His daughter Katelyn earned a bachelor’s degree in visual arts with a concentration in architecture from Fordham College at Lincoln Center. And she’s on track to earn a master’s degree in urban studies next year, as part of the University’s five-year accelerated degree program.

A Bronx native, Katelyn grew up with a passion for drawing and for exploring the city with her father. Before he joined Fordham as an operations supervisor in the facilities management office at the Lincoln Center campus, they’d have weekend adventures; after he was hired eight years ago, she and her younger brother would tag along with him, spending the day on campus and getting to know the neighborhood.

“My dad’s a big history guy, so we’d walk around, and he’d explain the history of these places, and I was just in awe,” she said.

While some people assume that Katelyn enrolled at Fordham only because her father is an employee, the truth is that those early adventures inspired her to apply to the University.

“I was in love with Lincoln Center and being in the heart of the city: It was everything that I wanted—close to home, but I still felt like I was a little bit away,” she said.

Embracing New Passions

Through her architecture courses, Katelyn found a new passion: urban planning through the lens of sustainability.

“It just consists of everything that I love: all the features I loved about architecture, which was the problem solving, being able to help people, but also still being able to make an impact on the urban environment in general,” she said.

Richard, who is responsible for electrical services, carpentry, locks, and plumbing at the Rose Hill campus and has a hand in carrying out the University’s sustainability initiatives, is proud that his daughter has chosen this focus.

“She’s very hands-on like me,” he said, adding that he even taught her to install tile and sheetrock. “She has always been an artist, so it’s kind of a different thing for me, but everybody has to create their own path, and this is leading her to something else that she’ll enjoy.”

At Home in Fordham’s New York

Since February, Katelyn has been interning with the New York City Housing Authority on its recycling team. She has a year of master’s courses to go, but she hopes that she can continue working with the city to make “sustainability a top priority for a lot of New York City residents.”

And on campus, she’ll continue to bond with her father’s colleagues. They’ve enhanced her Fordham experience, she said, giving her an opportunity to “make an impact on their lives” just as they made an impact on hers.

“Even though my dad no longer works in Lincoln Center, I still stop by the facilities office … and it makes me so happy ‘cause it makes me feel like I have a second family at Fordham.”

That support was especially a boon during her first year, when the pandemic forced students to be physically isolated even after they were back on campus. Since he was there daily, Richard was able to “make sure that she had an outlet,” an opportunity to chat about anything and stay connected.

“Those experiences helped us get bonded together and keep an open dialogue,” he said. “I feel that she’s able to come to me and talk to me about anything.”

A U.N. communications officer and analyst helps farmers adapt to climate change

Chicago native Ian Muir Smith got his first meaningful exposure to the effects of climate change in 2021, as a Fordham College at Lincoln Center student majoring in international studies.

He earned a summer research grant to travel to Kenya, where he spent three months studying how farmers are using technology to mobilize resources and “guide their own development,” he says. He lived in an adobe hut with no running water and watched his hosts’ water reserves run out because of a drought.

“That was the context of everything that was happening in people’s lives,” he says.

Toward a More Just Model of Agricultural Development

The farmers Smith lived with in Kenya are among nearly 4.5 billion people who rely on food systems for their livelihood, according to the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs. It’s a statistic that lies at the heart of Smith’s work as a consultant for the U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and as a research fellow for the nonprofit Food Tank.

“In order for countries to ‘develop,’ agriculture is the first thing that has to change,” Smith says, noting that agriculture is also responsible for one third of global greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change. “And whether they get to determine how to do it, or whether other countries and companies are determining how they do it, is up in the air. I want to make agriculture and agricultural development more just and more democratic.”

As a communications and knowledge management consultant with IFAD, which is an international financial institution and specialized United Nations agency, Smith looks over data from the portfolio of grants that the agency sends to research institutions to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. He then writes reports and blog posts on the effects those grants had. These are made available in the agency’s “knowledge base,” a database that is publicly available and sent to partners and donors.

Working to Ensure That Climate Debt Gets Paid

By the time his final semester rolled around, he had the opportunity to take a communications internship with the United Nations in Rome, where IFAD is headquartered, beginning his professional relationship with the agency and furthering his passion for steering developmental resources to those most impacted by industrialization and climate change.

“The reason that I want to do what I want to do,” he explains, “is that I truly believe the U.S. and Europe owe a debt to the billions of people who are suffering because of the climate crisis and neo-imperialism. And I want to spend my life making sure that debt is paid.”

Since graduating, Smith has helped organize several youth climate actions and is currently working to start a microfinancing social enterprise to invest in women’s communal banking groups in Kenya. And while food system and climate issues can often result in a sort of “doom and gloom” feeling, Smith says that his work has made him feel more optimistic about meeting the challenge.

“Every day I learn about new organizations doing new work that is changing people’s lives,” he says. “There are millions and millions of people who are working on food systems and are determined to make the world better.”

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

The goal of the event was to help students find internships for the spring and summer and connect them with potential employers for future full-time opportunities. At Fordham, nearly 90% of undergraduates complete at least one internship before graduating.

Fordham News spoke to students and employers about their goals and the connections they made.

Jacqueline Risch, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business majoring in marketing, was interested in connecting with leaders from the beauty and fashion industries.

What did you think of the internship fair?
I thought it was great. It was actually my first in-person career fair because I was a COVID freshman, so I was a little nervous. It was really fun to be able to get out here and see all the tables and excitement. I got some contacts [from L’Oréal and Tapestry, Inc.], dropped my resume off, and I’m going to track some people down on LinkedIn afterward.

Ekin Kara, a recruiter from AlphaSights, an information services company, said the company was trying to build more of a brand presence at Fordham.

Why did you come to the internship fair at Fordham?
From a recruiting perspective, Fordham is actually one of the campuses that we’re trying to build our brand presence in. It was a higher-level strategic decision—our offices are in New York and San Francisco, and with Fordham being such a reputable school in the New York City area, I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential.

Sean Borsum, a first-year student majoring in environmental studies, said that he was looking for employers that would allow him to work on environmental issues.

What interested you in the Wildlife Conservation Society specifically?
For me, it’s the environment. I personally like the research side, just getting to know more about the world that we live in and also climate change—all of that is pretty important.

Was it helpful to have employers come to campus and meet with you?
It’s amazing. It’s the most valuable thing you can have, not only for your resume, but also just meeting people in the community and for the future. It’s incredible.

Alumnus Raymond Moya, PCS ’18, a volunteer and community outreach associate at South Bronx United, said he wanted to use the fair to grow the nonprofit’s partnership with Fordham.

Can you tell us a bit about South Bronx United and the internships available?
We’re a sports-based youth development organization and we use soccer as a tool for social change. We help young athletes with career mentorship and career development. We also do a lot of community work, and on top of that we offer immigration and social services to student-athletes and their families and the overall community. We have education internships, communication internships, nonprofit development internships, and community outreach internships.

Benjamin Sano, a first-year student at the Gabelli School of Business majoring in finance, said he enjoyed getting the opportunity to meet with employers.

Why did you choose to connect with South Bronx United?
In Ground Floor [a first-year business course], we have to choose a Bronx company to research. So I went over there to further my knowledge of their company and maybe look to intern next year.

What was it like talking to employers?
It was very interesting. This is my first time doing 30-second pitches and things like that. I don’t like going out of my way to speak to people, I get nervous. But they’re here for us. I was thinking about it as a chance to get my name out there, and hopefully I’ll get an internship my first year. That would be awesome.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity. Additional reporting by Franco Giacomarra.

“Making the transition from the military is not an easy feat. We know this,” said Matthew Butler, a former master sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps who now serves as senior director of Fordham’s Office of Military and Veterans’ Services, in his address to students and alumni at one of the events. “And we want to give you all the support and preparation needed to make sure you land the job that you want.” 

Networking with the FBI, Morgan Stanley, and NBC Universal

About 140 student veterans and alumni from 11 schools attended Veterans Career Day and Student Veteran Internship and Career Fair at the Lincoln Center campus. At Veterans Career Day on Oct. 4, students and alumni took free LinkedIn headshots, polished their resumes, and practiced their elevator pitch with industry professionals, some of whom were student veterans themselves. The next day, they attended the internship and career fair, held specifically for student veterans, where they had the opportunity to network with representatives from more than 30 organizations, including L’Oreal, the Federal Reserve Board, Morgan Stanley, the FBI, and NBC Universal. 

Both undergraduate and graduate students from varied disciplines, including art history, economics, and finance, came to the career fair. 

Among them was Steven Gutierrez, 32, an MBA student at the Gabelli School of Business. Gutierrez was born and raised in the Bronx and went on to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps for about a decade. He was dispatched all over the world—to Afghanistan, Central America, France, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland, and other locations—where he served as a radio technician and officer. He now works in Fordham’s Career Center as the veterans career liaison, where he helps his peers navigate the next chapter of their lives—charting their career path. 

“Typically, student veterans have worldwide experience. They bring with them discipline and accountability. The experience that they had in any of the services, it’s translatable and needed,” said Gutierrez, who plans on becoming a consultant. 

From Serving as an Airborne Combat Medic to Studying at Fordham

Glenmore Marshall, a student at Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, attended both Veterans Career Day and the Student Veteran Internship and Career Fair.

“I came to this event to find a way to better myself,” said Marshall, 37, who was born in Jamaica and grew up in the U.S. “I want to put my best foot forward and see what’s out there.” 

After attending several workshops at Veterans Career Day, he said he realized that he was “underselling” his two years of experience as a U.S. Army airborne combat medic. 

“I have a lot of skills I’m not showing to employers: specific skills like leadership, attention to detail, and being able to work under extremely stressful situations. As a combat medic, for example … I have to do blood transfusions. … I had to do one on a lieutenant in a Humvee in the middle of nowhere before,” said Marshall, who served in several states across the U.S., including North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas. “This [career readiness]workshop helped me realize … that I should utilize my background as a veteran to my advantage and not undersell myself.” 

At the fair, Marshall—an information and technology major who is looking for a job or an internship—spoke with representatives from several organizations, including the Peace Corps and IPG Health. “More people should come out to this type of thing because even if you don’t necessarily get hired or get the job, the experiences you get from today, you can apply elsewhere and realize the soft skills that you didn’t know you had,” said Marshall, who aims to become a technician or consultant.  

Providing Opportunities for the Larger Community

Miguel-Angel Sandoval, 30, a senior real estate major at PCS and vice president of Student Veterans of America at Fordham, said the Student Veteran Internship and Career Fair was his first-ever career fair. 

“A lot of the representatives of these corporations were welcoming and willing to have a conversation with you, understand who you are … and how they can get you to fit in there,” Sandoval said. “They want to see you excel. They want to see you employed, so they’re willing to do the extra work in getting to know you as well as you getting to know them.” 

Sandoval added that he is “forever grateful for Fordham.” 

“Fordham does everything it can to provide every opportunity to all its students, no matter who they are—student veterans or regular traditional students,” said Sandoval, who served in the U.S. Army for more than five years in South Korea and West Point, and is still serving as an Army ROTC cadet. “Over 30 employers came out specifically to speak to us, and I think it’s a blessing.” 

The events were co-sponsored by Fordham’s Office of Military and Veterans’ Services, Fordham’s Career Center, Student Veterans of America at Fordham, and multiple outside partners and institutions, including Columbia University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Pace University, Lord, Abbett & Co. LLC, RSM US LLP, Baker Tilly, and Jetro Restaurant Depot.  

“We open our doors to our fellow veterans because we know having hope and purpose in the future is an antidote to the inevitable dark days ahead or when the road gets rough,” said Butler. “A job can be the thing [where]one finds both purpose and a better future, while continuing to serve others and paying it forward.” 

On the eve of the fall semester, Fordham Magazine spoke with several students about their summer internships, the many ways they find them, and how New York City is an integral part of their college experience.

A Seat at the Table

Gabelli School of Business senior Colleen Farrell spent the summer at PwC working in the major accounting firm’s assurance department, doing audit work for insurance companies.

“They give you a lot of responsibility right off the bat,” Farrell said. “They treat me as if I am a starting associate.”

Farrell said she got the internship in part due to connections she made through Fordham’s chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, a financial and accounting honor society. Farrell, who is now the president of the society, said that the Gabelli Personal and Professional Development Center recommended she join after she declared her major, because Fordham’s chapter brings in recruiters from major companies, hosts networking events, and helps students land internships.

“They do such a great job of making sure students have connections with the Big Four recruiters—not even just the Big Four: any interest you have, somebody, somehow has a connection. People want to help each other, and it’s so evident,” she said.

Farrell, who is an accounting information systems major, said she received multiple internship offers but chose PwC due in part to its culture. For example, she said the company really puts a lot of effort into getting to know the interns.

“The partners are really interested in the interns—the lead engagement partner on my team did a lunch for all of the interns, and it was just the interns and the partners, who just wanted to get to know us and pique our interest in the company,” she said, adding that the partner on her team invited her to join “two calls with people in the C-suite at our client.”

“It was really important people at PwC, really important people at my client, and then me there,” Farrell said.

Writing Grant Applications, Running Events at the Dyckman Farmhouse

Cole Mullins, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior majoring in international political economy and American studies, worked as a development and administration intern at the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, located on Broadway at 204th Street. The museum aims to maintain the historic site, which features the oldest remaining farmhouse in Manhattan, a Dutch Colonial structure built circa 1785, and host creative programming for community members and tourists alike.

At the museum, he helped draft grant applications and organized fundraising events where he also connected with donors that support the museum’s work.

Mullins got the position through Fordham’s Serving the City program, which provides paid internships at New York City nonprofits and other organizations. The program is supported by donations from Fordham alumni, and the internship opportunities are exclusively for students at Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Fordham College at Rose Hill.

The Dyckman Farmhouse team is small, said the nonprofit’s executive director, Melissa Kiewiet, so partnering with Fordham made a lot of sense.

“It was a way to help us grow, and we really want it to be educational for the interns, for them to leave with some deliverables that they can take into a new job,” she said.

For Mullins, the experience helped him understand the need for community resources.

“Grant writing is very important, and just interacting with people in our community, there’s a lot of Spanish speakers,” he said, “so finding ways to improve accessibility and fit the needs of the community … was really important.”

Enhancing Visitor Experiences at the Brooklyn Museum

Lilliana Resnik has long been a fan of the Brooklyn Museum.

“I remember, it was a little treat after my first finals season to go and explore there,” said Resnik, a Fordham College at Lincoln Center senior majoring in English, minoring in communications, and pursuing a concentration in American Catholic studies.

So, when she saw a Serving the City internship position at the museum posted on Handshake, Fordham’s database for careers and internships, she jumped at the opportunity. At the museum, Resnik was a visitor experience intern.

“My main responsibility was to do research on current and upcoming exhibitions and then create documents to be given to the front of house team and … gallery guides” who lead group tours at the museum, so “they have a good background in … the historical context and [the] pieces they might want to highlight,” she said.

In her role, she also helped organize logistics for a “2023 Intern Convening,” which brought more than 100 interns from different museums and cultural institutions to the Brooklyn Museum for professional development.

Providing Access to Fresh Food

Caroline Lyons, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior majoring in psychology and sociology, spent the summer working at Grassroots Grocery. The New York City-based nonprofit works primarily with residents in the Bronx and Harlem to address food insecurity. They rescue fresh produce and other food from places like Hunts Point Market and deliver it to residents in need.

“We have a lot of volunteer events, whether it be our weekly produce parties where we distribute produce or our corporate events, which is how we get funding, so a lot of what we’ve done is help streamline processes like that and help run them,” Lyons said. “And then other things—social media, logistical tasks like inventory, finding vendors. I’m starting to look into funding grants, so that will be something I continue to do in the fall, because I’m staying on.”

Lyons said that working for Grassroots Grocery opened her up to the possibility of making a career in the nonprofit space.

“This showed me that there’s a lot of fulfillment that can be found through hard work like this,” she said. “And it just showed me that there’s a lot of help needed.”

From Internships to Full-Time Opportunities

In addition to gaining work experience, some students have been able to turn their internships into careers and other opportunities.

Angela Torricella, FCRH ’23, interned with the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum through the Serving the City program in her senior year at Fordham, and the nonprofit created a summer fellowship for her to stay on.

“It’s basically a continuation of what I did as a communications intern, plus some more community engagement oriented tasks—I do the museum’s social media, I do marketing collateral, I do a lot of graphic design for the museum,” said Torricella, who earned a bachelor’s degree in new media and digital design from Fordham last May.

Another recent Fordham graduate, Licha Gonzalez, FCRH ’23, interned with the City Schools Sports Association during her senior year and was hired by the nonprofit to run its internship program.

“We were having some gaps with our social media presence, and we know Fordham has a great digital media communications program, so we looked into potential partnerships with Fordham,” said Brendan Kitson, secretary of the nonprofit’s board. “Ever since then it’s been an amazing experience for us.”

This year’s DAAD-RISE recipients, Lindsey Berry and Luisa Rosa, are both juniors at Fordham College at Rose Hill who are pursuing majors in STEM. Since the DAAD-RISE program was established in 2005, Fordham has had 14 recipients, including this year’s. 

“DAAD-RISE is an outstanding opportunity for our undergraduates. Not only do they conduct cutting-edge research over the summer, but they also get to know Germany—meeting fellow research scientists and locals—which helps them in any career they choose to pursue, from science and engineering to medicine and teaching,” said Lorna Ronald, Ph.D., director of Fordham’s Office of Prestigious Fellowships.

Studying How the Human Brain Processes Sound 

Berry, the daughter of U.S. Air Force parents, has lived in five U.S. states and abroad in Germany and is currently an integrative neuroscience major and a German studies minor at Fordham. She conducts research in the University’s EEG Lab for Language and Multilingualism Research, where she studies second language acquisition and processing.

This summer, Berry will join the neuroscience group at Heilbronn University’s Center for Machine Learning, where she will study inattentional deafness—being unable to hear usually audible sounds, like alarms, because you’re too focused on a visual task. One example is texting while walking, and not noticing the sound of a nearby bicycle bell or a car engine. 

“The greater scope of the research that I’ll be doing in Germany is that hopefully it will help people who have suffered brain damage, such as through strokes or traumatic brain injuries. By learning more about why and how inattentional deafness occurs, we can then work towards treatment options and learn more about how the brain filters out and processes certain auditory sounds,” said Berry, who plans on eventually earning her Ph.D. and becoming a psycholinguistics researcher. 

Building a Device That Can Help Athletes in Real Time

Rosa is a computer and information sciences major at Fordham. She conducts research in the University’s Educational Data Mining Lab, where she analyzes data on Fordham student academic performance to understand grading patterns, instructor effectiveness, and future student performance. Rosa, an international student from Brazil, is also a member of the women’s swimming and diving team. 

This summer, Rosa will join a human-computer interaction research group at LMU Munich to develop and evaluate a wearable sensor-based system that can give real-time feedback to athletes and those who want to improve their skills in any physical activity. 

This system could someday help swimmers like herself. Rosa said she has about 30 teammates and two coaches at Fordham. It can be difficult for each athlete to receive individualized feedback during sports practices, she said. However, the system she will work on may have the ability to evaluate a user’s movements—stroke or breathing patterns, for example—and show them how to improve their movements in real time. 

“I think this system has the potential to revolutionize sports, and I’m really excited to be a part of it,” said Rosa, whose long-term goals are to join a company like Google and eventually lead their data science research team.  

“I was immediately interested in the internship because it combined my passions for content creation, marketing, and helping youth,” said Gonzalez, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Gonzalez got the position through Serving the City, a paid internship program available only to students enrolled at Fordham College at Rose Hill and Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Early Roots

The program began in 2020 with two partner organizations, the Museum of Art and Design and the New York Historical Society, under the title Cultural Engagement Internship Program. The goal of the program was twofold—students would gain experience and receive a stipend from Fordham, and nonprofit partner organizations would benefit from the support of an intern.

Though the program began with nonprofit institutions focused on arts and culture in New York City, it quickly grew to include other types of nonprofits serving the city’s communities. More than 60 students have interned with more than 35 organizations since it launched.

“Over the past year, we’ve really built out our partnerships,” said Desirae Colvin, director of administration, communication, and strategic initiatives in the Fordham College at Lincoln Center Dean’s Office, who manages the program at Lincoln Center and at Fordham College at Rose Hill. “After a certain point, we thought cultural engagement as the moniker doesn’t feel as reflective of that. We started to think, ‘What do they have in common?’”

That’s how the name Serving the City was born, Colvin said, to include the range and depth of internship opportunities and partner organizations.

Supporting Nonprofits Throughout the City

Arika Ahamed, a junior majoring in neuroscience at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, was one of the first to intern with a group outside of the arts and cultural organizations. She interned in summer 2021 with the Elmhurst Corona Recovery Collaborative in Queens—a group of about 25 nonprofit organizations that provided assistance and resources to residents impacted by the pandemic.

Ahamed helped create a pamphlet of resources, maintained and updated the collective’s website, and helped coordinate meetings across the coalition to keep members on track. One of her main goals was to help make the information accessible to those in need.

“One of the biggest things we noticed was that [the website]was all in English, which was something that we needed to work on,” she said. “So I was able to figure out a way to easily translate the entire website without having a translator, by connecting it to Google Translate.”

Ahamed said the internship gave her new skills in organization and communication.

“The biggest thing I think I learned from this was professionalism in general—I had to send out emails to over 75 people and at first, it was daunting because it wasn’t something I’ve ever done before,” she said.

Despite the expansion, the program still includes several cultural partners. When the pandemic forced the Chelsea Music Festival to move its events to a virtual setting, the organization needed help promoting its work, getting media coverage, and connecting with audience members. Enter Samantha Matthews, now a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Matthews was the public relations and marketing intern during 2021, responsible for reaching out to media organizations for coverage and promotion as well as running the social media accounts.

“I enjoyed their mission of giving back,” Matthews said of the festival, which aims to “give emerging voices, particularly those of women and people of color, a stage” and support a community of musicians, composers, and artists. “At Fordham, our motto is to be men and women for others and philanthropy is a cornerstone of our education, so that’s something that’s important to me,” she said. “The fact that [the internship]also tied in music and it tied in art, was really appealing to me.”

Matthews said that the internship helped her realize that public relations is something she wants to pursue, which led her to her next two internships at Les Coeurs Sauvages, an ethical fashion brand, and Head & Heart PR. She also said that she’s grateful for the connections she made.

“I really enjoyed what I did, and the environment there,” she said. “I know what I want to do in life now, and I also have met people that I know that I could call if I ever need help.”

Equitable Opportunities for Students

One of the biggest benefits of the program, according to students, is that it provides paid internships, making it accessible to those from a variety of backgrounds. This was essential right from the start, according to Fordham College at Rose Hill Dean Maura Mast, who described the need for equity at a Homecoming panel in 2021.

“Fordham students, while they have a lot of internship opportunities in the city, they’re often unpaid,” said Mast. “Often students have to decide between taking an internship for credit and getting paid. We want our students to have access to these opportunities [no matter their financial situation].”

The Serving the City program began the year before Fordham publicly launched its $350 million fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, which seeks funding for this and other programs that help students discern their paths and form new career-building connections.

Serving the City “would not exist without the generosity of alumni and donors,” said Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “It is 100% funded by individual contributions, and those contributions go directly and exclusively to student stipends.”

Donors to the program “double or triple their impact,” she said, by giving students a more educational alternative to minimum wage jobs, enabling nonprofits to augment their staffs with Fordham students, and helping the nonprofits advance their missions.

“The financial support for the internships is one of the linchpins of the program,” Colvin said. “It’s integral to what the program is for—ensuring that students can opt for something that they find meaningful and that they can be financially supported. Too often a choice of one or the other is made.”

Colvin said that since the program is run by existing staff in the dean’s offices, all donations go directly to supporting student internships without having to fund any overhead costs.

“This is truly you’re supporting this student to be able to do this internship,” she said. The program has a fund where donations can be made directly.

Caridad Kinsella, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, said that being paid for their internship at the Brooklyn Museum was a “top three reason” why they applied in the first place.

“I live in the city, I pay for college myself, I had a second job—so the fact that these internships exist and that they are paid, and that students are paid a fair wage for their work, that is hugely important,” Kinsella said.

Kinsella worked with the visitor experience and engagement department at the museum, specifically conducting background research for the exhibit on fashion visionary Thierry Mugler exhibit. Mugler, who The New York Times described as a “genre-busting” designer, was gay and embraced LGBTQ+ representation in many of his shows, even at times when it wasn’t popular.

“I enjoyed getting to do a lot of the research and writing [for the exhibit],” they said. “I’m a huge fan of fashion, and I like history, and I’m also queer—this work connects a lot of those things.”

A Launching Pad for Future Success

Kinsella said that one of the great things about the Brooklyn Museum was that it has a mentorship program that’s helping them navigate the transition from college to a full-time career. Kinsella’s mentor from the museum is helping them with reviewing their resume and cover letters and practicing for interviews.

Kassandra Ibrahim, a 2022 graduate from Fordham College at Rose Hill who is now pursuing her master’s at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, also interned at the Brooklyn Museum. Ibrahim used her experience working on the Andy Warhol exhibit to help get her next internship, working at the Met. Both internships informed her senior thesis project, which combined her interest in art history and theology.

“I think that this internship taught me that there isn’t really a hard line between art history and other disciplines,” Ibrahim said. “And it inspired me to come up with my senior seminar topic. I’m working on representations of early Christian women, and I thought of that topic while I was in the museum one day, because I thought, ‘Wait, I don’t have to choose one or the other.’”

Kinsella said that the internship opportunity gave them both hard and soft skills.

“There’s the practical connections and networking skills that you pick up, but there’s also the softer side of gaining the confidence to use those skills,” they said. “For me, it’s been a transformative experience, not only to connect to where I live in New York City, but also to the Fordham community.”

To inquire about giving in support of the Serving the City program or another area of the University, please contact Michael Boyd, senior associate vice president for development and university relations, at 212-636-6525 or [email protected]. Learn more about Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, a campaign to reinvest in every aspect of the Fordham student experience.

Parks, a native of Scarsdale, New York, who is majoring in International Studies and minoring in Orthodox Christian studies and Arabic, recently finished a 10-week summer internship with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations.

Parks worked in the diocese offices in Manhattan last summer on an informal basis. This year, the internship, which is a joint effort between the Archdiocese and Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, was formalized, with the center providing funding. It was enriching academically, intellectually, spiritually, and personally, he said.

“I have met some of the most caring and devoted people to the church at the Archdiocese. I have been mentored and cared for by some of the most accomplished people in their respective vocations, and the internship provided me the opportunity to learn about the operations of my church,” he said.

The internship was far more than fetching coffee or filing paperwork. The department that Parks worked for is tasked with finding ways for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, which counts nearly 477,000 members, to engage in dialogue with other members of both Christian and non-Christian communities.

That meant helping organize and participate in the 46th Biennial Clergy-Laity Congress, which was held in New York City in July, and the July 4 consecration of the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, which was rebuilt at the World Trade Center after being destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Parks also worked to help the church clarify and amplify two major initiatives that are meant to illustrate how the church is in tune with contemporary concerns: Greening the Parish, which addresses environmental concerns, and civil rights.

It was no accident that someone his age was included in such high-level discussions, said Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical & Interfaith Relations director Reverend Protopresbyter Nicolas Kazarian.

“It’s not just about mentorship; it’s also about having an ear to the ground, and hearing what the Orthodox youth are thinking about the church,” he said.

“What is racial reconciliation for an Orthodox 20-year-old student? We need to hear what they have to say about it because the institutional take on these issues is not always what is lived on the ground.”

Fordham students like Parks are invaluable for the church’s mission, he said, because the University is based in New York City just as the Archdiocese is, and its Jesuit heritage makes it the perfect environment for ecumenical dialogue. In the past, George E. Demacopoulos, Ph.D., and Aristotle Papanikolaou Ph.D., the Orthodox Christian Studies Center’s co-founding directors, directed students interested in ecumenical dialogue his way, so it made sense to formalize the connection.

“That’s how this started with Harry. He worked with us last year. He was already a brilliant student, and with his open-mindedness, he was a really great asset in the mission of our department,” he said.

Demacopoulos, the Father John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies, said the internship, which will be open to Fordham students every year now, is a natural outgrowth of the two institution’s partnership.

“We are delighted to build this partnership with the Ecumenical Office of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese so that Fordham students can gain real-life experience with the labor and fruit of ecumenical work,” he said.

Parks is planning to spend the next two years researching the “cradle” and “convert” constructs of Greek Orthodox Christian identity. His own family offers lessons for both, as his mother was baptized into the church as a child, while his father converted from Catholicism as an adult. He noted that the day before the Clergy-Laity Congress, he attended the Young Adults League Conference, and it was there that things really clicked for him.

“One of the things that a lot of the speakers kept saying was, ‘If you have a desire to give of your talents and experience to your church, then don’t wait for the church to come and call you. Go and knock on the church’s door,”’ he said.

“I hope this internship program will be an avenue for undergraduate students at Fordham to knock on the church’s door and to be received openly and gratefully.

“That is literally my favorite team, my favorite sport,” Chang said.

A business administration major with a dual concentration in marketing and marketing analytics, Chang said he used Fordham’s connections and his own skills to get an internship at the organization his senior year. Chang worked in the sales department, assisting with different marketing efforts.

“Fordham has a great relationship with the Giants, and they also have a lot of alumni within the Giants,” he said. “I can definitely tell how strong the alumni network is. People talk about how strong it is, but I really felt that.”

Marketing Professor Anthony DeFrancesco wrote Chang his recommendation letter for that internship.

“He thinks I helped him—he helped himself as well,” he said. “He was an enthusiastic student, always raising his hand, always looking to go deeper, stopping me and talking to me after class.”

That Giants internship helped Chang land a job at NBCUniversal as a sales associate, which he will start in mid-July. He’s hoping to put both of his concentrations to work there, since he said he enjoys both the data and creative sides of business.

“​​You know how people say, ‘oh some people think with the right side of the brain, some people think with the left,’— I’m a little bit of both,” he said. “I like being very analytical and making data-driven decisions. But I also like using my creativity. And I think that advertising and marketing really gave me the best of both worlds.”

Chang said that he was also drawn to marketing in part because of how he and his generation have been raised.

“I feel like my generation has grown up with phones in our faces since day one—we see all these ads,” he said. “So I feel like we have a better general grasp of advertising and marketing and social constructs and (understanding) people.”

At Fordham, Chang was also very involved with sustainability efforts. One of his favorite classes was global sustainability marketing, which Chang said allowed him and his classmates to really have in-depth conversations on challenges across the world.

“We explored a lot of topics from the business and marketing perspective. We’d cover all the logistics and the operations side, such as what’s going on with sustainability marketing, and where we can fix things, but then we also went in depth about modern day slavery within the fashion industry.”

Chang also was an eco-rep for his residence hall on the Sustainability Committee, which was an initiative launched his first year to help each of the buildings become greener and more sustainable. Chang said that he would help put on incentive and reward programs to encourage fellow students to recycle or become more energy efficient.

Outside of business, Chang was involved with the Rose Hill Society, a group through Undergraduate Admission where students serve as tour guides to prospective students, a member of the Fordham University Emerging Leaders Program, and a founding member of the club wrestling team.

“I was at the food place next to (Alumni Court) South, just getting a sandwich and I was wearing my high school wrestling sweatshirt, and some guy in front of me in line was like, ‘Hey did you wrestle in high school? I’m starting a club wrestling team,” he said with a laugh.

What started as just an idea has grown into a team that travels in tournaments, including trips to the University of New Hampshire.

“Not only did we get a lot of experienced really good wrestlers,” Chang said, “but what was also cool was we got a lot of new people who had never wrestled before.”

Chang credits wrestling and his high school football team with helping him develop his work ethic.

“Before I really started playing sports seriously, my work ethic was kind of bad, but (playing) the sports that you struggle in the most are the ones that build character,” he said.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
I decided to seriously consider Fordham as an option when I knew that I wanted to go to business school. As a native New Yorker, I knew how many internship and work experiences it would open for me. I found it hard to wrap my head around moving away from one of the world’s most prominent centers of business when I knew I wanted to do a business degree. The contacts I made initially at Fordham, as well as the Gabelli program, instantly impressed me when I visited and helped me decide to commit to Fordham for my undergraduate studies.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
The global opportunities and experiences that Fordham provided were absolutely incredible. I cannot speak highly enough of the Fordham London program in particular, which did a wonderful job of immersing us in the culture and providing us with a holistic experience of living and working in England. Although Fordham also has an extensive list of partner programs at other schools, such as the one I did at University College Dublin, having a sister campus abroad made [doing] my coursework stress-free. I would recommend it to anyone studying at Fordham, and in particular, I’d recommend taking a theatre class in London.

What Fordham course has had the greatest influence on you and your career path so far? How and why was it so influential?
I took several marketing classes with Timothy Malefyt, which heavily influenced me to go into marketing and the agency world in particular. His perspective on branding was a joy to learn about, and his experiences in the agency field were very helpful for setting expectations of what a career would look like after college.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
Father Vincent DeCola, assistant dean for the B.S. in global business. He truly works so hard to ensure that each and every one of his students is on the right path and employs incredible attention to detail when getting to know his students. His dedication to the student body at Gabelli, and at Fordham as a whole, is so inspiring and had a huge impact on my time there. I owe him so much for making my experience at Fordham highly tailored and very special.

Did you have any internships helped put you on your current path? What were they, and how did they prepare you for what you’re doing now?
Most influential for me was my time at Fwd, which introduced me to how marketing and branding strategists actually work. As an intern at fwd., I did a host of things, including research, conducting interviews, trend monitoring, and more. That internship really helped me learn how to talk to people through the lens of work, which became particularly important when I onboarded to my current company, Ruder Finn, remotely.

What are you optimistic about?
Despite the challenges of the past couple of years due to the pandemic, I’m very optimistic about the future of our world and the future of work. I would attribute this to a massive increase in empathy across the board. In New York City in particular, I’ve seen how much people are taking care of each other and their communities. I’m optimistic about how this shift in mindset will manifest in our personal lives and in the work-life balance that we accept as a societal norm. I think people are more inclined to really care about how they impact and can support their communities and their friends—it’s encouraging to see this shift in mindset.

Is there anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
I would like to acknowledge the amazing Global Business Honors Program, as well as Dean Brian Dunn and Jennifer O’Neil, who made my time at Fordham so special. The honors program granted me some incredible opportunities, such as traveling on business trips to London, Beijing, and Santiago. I am forever thankful for the many ways that Fordham expanded my world and the incredible opportunities to hear speakers from top businesses [and have] cultural experiences.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

Now, more than five decades later, Ninehan is supporting her old New York City neighborhood, one of the hardest hit by COVID-19, while paying tribute to the lifelong mentor and friend she found at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Her gift to Fordham’s new Cultural Engagement Internships program—made in honor of the late history professor Anne M. Mannion, Ph.D., UGE ’58—helped make it possible for the Elmhurst Corona Recovery Collaborative to offer a paid internship this year, giving a Fordham student an opportunity to support the collaborative’s efforts to meet the food security, mental health, and other needs of community members impacted by the pandemic.

For Ninehan, who graduated from Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) in 1974 and earned a Master of Science degree from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education in 2000, supporting Fordham students is a way to express gratitude for the education she received.

“The people I met, the professors I had: It was a whole world. The elevator doors would open up and you didn’t know who was going to walk out—what new celebrity,” she said, recalling one particular instance during her first year when she attended a lecture by noted anthropologist Margaret Mead, Ph.D., who was teaching at Fordham at the time.

This access to outstanding professors was eye-opening for Ninehan, but it certainly wasn’t rare. She said history professor John F. Roche, Ph.D., who died in 2012, “was really an inspiration,” and Mannion even attended Ninehan’s wedding to fellow Ram William J. Ninehan, FCLC ’93, in 1975.

Ninehan remained close to Mannion, exchanging annual holiday cards with her until she died in 2013, a year after retiring from her 53-year-long career at FCLC. She credits Mannion with not only teaching her about history but also modeling how to teach.

“She was really the most outstanding professor,” Ninehan said. “Her enthusiasm, her love of subject: It all enhanced the pedagogy. You can learn methodology, you can learn classroom management, but if you don’t bring that spark that’s a love of your subject with you, it’s meaningless.”

Never Say Never

Despite her passion for teaching, Ninehan didn’t secure a full-time teaching position until 14 years after earning her bachelor’s degree. In the meantime, she parlayed the part-time job she’d held at Bloomingdale’s as a student into a full-time gig as a personal shopper. Due to her background in history, Ninehan often was assigned to work with foreign dignitaries and political figures, but she said it was “not what I intended to be in my life.”

Finally, while reading the newspaper on the way to work in 1988, she saw a classified ad for a seventh-grade social studies teacher—“just by the grace of God,” she said. “I never used to take the newspaper to work and one day I did.”

“I called when I got to my office and the secretary said, ‘Sister will call you back,’ and I thought, ‘Catholic school?’ And that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

Funnily enough, if it hadn’t been for some insistent advice Ninehan received as a student, her path may have differed. When applying for New York state teacher certification, someone suggested she also apply for New Jersey certification. As a “kid from Queens,” she thought, “I’m never going to live in New Jersey,” but that’s where her teaching career has taken place, the bulk of it at the very first school she found via the newspaper ad: Perth Amboy Catholic School in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

In addition to serving as a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Perth Amboy, Ninehan was a principal there. After an autoimmune disease diagnosis in 2011 prompted her retirement, Ninehan continued to teach part time and volunteer at the school. Due to COVID-19, she hasn’t been able to return to Perth Amboy yet, but she said she helps out however she can.

“I’ve done things like revise the handbook and helped with alumni affairs—things of that nature,” Ninehan said. “Things that are not classroom per se, but school-oriented. So, it’s kept me in the loop.”

A Cause Close to Home

As a faithful Fordham donor for more than 20 years—a milestone that earned her entrance into the University’s Doty Society—and an “Elmhurst girl” who walked to PS 13 and high school, Ninehan didn’t think twice about supporting Fordham’s Cultural Engagement Internships program after learning about it during this year’s Lincoln Center Block Party reunion, held virtually in June. The program offers FCLC and Fordham College at Rose Hill students the opportunity to participate in paid internships at local nonprofits and cultural institutions, like the Elmhurst Corona Recovery Collaborative.

Ninehan is one of several alumni donors who have stepped up to help fund student pay and expand the program. She said that while Elmhurst has “taken quite a beating—economically and physically”—over the years, it “was a wonderful place to grow up,” and it means a lot to her that people are interested in preserving the community and helping the people who live there.

“The fact that an intern can help, it’s a double blessing,” she added. “I can help [a Fordham student]do something that’s meaningful and you could help the community you came from; it just made perfect sense.”

Fordham has meant a “great deal” to Ninehan, and she’s looking forward to a time when she can connect with the Fordham community in person again. (She’ll have opportunities pretty soon: Numerous in-person alumni events are returning this month, and Homecoming, scheduled for Saturday, October 9, will be in person, too.)

“In terms of the guidance I got, in terms of my courses, the influence of the professors, and then the lifetime relationships and the friends I made, the friends I still have, my husband: It’s all Fordham,” she said.

What are you most passionate about?
I am most passionate about teaching.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The best piece of advice I ever received was to go to Fordham, because of my lasting personal relationships and its impact on my career.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
Although I have enjoyed visiting many places, my favorite place has always been my classroom.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
I couldn’t possibly name just one book; influence or inspiration comes from many and sometimes unexpected sources.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
Anne Mannion’s love of history and her infectious enthusiasm made her a truly great teacher and role model.

What are you optimistic about?
Despite the many challenges that face us all, with the grace of God, I am optimistic about the future.