afane, a student in the M.S. program in data science who wrote the study with his advisor, Juntao Chen, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the computer and information science department.

For the study, they used the city’s publicly available lead testing data, which he said “nobody has analyzed before” at the neighborhood level.

A Toxic Heavy Metal

Lead is a toxic heavy metal that can cause learning disabilities and behavior problems. Children pick it up from lead-based paint or contaminated dust, soil, and water. Lead exposure risk “remains persistent” among vulnerable groups including low-income and non-Hispanic Black children, the study says.

The city promotes blood lead level testing and awareness of lead poisoning in high-risk communities through a variety of educational efforts and partnerships.

But some high-risk neighborhoods still don’t get enough testing, Afane said.  A case in point is Greenpoint in Brooklyn vs. South Beach in Staten Island. The study says that despite similar numbers of children and similar rates of lead testing, Greenpoint has consistently averaged eight times more cases—97 out of 3,760 tests conducted in 2021, compared to just 12 in South Beach that year (out of 3,720 tests).

There should actually be more testing of children in Greenpoint, Afane said, because their risk is clearly higher. While testing efforts have expanded in the city, he said, “it matters much more where these extra tests were actually conducted,” since lead is more prevalent in some neighborhoods than in others, he said.

More than 400 Cases May Have Been Missed

For the study, he analyzed test result data from 2005 to 2021, focusing on children under 6 years old who were found to have blood lead levels of 5 micrograms per deciliter. Afane applied a machine learning algorithm to the testing data and projected that another 410 children with elevated blood lead levels might be identified per year citywide, mostly in vulnerable areas, by expanding testing in neighborhoods that tend to have higher case rates.

The highest-risk neighborhoods are in Brooklyn, Queens, and the north shore of Staten Island, and average about 12 cases per 1,000 tests, compared to less than four in low-risk neighborhoods, Afane said.

The city helps coordinate care for children with elevated levels and also works to reduce lead hazards. Since 2005, the number of New York City children under 6 years old with elevated blood lead levels has dropped 93%, a city report says.

Using a Data-Informed Strategy

But the study recommends a better, data-informed, strategy to focus more lead testing on high-need areas. “What we wanted to highlight here is that this needs to be done and reported at the neighborhood level, not at the city level,” Afane said.

The study also recommends awareness campaigns in high-risk areas emphasizing early detection, and it calls on local authorities to step up monitoring of water quality and blood lead levels in pregnant women.

“Our main goal was to use data science and machine learning tools to genuinely improve the city,” Afane said. “Data analysis is a powerful skill that could be used much more often to make a positive impact in our communities.”

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. 

In addition, Fordham leaped to No. 57 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the best colleges for veterans, released earlier this fall.

The two rankings reflect Fordham’s many efforts to meet all student veterans’ needs—from career development to health and wellness to help with the transition to college life, said Matthew Butler, PCS ’16, senior director of the Office of Military and Veterans’ Services at Fordham.

“We’re engaged on multiple fronts,” he said. “We’re not just offering an education but supporting the full student veteran life cycle.”

The recognition coincides with rising enrollment numbers for veterans: The number of new student veterans who enrolled at Fordham this fall is up 131% over fall 2023, and the 470 student veterans and veterans’ dependents now enrolled marks the highest total in at least five years, noted Andrea Marais, Fordham’s director of military and veteran higher education, engagement, and transition.

Free Tuition for Student Vets: No Cap

Likely important for the rankings, Butler said, was Fordham’s decision last year to eliminate its cap on tuition benefits under the federal government’s Yellow Ribbon Program/Post-9/11 G.I. Bill. The University covers 100% of tuition and fees for eligible student veterans or their dependents

He said the Military Times ranking was particularly welcome because of the publication’s presence on military bases and stations around the world. In its ranking, Military Times cited other things like Fordham’s Veterans Promise program, which guarantees undergraduate admission to the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) for students who graduated from New York high schools with a 3.0 and meet other standards.

Butler also noted Fordham’s career-focused events for student veterans such as the Veterans on Wall Street symposium that Fordham will host on Nov. 7. “Veterans make great hires,” said Butler. “They can make good decisions under pressure, they know how to build a team, and they are not afraid of hard work.”

Commander’s Cup

The Military Times ranking closely follows an event that highlighted the University’s tightly knit military-connected community. On Saturday, Oct. 26, Fordham hosted nearly 700 students in Junior ROTC programs from 17 area high schools for the annual Commander’s Cup competition.

The event included drill competitions, physical fitness tests, and tours of Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, as well as opportunities to learn about the ROTC program at Fordham and its scholarship opportunities, said Lt. Col. Rob Parsons, professor of military science at Fordham.

Students at the event were able to see that there’s “an affordable way to go to school and continue to serve,” he said.

“I don’t think it can be overstated how robust and integrated the veterans community in New York is, and how many ties exist to Fordham and Fordham grads,” he said.

Student Veterans of America Build Community

Members of Fordham’s Student Veterans of America chapter volunteered at the event, fielding questions from JROTC members, said Rico Lucenti, a student in PCS and chapter member.

“A lot of kids came up to the booth asking about the veteran presence and military-connected families on Fordham’s campus and what Fordham is doing for those families and students,” he said.

Jorge Ferrara, a PCS student and SVA chapter president, said the chapter arranges service and social events that help student veterans transition to college.

“What we’re doing is trying to establish a sense of community and bring everybody together so everybody knows we’re all going through the same thing,” he said.

A Veterans Day Mass will be celebrated at the Rose Hill campus on Sunday, Nov. 10, the day before Veterans Day. Other upcoming events for Fordham’s student-veteran community include the RamVets Fall Social on Friday, Nov. 8.

[W]hen a reader told me to take a peek at the recent NCAA men’s water polo rankings, I saw a lot of sunny California schools I expected to see:

UCLA, USC, Stanford, Berkeley (aka the water polo “Big Four,” I’m told), the University of the Pacific (inland, but sounds nice), Pepperdine (idyllic), UC San Diego (sure) and UC Santa Barbara (of course)…you know, the sort of schools that sound like fabulous places to chuck a ball around a pool. 

And then I saw a school I didn’t expect to see at all:

Fordham.

As in Fordham University, in the Bronx–the New York City Jesuit school with distinguished academics, famous alumni (Denzel Washington, Vince Lombardi) and plentiful public transit access—but not exactly anyone’s idea of a beachside water polo Xanadu.

This past Sunday in Baltimore, I watched Fordham’s men’s water polo team swamp Johns Hopkins 28-12, improving their record to a perfect 24-0. It was a dominant display, sort of like watching the Globetrotters work over the Generals, but in water. (How’s that for some water polo analysis?)

Fordham has been lights out all season long. They’ve had big wins over proven East Coast rivals like Princeton (a ranked program and an NCAA tournament semi-finalist last year) and Harvard (no idea; apparently a school near MIT and Tufts.). Fordham even tore through a recent swing of California teams (including Pacific, UC-Santa Barbara, and San Jose State) that got the sport buzzing.

It’s to the point that the Rams shot to fifth in the country in the most recent NCAA RPI poll–and they’ve been as high as No. 2 in the weekly coaches poll. 

That’s not just milestone territory for Fordham water polo–it’s a historic performance for any Fordham team in any sport, ever.

“It’s absolutely thrilling,” says Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow.

Read more here: Is This Undefeated Team the Best Story in College Sports?

The editors of Commonweal, an acclaimed journal of religion, politics, and culture, said they chose to honor Tetlow because of her trailblazing lay leadership and commitment to justice.

“Her attention to forming and informing the next generation of Catholics and all people of goodwill, and her spirit of knowledge-seeking and creativity exemplify the values Commonweal continues to embody,” they said. 

For Tetlow, receiving an award from the renowned publication was an honor. “Commonweal embodies the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition, asking the critical questions, pushing on assumptions, seeking truth for a century,” she said. It “continues to lovingly push our church to read the signs of the times and to keep striving towards the truth of the Gospel.” 

Tetlow is the first woman and the first layperson to lead Fordham, and according to Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi, that’s part of what made her an ideal candidate for the Centennial Award.

“She’s an inspiring example who really aligns with Commonweal’s mission, and our belief in the importance of laypeople in matters of faith and leadership,” said Preziosi, a Fordham alumnus. He said Tetlow, who recently appeared on the Commonweal podcast, is “the perfect expression of the kind of community we’re building around as we launch into our second century.”

Fordham Board Chair Armando Nuñez and Kim Bepler, a Fordham trustee, were co-chairs of the dinner. “Tania is a gifted and charismatic leader who is both entrepreneurial and a fierce advocate for Fordham and Jesuit traditions,” said Nuñez. “As president, she is a faith-first leader, called to the service of the University community every day.”

Several other friends of Fordham were on hand for the ceremony. Timothy Shriver, the disability rights activist, presented Tetlow with the award. Shriver received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2019 and delivered the keynote address at that year’s commencement.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J, professor emerita of theology at Fordham and an award-winning author, delivered the invocation and touched on Tetlow’s unique role as a layperson leading a Jesuit institution. 

“Thank God for the laity,” she said. “Thank God that in an era when the expected lay role was to pay, pray, and obey, some few decided to raise their distinct lay voices to explore how Catholic faith could intersect with culture and politics—critically and fruitfully.”

Commonweal, which was recently profiled in the New York Times on the occasion of its centennial, produces a print magazine, podcasts, live and virtual events, and local community gatherings centered on reflective discussions of faith, public affairs, the arts, and the common good. Its past contributors include Dorothy Day, W.H. Auden, Hannah Arendt, John Updike, and Graham Greene. 

Environmental themes can clearly be seen in scripture, and not just in an incidental way, said Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., professor emerita of theology. That’s the message of her new book, Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth, published earlier this year by Orbis Books.

“This isn’t just [one] point in the Bible,” Sister Johnson said, “it runs through everything—Genesis and the Psalms and the prophets and the Wisdom literature and … into the very last book of the New Testament. You could trace this theme all the way through.” Her book is replete with examples, including these four:

Having Dominion over Nature Doesn’t Mean What You Think.

The biblical passage about God giving humans “dominion … over all the wild animals of the earth” has been taken to justify domination and exploitation of nature, which is “not even remotely” correct, Johnson writes. Rather, in biblical contexts, dominion means good governance—as practiced, for instance, by a stand-in who oversees part of a king’s realm and carries out his will. In Genesis, God is entrusting humanity with wise stewardship of nature, “a responsible service of protection and care,” according to Johnson.

Animals belong to God, and “the Creator is not a throwaway God,” she said. “It’s like anyone who creates anything. You don’t want it to be ruined.”

The Bible Puts Humans in Their Place.

Christian thought and prayer have often treated nature as a “stage set” for the story of God’s relationship with humanity, Johnson writes. But the Bible often paints a different picture, as in Psalm 104, a lengthy paean to the greatness of God’s creation. It glorifies everything from the sun and the moon to Earth’s landscapes and its variety of life, including humanity in the mix. “We’re in the middle, and we’re part of this community,” rather than being at the apex, Johnson said. But “in no way does this deny human distinctiveness” and our special capacities and obligations, she writes.

Animals Have God’s Ear Too.

“Scripture is threaded with verses that depict animals giving glory to God,” Johnson writes. As St. Augustine described it, she said, animals “are giving praise because they’re reflecting the goodness of the Creator.”

Indeed, during the Great Flood in the Book of Genesis, God establishes a covenant with not only Noah but also “every living creature” aboard his ark. “It precedes the covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and the one established by Jesus,” Johnson writes. “It is never revoked.”

Jesus Valued Nature.

Raised as an observant Jew, Jesus was steeped in the creation theology of the Jewish religious tradition, Johnson writes. He viewed nature with fondness and wonder and speaks of its intrinsic value: In the Gospel of Matthew he speaks of “the lilies of the field” that “neither toil nor spin” yet are clothed in glory, as well as “birds of the air” who “neither sow nor reap” yet are cared for by God nonetheless.

“Pope Francis calls it the gaze of Jesus—like, how did Jesus look on the natural world?” Johnson said. “That gaze is what we should be trying to emulate.”

But according to New York Times-bestselling author and Fordham President’s Council member Adriana Trigiani, author of 18 books with numerous producing and directing credits to her name, our only limitations are the ones we place on ourselves. That’s the message she delivered to a room of approximately 200 women — many who identified themselves as aspiring writers — at the eighth annual Fordham Women’s Summit on Oct. 16. 

‘Find Out What the Men Are Making’

During the summit’s keynote session, Trigiani took part in an inspiring and often hysterical conversation with Fordham’s Mary Bly, chair of the English department and author of bestselling romance novels under the pen name Eloisa James. Trigiani offered advice on topics spanning from how to keep to a writing schedule, how to handle the naysayers, and most of all, how to get paid what you deserve. 

“The number-one job of getting paid properly is finding out what the men are making,” said Trigiani, who is also a Fordham parent. “It doesn’t take much. Sometimes just half a cocktail and I can get the numbers out.”

Her tell-it-like-it-is delivery sent one wave of laughter after another through the crowd of career and philanthropy-focused women, many of whom were Fordham alumni or current students. She also offered words of encouragement and reassurance that touched on the real obstacles writers are facing today. 

‘You Cannot Create Without Engaging the Soul’

One such moment came when Trigiani addressed the looming specter of the new AI text generators that threaten the craft with occasionally convincing imitation. 

“Everybody’s worried about AI, but something’s missing there. That’s our secret — they don’t know, but the Jesuits would know. It’s that you cannot create without engaging the soul. It can look like it. It can walk like it. But it’s like one of them handbags in the street. It looks like a Birkin, but if you put two things in it the handles fall off,” said Trigiani. 

Giving with a Purpose

The attendees were encouraged to join Fordham Giving Circles, a form of collective philanthropy where groups of individuals donate to a pooled fund. Emmy Award-winning content creator Isabel Rivera, FCRH ’90, who served as the summit’s emcee, highlighted the Fordham Women’s Summit Scholarship Giving Circle, created to make a Fordham education accessible to students of all backgrounds. Since 2017, more than 100 Giving Circle members in 20 circles have joined forces to give more than one million to Fordham, Rivera said. 

For Trigiani, who along with Bly pledged to join a Giving Circle during the keynote session, it’s a worthy cause. 

“I like that I’m looking at the world at Fordham,” said Trigiani. “It’s not just privileged people … Every country in the world is represented. Every religion. Those Jesuits are sharp, because they know the meaning of the word Catholic. It means everybody.”

That tech, called generative AI, holds the key to a new system “that not only anticipates potential attacks but also prepares systems to counteract previously unseen cyberthreats,” said Mohamed Rahouti, Ph.D., assistant professor in the computer and information science department and one of Fordham’s IBM research fellows.

He and a crew of graduate students are working on new systems that, he said, are needed to get ahead of sophisticated attacks that are constantly evolving. Their focus is a type of easy-to-launch attack that has proved crippling to companies and government agencies ever since the internet began.

Denial of Service Attacks

Cybercriminals sometimes overwhelm and freeze a company’s or government agency’s computer systems by bombarding them with way more internet traffic than they can handle, using multiple computers or multiple online accounts. This is known as a distributed denial of service attack, or DDOS.

A typical attack could cost a company $22,000 a minute, he said. Nearly 30,000 of them take place every day around the world. Many of them are foiled by programs that use machine learning and artificial intelligence.

But those programs don’t always know what to look for, since they typically rely on snapshots of past traffic, Rahouti said. Another challenge is the growing number of internet-connected devices, from smart watches to autonomous vehicles, that could provide cybercriminals with new avenues for attack.

Generative AI

Hence the research into using generative AI, which could produce a far wider range of possible attack scenarios by working upon computer traffic data to make new connections and predictions, he said. When it’s trained using the scenarios produced by generative AI, “then my machine learning/AI model will be much more capable of detecting the different types of DDOS attacks,” Rahouti said.

To realize this vision, Rahouti and his team of graduate students are working on several projects. They recently used generative AI and other techniques to expand upon a snapshot of network traffic data and create a clearer picture of what is and isn’t normal. This helps machine learning programs see what shouldn’t be there. “We were amazed at the quality of this enhanced picture,” Rahouti said.

This bigger dataset enabled their machine learning model to spot low-profile attacks it had previously missed, he said.

Large Language Models

For their next project, they’re studying a large language model—the kind that powers ChatGPT—for ideas about how generative AI can be applied to cybersecurity. They’re using InstructLab, an open-source tool launched by IBM and Red Hat in May.

With all the companies and university researchers invested in new uses for generative AI, Rahouti is optimistic about its future applications in cybersecurity. The goal is to develop a system that runs on its own in the background, detecting both existing and emerging threats without being explicitly told what to look for.

“At present, we don’t have a fully autonomous system with these capabilities,” Rahouti said, “but advancements in AI and machine learning are moving us closer to achieving this level of real-time, adaptive cybersecurity.”

Coco de Marneffe and Ian Muir Smith, both FCLC ’22, were the lead organizers of this year’s Local Conference of Youth (LCOY USA), an annual event that brings together over 125 young people from across the country carefully selected for their leadership in the climate movement. Ashira Fisher-Wachspress, FCLC ’23, and current Fordham student Kenny Moll were also part of the 15-person organizing team for the event, which took place in Tempe, Arizona in September.

De Marneffe, who majored in theology, served as the conference’s general coordinator. She said a “Religion and Ecology” class she took her senior year, taught by Christiana Zenner, Ph.D., started her down this path. She hopes LCOY will inspire other young people to get involved in climate advocacy. 

“You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to contribute to this work. You just have to find your place in your community,” she said. “For me, it started with one class I took in college. Thanks, Fordham.”

The National Youth Statement

The centerpiece of the conference is the National Youth Statement, a list of climate-related policy demands that the young delegates draft together. Smith describes the statement as a democratically-crafted tool that advocates can use to push policy makers further on climate change. Once complete, the statement is shared with local governments and incorporated into the Global Youth Statement, the official youth stance on climate change presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Youth and Conference of Parties, which will be held in November in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

Smith acknowledges that some of the statement’s demands may seem radical — such as disbursing at least $446 billion annually in climate finance to the Global South, or increasing federal investment in public transportation to reduce car dependency by 50% by 2030 — but he says that’s as it should be. “It’s the responsibility of youth in some ways to push our policymakers to consider what is radical. Really, it only seems radical because what we’re doing now is so inadequate,” he said. 

Climate Week in NYC

De Marneffe, Smith, Moll, and Fisher-Wachspress also organized a NYC Climate Week event, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. There, they presented the National Youth Statement to U.S. climate negotiators from the State Department as well as to other young climate organizers. 

“A lot of this work is unglamorous,” said de Marneffe. “What makes it worth it is the people around you who are encouraging you, and who believe in the same things you believe in.”

They both appeared at the annual On the Record gala hosted by Fordham’s public media service, WFUV, to receive awards named for alumni who learned their trade working at the station as students.

Chung received the Charles Osgood Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, named for the beloved CBS News broadcaster who died in January. “May I say to the Osgood family, I knew Charlie so well and loved him so dearly,” Chung said in accepting the award. 

“I’m very, very thrilled to have this wonderful honor in Charlie’s name.” (She was introduced by her husband, television host Maury Povich, who told a familiar story about once being referred to as “Mr. Chung” by a hotel doorman during a visit to New York.)

Chung was in the midst of a tour to promote her new bestselling book, Connie: A Memoir. Visser received the Vin Scully Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting, named for the acclaimed announcer for the L.A. Dodgers, who died in 2022. She began by lauding Scully for his “humility and passion and professionalism” and joked with Scully’s family members, who attended. “To hear that voice coming across the breakfast table, not out of the TV? I can’t imagine. You’re so spoiled!” she said, to laughter.

She gave shout-outs to colleagues in attendance, including those who work on her weekly sports show, We Need to Talk. “We are the only all-sports network talk show produced, directed, and hosted by women, and you’re all here!” she said.

At the event, attendees viewed a video about the WFUV student journalist experience—ranging from news and public affairs reporting to sports journalism, audio production, and more.