“Fordham students have a passion for leadership and understand the academic underpinnings of societal issues. That passion gets ignited in the classroom and continues with civic engagement in the Bronx, Manhattan, and beyond,” said Arto Woodley, Ed.D., executive director of the Center for Community Engaged Learning. “As [Irish poet William Butler] Yeats said, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but a lighting of a fire.’”

All volunteers bring individual expertise to their respective organizations, but Fordham College at Rose Hill seniors Marc De La Hoz and Laura Lynch said Fordham students bring something extra: a commitment to service, honed over their four years here.

De La Hoz is heading to Cameroon with the Peace Corps as a health educator. Lynch will assist teachers at underserved community schools outside of Sacramento, California, with the JVC, one of the world’s largest lay, Catholic, full-time volunteer programs. Both say they are going away to learn, as well as to help.

Lynch said her experiences in Alaska and Mississippi with Fordham’s Global Outreach, part of the Center for Community Engaged Learning, taught her a lot about how to approach helping others. At the forefront is self-awareness of her own privilege.

“When you’re working with marginalized communities, or any kind of service work, you have to be careful not to be paternalistic,” said Lynch, adding that the people she’ll be aiming to help will have plenty to teach her.

The French major said she’ll be brushing up on her Spanish over the summer before beginning her one-year stint as a teacher’s assistant at Saint Hope Charter Schools in Sacramento, a city known more for its wealth than its underserved communities.

“Everyone talks about how nice a city it is, but there’s shocking disparity, so historically underserved populations don’t benefit from that reputation,” she said, adding that it’s not unlike her experiences volunteering in the Bronx, where impoverished communities sit amidst New York’s enormous wealth.

Lynch has some experience in teaching; while at Fordham, she volunteered as a tutor at Concourse House, a transitional housing site, and at the Rose Hill Tutoring Center.

She said she’s looking forward to the JVC version of volunteering, which incorporates Ignatian values signified by four pillars: simple living, social justice, community, and spirituality. To that end, she’ll be living in a community with other JVC volunteers on a small stipend, where she’ll share dinners and experiences. Mostly, she’s looking forward to meeting her new students.

“I want to stand with these students and hear about their experience,” she said. “This is for me as much a learning experience as another year of school would be.”

De La Hoz also expressed a desire to learn from the people of Cameroon over the next two years. He’s already hunkered down on reading about the diverse country, which tends to “lean very religious and conservative,” he said, regardless of the many religions represented there. He said he’s expecting to embark on a period of listening to understand what’s needed from him. He spent years teaching sexual health as a volunteer at Peer Health Exchange in New York City, a health education program for underserved community youth. He used what he learned at Peer Health to help educate a diverse group of populations about sexual health, from sex workers in the Dominican Republic to teens at his church near his hometown of Fishkill, New York.

Each community has its own needs and each has its own way of receiving health information, he said. Bronx teens appreciate frankness, he said, “or they immediately lose interest.”

“With a sex worker, the situation is very different. In that case, it’s sitting there and letting them know you are listening to them as a person, not a sex object,” he said.

In Cameroon, he’ll need to learn the needs of a new population: those living with HIV/AIDS. He will not be dealing with clients as directly as in the past. The Peace Corps, established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy with Sargent Shriver serving as its first director, has its members work side by side with local leaders to tackle challenges.

He said his experience working with immigrants in his own community laid bare what happens when people don’t get the health information they need.

“Health education is what decides success in life,” he said. “If you’re a 14-year-old girl without real health education, you could get pregnant. A baby is a blessing, but what about that young girl’s future?”

De La Hoz’s ultimate goal will be medical school when he returns from Cameroon. For now, he’s set to listen.

“I won’t know the best way to get things done until I get there.”

“Fordham University is proud to confer an honorary doctorate upon Timothy Shriver,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “If Fordham were only considering Dr. Shriver’s many accomplishments in education, childhood development, and special athletics, they would be more than enough to merit the honor. In conferring this degree, however, we also acknowledge a man who could have chosen any path in life but elected to devote himself to the welfare of society’s most vulnerable members. In this, Dr. Shriver exemplifies the highest of Fordham’s ideals and the best in all of us.”

An educator, author, and activist for social change, Shriver has spent his career working for the dignity and fulfillment of young people. In 1996, he joined the Special Olympics, founded by his mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, when he was a child. Under his leadership, it has become a beloved global organization that promotes health and education through sports, supporting more than 5 million athletes with physical and developmental disabilities who take part in over 100,000 annual competitions.

Earlier in his career, Shriver worked as a teacher in the New Haven, Connecticut, public schools, where he helped establish social and emotional education programs in an area plagued by violence and drugs. During a visit to Fordham in 2016, he talked about the importance of mindfulness at a time when so many young people are facing anxiety and depression.

“The silence that has come to us from contemplative practice can be . . . a source of direct experience of one’s goodness,” he said.

“The primary vector of discovery is of your own self-judgment. And when you finally start to unmask your own judgment, you get to the point where you can see a little more clearly.”

Shriver was a producer on four films including the 1997 Steven Spielberg film Amistad. His 2014 book, Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most, recounts his personal spiritual journey and vision of inclusivity.

Through its own commitment to service and education, Fordham shares many connections to Shriver and his family. The University ranks among schools that produce the most volunteers for the Peace Corps, originally led by his father, Sargent Shriver, who received an honorary doctorate at Fordham’s 1963 commencement. His son Tim has served as president of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, where many Fordham students volunteer after graduation. And his daughter Caroline graduates this May as a member of the Fordham College at Lincoln Center Class of 2019 with an Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. in dance.

Six other notable figures will receive honorary degrees at commencement. Fordham will grant a doctorate of humane letters to Ellen R. Alemany, chairwoman and CEO of CIT Group and CEO of CIT Bank, N.A.; Bob Casey, U.S. senator from Pennsylvania; Yueh C. Chen, secretary of the J. T. Tai & Company Foundation; Joseph P. Parkes, S.J., provincial assistant for secondary and pre-secondary education for the Maryland and USA Northeast Provinces of the Society of Jesus and a former Fordham trustee; and David Ushery, NBC News 4 New York news anchor and reporter. Alemany will be the speaker at the diploma ceremony for Gabelli School of Business master’s degree candidates on May 20. The Honorable Pamela K. Chen, United States District Court judge for the Eastern District of New York, will receive an honorary doctorate of laws and will speak at Fordham Law School’s diploma ceremony on May 20.

Based on reactions, comments, and shares*, here are the Fordham News stories that were most popular on Facebook this year.

10. Fordham Provost Stephen Freedman Dies at 68
To call an obituary a “popular” post may seem incongruous. The word is very fitting, however, for our late provost Stephen Freedman, who was loved and admired on the Fordham campus and beyond. His untimely death in July shocked the University community; we still grieve for him as we strive to carry on his legacy.

9. Management Course on Spinning Bikes Gets Students Up to Speed
Struggling to fit in your spin workout and still make it to class? Students did both in Julita Haber’s management class, the first ever fitness integrated learning (FIL) class to be offered on an American campus.

8. Faces in the Class of 2018
Hailing from all over the world, these 10 members of the Class of 2018 were just a small sample of the many talented graduates who do us proud each year.

7. Spending a Year With the Jesuit Volunteer Corps
For some Fordham grads—including Charlie Shea and Annie David—the Jesuit Volunteer Corps offers a chance to experience a different community and find a sense of purpose.

6. Performing Arts Programs Earn Top Rankings
Our performing arts programs took center stage this year, earning top spots in several prestigious rankings. Bravo!

5. Fordham Opens New London Centre
Fordham officially unveiled its new London Centre, now located in the Clerkenwell neighborhood and offering study abroad opportunities in liberal arts, business, and drama.

4. Fordham Marches in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
As always, the Rams had a great showing on Fifth Avenue for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We took first place among universities for the third year in a row.

3. Remembering Nicholas Booker
Friends and Fordham staff came together to remember first-year student Nicholas Booker, an athlete, a pal to many, and a promising young man whose future was cut short by a severe asthmatic attack.

2. Moving in on Opening Day
There was plenty of Fordham spirit on display as Opening Day welcomed new and returning students to campus.

1. Sistine Chapel Reproduction Installed at Rose Hill
And our most popular post of 2018 was a recent one: A quarter-scale reproduction of the Sistine Chapel fresco—a gift from the Met—now hangs in Duane Library’s Butler Commons. Be sure to check it out in January, when the University will open the room to members of the campus community.

*A note about our methodology: This list is based on total reactions, comments, and shares, including reactions to other people’s shares– which are not reflected in the numbers seen at the bottom of the posts here.

Shea, who learned Spanish in elementary school, developed a bond with his Spanish-speaking coworkers. Many of them were men from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

“They all worked super hard. I was just working there for a summer job, but many of the guys were working to provide for their families,” said Shea, a 2017 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate who will earn a Master of Science in marketing intelligence this year from the Gabelli School of Business. He said his personal experiences with the Bronx’s Latino community inspired his decision to join the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) after graduation.

For a year, Shea will serve as a family self-sufficiency case worker at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, where the population is more than 50 percent Latino. He’ll assist families and elderly clients with issues related to poverty, food insecurity, housing, and immigration.

“I wanted to do something where I could see the benefits of what I was doing,” said Shea, who chose not to pursue a “typical office job” after graduating. “I wanted something a little bit more tangible and a little bit more real.”

Shea is one of roughly 300 young adults in JVC’s global volunteering program at any given time, according to Mike Reddy, interim president of JVC.

“Jesuit Volunteers accompany poor and marginalized communities through service within agencies at the front lines of social justice,” said Reddy. “Their term of service in JVC not only benefits those communities, but it also gives our volunteers a sense of purpose, mission, and values for years to come.”

Annie David will serve with JVC for a year as an after-school coordinator and coach for Girls in the Game—a Chicago-based nonprofit focused on helping girls find their voice, confidence, and power through sports.

“It’s kind of like a safe place for girls in Chicago,” said David, who learned firsthand how sports can inspire and motivate when she joined Fordham’s women’s rugby team.

“I had never played before, but being supported by the team and learning that everyone is there to have fun and help each other, that led me to want to pass on what I’ve learned.”

David is graduating with a degree in communications from Fordham College at Rose Hill. Originally from Lynchburg, Virginia, she said that studying and living in a diverse, urban environment like New York helped her to become aware of the challenges faced by marginalized communities.

She thinks the year ahead will help her find her purpose.

As of May 2, eight other graduating seniors also plan to serve with the JVC next year: Brian Kriebel will serve at Catholic Parish Outreach in Raleigh, North Carolina; Stephanie Leo will work at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley in San Jose, California; Emily Lindo will serve with Civicorps in Oakland, California; Siobhan Loughran will serve at Promise Arizona, an immigrant- rights organization in Phoenix; Christopher Ly will serve at the Midtown Assistance Center in Atlanta; Christina Monaco will work at Preble Street, which addresses issues like homelessness, hunger, and poverty in Portland, Maine; Michelle Nista will work at Friends of the Poor in Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Kathleen Stanovick will work at Raphael House, which serves homeless and low-income families in San Francisco. Greg Rigatti, who graduated in 2016, will serve at Community & Home Supports in Detroit. And Corina Minden-Birkenmaier, a 2017 graduate, will serve as a criminal justice reform intake specialist with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

A former Jesuit Volunteer aims to reduce health disparities

Soon after Brittney Cavaliere began volunteering at Joseph’s House in Washington, D.C., James Hardy arrived.

“He was a pain, he really was,” Cavaliere says with a laugh, recalling how the 60-something-year-old acted when he first got to Joseph’s House, an organization that offers shelter and end-of-life care for homeless men and women with HIV and cancer.

As Cavaliere describes it in The Messengers, a documentary film by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lucian Perkins, Hardy “wanted help, but he was too proud to ask.”

That changed when his cancer almost killed him.

By the time Hardy had bounced back, he and Cavaliere had developed a deep friendship that was defining for both of them, she says. “I think we were learning to be vulnerable together.”

Joseph’s House was Cavaliere’s second assignment as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which places volunteers in communities tackling challenges like homelessness, hunger, mental illness, and poverty. Though she had worked with similar populations before, it was a particularly emotional time for Cavaliere. Even after leaving, she spoke with Hardy every day until he passed away. A picture he gave her of himself—“I want for you always to remember me like that,” he told her—still hangs on her bedroom wall.

“My time at Joseph’s House helped me better understand how to be a party in a relationship,” Cavaliere says, “how to be my best self, how to be vulnerable, how to love.”

It also helped Cavaliere confirm that social work was not the best route for her. She went on to explore a research career in D.C. before returning to New York to pursue a master’s degree in public health at Columbia University. Since college, Cavaliere had focused on supporting those affected by HIV/AIDS, but in graduate school she expanded her focus to health policy and practice.

“If I learned anything from my time at Joseph’s House, it’s that people shouldn’t be dying just because they’re black or poor,” Cavaliere says. “HIV shouldn’t be affecting different populations disproportionately because they’re marginalized, because their voices aren’t heard by the government or by policymakers.”

Having graduated this spring, she hopes to fight for health equity for all through community organizing and advocacy work.

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

A Catholic Relief Services worker aids Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Not long after arriving in Lebanon last year, Sean Kenney traveled to the country’s Bekaa Valley, where an estimated 1.5 million refugees from war-torn Syria have crossed the border to live in tent settlements dotting the dirt fields.

Kenney, a program manager with Catholic Relief Services, went to distribute food and hygiene vouchers to the refugees, who endure harsh conditions. One family had lived in a tent for more than three years, and pleaded for more support—especially during the bitterly cold winter months.

“They were very grateful for the vouchers, but the aid was simply not enough,” says Kenney, who works with local partner Caritas Lebanon to provide humanitarian relief. “They had no other source of income.”

Daily life in the Bekaa Valley settlements is arduous. Unlike neighboring countries, Lebanon has established no formal refugee camps and provides no government support. Landowners charge refugees to live in their fields, and employment restrictions make it difficult for refugees to find work.

And while Caritas Lebanon supports an effort to get more Syrian kids enrolled in Lebanese schools, the majority of refugee children receive no formal education, creating what Kenney calls a “lost generation” of Syrian youth.

A Kansas native, Kenney joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in 2010. Assigned to a new high school in rural Tanzania, he taught geography and organized a program that allowed students to serve as English tutors for children in a nearby village.

But he soon realized that he needed a graduate degree to further his career. In Fordham’s International Political Economy and Development program, he gained expertise in data analysis and data management along with a strong understanding of development economics. After earning a master’s degree in 2015, he interned for Catholic Relief Services, assessing the impact of a water and sanitation program at a camp for South Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Later that year, he was sent to the Middle East, where he worked on a program that promoted cooperation among pediatric palliative care providers.

In 2016, he became a program manager and joined the team in Beirut, where his responsibilities include a new project that provides food, shelter, medical support, and trauma counseling to refugees who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.

“This type of work can put you close to really terrible suffering,” Kenney says. “But the genuineness of the people I work with and the people I work on behalf of keeps me engaged and optimistic about my work.”

—Mariko Thompson Beck

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

Camille Tacastacas, Veronica Muoio, and Josh Voges—all of whom graduated from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences on May 21—are among approximately 25 fellows selected from hundreds of applicants for the yearlong program. Tacastacas and Voges have both been offered fellowship positions in Malawi and Rwanda, respectively. Muoio’s placement is pending.

The global fellowships typically lead to full-time positions within CRS.

“This experience is helping me expand my world,” said Tacastacas, a native of the Philippines who currently is interning with CRS in Sierra Leone. “Sierra Leone is the first place I’ve worked outside of the Philippines or the United States, so I came in with certain notions of how people are.

“This has been an exercise in shattering those labels and taking people just as they are, giving them a chance to express their whole personhood and humanity.”

In Sierra Leone, Tacastacas has been doing operations research for a project that addresses acute malnutrition in young children. A graduate of the Jesuit Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, Tacastacas also served as a member of Jesuit Volunteer Corps prior to her Sierra Leone placement.

In Malawi, she will do research for Ubale (United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations), a USAID-funded project on food security and nutrition.

“The Jesuits at Ateneo de Manila inculcated in me the value for social justice,” she said. “That exposure to the least, the less, and the lonely made me want to marry my life’s work with the needs of the world.”

Voges, who is completing a CRS internship in Senegal, is a former Peace Corps volunteer who said he learned the value of economic development when was stationed in Morocco. Recently, he received a message from a basket weaver celebrating the economic success of a workshop that he, Voges, and and other villagers had built.

“He said he was spending the weekend at the beach with his family and friends celebrating, because they had been able to produce and sell a record number of baskets last summer,” said Voges. “He said they used the increase in revenue to purchase a truck so that the artisans would no longer have to pay each week to have the merchandise delivered to the markets.”

In Senegal, Voges has been designing an emergency behavior change intervention in Cape Verde in response to the Zika epidemic. He also coordinated a proposal for a $1.5 million USAID grant to support peace and reconciliation efforts in southern Senegal.

In Rwanda, he will work with CRS to develop community-based models to strengthen local agriculture, nutrition, and economies.

Helping local communities become self-sustaining is at the heart of the CRS mission, said Muoio.

A former Peace Corps volunteer, Muoio said, “The most rewarding part of the work was seeing our students and participants in the programs get really engaged and then go and launch programs and projects of their own—taking what we were doing in our center and bringing it out to the community to share with others.”

Muoio is an intern at the United Nations Development Programme, where she is working on issues related to gender equality around the world. Her CRS fellowship placement is pending, but she said it is likely she will work with Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the Middle East.

“Working with local partners is what CRS does best,” she said. “And they set a standard for other organizations—because the ideal in the industry to is to work yourself out of a job.”

Sarah Allison (Rose Hill): Allison dedicated much of her time to the Dorothy Day Center and the circulation of its social justice values with her fellow Fordham students.  As a Social Justice Leader, she has focused on the issues of police brutality and institutionalized racism. 

Zann Ballsun-Simms (Lincoln Center): Ballsun-Simms has worked with Fordham freshmen as a leader in the Urban Plunge program, as well as assisting rural Ghanaian students in the construction of a school.  She was a program coordinator with the Met Council on Housing, where she helped organize rallies, protests, and marches that drew thousands.

Chris Hennessy (Lincoln Center): As a Social Justice Leader, Hennessy worked to connect Fordham with the community outside the campus on social justice issues. He has taken a leadership role in the Urban Plunge program, the Hurricane Sandy relief programs, and numerous on-campus events, such as talk backs and black outs.

Scarly Rodriguez (Rose Hill): Rodriguez has been a coordinator with Fordham’s History Makers Program since even before her enrollment at Fordham. Since then, her work has extended from the local sphere, as a volunteer at the Bronx Teen Health Center, to the international, in India with Global Outreach and in El Salvador with the Casa de la Solidaridad.

Emily Tormey (Rose Hill): In her time at Fordham, Tormey has advanced from Urban Plunge and College Access, to initiatives such as Global Outreach and the Social Justice Leaders. She was the chapter Director of “Strive for College” and the Fordham Club. As a graduate, she will continue her service work with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

— Kiran Singh contributed to the reporting

• Brittney Cavaliere – The Alliance of AIDS Services—Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
• Mariel de la Cruz – United Community Housing Coalition, Detroit
• John Donahue – Chrysalis, Los Angeles
• Lauren Foley (2nd year volunteer) – St. Aloysius School, New York
• Christine Gosney – Central Arizona Shelter Services, Phoenix
• Margaret Hannigan – Miriam’s Kitchen, Washington, D.C.
• Shannon Hirrel – Disability Rights Legal Center, Los Angeles
• Tara Nadeau – MAAC Project, Chula Vista, Calif.
• Elizabeth Wing (2nd year volunteer) – St. Mary Goretti Secondary School, Moshi Tanzania
• David Yusavitz – Hands on Hartford, Hartford, Conn.

During their time as Jesuit Volunteers, they will be dedicated to living simply and working for social justice in a spiritually supportive community of other volunteers who are working with people who live on the margins of society.

These alumni are among the 340 JVs living in 48 communities in the U.S. and six other countries across the globe. Volunteers work at hundreds of schools, health clinics, legal clinics, parishes, and nonprofit organizations to provide essential services, saving them a combined estimate of $6 million each year, in comparison to the cost of a salaried employee.

“Jesuit Volunteers allow local organizations to provide more services and have a greater impact within their communities,” said Kevin O’Brien, president of JVC. “As a former JV myself, I know the transformative effect of full-time service. This experience will open their hearts and minds and change their perceptions of the world around them. It’s inspiring to welcome a new generation of women and men who want to work for justice and peace.”

In 2009, five of the six Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC East, JVC Midwest, JVC Southwest, JVC South, and JV International) organizations merged to form JVC. With shared resources directed toward one common mission, JVC is building upon its grassroots history and strives to strengthen and improve the organization. With a 16 percent increase over last year’s volunteer count, Jesuit Volunteers can be found in inner-city neighborhoods like Brooklyn, NY, rural communities like the Rosebud Indian Reservation of South Dakota, and many other places throughout the U.S. They also serve in developing countries in South America, Africa, and Oceania.

Based in four core values—social justice, simple living, community, and spirituality—Jesuit Volunteer Corps offers women and men an opportunity to work full-time for justice and peace. Jesuit Volunteers are called to the mission of serving the poor directly, working for structural change in the United States, and accompanying people in developing countries. For decades, Jesuit Volunteer Corps has worked in collaboration with Jesuits, whose spirituality the volunteers incorporate in their work, community, and prayer life. More than 250 grassroots organizations across the world count on Jesuit Volunteers to provide essential services. During their one to two years of service, volunteers integrate Christian faith by working and living among the poor and marginalized examining the causes of social injustice. JVC offers volunteers an experience that will open their minds and hearts to live always conscious of the poor and committed to the Church’s mission of promoting justice in the service of faith.

Learn more at www.jesuitvolunteers.org or www.facebook.com/jesuitvolunteers.