The virtual ceremony spanned three time zones, with Feeney and his wife Helga at their apartment in San Francisco and Fordham’s president, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., and provost, Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., at the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. Former School of Law Dean John D. Ferrick, who nominated Feeney for the honor, was also present at the Rose Hill ceremony. The event was shared widely with the Fordham community.

Father McShane lauded Feeney for his generosity and commitment to others.

“We tell our students here that the goal that Fordham has before it is always the goal of educating and graduating, and sending out into the world … women, and men for others, women and men whose lives are marked by character, conscience, competence, compassion, and indeed, commitment to the cause of the human family,” he said.

Feeney made his fortune as co-founder of the airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers. He was later credited with inspiring the Giving Pledge—created by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates—which he signed in 2011. At the time, he wrote that the most rewarding, appropriate use of wealth is “to give while one is living—to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition.”

He funneled nearly all of his wealth into Atlantic Philanthropies, making it one of the largest private charitable foundations in the world. In 2012, he told Forbes that he’d set aside $2 million for his and Helga’s retirement, which meant he’d given away 375,000% more money than his net worth at the time.

In prepared remarks, Helga thanked Fordham on behalf of her husband.

“The pursuit of knowledge and understanding for the betterment of humanity is the highest of endeavors, one to which Chuck has devoted his life’s work,” she said, noting that they were gratified to learn about programs at Fordham that encourage service, cultural immersion, social justice, and community engagement.

“The continuing challenges of our times demand that universities imbue the next generations with the knowledge and the values that Chuck has supported and sought to advance.”

Father McShane said that Feeney is the embodiment of Fordham’s mission.

“We are pointing to you and saying, ‘If you want to know what we at Fordham are about, … look at the man to whom we give this honorary degree. His life has been really an ongoing fulfillment of our dreams.’”

In honor of the book’s release, Fordham Law Dean Matthew Diller interviewed Feerick in a conversation that was streamed live on April 23. And on May 27, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, swapped places on with Fordham Conversations host Robin Shannon to interview Feerick for WFUV. In a conversation produced by Shannon and coordinated by Fordham Law clinical visiting professor John Rogan, the two discussed Irish history, Feerick’s family, and his extensive career as a lawyer.

Listen to the interview at Fordham Conversations.

Joseph McShane: Good morning, I’m Father McShane, and I’ve been asked to be the guest host for Fordham Conversations. I must tell you I was very honored to be asked to do this today because it gives me the opportunity to have a long conversation with a dear friend of mine, one of the most respected and loved members of the Fordham community, John Feerick, who had, as many of you know, a legendary run of 20 years as the dean of Fordham Law School. After many years of people asking him to put his thoughts down on paper in the form of an autobiography, he has finally done so. The autobiography has a marvelous title, it comes from Seamus Heaney: “That Further Shore: A Memoir of Irish Roots and American Promise.” It is my honor now to introduce to you all for a conversation, JF.

John Ferrick: Thank you very much, Father.

JM: John, I must say when I was asked to read your autobiography, I accepted not the challenge, but the gift of the opportunity very eagerly. But I have to tell you at the outset, I wondered how would this man, who has spent a lifetime in service doing extraordinary things, but always being a man of great humility, how is he going to write and autobiography which will give us all a sense of who he is and what he had done?

And in the book, I have to say, John, you are yourself. That is to say, you tell a wonderful story, but you always point to other people. You rarely, if ever, allow yourself to be center stage here. I say that at the outset and my cousin, who did the introduction, said something similar. This is a man who has really spent his life doing good, but quietly and unobtrusively. So I’m glad that the autobiography is out and I’m also glad I have the opportunity to tease a few things out if you don’t mind.

JF: Thank you.

JM: John, I’m going to start at your beginnings, which are beginnings that actually pre-date your birth. You go into a great deal of detail in the early part of your autobiography about your Irish roots. From County Mayo, God help us. Your great love for your mother and your father. Could I ask you, how deeply did the Irish nature of your family and your upbringing influence you in those key formative years in grammar school and high school down in Melrose, especially in St. Angela’s Parish? How did all of that play itself out in your life?

JF: It probably plays itself out in a lot of ways. Love of family, love of doing good to the extent you can beyond your family. As I think back on my youth, there was so much happiness in the home, even though my father was away during most of the war years. There was Irish music in the home. There was a constant reminder to us that we had a family in Ireland. My parents never saw their parents again after they immigrated from Ireland. But we were conscious of my mother sending clothes and other items to her family in Ireland. My mother sang and danced. My father played the concertina, which I called an accordion in those years. Their Irish friends came over. There was a joy in the home. There were pictures up on the wall, and one was of somebody wanting to go home. I always thought that reflected my mother thinking of her family in Ireland and my father thinking of his family in Ireland. So my Irish roots really were all over me.

JM: John, I have to say there are sections in the early part of the book where you talk about life in Melrose that had me rolling on the floor laughing. The reason is, it was so similar to the experience that my family had living in the Bronx. Mom and dad playing their roles very, very well. Your mother being the playful disciplinarian and your dad watching over everything, more bluff than anything else, more love than anything else. It was a home in which love was really the language spoken and the atmosphere that prevailed.

There also seems to have been deep faith that you picked up and made your own. You talk about the Ursuline Sisters, you talk about being a student at Bishop Dubois High School with the diocesan priests and the Marist Brothers, you talk about that strange moment where you had to decide, “Am I going to take the offer from Dubois or am I going to take the exam for Cardinal Hayes High School?” And you threw your lot in with Dubois. But through it all there is this marvelous presence of deep faith, and it seems to have come naturally from your home environment.

JF: Well, it certainly came from the environment in my home. We said our prayers at night, we kneeled down. And there were expressions of our faith on the wall and right around the corner. The St. Angela Merici Parish church was a short walk up Morris Avenue from my family’s home on East 161st Street. There were constant reminders of our faith as Catholics. We went to confession on a very regular basis. It was everywhere. My parents expressed the faith and my education, as you point out, was with the Ursuline Sisters. And I became an altar boy at St. Angela Merici parish. I was surrounded, you might say, by a reminder of who I was as a boy and as a member of the Catholic faith.

JM: In describing your own life and your own way of proceeding—and this where the marvelous self-deprecation of JF that we’re all familiar with comes in—you say, “I was a person without much focus and, therefore, early on I began to not have the ability to say no, which has resulted in my being such a volunteer. When someone comes to me and asks for help, I can’t really refuse.” This seems to be, John, from your earliest years, one of the great distinguishing characteristics of your life.

Everyone looks to you for help and everyone looks to you for advice. John, you’ve never been able to escape this openness to service. How do you explain that? This great openness to service that you have shown throughout your life?

JF: In the course of doing the book and looking back, I realized there’s a word that describes a lot of it: restlessness. It was a restlessness on my part. I did all kinds of part-time jobs from my earliest years: shoveling snow, delivering groceries, making Italian sandwiches, delivering newspapers. It was a way to make a few dollars, get tips or get some candy bars from Moe when you delivered the papers on Sunday. Opportunities flowed for young children to do things and to receive some recognition. I did that right through high school, right through college. I was used to doing a lot of things and enjoying what I did. When I entered Fordham Law School, I continued to work in the supermarket for my first year, including during the summer when I worked in a law firm in the afternoons. So I just carried that variety and diversity, and there was nothing I did that I could recall now that I didn’t enjoy doing. That’s what I brought to the practice of law.

JM: John, just as an aside, I have to point out something that I picked up in the book. Here you are an immensely successful man in the world of law, in the world of academic administration, in the world of government and politics, immensely successful. But at every turn in the book, you always seem to be a little surprised that you’re successful, such as when you land the job at Skadden and when you’re sought out by governors. Nobody else is surprised because of who you are in many ways. I say this on behalf of everyone I know: you define goodness, you really do, and selflessness. And you’re also a wise, wise man. I just want to say that because you’re so loved that it has to be said. I don’t know if you’ll even accept it. I know you’re Irish and I’m Irish, and, therefore, we turn away from those things.

You opened a door. You said “Fordham,” that magic word for you and me. What was your experience like as a student at Fordham College and as a student at the law school? You mentioned a few of your Jesuit mentors in the book, what was their impact on you?

JF: As I entered Fordham College, my existence was limited to a few blocks in the Bronx. Even though I went over to Dubois High School in Manhattan by bus or trolley, my life was 161st Street and 162nd Street up to the Grand Concourse and Yankee Stadium. That was my village. It was a very, very small village. That was my world. And when I went to Fordham College, it was a totally new world of priests and lay teachers who cared deeply for their students. There was a sense of community at the school. We loved our sports teams. I got involved in the booster club by my late classmate Bob Bradley. We used to go out to New Jersey to watch the basketball team play. There was a larger world that opened to me at Fordham College. Of all my school days, that was my most peaceful period of time where I saw things I never saw before. The Constitution of the United States, for example. I had fabulous teachers.

My faith was developed. We took 24 credits of philosophy and theology. I had theology and philosophy every year, so it was a constant nourishment of the faith I grew up with in the home, but at a different level.

I met lifelong friends, like Joe Hart whose burial I was at yesterday. I was asked by a Jesuit priest at the cemetery to say something. I said, “At Fordham College, I met such wonderful classmates and some remain lifelong friends of mine.”

The values of my faith and the values of service came home in a bang for me at Fordham College. I was asked to be a class representative in my second year, then vice president of my class in my third year, and then vice president of the student body in my last year. The notion of serving others came home in a big way because of the opportunities that came to me. And none of us were looking for another position, we had opportunities in our present positions to do all you could for your class or the school.

It was wonderful, and I describe in my book how Fordham College and then Fordham Law School impacted me. Fordham Law School was different. It was buckling down in terms of rigor, certainly in first year of law school. We loved our teachers and most of us worked part-time after classes. Because of Fordham College, I had developed an academic record that I didn’t have in high school and grammar school. All of a sudden, I seemed to come alive academically at Fordham College, and that continued right into the law school. I remember during college writing papers on subjects like separation of powers. I used my paper on that subject for testimony I gave to Congress on why the 25th Amendment should be adopted. I was introduced to the concept of separation of powers at Fordham College in my government courses.

I had Father McKenna as a teacher in three or four classes, he eventually, as you know, went to Nigeria. I had lay teachers and members of the Society of Jesus who educated me, not only the basic first or second year of the curriculum, but also in the third and fourth year. I am what I am thanks to my parents and thanks to all those who were my teachers and role models and mentors in so many different ways.

JM: John, you went from the law school to the law firm of Skadden Arps. Even as a very young man, you played a major role in constitutional law with your work on the 25th Amendment. You became overnight an intellectual force and a legal force to be, if not reckoned with, always considered, including in the last few years, and you’ve worn that mantle with dignity and with restraint. But you do know you really are an extraordinarily important figure in American jurisprudence and American political life as a result of that, you do know that I hope?

JF: Well, I don’t feel that. I’m surprised at times when the library at the law school tells me that the book I wrote on the 25th Amendment and also my earlier book on presidential succession are the basic source books on that subject today. I had the opportunity to work on the 25th Amendment as a very young lawyer because I had written an article for the Fordham Law Review on the subject of presidential inability. When President Kennedy died, it was the most recent article on the subject. I had sent reprints before the assassination hoping to interest people in solving a problem that I had learned about. I would have never had thought that the article would have led to my involvement with a group of former attorneys general and very distinct lawyers in crafting an amendment to the United States Constitution.

I had no sense as I was working on it that it was something that was going to be in the United States Constitution. You were hoping, you were doing everything you could to persuade Congress and others about it. I was just working away and hoping, not expecting, that all of a sudden this was going to go into the Constitution because people had been working on the problem for 100 years. But it got solved at that time because of the assassination of a president and great leaders in Congress of both parties. Congress worked together and they allowed a number of us, including myself, an opportunity to make suggestions and even contribute language that’s in the Constitution today.

JM: An extraordinary achievement and, yet again, John, you characteristically throw the spotlight on others. But it is a great gift to the country thanks to that fine mind you developed at Saint Angela’s and then at Dubois and then at Fordham College and the law school. And everyone is in your debt, not just Fordham, but the whole country’s in your debt.

John, I’m going to go to a conversation that you had, if you don’t mind me doing this, with Father Finlay in 1982. A common man born and raised in Manhattan approached a Mayo descendant raised in the Bronx and placed before you what he later told me was the boldest thing he had ever done, but also the cleverest thing he had ever done. He told me about the conversation he had with you about giving up your career at Skadden and becoming the dean of the law school. Do you remember that?

JF: I can’t ever forget that. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. He was just a lovely Jesuit who I had met when he was teaching political science at Fordham College. He had asked me to do a class, I think even before the 25th Amendment was in the Constitution, on the subject of presidential inability. My wife came with me to the class. And then years later he asked me to go on the Board of Trustees. He was such an important part of my life. I thought the world of him.

I received a call from him after Dean McLaughlin announced that he was leaving. I had been president of the law school’s alumni association for a number of years for Dean McLaughlin and he had a major influence on my life. Father Finlay and I sat down at the University Club and he asked if I would consider putting my name in for the deanship of the school. In words and substance, he told me how important the law school was to the Society of Jesus. He asked if I would consider coming over and helping develop a vision for the future law school. That was so empowering to me, especially because I had the experience with Dean McLaughlin being involved in the life of the law school and then as a trustee of the University from 1978 until that conversation a few years later with Father Finlay.

It took me a while to process the offer. I was a senior partner at Skadden Arps in years of service, the chair of its hiring committee of lawyers, and on its executive committee. And I said to myself, “Well, if you leave, you’re not going to return.” At the same time, there was something within me that said, “This is your time to embrace full-time, not part-time, an opportunity to render service.” My decision to serve as dean went beyond any service I had done in my life. My father was shocked, I would say, by my decision from an economic standpoint. My mother was beginning to decline and lose her memory at that point, and I don’t know if she quite absorbed what was happening. My wife was very quiet, but I had a sense that in her quietness, she was hoping I would make that decision believing, in part, that I would have more time for her and our six children.

So on the day of the deadline to apply for the deanship, I talked to Professor Joseph Sweeney, who chaired the committee looking for a new dean. I said, “I would like to put my name in for the deanship.” Then on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I remember coming home from mass and Emalie saying to me, “Father Finlay called you.” I said, “Uh, oh.” I called him back, and he offered me the deanship.

Being dean just had such a profound impact on me for the rest of my life, up to the present time. In fact, at yesterday’s burial service in Boston of my longest friend, Joseph Hart, the priest there in his few words said, “I understand there’s with us today a friend who was dean of Fordham Law School, and he and Joe had this special relationship.” So even as a former dean you have an acknowledgment, I suppose, of one’s service as dean. And, Father, you’ve been extraordinarily generous giving me the title of dean emeritus. It was a great part of my life. Nothing like it.

JM: John, I should tell you that Seamus, Father Finlay, when he recounted the story, told me that he chose to call you on December 8th knowing that you’d be coming home from mass and, therefore, you’d be most vulnerable. And you accepted on the spot and made his life much easier, much happier. You and I know this, he was a perfect gentleman and a very fine priest and an exemplary Jesuit. He would say that getting you to become the dean of the law school was the crowning achievement of his presidency, and all of us would agree.

John, you took the law school from what was a strong law school, from what was seen as a good, city, meat and potatoes, law school, and you made it a force. You brought it up to new levels. You hired boldly and wisely and well. You encouraged people in their teaching and in their research, and you defined the culture in a new way. It was during your time that the law school adopted a very clear motto and mission. You were the man who told Fordham lawyers that they were to be in service of others, no matter what else they did. As you and I know, that is the mantra that is now deep in the hearts of everyone in the law school and anyone who’s ever gone to the law school. From the moment they entered, that is what they are challenged to be. Not just good practitioners, although you were insistent on that, but lawyers who recognize that life is not complete, you would say, unless it is adorned with service.

Then time and time again, governors turned to you. I know that you had two New York state commissions on government ethics and many other public service roles. You became, for everybody, the go-to guy, the honest man, the honest broker who could be trusted with the most extraordinary things, the most difficult problems, that the city, the state, the profession could face. And you did these things, you took them on and you brought them to completion successfully. You’ve had an impact well beyond the law school. I think this is a great part of your life and a great part of your legacy. I know from all the conversations we’ve had and from reading your autobiography that this is important to you. It goes back to your philosophy that the inner man and the outer man has to be one. Let the inner man be generous and the outer man will show it. Am I misconstruing what it is that you’ve been doing all these years to such effect and so humbly?

JF: There’s so much you’ve just said, Father. I guess I would just say, as to the law school, the best thing I did as dean was to develop an approach to governing that was consensual in nature. Listening to faculty, listening to administrators, listening to the alumni, and hearing so many ideas and suggestions, especially the faculty’s desire to see their respective areas grow. In my position, I was able to support and encourage so many different people who had ideas. They weren’t my ideas flowing down. I got ideas from listening to people. The transformation, as it might be described, of the law school over the last two decades of the last century is really a tribute to hundreds and hundreds of people who served the law school full-time and the alumni of the school who supported, time and again, all of those initiatives. As I say in the book, I was a lucky person to be in a place where I could be part of it.

As to all the commissions, how I disliked doing that kind of work. I didn’t grow up as a prosecutor or in law enforcement as such. I learned you have to take the hits when they come, criticisms when they come, and, at times, affirmation about work that’s been done. I kept seeing the values of Saint Ignatius. I told myself, “Get out there and do the work, and don’t be looking for credit. Just do what’s right and what’s good as you see it.” I held that as I dealt with low moments and high moments. I was constantly reminded of those values. And that’s really what I aspired to express in whatever way that I could in doing all of that work.

I followed the work of Robert Mueller in Washington, and I saw in him a person who had a life of devotion to law enforcement, as FBI director, as a US attorney. Judge Patel, a Fordham Law graduate, knew him very well when she was the chief judge of the federal district court out in San Francisco. She used to describe him to me as a model. When he ran into those difficult moments of being criticized by people upset with the investigation, I understood what he must be feeling, I think, because in a smaller way, in a different way, I experienced similar situations chairing those state commissions. Looking back, I have no regrets. I did my best, and believe that some of the work of the commissions, which involved a lot of commissioners and a lot of people, have improved the ethical climate in New York state to some extent.

JM: There’s no doubt about that, John. Our time sadly is going to come to an end. I’m going to ask the most difficult question of someone like yourself, because you don’t even know how to spell the word “pride” or the word “proud.” But, John, what is it that you’re the most proud of as you look back on what could only be described as a storied career, a stellar life. What are you most proud of?

JF: I would say maybe three things, if I could have a multi-faceted answer. First, I’d certainly include becoming involved in the cause of an amendment to the Constitution to deal with the problems of presidential inability and vice-presidential vacancy. When I was on the ground working on it as young person, I didn’t fully realize the importance of the moment.

Another moment was when I became a dean of the law school and the law school had an aspiration of doubling the space basically at 140 West 62nd Street. There were those, like Jesuit Brother Kenny and others, who said, “There’s no way the law school is going to raise the money to cover the cost of doubling of the space.” I took that as a challenge. I got the alumni and others involved and, ultimately, we made it happen. Father O’Hare came along and was very supportive of us financially. I think we had a debt of $2 million or so to the University when the costs were all in, and I remember meeting the faculty with Father O’Hare and others. I said, “Father, based on the contributions, so to speak, that we’ve made is there any chance that I can get that debt off the law school?” And he said, “That’s a good idea, we’ll do it.” But it was that project, the doubling of the size of the law school, that certainly was a high point for me. I think it gave me credibility because a lot of people thought it couldn’t be done. But the whole community came together and my job was to go all over the place to seek support for it.

The third thing I’m proud of is the relationships I developed with all of the young people that I came to know when I was dean of the law school. Anybody who wanted to come and needed help, my door was always open for them. There were students who came in and cried because they couldn’t find a job. There were others who came in because they couldn’t afford tuition at the law school, but thanks to the caring community that I was a part of we were able to respond and able to help. If I put all of those individual meetings and opportunities together, that would constitute the third thing that I’m proud of. I don’t feel comfortable with the word proud, I’m just glad that I had the opportunity to be there in times of need for other people.

JM: John, I acknowledge at the outset that it was going to be the most difficult question because pride doesn’t figure in the way in which you live your life. I’m going to say two things, if I could. I think that your letter to your grandchildren, which is at the end of the book, should be required reading for anyone’s grandchild. It’s filled with, I would say, balance and wisdom and great love. It’s kind of like the exclamation point at the end of the book and I want to thank you for that.

John, we’re going to have to stop because time has run out. I could go on with you for days, not just hours, I could go on for days with you. My last word to you is this: I know I speak for everyone, for all of us who know you, we are immensely grateful for your presence in our lives. We’re grateful for your wisdom, the constancy of your devotion and the fact that to know you is to be ennobled. And you have to know that.

JF: Father, if I could just bring it to a close. I appreciate greatly what you just said, but I’m a small part of a University that has enjoyed great presidents and you are truly a great president. And your predecessor, Father O’Hare, was a great president. Father Finlay was a great president. And when I was a student, I so admired Father McGinley. He used to walk around the campus saying his prayers, and when he was no longer the president he came to a lot of alumni gatherings and we always found each other and spoke.

I’m a small part of an institution that has truly giants and great priests who serve humanity far more than the kind of things that I’ve done. Their reach is so majestic. I thank you, Father, for your presidency of Fordham University at a very difficult time. I also thank you for your masses, your readings, and your reflections, which have been empowering for all of us who are trying to get meaning in the present moment. You’ve helped us and I thank you.

JM: John, thank you very much, you don’t know how much that means to me to hear you say that about Seamus, and about Larry, and about Joe. I am not worthy to be in the same sentence with any of them. But I want to go back and have the last word. John, you’re for us a source of enormous pride because you live with such integrity and you ennoble everyone that you meet. And with that, John, thank you very, very much.

JF: Thank you.

John D. Feerick, dean emeritus and the Norris professor of law at Fordham Law School, was instrumental in getting the amendment passed. In October 1963, Feerick, then a recent graduate from Fordham Law, published an article in the Fordham Law Review on the subject, and just a month later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, prompting members of Congress to revisit the subject. Four years later, in February 1967, the amendment was passed.

We sat down with him to learn more.

Full transcription below:

John D Feerick: I suppose my expectation, at that point, was the article would be retired to a library as a scholarly treatment on the subject, but what happened instead was two days later I got a call from the media because they had become aware of my article and all of a sudden people were asking me to share with them knowledge I had in the subject, and that just grew in intensity.

Patrick Verel: The 25th amendment to the US Constitution is probably best known for what is the fourth and final section, which spells out the way the president of the United States can be removed from office if they’re alive, but unable to fulfill the duties of the office. But the second section, which clarifies the process for replacing a vice president, is actually worthy of consideration as well, now, that President Trump has become the third president in the country’s history to be impeached and is facing a trial in the U.S. Senate.

John D. Feerick, sean emeritus and the Norris Professor of Law at Fordham Law School was instrumental in getting the amendment passed. In October 1963, Feerick, then a student at Fordham Law, published an article in the Fordham Law Review on the subject. And, just a month later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated prompting members of Congress to revisit the subject. Four years later, in February 1967, the amendment was passed. We sat down with him to learn more.

I never realized that if it were not for the passage of the 25th amendment, Richard Nixon would not have had a clear path to choosing a replacement for his vice president, Spiro Agnew, when he resigned before him in 1973. Because he was able to appoint Gerald Ford as a replacement, Nixon could afford to resign, which he did in August 1974, without fear that the then democratic speaker of house would become president. Now, of course, it’s something that could come into play if the US Senate removed Trump from office and Mike Pence needed to then appoint a new vice president, lest Nancy Pelosi be next in line for the presidency.

When you were working with Senator Birch Bayh to craft the amendment, were you playing through these kinds of scenarios?

JF: Yes. And the reason they were part of the conversation is because if you look back in the history of the country, there was a period of 37 years where there was no vice president, and the next in line was in a statute. So there was no way to replace the vice president, and we saw all the reasons why there should be a replacement provision because the line of succession made it possible, the 1947 line of succession, for the other party to take over halfway through a president’s term if something happened to the president and there was no vice president. And so that kind of scenario was very much in not only on our minds but in conversations.

PV: And then you got to see it be tested in real-life when Spiro Agnew then resigned. I mean, how shocking could that have been?

JF: It was very shocking to me, I was a young lawyer at the time. And the idea of allegations of criminal conduct by the vice president, I think, prior to his vice presidency, but there might’ve been some lingering aspects to it. It was new, and shocking. And yet, there was this new amendment in place to replace the vice president and Gerald Ford was chosen for that purpose.

PV: Now, the issue of succession, obviously, was not new at the time. And, in fact, the law had been changed just 20 years earlier when President Truman presided over a law that restored the Speaker of the House to third in line from the presidency. Now, there are proposals to change the law again. What should be done, in your opinion?

JF: My own view of the subject, which I first expressed when I wrote a book published by the Fordham University Press called From Failing Hands, was ideally a cabinet line of succession. So that if anything happened to the president, and the vice president having a cabinet line of succession, that assures the continuation of the administration that began at beginning of a presidential term. And, we’ve had such a line of succession from 1886 to 1947, and I think that line was much better at assuring continuity in the presidency than the ’47 law.

PV: What were they thinking in 1947? Why did they do that? I mean, if it seems like they had a process that, you say, was a good one in the first place, why did they feel the need to change it anyway?

JF: Well, I think the theory was that the existing president could choose his successor because the successor would be in the cabinet where the sitting president then have a chance to nominate. And once that person’s confirmed, he would have, essentially, put in place, if something happened to the vice president at that time, a person. And President Truman felt a more democratic process in terms of choosing a president would be to have an elected person such as the Speaker tapped for that kind of service. And so the Speaker went in the line of succession, the 86th line of succession. Speaker went in first, president pro temp went in second, and then the cabinet. So the cabinet was kept in place in the line of succession after the speaker and the president pro temp.

PV: So it was a way of sort of empowering, I guess, members of Congress as opposed to the presidency, bringing that branch of the government into more of a equal stature, I guess, to the presidency?

JF: Not so much that. It’s more the fact that, say, the Speaker is chosen by the representatives of the people from all over the country to be the Speaker, and so there’s an indirect but very strong democratic presence there because of people being elected.

PV: When did you know that this was a thing you really wanted to put a lot of work into?

JF: I would say about the time I was graduating from law school, in 1961, I was a political science major at Fordham College. I fell in love with the constitution because of, maybe, the best teacher I ever had, professor at Fordham college, William Frasca. And then, at law school I expressed my interest in the constitution on the law review by writing notes for publication, as other students were doing, on constitutional subjects. So, I had a hankering for continuing to write, which I had done on the law review at the law school. And I happened to see that subject as a subject of disability of a president being a lingering weakness in the constitution. And it just struck me as something that would be very interesting to tackle.

And I had some experience with succession when I was vice president of the student body at Fordham College. I was vice president of the student body at Fordham, and the vice president had authority to decide election issues. And an issue developed during my tenure when the people who were going to replace our group, we were in senior year, you had third year people were elected to be the new officers. The president who was just elected in that ticket the year after me, was medically not well, and he resigned the position. Others said, then, it’s the other person, the other candidate for the presidency should become the president. And I said, no, because under the student constitution, the vice president succeeds to the presidency and that ruling stuck by the Fordham Court.

PV: So you had a little practice here for a much bigger issue.

JF: I had a little succession experience. When I got out of law school, I became interested in the subject and I wrote this article after looking at how other countries dealt with presidential succession, how the States dealt with succession to the Governor’s Office. I read all the articles and the debates, and the like. And I finally finished the article and it was published in October 1963. And my thought, at that point, was I sent reprints of the article around to people who had an interest in the subject. And little did I realize that a month later president of the United States would be assassinated. The week before President Kennedy was assassinated, I had communications from his brothers and The White House, because they got a copy of the reprint of my article, and said they had an interest in the subject. They, thanked me for sending the reprints.

And also from President Nixon. He was former vice president, at that point, for Eisenhower. And I suppose my expectation, at that point before the assassination, was the article would be retired to a library as a scholarly treatment on the subject. But what happened instead was a day after the president’s assassination, I got a call from the media … or two days later I got a call from the media because they had become aware of my article because it was commented on in The New York Times on Sunday, the 24th of 1963. And all of a sudden people were asking me to share with them knowledge I had on the subject and that just grew in intensity.

I was asked by the American Bar Association to be part of a small group, 12 people, most of whom were very senior to me to look at the constitution, and see how it might be addressed in terms of disability. And our recommendations became very important to Senator Bayh, and leaders of Congress, and we joined together, so to speak, in terms of promoting the idea of a constitutional amendment.

PV: Thinking a little bit about impeachment, since that’s what’s in the news right now, we now have two articles of impeachment that have been passed by the House of Representatives, and are going to be debated in the United States Senate. The current articles of impeachment are, to paraphrase, number one, President Trump abused his power by soliciting foreign interference by pressuring an ally, Ukraine, to announce an investigation into a political rival, former vice president Joe Biden, while withholding military aid and dangling a head of the state meeting, thereby corrupting the integrity of the United States elections. And number two, Trump obstructed Congress, a coequal branch of government, by withholding documents and preventing witnesses from testifying, thereby impeding Congress’ investigatory power.

So this will be the third time this has happened in your life, if you count Richard Nixon who resigned before he could be impeached. What’s different this time around?

JF: Let me come at that question a little broadly. An impeachment trial or an impeachment in the House of a president is a very horrible kind of thing. And yet because there’s serious allegations that have been brewing and it needs to be dealt with in the process, laid out in the constitution. And back in the time of Lincoln, we probably never had a more hostile relationship between the Congress and the president because of reconstruction. And in terms of Nixon, we had a situation where the president counselors and advisors, as I see it, encouraged him to resign. And so we never went to have an impeachment vote or a trial. In terms of Clinton, of course, there were allegations about sexual misconduct that became a part of the articles of impeachment, and we had a trial.

And the one thing I noticed, in just the limited reading I’ve done, about Clinton is that the leaders in the Senate, both political parties Lott and Daschle, worked very closely together to develop rules that were eventually approved by the whole Senate. And were very tenant to the constitution in terms of the seriousness of the matter and the obligations members of Congress had in the two different bodies. I’m not sure where this is at right now in terms of if it hasn’t gotten to the Senate, it may get to the Senate very shortly. And I, certainly as a citizen, will be looking very carefully at how the leaders in the Senate of both parties go about their responsibilities under the constitution.

My expectation would be that this Congress, as their predecessor congresses, despite the differences that are there, obviously, will be very mindful of their obligations under the constitution.

PV: So you still have faith that what was written down and the rules that were set forth will help us kind of get through this?

JF: I believe so. And it has in the past. And I think it was 1868, it was more hostility, I mean between the president … between the executive and the legislature than probably ever before in the history of our country, including now.

PV: Yeah, it’s interesting. I feel like when you think about these things, knowing the history of the country and how we’ve gone through periods of strife, as it were, it must be somewhat comforting to you when you look around and seeing what’s happening now.

JF: Oh, very much so. I think we have a process. If, after this experience, people want to reexamine what the constitution has given us, they have a right to do so. And we have changed provisions in the constitution, but this impeachment process comes into the constitution influenced greatly by English legal history and parliamentary history involving impeachments, involving high crimes and misdemeanors, the very same terminology we have in our constitution, has a long history. And I think it’s how do you make it work? What are your rules? How do you deal with getting information? How do you deal with witnesses? There’s a lot yet to be done here.

PV: Now, I understand you’ll be delving into a lot of this in a memoir that’s going to be coming out in April.

JF: For the last 18 years, I’ve been taking account of where I am in life. And as the oldest of immigrant parents who came here and they had no high school education, but America offered them a promise of a better life. And I talk about that the history in my family. And then, I talk about my own life because my own life was very much tied to the dream my parents had for all of their children. Pursue opportunities that come your way, and contribute as best you can. All of that’s wrapped up in this book. It’s called That Furthest Shore: A Memoir of Irish Roots and American Promise.

PV: So you’ve been working on it for 18 years?

JF: 18 years.

PV: Wow. That’s going to be very gratifying to see that finally hit the shelves.

JF: I’m glad it’s over. Really.

PV: Was it hard to do? Was it hard to sum it all up?

JF: Yeah, very hard. And initially the idea of my writing a book about myself, so to speak, I’m not comfortable with that, but I said it wasn’t about myself really. Yes, it’s about myself, in one sense. It really was about my parents, and their dreams, and I did have experiences that fulfill their dreams.

In a ceremony held at the Lincoln Center campus, the group presented Feerick Center founder and director Professor John D. Feerick and executive director Dora Galacatos, LAW ’96, with a check for $100,000. The center will use the funds to expand its involvement with the Dilley Pro Bono Project in its efforts to assist asylum-seeking women with children detained in the South Texas Family Residential Center, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dilley, Texas.

Since March 2016, the Feerick Center has partnered with the student-run group Immigration Advocacy Project to send 58 law student volunteers on 7 trips to Dilley, where they have provided legal representation to families seeking asylum in the United States.  An additional 20 other volunteers (including Fordham Law School alumni and staff) have served on 4 other trips. 

A large number of the clients are women and children fleeing countries with extremely high murder rates, such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Volunteers explain the process of applying for asylum, listen to clients’ stories, and help them prepare for interviews with asylum officers.

Galacatos said the need for resources has never been higher. With 2,400 beds, the Dilley facility is the largest immigration detention center in the country, and a recent census revealed that it’s nearly full, with 2,200 residents currently detained there.

“I’ve been doing this for two years, and I’ve never seen it that high. There just aren’t enough people going down there to make sure every client who asks for help it gets it,” she said.

She and her partners with the Dilley Pro Bono Project plan to use the funds to hire expert consultants and some time-limited grant-funded staff and to purchase training materials and webinars. She said she’s grateful for the support of the American College of Trial Lawyers, which promotes the importance of fair administration of justice.

Galacatos said the Dilley Pro Bono Project (previously called the CARA Pro Bono Project) has been devoted to this idea since its founding and that it is an ideal example of it in action. When the first family detention center opened in 2014 in Artesia, Mexico, there were no lawyers there to assist detainees and only 46 percent of asylum seekers were determined by officers to have credible fears of being in harm’s way in the country they were fleeing. By contrast, the vast majority of Dilly project clients are successful—well over 96%.

“My job as a lawyer, and our responsibility as officers of the court, is to promote due process, and make sure everyone has a fair opportunity to make their claims,” she said.

The archive includes personal correspondence and other materials from John Feerick, who helped draft the 25th Amendment as a 27-year-old lawyer fresh out of Fordham Law School while working as an associate at Skadden Arps. Feerick went on to serve as dean of Fordham Law from 1982 to 2002 and currently holds the school’s Sidney C. Norris Chair of Law in Public Service. He and members of the Feerick Center for Social Justice at Fordham Law collaborated with The Maloney Library to develop this online resource for use by scholars, journalists, and citizens.

The archive offers an interactive timeline of the history and events that prompted Congress to create the amendment, which provides legal mechanisms for handling presidential inabilities and filling vice presidential vacancies. In addition, the archive provides access to the legal and scholarly discourse on the 25th Amendment since its ratification on February 10, 1967.

Materials also include law review and scholarly articles, books, congressional reports, executive branch documents, conference and symposium videos, photographs, and think-tank reports. All items in the archive may be viewed or downloaded. The repository will continue to grow in size and scope as additional materials are added.

As of August 9, 2017, materials from the archive have been downloaded approximately 42,127 times by users from 134 countries.

Feerick received the ABA Medal on August 12 at the 2017 ABA Annual Meeting in New York. The medal is the highest honor awarded by the American Bar Association.

On September 27, in conjunction with Feerick, Fordham Law School will present a symposium on the 25th Amendment. Learn more about Feerick and Fordham Law’s history with the 25th Amendment via Fordham Lawyer magazine.

During the visit to Fordham Law’s Presidential Succession Clinic, taught by Professor John Feerick and Adjunct Professor John Rogan, Brennan talked with students about national security considerations related to presidential succession. Drawing on his current position as well as his time in the Obama White House as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, Brennan fielded questions on clinic topics such as the line of succession, contingency planning in the White House, and methods for handling a case of vice presidential disability.

Presidential disabilities are a major focus of the clinic’s work. When the president disputes that a disability exists against the conclusion of the vice president and a majority of the cabinet, the 25th Amendment makes Congress the final arbiter. The students questioned Director Brennan about such a scenario.

“Director Brennan was concerned that too much of a public proceeding could raise national security concerns, what with the president’s personal records being at issue,” said Jonathan Coppola ’17, a student in the clinic. “One issue we were dealing with was whether the succession proceeding should be completely public or allow some closed-door proceedings, and he recommended making those national security concerns a main priority.”

The Presidential Succession Clinic deals extensively with the 25th Amendment. Feerick advised Congress in drafting the amendment, assisting lawmakers like Senator Birch Bayh, the amendment’s principal author. The amendment was ratified 50 years ago this February.

Students from the clinic said that the amendment’s architects intentionally left some of its procedures ambiguous in an effort to limit its complexity and increase its chances of ratification. By offering clarifications for the amendment’s remaining ambiguities, Feerick’s students aim to strengthen its role in safeguarding government stability.

The clinic continues Fordham Law’s history with presidential succession, which started with Feerick’s 1963 Fordham Law Review article on the topic and includes a 1976 symposium on the vice presidency, a 2010 symposium on the adequacy of the succession system, and a first clinic that published a comprehensive report in 2012.

Brennan was among several distinguished clinic visitors, including Second Circuit Chief Judge Robert Katzmann and former Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush Frances Townsend, who leant important context to the clinic’s work over the semester.

“Director Brennan talked for well over an hour,” said clinic student Timothy Deal ’17. “Based on what he said, it was clear he had read a lot about the 25th Amendment. In his position he obviously has to be conversant with many important areas, and it’s impressive that he would take the time to talk to a bunch of law students.”

After the visit had concluded, students said that Brennan made a significant impression.

“There’s this idea that the director of the CIA is this very secretive, imposing figure,” said clinic student Marcella Jayne ’18. “But you meet him and he’s warm, friendly, and approachable.”

On the subject of transitioning between administrations, Brennan counseled cooperation and transparency.

“Another thing that Director Brennan stressed was the importance of a well-run transition team and how important it is for the transition of administrations to be efficient in a well-prepared way,” said Coppola.

A distinguished alumnus of Fordham University and one of the highest-ranking intelligence officials of the U.S. government, Brennan and his reputation preceded him.

“As an undergraduate, I studied Middle Eastern politics under Professor John Entelis, who Director Brennan had when he was a student,” said Coppola. “It was an honor to meet such a legendary alumnus and a pleasure to have the opportunity at Fordham.”

The most humble man at Fordham finally got his due.

John D. Feerick, aka “St. John the Good,” was feted by alumni, faculty, and friends on April 2 at a raucous, standing-room-only ceremony in the McNally Amphitheatre.

The occasion was the unveiling—23 years after its creation—of an official portrait of Feerick, who was dean of the Law School from 1982 to 2002. It was the first time the painting had been seen in public since it was created in 1991 by artist Franklin Petersen.

Petersen had been commissioned by Feerick to paint portraits of law school professors as part of the University’s 150th anniversary, but when asked to sit for a portrait himself, the famously humble Feerick declined. His colleague, Louis Stein LAW ’26 (for whom the schools’ Stein Center for Ethics and Public Interest Law is named), asked Petersen to surreptitiously observe Feerick in meetings and paint one of him.

When Feerick discovered it, he instructed his staff to lock it in a closet.

On April 2, William Michael Treanor, Ph.D., who succeeded Feerick as dean, joked that he was envious of Michael M. Martin, the current dean of the Law School, for finally getting Feerick to relent.

“I heard about this picture. I didn’t talk to anyone who had actually seen it. I talked to some people who knew of people who’d seen it. So it was like the Loch Ness monster of my deanship,” Treanor said.

Martin lauded Feerick, FCRH ’58, LAW ’61, for his willingness to “take thankless tasks that lesser mortals just wouldn’t touch,” such as chairing state commissions on governmental integrity.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, likewise cracked wise about how little the portrait would resemble Feerick today, noting that “we know John’s goodness is forever young.”

Feerick dedicated the portrait to his family. His parents, both immigrants from Ireland, would have been astonished to see the painting, he said.

“We all grew up seeing ourselves in small black-and-white pictures, usually taken by my mother on the roof of the six-story apartment house where we lived in the Bronx.

“I still have her pictures, and I might indicate they also bear no resemblance to the person here.”

John D. Feerick was serenaded by a standing room only audience. Photo by Bruce Gilbert

The most humble man at Fordham finally got his due.

John D. Feerick, aka “St. John the Good,” was feted by alumni, faculty, and friends on April 2 at a raucous, standing room-only ceremony in the McNally Amphitheatre.

The occasion was the unveiling—23 years after its creation—of an official portrait of Feerick, who was dean of the Law School from 1982 to 2002. It was the first time the painting had been seen in public since it was created in 1991 by artist Franklin Petersen.

Petersen had been commissioned by Feerick to paint portraits of law school professors as part of the University’s 150th anniversary, but when asked to sit for a portrait himself, the famously humble Feerick declined. So Louis Stein, LAW ’26, for whom the schools’ Stein Center for Ethics and Public Interest Law is named, asked Petersen to surreptitiously observe Feerick in meetings and paint one of him.

When he discovered it, Feerick instructed his staff to lock it in a closet.

On April 2, former Law School Dean William Michael Treanor, Ph.D., who succeeded Feerick as dean, joked that current Law School Dean Michael M. Martin had many successes, but he was most envious of Martin for finally getting Feerick to relent.

“I heard about this picture. I never saw it. I didn’t talk to anyone who had actually seen it. I talked to some people who knew of people who’d seen it. So it was like the Loch Ness monster of my deanship,” Treanor said.

Martin lauded Feerick, FCRH ’59, LAW ’61, for his willingness to “take thankless tasks that lesser mortals just wouldn’t touch,” such as chairing state commissions on governmental integrity.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, likewise cracked wise about how little the portrait would resemble Feerick today, noting that “we know John’s goodness is forever young.”

“He is for Fordham and Fordham Law, the iconic ram, the man who summarizes in his life everything that we encourage students to be and to become, and he does it with effortless ease because the inner man and the outer man are completely at one,” he said.

Feerick dedicated the award to his family. His parents, both immigrants from Ireland, would have been astonished to see this portrait, he said.

“We all grew up seeing ourselves in small black-and-white pictures, usually taken by my mother on the roof of the six-story apartment house where we lived in the Bronx. I still have her pictures, and I might indicate they also bear no resemblance to the person here.”

Working with students (now members of the audience) who once called him “Dean” was the greatest aspect of the job, he said.

“That is the greatest opportunity a dean has. There’s no greater joy than the privilege to get to know young students and to help them, as I was helped,” he said.

John D. Feerick, Michael M. Martin, William Michael Treanor and Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Long before the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted in February 1967, a lesser-known constitution was put to the test: the student government constitution at Rose Hill.

In 1958, John D. Feerick, a senior political science major, was elected vice president of the campus student government. When the winning candidate for president resigned two weeks later for medical reasons, there was a great deal of consternation among the student body, with many questioning how a person could run for office while aware that they had such a condition.

A reelection was demanded, but Feerick pointed out that under the constitution approved by the students, there was no provision for it. His view was upheld.

“I became fascinated by constitutions,” Feerick, Norris Professor of Law and former dean of the Fordham School of Law, told a student pre-law symposium on Oct. 2. “I fell in love as a political science major with reading the Constitution, and understanding the Constitution as best I could.

“I carried that into law school, and as I was graduating from Fordham Law School three years later, I recognized an issue that existed in the United States at the time, which was, how do we handle the disability of the president of the United States?”

Although Article 2 of the Constitution addresses what happens when a president dies, is impeached, or resigns, it is silent on the issue of a president who is temporarily disabled, said Feerick.

“A press article I read at the time indicated that there was a major issue [over it], and I said to myself, ‘Gee, this is what we had to deal with at Fordham College,” he said.

He published an article laying out his prescriptions for addressing the issue. Although it was considered at the time to be an esoteric pursuit, just one month after it was published President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

That set the stage for the 25th Amendment’s passage four years later. Today, Feerick is one of 11 people credited with writing the amendment, which clarifies the rules for succession to the presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the vice president, as well as responding to presidential disabilities.

Feerick said he was proud that its existence helped smooth the 1973 transition caused by the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon.

“That was a time of tremendous fury and concern for the country and its stability, but the 25th Amendment operated in a way to provide stability,” he said.

“Every provision of the Constitution . . . has a history and an importance to giving us the kind of liberty we have and enjoy in this country.”

Feerick’s talk was part of a belated celebration of Constitution Day at Rose Hill. Earlier in the afternoon, during a roundtable discussion with pre-law students, he reiterated the “Four H’s” speech that he emphasized as dean: Honesty, Hard work, Helping each other, and Harmony

He urged students not to be discouraged by the state of the legal field today, which is in great flux. Having spent a great deal of his career working in public service, and having founded a center for social justice at the law school, Feerick also challenged students to volunteer for just causes.

“Conflict is not going away; there’s nothing in the last 2,000 years-plus that suggests that,” he said. “I see lawyers as increasingly important in helping people [resolve]conflict.”

Sandra Day O’Connor, former associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Judith S. Kaye, former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, weighed in on everything from the integrity of appointed vs. elected judges, to women in the law.
(continued below)

Barrier Breakers; Sandra Day O’Connor, left, and Judith Kaye, right, spoke at Fordham Law School. O’Connor was the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court; Kaye was the first woman to be named chief judge in New York state. Photo by Chris Taggart

The hourlong conversation was moderated by John D. Feerick, LAW ’61, the Sydney C. Norris Professor of Law, whose own work on judicial selection in New York state served as a point of departure for a discussion of a legal conundrum: does appointing, rather than electing, judges make for a less corrupt judiciary?

Feerick chaired a 2006 report by the state’s Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections, offering reforms for judicial elections in the areas of candidate selection, campaign conduct and campaign finance.

But, as a judge who has “been in the trenches and seen it up close,” O’Connor, who ran for a judgeship in her home state of Arizona, called any electoral judicial system “a very poor way to pick judges.”

“An election that involves campaign contributions and money flowing into the courtroom? I cannot believe that is an equivalent to an appointive system,” said O’Connor, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2006 after more than 25 years on the bench. “No other nation in the world elects its judges.”

Kaye, who set up the commission, and who served on one of New York state’s few appointed courts – the Court of Appeals—expressed confidence in the commission’s recommendations to improve the judicial election process.

But she said she is not “proud” of what is happening elsewhere.

“In other parts of the country, 31 percent of high courts are elected,” she said. “I see millions of dollars being poured into those campaigns and I am worried.”

One answer to improving accountability in the nation’s judiciary, said the speakers, was to educate the public. Today, one-third of the people in the country don’t know that there are three branches of government, said Feerick.

O’Connor said that half of the states in the nation no longer require public schools to teach a course in civics. To offset this trend, O’Connor has started iCivics.org, a non-profit educational website that helps students to understand their branches of government, and the responsibilities attached to being a citizen.

Both women were judicial pioneers: O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court justice in 1980, breaking ground for the subsequent appointments of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Kaye was New York’s first female chief judge.

Although women make up roughly half of the nation’s law students, said Kaye, there is still unequal representation at the senior levels of the legal and judicial institutions.

“We need to keep our attention focused on . . .the woeful rise of women in the legal profession,” she said.

Fielding audience questions, O’Connor judiciously sidestepped commenting on the most conspicuous case currently before the Supreme Court: the legality of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

“I didn’t read the briefs,” said O’Connor. “I don’t even think the people who passed it read the legislation.”

The event was part of the Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture series, ongoing since 1992 and endowed by the Levine family in memory of Robert L. Levine (LAW ’26).

The event marked the fourth consecutive year that the University has provided the largest number of volunteers of any institution for the annual count of the city’s homeless population, representatives of the Bronx Citizens Advice Bureau said. The University was designated as a training center for volunteers in the Bronx by the city’s Department of Homeless Services.

Donning fleece-lined aviator hats, leg warmers, down vests and other barriers against 20-degree temperatures, each volunteer group surveyed a 20- to 30-block area from midnight to 4 a.m., questioning anyone they found on the streets, subways or in parks. Groups worked with the New York City Police Department and the Department of Homeless Services to move anyone they found living on the streets into a shelter.

“The HOPE count is a measuring stick for the city to see how well we are doing in eliminating street homelessness,” said CAB coordinator Noel Concepcion. “The people we are going to find out there tonight, in this temperature, truly are the neediest.”

During the pre-count training session, students, faculty and deans mingled in rare late-night camaraderie around community service.

“I’m here to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless and the poor in our city,” said Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the College of Business Administration (CBA). “Social justice is at the heart of [Fordham’s] mission; and volunteering tonight brings that mission together with our actions.”

John D. Feerick, Norris Professor of Law, director of Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice and a former Special Master of Family Homelessness under the Bloomberg administration, called homelessness “one of the center’s critical areas of concern.” The center, which was one of the event’s supporters at Fordham, helps arrange pro-bono services for the disenfranchised.

Dean John Feerick (left) comes prepared for the count.

Feerick joined a contingent of law students and faculty to gauge the extent of the homeless population outside of the shelter system “not by reading about it, but by seeing it ourselves,” he said.

The number of volunteers citywide was estimated at more than 2,000. A portion of the volunteers were used as decoys, posing as homeless people in survey areas to ensure the precision and accuracy of the count.

Once the information is compiled, the final number will have some bearing on federal aid made available through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Concepcion said.

Kristie Beaudoin, a sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a resident assistant at Alumni North, said she recruited freshmen for the count. “It is a good way to do community service that lasts more than one night,” she said. “The count helps for the entire year.”

Teams returned to the McGinley Center by 4 a.m., where volunteers from the University’s Community Service Program helped compile the data.

FCRH senior Christina Schwall, a four-year veteran of the HOPE count, took the cold temperatures and the late hours in stride; she said she would be back on the Fordham campus at 8 a.m., volunteering as a physics tutor for the HEOP program.

“I’ll get through it,” said the Clare Booth Luce Scholar, “and sleep afterward.”