“We have lost one of the great ones today,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He was so many things: a thoughtful and highly effective member of the Board of Trustees, a generous benefactor, and a dear friend. He was a man of great love and great integrity, and was singularly devoted to his family and the University. I know the Fordham family joins me in keeping his loved ones in their thoughts and prayers.”

Born in New York City on July 21, 1942, Bepler first encountered the Jesuits after his family moved to Seattle, Washington and joined a Jesuit parish, where he became an altar boy. That spiritual introduction grew into a lifelong intellectual relationship with the Jesuits that began at Seattle Preparatory School and culminated in a return to New York and enrollment at Fordham.

Two uncles and an elder brother, Peter, preceded him at the Rose Hill campus.

“They ask why on the important questions,” he once said of the Jesuits. “They’re willing to ask why, even if they don’t get the answers they want.”

At Fordham, Bepler worked six days a week, played intramural sports, and sang in the glee club, all while studying Greek and Latin. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in classics.

He also held positions as an equity portfolio manager at American Funds Washington Mutual Investors Fund, Capital World Growth and Income Fund, and EuroPacific Growth Fund. He and his EuroPacific Growth team were twice (1999 and 2009) recognized by Morningstar’s “Fund Manager of the Year” Awards in the international stock arena. In addition to his financial work, Bepler taught a course at Stanford University for more than a decade.

“Throughout his 40-plus year career at Capital Group, Steve embodied our core values. He operated with the highest integrity, was a collaborative partner with his colleagues, and made all decisions with the investor in mind. I speak on behalf of many of our long-tenured colleagues and retirees, when I say that he will be missed,” said Tim Armour, chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Group.

“Steve Bepler was a trusted colleague and a very astute businessman,” said Robert Daleo, GABELLI ’72, chairman of the Fordham Board of Trustees. “My heart goes out to Kim and his family on their great loss. Steve was generous with his time and gifts, and both genial and straightforward in his relations with his colleagues on the Board. I will miss his wisdom and his good company.”

Bepler and his wife, Kim, were married 14 years ago. The couple gave generously to a variety of educational institutions and causes, including the Archdiocese of New York, New York Nativity Schools, and Cristo Rey New York High School in Harlem. Bepler was also a benefactor and board member of the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, Barnard College, the Inner-City Foundation, the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., and Fairfield University in Connecticut. Bepler had struck up a friendship with Fairfield’s president, Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., when Father von Arx was the dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Bepler held several leadership positions during his tenure on Fordham’s Board of Trustees, including chair of the Student Affairs Committee, vice chair of the Mission and Identity Committee, and member of the Executive Committee. He also served as a trustee of Barnard College.

At Fordham, the couple created several scholarships, supported science education, and gave generously to the Fordham Fund. Their generosity also had an impact on several Rose Hill buildings, including the University Church, where the couple contributed toward its restoration. Two years ago, their philanthropy was recognized with the naming of Bepler Commons at Faber Hall. The Beplers are among the three largest donors to the University.

“Steve was a quiet and generous philanthropist,” said James Buckman, FCRH ’66, a member of the Fordham Board of Trustees. “While a leading benefactor of Fordham University and other Jesuit apostolic enterprises, one would rarely find his name associated with them. He preferred to endow a university chair in the name of a favorite Jesuit teacher than his own. He will be sorely missed.”

When the University honored the couple with the Fordham Founder’s Award in 2007, Kim, a successful businesswoman in her own right, spoke of her husband’s affinity for, and devotion to, his alma mater.

“I love my husband and his love of all things Fordham,” she said.

At the 2014 commencement ceremony, Bepler received the University’s highest honor: a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Throughout his life, Bepler credited the Jesuits with laying the groundwork for his success in life. He specifically honored the educators so dear to his heart by endowing two Fordham faculty chairs: the John D. Boyd, S.J., Chair in Poetic Imagination and the Karl Rahner, S.J., Memorial Chair in Theology.

Father Boyd, one of Bepler’s professors, was a distinguished scholar whose work focused on the poetic imagination and its relationship to life.

“His was the third class I ever took at Fordham,” Bepler said in 2009, speaking at an inaugural ceremony to launch the chair. “He loved to teach. He made everything interesting, which is such an important and rare quality in an educator.”

“His love of poetry was apparent both in our conversations and in his endowing a chair with the splendid tile, ‘Chair in the Poetic Imagination,’” said Heather Dubrow, Ph.D., the holder of the John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in the Poetic Imagination at Fordham. “I will always be grateful to Stephen and Kim Bepler for enabling me to come to Fordham.”

As avid art and antique collectors, the couple traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.

In addition to his loving wife, Kim, Bepler is survived by three children from a previous marriage, Bettina, Peter, and Galen; his brother Peter, and sister, Cathy; and two grandchildren. He also leaves behind three dogs, to which he was devoted. 

“We all come to this end point in our lives. But I have known preciously few who have spent willingly their entire lives in full conscious preparation for this moment,” said John Kehoe, FCRH ’60, FCLC ’85, a Fordham trustee. “Steve was such a rare person. His generosity of spirit in all things was as effusive as the quickness of his wry wit and humor. He treasured the gift of his early Jesuit education and, as a true disciple, labored to extend it to as many young people as he could in as many ways as he could find to do so, right to the end of his life. Because of that, and of his wife, Kim, having shared fully in that journey, his work and spirit will continue to live and be remembered long into the future.”

On March 30, Fordham University launched the public phase of a far-reaching fundraising campaign in support of new levels of academic excellence at Fordham and greater stature for the University as a nationally prominent center of learning.

Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham seeks $500 million to support new facilities, more student scholarships, more endowed faculty chairs and more funding for academic endeavors throughout Fordham’s colleges and schools.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, announced the campaign before an audience of more than 900 supporters gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.

“For 168 years, Fordham has always told its sons and daughters to move beyond the limitations or constraints that they feel hold them back,” Father McShane said. “This night, we return the favor. This night, we pay back this institution that embraced us with faith, nurtured us with love and sent us out into the world with hope. This night, we announce the public kickoff of the most ambitious capital campaign in Fordham’s long and storied history.”

Watch the campaign video here.

Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham seeks new stature for the University by 2016, the 175th anniversary of Fordham’s founding. It comes at a time when the University is climbing sharply in college rankings, gaining more recognition for its academic programs and attracting more of the nation’s top students.

“The campaign for Fordham University will be a transforming experience for this University,” said John Tognino (FCLS ’75), chairman of the Fordham Board of Trustees. “It will be the catalyst to propel us to 2016, when we will be the premier Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States, and it will afford us the opportunity to continue to fulfill our mission, and that is educating men and women of distinction.”

The campaign is more than halfway complete, with $266 million raised. It has been leaving its mark on the University since 2004—during the campaign’s “quiet” phase—in the form of endowed faculty chairs, endowed scholarships and new residence halls being built on the Rose Hill campus.

The campaign has already drawn three gifts of $5 million, four gifts of $7 million and three gifts of $10 million.

The campaign kickoff took place immediately following the Fordham Founder’s Award Dinner, which honored two Fordham benefactors and members of the Board of Trustees—James Buckman (FCRH ’66) and John Kehoe (FCRH ’60, FCLC ’85)—who are also co-chairs of the campaign.

At the event, Father McShane described campaign goals that will bring improvements throughout the University.

Academic support
Half of the money raised by the campaign will fund academic improvements. That includes $150 million for endowed scholarships and endowed professorships and $100 million in support for various academic endeavors: faculty recruitment and retention; research endowments for faculty; funding for Fordham centers and institutes; and support for academic programs such as on-campus living and learning communities and honors programs.

The University seeks more scholarship funding so it can continue to open its doors to the most academically promising students—now, and in future generations, Buckman said.

“I was very fortunate to be able to attend Fordham via scholarships provided to me by the University as well as by other sources. Had I not received that scholarship help, it would have been very difficult for my parents to send me to Fordham,” he said. “We still have a number of students who are in similar situations.”

Another campaign goal is to add 40 endowed chairs, thereby attracting more of the nation’s top scholars while improving the student-to-faculty ratio and allowing faculty more time for research and mentoring students. The increase is also expected to diversify the fields of academic expertise at Fordham and pave the way for innovative, interdisciplinary programs on topics of current interest, Buckman said.

Fordham wants endowed chairs in science education, immigration and refugee studies, interfaith dialogues and environmental science, among other topics with deep resonance in today’s world.

Annual Giving
The University has set a goal of $80 million in annual support that helps meet emergent needs throughout the University. These gifts, frequently matched by corporations and foundations, help keep tuition down and give the University financial flexibility for meeting new funding challenges.

Some annual gifts are unrestricted, allowing them to be used University-wide, while others may be directed to particular colleges and schools to support research, travel to academic conferences, or other academic needs.

Facilities
The University has outgrown its facilities since the last campaign, which was pegged to the 150th anniversary of the University in 1991, Kehoe said.

“In the interim, we have not had a campaign to go and fuel the resources of the University and to continue to build it,” he said.

One major project is a new building for Fordham Law School, widely acknowledged as one of the best law schools in the country. It has 1,500 students in a building designed for 650, and its space per student is less than half the amount offered by the nation’s top 20 law schools.

Other improvements sought for the Lincoln Center campus are a 400-bed residence hall, along with classroom renovations. One campaign goal for the Lincoln Center campus has already been realized—the Veronica Lally Kehoe Studio Theatre, a state-of-the-art facility, dedicated in February, which was made possible by a $2 million gift from Kehoe.

On the Rose Hill campus, the campaign is raising funds for the construction of Campbell, Salice and Conley residence halls, to be built on the southwestern part of campus by 2010. Groundbreaking for Campbell Hall was held last year. The projects are supported by benefactors including Thomas P. Salice (CBA ’82); his wife, Susan Conley Salice (FCRH ’82); Robert E. Campbell (CBA ’55); and his wife, Joan M. Campbell.

A new campus center and a recreation and intercollegiate athletics center will also come to the Rose Hill campus as part of the campaign. The 140,000-square-foot campus center will house campus ministry, student services, a ballroom, a food court and a career planning and placement center, among other features.

The recreation and athletics center—measuring 150,000 square feet—will reconfigure the outmoded Lombardi Memorial Athletic Center and the Rose Hill Gymnasium into a state-of-the-art center for sports and physical fitness.

The facilities projects will cost $170 million.

Kehoe noted that the University already has in place the essential infrastructure of learning—dedicated students and a Jesuit tradition of educational achievement.

“We don’t have the facilities other universities have. But we turn out excellence,” he said.

Apart from the specific improvements being sought, a central part of the campaign is Fordham’s Jesuit identity, with its attention to the full development of each student—intellectual, spiritual and moral—and its emphasis on being men and women for others.

“It’s not just about bricks and mortar, although that’s very important. It’s not just about meeting campaign goals, although that’s very important,” Father McShane said. “It’s really about investing in an institution that has, from its very founding, been all about the work of transforming people, transforming the city, transforming the world and serving God.”

Said Kehoe: “In Fordham, you find not just education, you find a way of being, a way of thinking. There’s love at Fordham. There’s redemption at Fordham. Fordham is a continuing way of life.”

The Veronica Lally Kehoe Studio Theatre was made possible as part of a $2 million gift from her husband, John P. Kehoe (FCLC ’85, FCRH ’60). The ceremony, held at the Center Gallery, was marked by a wellspring of warmth for Lally Kehoe, a theatre patron who died in April 2007 after a two-year illness.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, remarked that the busy Lowenstein Center was a fitting place for the dedication.

“There are six schools coming and going on the outskirts of this gathering,” Father McShane said. “There are stories being told. There are secrets being shared. There’s gossip that’s being spread. And this is where we gather to remember and to honor Veronica—at the intersection of life and art.”

Although John Kehoe did not speak at the dedication, Lally Kehoe’s daughter, Allise Dickson (FCLC ’95), shared some fond reminiscences about her mother.

She remembered how Lally Kehoe, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and founder of the nonprofit Gypsy Road Theater Company, would make up songs and games with her. She encouraged her daughter to be spontaneous, sometimes illustrating her point by breaking into dance on subway platforms.

“My mom loved the children in her life. She saw them as a pure form of creative expression,” Dickson said. “She really fostered their imagination and encouraged them to fully express themselves through whimsy and play, and we can never have too much of that.”

The venue named after her is, in every sense of the word, state of the art, said Matthew Maguire, head of Fordham Theatre. Once the location of Fordham’s Black Box Studio Theatre, the space has been thoroughly transformed.

In addition to stadium-style seating with new accommodations for the handicapped, top-of-the-line soundproofing in the walls and ceiling has all but eliminated background noise from a nearby machinery room.

An arched Venetian plaster façade has replaced a nondescript hallway door, storage space has been added under the seats, and lighting and sound systems have all been upgraded.

Maguire also recalled the time he spent with Lally Kehoe, whom he worked with closely while she earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in religious studies and art history. From the beginning, her mission was to help young artists, he said, and there was no more concrete way to do that than to build them their own theatre.

“Veronica was a model of how to be in the theatre and in the world. I was inspired by her optimism and her courage. She had such an open and youthful spirit,” Maguire said. “It’s my sincere belief that Veronica has infused this theatre. Everyone who makes art and watches it in the theatre will be blessed by her spirit. Thank you Jack, for this deep and precious gift.”