Beginning with the fall 2020 application cycle, Fordham will meet up to the full cost of tuition for Cristo Rey Network students admitted to the University through either the traditional full-time admission process or the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP-NY State).

“We’ve been working as partners with Cristo Rey for many, many years. This is an opportunity for us to take that commitment to a new level and help make a private education more affordable and possible for some of those students,” said Patricia Peek, Ph.D., dean of undergraduate admission at Fordham. 

The Cristo Rey Network is a group of 37 Catholic high schools across the U.S. that primarily serves students from low-income families. What makes the network unusual is its four-year corporate work-study program, featured on 60 Minutes in 2004. Students balance their classes with entry-level jobs at local businesses. They gain work experience and earn money that goes directly to the school to cover part of their tuition. 

Extending A Decade-Long Relationship 

For more than a decade, Fordham has shared strong ties with the network’s schools, many of which are Jesuit-affiliated. Cristo Rey students have read their poetry at Fordham’s Poets Out Loud series. Fordham Founders Stephen E. Bepler, FCRH ’64, and John Ryan Heller served as trustees at Cristo Rey schools in East Harlem and Chicago, respectively. And the founding president of Cristo Rey New York High School, Joseph P. Parkes, S.J., JES ’68, served as a Fordham trustee and received an honorary degree from the University in 2019. 

The University is especially close to Cristo Rey New York High School. Located in East Harlem, the school has sent more students to Fordham than any other school in the Cristo Rey network. Since the school graduated its first class in 2008, at least one student has come to Fordham each year, for a total of 69 enrollees in the last 11 years, said Peek.

“Every year, we always get a ton of students saying, ‘We’re applying to Fordham. We want to really get in, and what can we do to get there?’” said Martha V. Fermín, director of college guidance at Cristo Rey New York High School and a 2011 graduate of the school. “I really hope that this [partnership]  continues to flourish in many ways, and we can continue to collaborate in any way possible.”

The East Harlem school was profiled by The New York Times in 2007. A year later, the second Cristo Rey school in New York—Cristo Rey Brooklyn High School, formerly known as Lourdes Academy High School—opened. Fordham has had nine enrolled students from the Brooklyn school.

The University’s new financial pledge can also make a difference for Cristo Rey students outside of New York who aren’t candidates for the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP-NY State), which provides eligible students with educational support services and additional financial assistance. 

“By expanding our funding opportunity, we’re hoping this will help make a Fordham education possible for Cristo Rey students at a distance,” Peek said. 

‘It Touches Me Deeply’

News of the agreement caught the attention of Jordi Giler: a Cristo Rey alumnus, junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, and HEOP student. His younger sister is currently a senior at Cristo Rey New York High School who recently applied to Fordham, he said. 

“[The new pledge] eliminates one of the greatest burdens that a kid has, going into the college process, which is money,” said Giler, a political science major from the Bronx who wants to work in immigration policy reform. “A lot of kids from Cristo Rey—me and my sister included—we don’t come from rich homes. We come from traditionally lower-class or middle-class homes, where one of the main concerns about going to college is, are they giving me enough money? Do we have to take out loans?” 

For Emely Mojica—a Cristo Rey alumna, sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill, and HEOP student—the new pledge is a powerful one. 

“It touches me deeply. I’m the eldest of five children, and I’m the first in my family to go to college. I’m able to be at Fordham because I’m here on three scholarships,” said Mojica, an English major from the Dominican Republic who wants to work in corporate communications. “It’s going to be so much more helpful and accessible to receive higher education, especially for Cristo Rey students who I know deserve it and work so hard.” 

To apply to this new program, Cristo Rey students should apply to Fordham with the Common Application and complete the University’s standard financial aid process. 

Click here to watch student scholarship recipients speak about their Fordham experiences.
Click here to watch Father McShane’s speech.
Click here to watch Patricia Heller’s speech.
Click here to watch John Heller’s speech.
Click here to watch E. Gerald Corrigan’s speech.
Click here to watch Courtney Markes’ speech.
Click here to watch the Ramblers sing “New York New York.”
View additional photos, including some “red carpet” arrivals at the dinner.

The 12th annual Fordham Founder’s Award Dinner celebrated the theme of transformation, honoring both the University community and the city in which it thrives.

More than 800 Fordham alumni and friends filled the Waldorf Astoria’s Grand Ballroom on March 18 to honor three members of the University community whose support has been transformative. This year’s Founder’s Awards went to E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71, and Patricia Anne Heller and John Ryan Heller, PAR ’03, ’07, ’11.

In addition, the annual gala raised $2 million this year toward the Fordham Founder’s Scholarship Fund.

“Being in New York City has facilitated my involvement in community outreach, volunteering as a mentor in the Bronx, working as a tutor, and participating in scientific research at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine,” said scholarship recipient Courtney Markes, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior who is a pre-med student majoring in Latin American and Latino studies. “It has helped us all to know there was someone else who believed we all have the potential to be great, and that all we needed was the means to fully realize this promise.

Markes told those attending the dinner that there were no words to communicate how grateful the students are to their supporters. “Each one of you took a chance on us,” she said.

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D.

The night began with an invocation by the Most Rev. Frank J. Caggiano, auxiliary bishop and vicar general of the Diocese of Brooklyn, and ended with an anecdote from Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, on the appointment of the Catholic Church’s first Jesuit pope, Pope Francis. In between, attendees were treated to student testimonials and an elegant rendition of “New York, New York” by Fordham’s a cappella group, the Ramblers, among other highlights.

Upon receiving the Founder’s Award, E. Gerald Corrigan said he was deeply honored and “humbled” to have his name closely associated with Fordham.

“There is something very special about Fordham that distinguishes it from other great centers of learning,” he said. “That distinction is best-captured by the Fordham brand, namely the ‘Jesuit University of New York.’”

“Those six words celebrate the common bond between this great city and this great University.”

One of the University’s most ardent supporters, Corrigan earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Fordham in economics. He spent 25 years working for the Federal Reserve before moving into the private sector, where he serves as chairman of Goldman Sachs Bank U.S.A.

“It will be 50 years this September that I started my training at Rose Hill in the economics department,” he said. “There is no doubt that my career was put forth in a very fundamental way in those years.”

Patricia Anne Heller (left) and John Ryan Heller.

In accepting their awards, the Hellers, proud parents of three Fordham graduates—Amy, FCLC ’03, Michaela, FCLC ’07, and Tim, GSB ’11—described themselves as Fordham “lifers.”

While their son Tim was a student at the Gabelli School of Business, the couple worked diligently with Fordham’s administration to develop the University’s first Parents’ Leadership Council, serving as its inaugural co-chairs and helping to recruit members from coast to coast. Today, the group boasts 70 members.

Attending Fordham, said John Heller, has taught their children how to think, how to care, and all about the true meaning of respect.

“We feel very fortunate to have become a part of this community,” he said. “We have always felt that we received more than we have given.”

The Chicago-based couple, the first parents to ever receive a Fordham Founder’s Award, have come to call New York City their “second home.”

“When we dropped Amy off 13 years ago and we heard the phrase ‘Fordham is our School and New York City is our Campus,’” added Patti Heller, “John and I did not realize they were talking to us. But like our children, our lives have been enriched and enlightened immeasurably.”

Referring to the fact that the Founder’s Dinner was happening just hours before the first Jesuit pope’s inaugural mass in Rome, Father McShane said that the convergence was completely appropriate because evening’s three awardees had lived lives as if they’d “heeded the advice of St. Ignatius.”

“They have transformed the world in and through the action of their everyday lives,” he said.

“The pope’s election shines a new and luminous light on what we are about this evening,” said Father McShane. “Tonight we celebrate Francis by doing what we do, doing it well, and doing it with heart – great heart.”

Father McShane called attention to “the 4600 undergraduates who performed over a million hours of community service last year,” students who “chose to spend their spring breaks on Global Outreach projects,” as well as the “tireless work done by our faculty” to instill the transformative Fordham character in the men and women they teach.

“In the [pope’s] spotlight, I would argue that we shine–and shine in service.”

Among the attendees were retired Gen. John M. Keane, GSB ’66, financial analyst Mario Gabelli, GSB ’65, Trustee Fellow Regina Pitaro, FCRH ‘76, actress Phylicia Rashad, the first holder of Fordham’s Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre, and His Excellency Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.

William F. Baker, Ph.D., president emeritus of WNET and Claudio Acquaviva, S.J., Chair and Journalist in Residence in the Graduate School of Education, was the master of ceremonies.