Eli Clare acknowledged during his 2019 Fordham Distinguished Lecture on Disability that these and other difficult questions he raised in his talk come without easy answers.

During his wide-ranging lecture, Claire analyzed what it means to restore something to its natural state. He also identified examples in which the paradigm of restoration falls short—as in instances of disability at birth when there never was a “before” that could be restored.

A writer, activist, and teacher, Clare wrestled with the notion of cure. Not entirely against it nor entirely for it, he embraced the ambiguities and contradictions of this “messy middle,” yielding no tidy solutions, but rather providing attendees with a starting point for vital, challenging conversations about disability and environmental destruction.

His talk, titled “Notes on Cure, Disability & Natural Worlds,” explored the meanings of words like restoration, natural, and normal, contextualizing the ideologies and assumptions that underlie their use, and considering what this language reveals about our culture and thinking.

The lecture built upon concepts explored in Clare’s latest book, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure.

Clare’s writings “challenge us to think deeply about the ways that racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia shape our perceptions of what constitutes a ‘normal’ body-mind or a valuable life,” Interim Provost Jonathan Crystal said while introducing the lecture.

(Clare utilizes the term body-mind “to resist the white, Western impulse” to conceive of the body and mind as distinct systems. “They are one tangled, complicated, complex, ambiguous, contradictory entity,” he said.)

In his lecture, Clare called for a “broad-based grappling” with “the ideology of cure”—a way of thinking that has subtly permeated our culture. Cure, by its very definition, Clare explained, carries with it the notion of restoration—of something damaged in need of fixing.

Clare reflected on his own interactions with strangers, who often respond to his cerebral palsy by offering unsolicited platitudes, prayers, crystals, or vitamins. “Even if there were a cure for brain cells that died at birth, I’d refuse,” he said. “I have no idea who I’d be without my tremoring and tense muscles, slurring tongue. They assume me unnatural, want to make me normal, take for granted the need and desire for cure.”

“How would I, or the medical-industrial complex, go about restoring my body-mind?” Clare continued.

“The vision of me without tremoring hands and slurred speech, with more balance and coordination, doesn’t originate from my visceral history,” he said. “Rather it arises from an imagination of what I should be like, from some definition of normal and natural.”

By engaging with topics ranging from the pernicious assumptions about disability embedded in a Sierra Club antipollution advertising campaign to the work of environmentalists striving to transform a former agribusiness cornfield back to tallgrass prairie, Clare also explored connections between environmental loss and body-mind loss.

Through his interrogation of the concept of restoration, as applied to both people and ecological systems, Clare ultimately laid bare an essential question: “How do we witness, name, and resist the injustices that reshape and damage all kinds of body-minds—plant and animal, organic and inorganic, non-human and human—while not equating disability with injustice?”

Bella Eitner, a sophomore at the Rose Hill campus who is pursuing a minor in disability studies, said she found valuable lessons in Clare’s writing and activism. “I think getting into advocacy is really important, and a lot of the things that he says about it are very useful, especially coming from someone with a disability himself,” Eitner said.

The annual Fordham Distinguished Lecture on Disability, now in its fourth year, is organized by the Faculty Working Group on Disability and co-sponsored by the Provost’s Office and the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer.

–Michael Garofalo

Photos by Bruce Gilbert

Six distinguished faculty members were honored on March 13 for their achievements in securing externally funded research grants at the third annual Sponsored Research Day on the Rose Hill campus.

The University Research Council and Office of Research presented the Outstanding Externally Funded Research Awards (OEFRA) to recognize the high quality and impact of the honorees’ sponsored research within the last three years and how their work has enhanced Fordham’s reputation—both nationally and globally.

Faculty were honored in five separate categories and were given awards by Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim provost, associate vice president, and associate chief academic officer.

Humanities: George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Father John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies, and Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, co-directors of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, shared the award for the Humanities category. Demacopoulos has received awards totaling $928,000 in the past three years, while Papanikolaou has received a total of $888,000. Last April, they secured two grants totaling $610,000 that will be used to fund a multiyear research project devoted toward the issue of human rights.

Interdisciplinary Research: Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Childhood Special Education at the Graduate School of Education.

Cho, an expert in the field of special education, has received two external grants totaling more than $2.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education and other foundations in the past three years. Her interdisciplinary project will produce approximately 40 professionals in special education and school psychology, which are the greatest shortage areas in the field of education.

Junior Faculty Research: Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology

Gribetz has received six external grants totaling $55,000 from the prestigious National Endowment for Humanities and other foundations in the past three years. Her research focuses on the history of time in antiquity and the important role that religious traditions and practices have played in the history of time. In 2017, she received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, alongside nine other young scholars, from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Sciences: Steven Franks, Ph.D., Professor in Biological Sciences

Franks has received five grants totaling more than $5.3 million from the National Science Foundation in the past three years. The results of the studies funded by these grants have been published in 17 peer-reviewed scientific publications since 2016. The papers, which are in high impact journals such as Evolution, Molecular Ecology, and American Journal of Botany, have been widely cited. His work has helped to advance our understanding of responses of plant populations to climate change and the genetic basis of these responses.

Social Sciences: Janna Heyman, Ph.D., Professor of Social Service and Endowed Chair of the Henry C. Ravazzin Center on Aging and Intergenerational Studies at the Graduate School of Social Service

Heyman, who is also director of Fordham’s Children & Families Institute center, has received 10 grants totaling more than $3 million from a variety of external foundations in the past three years. Last year, she co-edited, along with Graduate School of Social Service Associate Dean Elaine Congress, D.S.W, Health and Social Work: Practice, Policy and Research (Springer, 2018). She has taught social work research, advanced research, and social welfare policy courses in Fordham’s master of social work program, as well as policy implementation in the doctoral social work program.

Organized by the Office of Research and the University Research Council and sponsored by the University Research Compliance Council and the Office of Sponsored Programs, the daylong event featuring a keynote speech by Denise Clark, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Research Administration, University of Maryland at College Park.

A forum of science researchers featured Thomas Daniels, Ph.D., director of the Louis Calder Center, Deborah Denno, Ph.D, director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, Silvia Finnemann, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cancer, Genetic Diseases, and Gene Regulation, J.D. Lewis, director of the Urban Ecology Center, Amy Roy, Ph.D., director of the Pediatric Emotion Regulation Lab, and Falguni Sen, Ph.D., director of the Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center.

These are the words that Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, spoke to 10 members of the University’s support staff, facilities workers, and custodial crew at the 36th anniversary celebration of the 1841 Awards. The awards ceremony, named after the year Fordham was founded, was held on Nov. 29 in Bepler Commons. It recognizes the day-to-day operations employees who have worked at the University for either two or four decades. This year, there were 15 award recipients. (Five of them were unable to attend the ceremony.)

They are the ones who sort mail, plow snow from sidewalks, preserve Rose Hill’s historic woodwork, and give behind-the-scenes support to the University’s students and faculty. Many of them are also the proud parents of Fordham alumni and current students.

Among this year’s recipients were immigrants from Poland, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the island of Barbados. One awardee—Saul Morales—is a custodian who informally taught Spanish to other Fordham employees and has been known to sing while polishing the floor, unknowingly serenading nearby staff. But as a whole, said Father McShane, they are Fordham’s keystone—the pieces that keep the University together.

“Everyone relies on you. Without you, the great arch of Fordham would not be able to stand,”  Father McShane told them.

Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim provost, lauded one employee—Anne-Marie Sweeney, executive secretary in the theology department—for her commitment in coming to work last summer despite nursing a fractured knee.

“Anne-Marie returned to work as speedily as possible, using crutches to navigate the halls and sitting at her desk with one leg up on her guest chair,” he said. “The image was emblematic of her career at Fordham, which over her 20 years, has also become the alma mater of her beloved daughter Katie and son Jimmy.”

Peter A. Stace, senior vice president for enrollment and strategy, complimented another awardee—Lorraine Prainito, senior enrollment operations representative—for her diligence, frankness, and sense of style.

“Lorraine always comes to work in high heels, looking her best,” Stace said, gesturing toward her black stiletto boots. “Colleagues look up to her for her much-needed advice on work, as well as fashion, health, and dieting tips. We think of her as the office therapist.”

The anecdotes were tinged with both humor and humility. One awardee, a Rose Hill custodian named Cesar Merejo, was reluctant to receive thanks for his decades of service.

“He felt it was he who should be thanking the University for offering him this opportunity,” Marco A. Valera, vice president for facilities management, told the audience. “He says—and I quote—‘I always tried to pass this message to my coworkers, especially the new ones: to appreciate and understand what it means to work in a great place such as Fordham.’” A few seats away, another awardee, foreman-turned-postal clerk Carlos A. Mendoza, nodded his head.

Mendoza’s 20-year-old stepson, Genssey Paula, applauded his stepfather. He said Mendoza taught him that no matter where you’re from and what you experience, you can still succeed in life.

“I’m proud that he’s been here for 20 years, supporting the community,” Paula said.

As administrators praised them from the podium, the awardees stood and listened a few paces away. Before them were their family members and friends, who rose from their seats and snapped photos with their smartphones. Beside them was Father McShane, who shook their hands and hung gold medallions around their heads. But once in a while, Father McShane would murmur something to each person—perhaps a question or joke—and the two would laugh together quietly.

As Father McShane thanked each employee at the end of the ceremony, one award recipient—John Borrelli Jr., who works in the mail room at Lincoln Center campus—swiped tears from his cheeks. He said he was grateful that his mother Candida Borrelli, who has cancer, was able to watch him win the 1841 Award.

“I’ve met so many people over the years—staff, students. I have wonderful coworkers, a great supervisor … I’m blessed to have this job I’ve had here [for 20 years],” he said. “It’s been beautiful here at Fordham.”

The 1841 Award Recipients for 2018

Twenty-Year Medalists

John Borrelli Jr.—Lincoln Center Mail Room

Kazimierz Gorski—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Emma Lostumbo—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

Anthony Matthews—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Carlos A. Mendoza—Rose Hill Post Office

Cesar Merejo—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

Nanette Michel—Graduate School of Education

Saul Morales—Grounds and Transportation

Helen A. Norgard—Grounds and Transportation

Diane Pinero—School of Law

Lorraine Prainito—Enrollment Services

Daniel M. Reilly—Facilities Operations, Rose Hill

Winston Rose—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Anne-Marie Sweeney—Theology

Forty Year-Medalist

Michael Cioffi—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

In memorializing Fordham’s late provost, Stephen Freedman, several speakers at a Sept. 6 Service of Remembrance struck parallel themes about their friend, mentor, colleague, husband, and dad, who died suddenly on July 2 at the age of 68.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, added to that list of roles, calling Freedman a biologist, polymath, unshakable optimist, Jewish scholar with an Ignatian heart, United Airlines’ best customer, New Yorker by adoption, defender of the poor, champion of liberal arts, Fordham Ram, and “hugger—hugger of donors, hugger of students, hugger of anyone within hugging distance.”

“Stephen was the nearly perfect citizen of the University and of every university that was blessed by his presence in the course of his long career,” said Father McShane. “We were ennobled by his presence, challenged by his dreams, guided by his wisdom, consoled by his love, and enriched beyond measure by his friendship.”

Choosing Life

Eve Keller, Ph.D., president of the Fordham Faculty Senate, said that she had sat across the table from Freedman in boardrooms and restaurants, where he mastered his roles as both mediator and friend.

Keller highlighted Freedman’s Jewish faith by quoting a portion of the Torah from Nitzavim, Deuteronomy: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live—so that you may live, you and your seed.”

She noted that rabbinic commentaries typically contextualize the verse as a summing up of preceding texts on rewards and punishments for the Israelites. But Keller chose to focus on particular words in the concluding command: “choose life so you may live.”

“[It] draws my attention away from context and prompts me to read the phrase not as an admonition about obedience, but as an exhortation about choice,” she said. “Choose life, do not merely live it, because to in order to live, in order to really live, you need to actively and consciously engage life in all its pulsing frenetic fullness.”

She then paused to compose herself before continuing.

“Stephen Freedman opted for life,” she said. “Though Lord knows we did our best to beat him up, even at times to beat him down, but Stephen was always on the side of life, always up for another conversation, another hug, another bottle of rather good wine. ‘Tell me about you. Tell me how you are.’”

A Yiddish-Speaking Ignatian 

Freedman’s journey from scrawny Yiddish-speaking Canadian to nattily dressed leader at a Jesuit institution was noted by many as point of pride for both him and the University. It was a cross-cultural adventure that was recalled, in part, by Rabbi Eleanor G. Smith, M.D., Freedman’s former rabbi who led the service in the University Church. Smith first met Freedman when she was an aspiring doctor at Loyola University in Chicago and he was dean of Mundelein College there.

“He introduced me to every single nun on campus,” she said of her friend, who spent four decades of his career at Jesuit universities.

According to John Pelissero, Ph.D., provost emeritus at Loyola Chicago, he made an impression on 99-year-old Sister Jean Dolores Smith, the iconic chaplain for Loyola’s men’s basketball team and assistant dean at the college. On starting his position as dean, he asked her if there were any issues that needed his attention. She gave him a “scouting report,” a piece of paper with 17 issues that needed to be addressed. A year later he returned a crumpled piece of paper with all 17 issues checked off.

“Stephen always respected my good advice,” Sister Jean recently told Pelissero.

Rabbi Smith recalled a trip she took with Freedman to meet a Jesuit M.D. who lived an hour’s drive from Loyola’s campus. Once there, a lunch commenced, with deep discussions on faith and medicine.

“Then we drove an hour back, like that was his job,” she said. “He held my call to medicine with me and lovingly shepherded me through his neck of the woods and is partly responsible for that dream coming to life.”

Conversations

“He led by conversation, not by memorandum,” said Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

She too saw Freedman as a mentor, someone who encouraged her journey to becoming dean not with pep talks, but with probing questions that made her zero in on her goal.

“Are you sure Eva, are you really sure?” he’d ask.

“How this question always undid me,” she said, though she added that it also reassured her. “He didn’t so much care that the next step should be perfectly right; he cared that I should have thought about it. He wanted, as he said, ‘to see fire in the belly,’ but he had no patience for unquestioned self-confidence or unanalyzed certainty.”

Badowska spoke of a University photo of Freedman on the steps of Keating presiding over commencement ceremonies. In the photo, a smidge of pink material could be seen between a crisp shirt collar and his blue academic robes. It was a Hawaiian lei, she said.

“What was this Jewish provost at a Jesuit Catholic university doing wearing a lei under his academic regalia?” she asked. “And he said, ‘This is to remind me this is a happy day.’”

He loved the pomp and circumstance of academic life, she said, but needed to remind himself of the joy of the occasion. Accordingly, many of the deans and dignitaries on the altar at the service wore leis too. She said Freedman always dreamed about relaxing on a Hawaiian beach, though in truth, the notion was very much out of character.

“He was just about the last person who could sit quietly on a beach relaxing with fruity tropical drinks—and anyway he was into red wine,” she said.

Restless Spirit

Indeed, Freedman’s son, Zachary Freedman, Ph.D., assistant professor of plant science at West Virginia University, recalled physically active rather than restful family vacations. On ski trips, he and his father were the first on the slopes when the lifts opened, skiing up and down the mountain all day until the lifts stopped running, “when it felt like your legs were going to fall off.”

“Lunch breaks were for the weak,” said Zachary.

Zachary said his father was a “first-generation college student, an immigrant, an outsider, and an American success story.” He was born April 7, 1950, to Sam and Sylvia Freedman of Montreal, Quebec. Freedman’s own father was an orphan-turned-Golden Glove boxer and his mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants. His first language was Yiddish.

The family owned a gas station and repair shop where they put in very long hours. Freedman started pumping gas when he was 13. Zachary said this was where his father developed his work ethic.

Freedman met his wife, Eileen Shore, at Loyola College in Montreal (now Concordia University), where they were both biology majors. The two became “best friends for 50 years and married for 44,” Zachary said. He said that his father often said that his most joyous days were when Zachary and his brother Noah were born. His darkest day was when his mother, “his center of gravity,” died suddenly at the age of 60.

“The journey of grieving his mom’s death solidified in him a sense that our time on earth is finite and too short, and that life is precious and should be experienced and enjoyed to the fullest extent,” said Zachary.

“He did all the things great dads do, red light green light, duck duck goose,” he said. There were basketball games, and “super fun days” that once included trips to Chucky Cheese’s and WWF and eventually evolved into adult golf outings and Cubs games. And then there was the final “super fun week” in Beijing, China, where Zachary and Noah joined their dad on a work trip, where he was laying the groundwork for Fordham’s international strategy.

“He was so proud to show us around that ancient city that he had gotten to know and love over the years,” he said.

“If there’s any comfort to be sought in my dad’s premature death, it’s that he most definitely lived life to the fullest, he gave it everything that he had,” he said. “In doing so, my dad naturally and effortlessly embodied several Jesuit values: cura personalis, care of the whole person; women and men for others, my dad was always ready and eager to help another.

“But I would argue most of all my dad embodied magis, or simply more, striving for better, striving for excellence, no matter what.” 

Preceding the service, members of the Freedman family and several members of the Board of Trustees dedicated the Freedman Conference Room at Cunniffe House. Below is the memorial plaque. 

Freedman joined Fordham in 2007 as senior vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer. He was appointed provost in 2010.

“For more than a decade, Stephen served Fordham tirelessly. He was known for his devotion to the faculty, students, and the academic community, and for his commitment to research and a global university,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“He was a warm and insightful friend and colleague, and a man of deep conviction and rectitude. Stephen’s death is a grievous loss not just for his family and Fordham friends, but for everyone who knew him. We will miss him terribly.”

As provost, Freedman oversaw the operations of the University’s nine schools as well as the Fordham Libraries, Fordham University Press, WFUV, institutional research, prestigious fellowships, and Fordham’s efforts in international education.

Pioneering Partnerships at Home and Abroad

Freedman saw tremendous potential in establishing and strengthening partnerships between Fordham and other world-class institutions, whether they be across Southern Boulevard in the Bronx or across the Atlantic in London.

A professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in addition to his role as provost, Freedman was instrumental in forging the Bronx Science Consortium—a research partnership between the University, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Yeshiva University, the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society, Montefiore Medical Center, and the New York Botanical Garden. The consortium offered numerous hands-on opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to collaborate with some of the top researchers in the world.

Further abroad, he oversaw the progress of Fordham’s new London Centre campus, set to open this fall. In December 2017, when the University signed the lease on the new space, Freedman noted the many possibilities for scholarship beyond the traditional semester abroad.

“London will not merely be a campus for Fordham students to study away,” he said, “but a destination for students from other universities across Europe and Asia, and a hub of global scholarship. London, and our programs in Beijing and Pretoria, are templates for expanding the Fordham mission outside of New York City, and outside of the United States.”

Freedman traveled extensively on Fordham’s behalf, overseeing the University’s international programs—and developing new ones. In May, he led the first Fordham Faculty Research Abroad Program at Sophia University in Tokyo. That same month, he celebrated the 20th anniversary of Fordham’s Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) program in China.

International Strategy

“He would often say that one of the responsibilities that the board gave him when he became provost was to develop an international strategy for Fordham, and so he took that seriously,” said Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim vice president and chief academic officer in the Office of the Provost.

“He was incredibly innovative in establishing partnerships, online learning … he was a visionary. He was not stuck in the traditional ways of thinking about higher ed. He was really committed to making Fordham a global institution,” said Crystal. “He also put a lot of importance in his mentoring of me and other administrators and faculty at Fordham. … He was just incredibly selfless. He had so much heart.”

Ellen Fahey-Smith, associate vice president and chief of staff in the Office of the Provost, said Freedman “touched the hearts and minds of friends and colleagues throughout the world.”

“His legacy will endure in the transformative academic excellence he has insisted upon at Fordham, a place he cherished and called home,” said Fahey-Smith, who worked with Freedman for more than 10 years. “I will miss him deeply.”

‘A Deeply Spiritual Man’

Freedman worked closely with his faculty colleagues to develop new ideas and initiatives at home as well as abroad.

“He was very committed to the faculty,” said Magda Teter, Ph.D., the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies and professor of history at Fordham. “Once a faculty member too, he understood our work and the challenges we face. He was very strongly supportive and extremely warm,” she said through tears.

Teter said Freedman was “one of the key figures” in the development of Fordham’s Jewish Studies program, which Teter directs. She also said he was extremely proud to be the Jewish provost of a Jesuit university.

“He would always bring it up as a mark of pride in Fordham. He felt it spoke volumes about Fordham and its ethos of inclusion,” she said.

“He was a deeply spiritual man. When we were in Jerusalem together in 2016, it was a deeply moving experience for him, even though it was not his first time,” she said. “That’s why it worked for him to be a provost at Fordham—that commitment to faith.”

When he joined the Fordham faculty in 2007, Freedman told FORDHAM magazine that he’s “always seen science and religion as complementary.”

“My own scientific and religious backgrounds have enhanced each other, and I think informed discussions between theologians and scientists play a critical role in the shaping of ideas,” he said.

A native of Montreal, Freedman earned a B.S. from Loyola of Montreal, an M.S. in environmental studies from York University in Toronto, and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of California at Irvine. He also completed the United Nations Graduate Study Program in Geneva.

He has spent nearly his entire career at Jesuit Universities; for 24 years he was at Loyola University of Chicago, where he taught biology and served as dean of Mundelein College. From 2002 until 2007, he was academic vice president at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

Freedman is survived by his wife, Eileen; his sons, Zac and Noah; and his grandson Aaron. Fordham will hold a memorial service to honor him in the fall.

Feature photo by Chris Taggart

Reaccreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education is necessary for the University to receive federal student aid, said Jonathan Crystal, PhD, associate professor of political science, associate vice president, and associate chief academic officer in the Office of the Provost.

During the team’s four-day visit, the team will meet with faculty, staff, and students to assess the University in 14 areas including administration and integrity, mission and goals, planning and resource allocation, leadership and governance, and assessment of student learning.

These meetings can be used not only to present how well the University is doing, but to determine how it can improve, said Crystal, who, along with Professor Emerita of German Susan Ray, PhD, is co-chair of the Self-Study Steering Committee that prepared for Fordham’s reaccreditation.

“This is an opportunity to present the [University’s] strengths but also the challenges,” he said. “The idea is really not, ‘Are you perfect,’ because no institution is perfect, but, ‘Are you accomplishing your mission,’ and most importantly, ‘Are you engaged in this process of reflection and improvement?’”

He noted that the evaluation team comprises faculty and administrators from other colleges and universities who know about the challenges facing higher education, and who have expertise the University can benefit from.

“The whole process really has two purposes: one is to demonstrate to the accreditors that we’re complying with the standards, and the second is … to reflect on how we’re doing and how we can be more effective,” he said. “That’s always a good thing to do, and this is really an occasion for that.”

The evaluation team—led by William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston College—will visit the Rose Hill campus on Monday, April 4, and the Lincoln Center campus the next day. The team will hold open forums for faculty, for administrators and staff, and for students. The visit will end with a preliminary oral report from Father Leahy, followed by the team’s written report, which will make recommendations to the University and to the Middle States commission as to whether and to what extent Fordham complies with the commission’s standards.

The first two open forums will be held back-to-back on Monday, April 4. The forum for faculty will last from 1 to 2:15 p.m. and the second, for administrators and staff, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Both will be held in the O’Hare Special Collections Room in the Walsh Library at the Rose Hill campus and broadcast via videoconference to Room 309 in the Lowenstein Building.

The forum for students, to be held Tuesday, April 5, from 2 to 3 p.m., will take place in the 12^th-Floor Lounge of the Lowenstein building. It will be broadcast via videoconference to the Council Room at Cunniffe House on the Rose Hill campus.

Until now, the reaccreditation has taken place every 10 years, with a midterm review at the five year mark, but Middle States is revising the process so that from now on it will happen every eight years with annual updates but no midterm review, Crystal said.

Fordham began preparing for reaccreditation three years ago by doing an institutional self-study report that was given to Father Leahy and members of the visiting team in February.

The reaccreditation process complements Fordham’s Continuous University Strategic Planning initiative, Crystal said.

“Because we’re launching this new phase of our strategic planning, it’s really helpful at this point to examine how we’re doing, how effectively we’re accomplishing the goals that we’ve set for ourselves,” he said.

Daniels, associate research scientist in Fordham’s Department of Biological Sciences, took the reins from John Wehr, Ph.D., professor of biology, on Jan. 1. Wehr, who has overseen the doubling of the center staff and the construction of a 3,800 square-foot, 12-bed, log cabin-style residence for graduate researchers, has served as Calder’s director since 1986. A renowned limnologist, Wehr has also overseen research projects in the center’s 10-acre lake and in lakes and streams across the nation.

Tom Daniels, left, will direct Fordham’s Calder Center, taking the reins from John Wehr, right. Both men are among Calder’s most senior researchers.
Photos by Bruce Gilbert (left) and Bill Denison

The Calder Center is 25 miles north of New York City and consists of 113 forested acres and a 10-acre lake. It is one of the few field stations in North America with relatively undisturbed natural communities near a large urban center. Calder supports scientific and interdisciplinary research in ecology, evolution, and conservation, and provides hands-on education for students of diverse backgrounds and academic levels. The center was established in 1967 on the former estate of Louis Calder, chairman of the Perkins-Goodwin Company.

Daniels earned his doctorate in biology in 1987 at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and joined Fordham as an adjunct professor in 1994. He is currently the co-director of the Vector Ecology Laboratory at Calder, where he and fellow co-director Richard Falco, Ph.D., lead a team of scientists and students in researching disease-carrying insects (vectors) such as ticks and mosquitoes.

In his own research, Daniels has focused on vertebrate-tick relationships and the ecology of Lyme disease in the northeastern United States, as well the ecology of the West Nile virus in the Northeast. He credits co-researcher Wehr with laying a successful foundation for the center.

“I’m flattered to be asked to take over as director when John steps down, and excited to begin the next stage in Calder’s growth. The center has untapped potential that we all see, and I’m committed to help move us along the path to reaching that potential,” Daniels said.
Daniels said his primary role would be “helping to facilitate the research efforts of our faculty and graduate students at Calder.”

“That, in turn, will generate opportunities for our undergraduate students to assist in active research and come away with a unique field experience. It is why Calder exists.”

Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., associate vice president and associate chief academic officer in the Office of the Provost, said the office is “thrilled” that Daniels is taking the position. He likewise noted that “without the work of John [Wehr], there would have been no Calder Center.”

Wehr will stay on at the center and continue research in aquatic biology.

“The Calder Center is an important asset for Fordham, supporting research and educational opportunities not only for our own faculty and students, but for others across the region and nationwide,” Crystal said.

“We have a lot of confidence that, under Tom’s leadership, Calder will make great strides in fulfilling the field station’s potential.”

Currently, one in six of Fordham’s undergraduates are majoring in biology or pre-health, or both. In 2013, Calder’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program attracted 170 applicants for 10 positions. Calder’s graduate students regularly go on to careers that make use of their biological training, including positions at the Alaska SeaLife Center, the Central Park Zoo, the Malcolm-Pirnie environmental consultancy, the National Wildlife Federation, the New York Botanical Garden, New York Medical College, New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

For Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and chief research officer/associate vice-president for academic affairs, the transition is a good time to reflect on how Wehr’s work helped make the Calder Center a nationally and internationally recognized field station whose scientists are at the forefront of research and education on issues of ecological significance and global conservation.

“I believe that Tom Daniels will continue to establish Calder’s prominence as a center for the study of key issues in ecology involving urbanization and conservation, such as invasive species, water quality and vector borne illnesses like Lyme disease,” she said.

“Tom has great passion for Calder and understanding of its unique position as a biological field research station at the urban-rural gradient in one of the world’s foremost urban environments.”

“I want to distinguish between protectionism, or the efforts on the part of interests and workers to protect their economic position, and nationalization, which is an ideology that promotes the unity, autonomy and identity of the nation,” he said.

Crystal examined the consequences of foreign companies venturing into the United States inUnwanted Company: Foreign Investment in American Industries (Cornell University Press, 2003). He will use his faculty fellowship to focus on reactions to controversial foreign corporate takeovers such as the attempt by DP World—based in the United Arab Emirates—to take over management of six United States ports in 2006.

The ways in which integration into the global economy affects politics within countries has been a major theme of his work, so it makes sense to compare how, for instance, Spain reacts to a German takeover of a Spanish company, to the aforementioned takeovers of American companies.

Political science has been oriented to people, groups and countries pursuing interests that are defined in materialist terms, such as money, jobs and power. But Crystal said scholars are rethinking how people define their interests by beliefs and emotions.

“By looking at different parts of the world and comparing the response to globalization, I think it’s possible to tease out which element is nationalistic,” he said.