In 2016, Ghayalod’s son Raj enrolled as an undergraduate at the Gabelli School of Business and found that Fordham lacked a similar support system. Raj’s mother, Pallavi Ghayalod, knew this was something she wanted to address.

Fordham’s Indian Association, which Pallavi founded, was officially launched at a reception on April 8 at the Gabelli School of Business on the Lincoln Center campus. Its goal is to create a strong network of support among current Fordham Indian students, Fordham alumni in India, and other members of the community in New York and across the United States.

“The Gabelli School wants to be a hub for global education,” said Donna Rapaccioli, dean of the Gabelli School of Business.

The Indian Association will work to celebrate the rich culture, history, and contributions of India and South Asia at Fordham. It will also help Fordham build stronger ties in India, spurring more interest and awareness of Fordham’s schools among students across the region.

“Fordham is seeking to create internationalists at the undergraduate and graduate level. We’re hoping that this initiative will bring the University closer to South Asia, and India in particular,” said Roger A. Milici, vice president for development and university relations.

Fordham undergraduates travel from 76 countries, and international students make up ten percent of the undergraduate student body. More than 100 students from India currently attend the University, and over 200 alumni hail from there. That network is key to recruiting prospective international students, who use social media and other online resources to decide whether they will attend an institution.

“When parents of international students find out that their child gets admitted to Fordham, they’re not thinking of the school. They are thinking of New York City, and things like, ‘Where is their kid going to live?’ Facebook is a great resource for parents to connect with other parents to figure out the answers to questions like this.” said Pallavi.  

Prospective students often speak to other admitted students, current students, and alumni via social media in order to determine where to enroll. “If I didn’t get to talk to Fordham Indian alumni about their experience, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable attending Fordham,” said Kapil Bashani, GABELLI ‘18, who spoke with three Fordham alumni via social media before making his decision to enroll in the global finance program.

Sris Chatterjee, Ph.D., professor and chair of global security analysis, finance, and business economics at the Gabelli School, and one of several faculty members who attended the reception, said the association was a critical addition to the University.

“At this time, with what’s happening in India, and all across the globe, many cultures are finding it hard to come to terms with each other. But India is not just one culture, but a confluence of many cultures,” he said.

The Indian Association at Fordham seeks to unite people across those different cultures and to ease the transition for students studying at Fordham from overseas.

The association is planning to host a reception in India this July.

But nothing compared to being in Kolkata and witnessing those social issues firsthand.

“You walk out of the airport and everything kind of hits you,” said Andrew Friedman, a senior in the Gabelli School of Business and the project’s student leader. “The sights, sounds, and smells are completely different than what I think some of us are used to, especially coming from New York. It’s a big adjustment and a bit of a cultural shock—but in a good way. I think that’s the best way to become fully immersed in the project.”

From Jan. 4 through 14, 11 Fordham students and one GO! chaperone teamed up with Kolkata’s St. Xavier’s College, Little Sisters of the Poor, St. Joseph’s Old Age Home, and Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity to assist sick, hungry, dying, abandoned, and orphaned individuals in various group homes.

The St. Xavier team, which hosted Fordham, organized several activities for participants that were focused on service and community engagement. The GO! team also participated in the college’s “Village to College and College to Village” program, which brings underprivileged children in rural villages and slums to St. Xavier’s campus.

“There was a wonderful cultural exchange that went on between our students and the students from St. Xavier,” said Claire Cumberland, GO!’s assistant director at Lincoln Center, who served as a chaperone for the project. “It was a great way for Fordham students to make a Jesuit connection halfway around the world.”

Through the Matthew J. Lavan Endowed Scholarship, six Fordham students received financial support to cover the cost of the project. The scholarship was created in memory of Matthew Lavan, FCRH ’98, an alumnus of GO!, who died in 2003. The Lavan family, the program’s largest sponsors, has been funding GO! immersion projects for over ten years.

For Friedman, a recipient of the Lavan Endowed Scholarship, the generosity of the Lavan family, allowed him to not only travel to India, but also see the world through another lens.

“The trip has an impact on everybody differently,” said Friedman. “Spending time with the Missionaries of Charity, being at the Mother House for Mass, and having the opportunity to visit St. Teresa’s tomb were all spiritual experiences.”

Cumberland said that in addition to working as a team to support the GO! partners’ work with the destitute people of Kolkata, participants spent time reflecting on the injustices they observed and what it means to be privileged Americans who are coming into a city or culture that is not their own.

“We hope that we’re helping students to be better men and women for others because we want to facilitate an understanding of standing in solidarity with people who are marginalized,” she said. “It’s not just about recognizing that our community is the 12 people on the trip, but recognizing that we’re part of a global community.”

Daisy Deomampo, PhD, an assistant professor of anthropology, has spent the better part of a decade researching transnational ART and commercial surrogacy. Her forthcoming book, Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship, and Commercial Surrogacy in India, is an ethnographic study of commercial ART—including egg donation, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy—in India.

On one side of the practice are the commissioning parents who travel to India from all over the world to visit clinics that offer commercial surrogacy arrangements. What primarily draws many of them to India is cost: In the United States, gestational surrogacy can reach sums of $150,000, compared to between $25,000 and $40,000 in India.

On the other side are Indian women who are commissioned as egg donors or surrogate mothers. In the case of gestational surrogacy, an embryo is created through IVF using sperm and egg from the commissioning parents (or third party egg or sperm providers) and then implanted in the surrogate mother’s uterus. She carries the fetus for the nine months of pregnancy, during which she remains under the care of a doctor. Once she gives birth, she gives the baby to the commissioning parents.

These practices raise complex questions about motherhood. Who can be considered the mother in the case of gestational surrogacy? Is it the woman who gestated the fetus and gave birth? The woman who ultimately raises the child? Is it the person who contributes her DNA?

“It challenges our preconceived ideas about basic social categories like the family and motherhood,” she said.

Moreover, Deomampo said, “The dominant discourse in the media suggests this is a win-win situation for everyone involved—in the end the intended parents get their baby, and the surrogate earns much-needed income. But as an anthropologist, I know that human experiences are more complex than that. And the trope of the ‘win-win situation’ only conceals the inequalities embedded in transnational surrogacy.”

The questionable ethics of surrogacy

By 2008, when Deomampo first traveled to Mumbai for her research, India had become a global hub for commercial surrogacy. However, the industry operated within murky legal and ethical waters, and was deeply misunderstood.

For one thing, surrogacy can be dangerous, Deomampo said. In addition to the normal risks associated with pregnancy, the women undergo hormonal treatments for which the long-term consequences are unknown. Nearly all of the women give birth via caesarean section, which is a riskier form of childbirth.

“The industry is not regulated, and there’s no one keeping track of how many times women donate eggs or become surrogates,” Deomampo said.

Even though surrogate mothers can earn up to $6,000 per pregnancy—an ample figure for many of the families that Deomampo met—the sum is rarely enough to free families from the poverty that often drives them to surrogacy. For instance, in order to have the full amount needed to purchase a home, Deomampo said, one surrogate had to sell some of her family jewelry.

Even the promise of financial relief—however brief—is complex, said Deomampo.

“Some women saw it as an opportunity and felt it was life-changing—they were providing a service and they were making good money,” she said. “But other women felt it was a degrading experience. They were subjected to a host of medical interventions they didn’t feel comfortable with, and very few ever met the parents who were going to take the babies.”

Surrogacy and race

As an anthropologist, Deomampo is particularly curious about the impact that transnational commercial surrogacy has on racialization—the process of ascribing a racial identity to an individual or a group. In cases in which non-Indian parents pay an Indian woman to carry their child, then, how do they make sense of their connections with each other? How does racialization function in these relationships, especially in light of the fact that commissioning parents and surrogates rarely meet?

“The different people involved tend to rely on these racial constructions to justify why they’re participating in surrogacy and why it exists . . . Race keeps everyone neatly separated,” Deomampo said. “But the construction of race is a dynamic process. It’s not fixed . . . and it’s inherent to the unequal relations at the heart of transnational surrogacy.”

The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs in Goa, India

From Left to right: Florian Razesberger, Arancha Garcia, Larry Hollingworth, Argentina Szabados and Gonzalo Sanchez-Teran

The academic team of the 32nd International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance program visit the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, where they are currently teaching humanitarian aid professionals.

For more information go to the Institute’s website, www.fordham.edu/iiha