The grant, which comes from the Higher Education Capital Match Program (HECap), is the second one of its kind that the University has received for the Campus Center.

It will help fund the ongoing transformation of what has become a vibrant hub for the Rose Hill campus since it opened last year.

The Heartbeat of Campus Life

The center, which nearly doubled in size when the 71,000-square-foot addition was finished in February 2022, features multiple spaces dedicated to making the campus a welcoming place for all. 

A first-floor lounge features a pool table and plenty of couches and chairs for relaxing, while the ground floor has additional spaces to gather, recharge, and exercise in a state-of-the-art 20,000-square-foot fitness center.

The upper floors are occupied by the offices of Career Services and the Center for Community-Engaged Learning, while a light-filled arcade that opened in August makes for seamless traveling to the athletic facilities. The building is also designed to LEED Silver level specifications, with triple-glazed windows, automatic lighting controls, recycled materials, and, in a first for the Rose Hill campus, heat recovery mechanical ventilation wheels, which reuse the building’s heat in cooler months.

Dining in the Age of Customization

When the new Marketplace opens in the fall, it will feature nine different stations, covering cuisine ranging from halal, deli, and grill to pizza, salad, vegan, allergen-friendly, and dessert.  

One of the most dramatic changes will be the way dishes will be prepared directly in front of customers. 

As an example, Deming Yaun, university dining contract liaison, noted that at the vegan/vegetarian station, the centerpiece will be a large, oval kitchen stocked with ingredients that are washed, prepped, and cut as needed for every dish, some of which will be sent to decks of ovens in a nearby kitchen to be “finished off” and returned. The Halal/Za’atar kitchen, for instance, will feature dishes such as Mansaf-stewed lamb with yogurt and mint, salmon in fig leaves, and grilled beef and lamb skewers, all prepared in the open.

This allows for customized dining that students expect.

“Over the years, we have been moving food preparation into or as close to the serving area as possible, but this takes it to a whole new level,” he said.

A Hub For Community

The new Marketplace space will be more than just a place for sustenance. Michelle Burris, interim vice president for student affairs, said she expects it will become as much a locus of activity as the rest of the Campus Center. 

“We refer to the McShane Center as almost the living room of our campus where students can gather,” she said. “A fully renovated Marketplace is going to make it even more of a destination for students not only to eat but to be in community with one another.”

Lesley Massiah-Arthur, associate vice president of the Office of Government Relations and Urban Affairs and special assistant to the president, said community building was key to winning the grant, which was awarded in September.

Massiah-Arthur, the author of the grant application, said a grant of this size is only distributed to projects that benefit the broader public.

“I was thinking about how the University was coming back from the pandemic, and I started to think about the importance of food and dining together,” she said. 

As such, Massiah-Arthur cited not only an academic study that showed the benefits of communal dining but also highlighted how a dining facility will make it easier for Fordham to host outside groups for gatherings where food will be served. Next year, for example, the Bronx District Attorney’s office will be hosting a two-day forum at the Campus Center with other U.S. Attorneys General on gun violence prevention.

“Being able to open up the University again is essential to who we are not only as a university but as an anchor institution for the region,” she said. 

Benefiting the Environment and Local Economy

Even before it opens, the renovation will have a positive economic impact on the Bronx. It will generate approximately 250 union jobs over the course of the contract, and 25% of those jobs will be filled by local businesses.

The university will also work with local businesses to implement a new waste management system. All disposable containers will be fully compostable, and working with Bronx-based businesses to meet its composting goals,  Fordham will divert approximately 230,670 pounds of food waste a year from landfills.

Where Friendships Form

Ben Medeiros, FCRH ’22, a student in the mental health counseling program at the Graduate School of Education, was commuting to the Rose Hill campus when the McShane Center opened last year. It was just long enough a walk that he preferred to stay on campus between classes.

“I didn’t want to walk home every day after class. I thought, ‘Let me just chill here before my next club meeting.’ You want to get out of your dorm room or your apartment and sit there,” he said. “I made better friends there than I ever did anywhere else.”

—Additional reporting by Chris Gosier.

As she waited for other community members to arrive, she caught up with an old friend, Pat Ryan. Ryan is a long-time resident who has served as president of the Resident Association for Amsterdam Addition. Though she stepped down some time ago, many residents see her as the “mayor” and go to her with a range of issues.

The two were meeting with other community leaders because Massiah-Arthur was unable to attend the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Amsterdam Community Collective this past summer. She wanted to congratulate them and simply touch base. The celebration was a standout among the many efforts the community sponsors and Fordham supports.

As Massiah-Arthur helped Ryan decipher the winnings from her lottery scratch-off tickets, the two reminisced about the time Ryan testified before the City Planning Commission in support of a new law school and residence hall at the Lincoln Center campus. She was one of many in the community that stepped up to help Fordham at that meeting.

“I said a lot that day,” Ryan said, recalling her key testimony before the commission in 2009.

All Politics Are Local

When people think of the Office of Government Relations and Urban Affairs, and Massiah-Arthur’s work in particular, they often conjure an image of her working the halls of the State Capitol or City Hall to secure state funds for the new McShane Student Center arcade or teaming with city agencies to secure funding for the Mentoring Latinas program and the Bronx African-American History Project. But all politics are local, and the locals have a long memory, said Massiah-Arthur.

She added that without the support of Ryan, the development of the Law School building and McKeon Hall would have had a much harder time getting past the City Planning Commission. At the time, Ryan told the community-focused Commissioner Amanda Burden that seeing a university on their block would be a source of inspiration for young people who live there.

This wasn’t the way that Massiah-Arthur was told it would play out. Naysayers warned her that she wouldn’t be able to get community support from the housing projects.

“That was a lie. This has been the easiest relationship I’ve ever had,” said Massiah-Arthur, who credited not only the work of her office, but also that of students volunteers from Fordham Football and the men’s basketball team, the CSTEP Program, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, and the Graduate School of Social Service for fostering and maintaining good will over the years. From handing out back-to-school backpacks to providing funds for turkey giveaways at Thanksgiving and participating in the annual Family Day, Massiah-Arthur said that Fordham students, faculty, and staff have helped whenever they could.

Sometimes requests, like one for a  generator after a storm knocked out the lights, could not be met for insurance reasons. But Massiah-Arthur said the University did accommodate residents’ request for security cameras. They had been promised by elected officials but were never delivered. Fordham had them installed, which in turn prompted legislators to provide funds for additional cameras.

Ryan agreed that the relationship with Fordham has been strong over the years, and credited the University’s continued support, such as donations to a fund that the collective taps into to award scholarships. Massiah-Arthur’s honesty plays a part as well, she said.

“That’s because Lesley is the truth. Okay? Because she’s a lady of her word,” said Ryan. “And when she says something, it happens. If she could do it, she does it. If she can’t, then she can’t.”

An Unexpected Meeting

But the relationship isn’t just about trading favors. Sometimes it’s just about listening, said Massiah-Arthur. In time, Massiah-Arthur came to realize that others in power needed to listen to the residents too.  So she arranged a meeting between the University and the general manager of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and brought the residents with her to discuss all the items on their to-do list.

“They were people who by definition should not have been able to have gotten a meeting, but needed a meeting,” said Massiah-Arthur.

The bait-and-switch meeting got results; residents got extra dumpsters, the generator, and other needs met. The important thing for Massiah-Arthur was that the residents spoke for themselves.

“They could pull it together on their own. For me, it was important to do it because when I saw the men and women who walked into that room, they reminded me of my great aunts, they reminded me of my grandmother,” said Massiah-Arthur. “These are women who didn’t need anybody to speak for them. If you just ask them what they wanted, they’ll tell you.”

“Mm-hmm,” responded Ryan, knowingly nodding in agreement.

On March 15, the American Council on Education announced that Massiah-Arthur and 45 others had been named ACE Fellows for the 2022-2023 academic year. The highly competitive program, which attracts applicants from institutions from across the nation, is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in U.S. higher education by preparing faculty and staff for senior positions in college and university administration. About 2,500 higher ed leaders have participated in the program.

As part of the fellowship, Massiah-Arthur will join the leadership team of another higher education institution that she will choose this spring. In the fall, she will visit her host institution periodically to observe and work with the president and other senior officers, attend decision-making meetings, and focus on issues of interest. She will also conduct a project of pressing concern to the host institution and seek to implement her findings upon completion of the fellowship placement.

Massiah-Arthur said she’s particularly interested in learning more about how institutions set priorities in moments of crisis, and ultimately, who is responsible for making those decisions? In other words, where exactly does the buck stop?

“If you’ve been at an institution for a certain amount of time, it becomes easy for you to become ingrained in how it works and functions,” she said.

“That’s a good thing because it’s important to know what the mission of the institution is. But by the same token, you might not be able to look at processes for leadership or decision-making in an objective way, because you’ve been ingrained in those thought processes.”

Massiah-Arthur is the first Fordham employee to become an ACE fellow. She said she’s excited to share the knowledge she’s gained from her time at Fordham with the administrators of her host institution and to bring fresh perspectives back when she completes the fellowship.

“I really want to thank Father McShane for his support and for putting forth my nomination. It really means a lot to me that he values not only what I’ve done but that he values the potential of what I can do,” she said.

On March 16, Fordham received a helping hand from the State of New York, which awarded the University a $5 million matching capital grant from the Higher Education Capital Match Program (HECap).

The grant, which is administered by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), will pay for construction of the glass-covered arcade, or passageway, that will connect the new 71,000-square-foot, four-level addition to a renovated McGinley Center, the Rose Hill Gym, and the Lombardi Center. The addition is set to open this fall. 

A Partnership with State Government

For every dollar in state matching funds, private, not-for-profit colleges and universities in New York must provide $3 in support of their projects. The projected timeline of the campus center’s Phase II renovation is expected to be 14 months.

Fordham was one of 35 colleges and universities to receive the grant this year. Lesley Massiah-Arthur, associate vice president and special assistant to the president for government relations, whose office secured the grant, said she was thrilled that Fordham received the maximum amount possible. A major part of the application process centered around demonstrating that the project will generate jobs and benefit the community at large, she said.

“What this investment allows us to do is not only expand the University’s resources for our students but to expand community access to the University,” she said, noting that Fordham allows community nonprofits to hold meetings on campus, free of charge.

Contributing to the Economy

At $5 million, the grant is the largest in a series of grants totaling $14.75 million that Fordham has secured from the state over the last five years. Last year, a $2.5 million State and Municipal Facilities Grant was awarded for lab renovations at John Mulcahy Hall. In 2018, the University received a $3.75 million HECap grant for a steam boiler replacement in Thebaud Hall. And in 2019, Massiah-Arthur’s office secured a $1 million HECap grant for renovating the façade and creating an open green space at Lincoln Center.

Massiah-Arthur said the funds showed that leaders in Albany appreciate the value that private colleges and universities bring to the state’s economy. According to a 2017 report by the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, Fordham’s total economic impact on the New York City region is $1.5 billion.

The project will also generate approximately 250 union jobs, ranging from laborers to engineers, over the course of the contract.

“The fact that independent universities have a capital program [HECap] that’s specific to us demonstrates that our capital construction is very important, especially when you consider that as a sector, our institutions contribute about $88 billion to the New York state economy,” she said.

“This just goes to show that a partnership between the state and our sector can be a benefit not just for the institution but the state, the regions, and communities we’re in.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, who recently served as chair of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, said he was gratified that New York’s leaders see institutions like Fordham as partners worthy of support.

“The new center will be at the heart of the campus experience and therefore at the heart of the University’s mission,” Father McShane said.

“It will bring together all students, faculty, and staff under one roof, in a space that maximizes opportunities for shared meals, shared learning, and shared recreation. We are grateful that the Dormitory Authority recognized both Fordham’s need and our contribution to the state’s intellectual, cultural, and financial health.”

A Unique, Light-Filled Space

The arcade and the new entrance to the center promise to be the most dramatic of all the elements of the new campus center. Marco Valera, vice president for administration, said that the only other building that currently features a large indoor space bathed in natural light from above is the Platt Court atrium at the Lincoln Center Campus.

In addition to joining the original McGinley Center with the addition, the new arcade will stretch to the east and north to envelop the space separating those two buildings from the Rose Hill Gym and the Lombardi Center.

It is also arguably the trickiest part of the construction, Valera said, as it requires demolition, rehabilitation, and construction in close proximity to spaces that will continue to be occupied.

“The uniqueness of this particular space is that it joins the new building with the old stonework of the gym, so you’ve got a little flavor of the kind of gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they join old buildings to new buildings,” he said.

Fifty-five percent of eligible black women voted in the Nov. 2018 midterm elections, compared with a national average turnout of 53.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Christina Greer, Ph.D., associate professor of political science and Lesley Massiah-Arthur, GSAS ’12, ’13, associate vice president and special assistant to the president for government relations, spoke about the role of black women in the Democratic Party and the 2020 presidential election in a lecture at the Fordham Law School on Oct. 10. In attendance were faculty, administrators, and students—many of whom are now eligible to vote. 

The hour-and-a-half-long lecture was sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer. It was among the inaugural events of the Women of Color Initiative at Fordham launched last year, which encourages women of color to be in conversation with one another. 

What Black Women Want to See in Politics 

It wasn’t until 1920 that women in the U.S. were given the right to vote. But even then, there were obstacles for black women: the rise of Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and even lynching, said Greer. 

“It’s not until 1965 [with the passage of the Voting Rights Act]  really that black women are actually active members of the political process,” Greer said. “When you think about African Americans as a whole, we actually haven’t been voting in this country for much more than 50 years, realistically.”

Since then, roughly 60 African Americans have run for president in the U.S., said Greer. Approximately 20 of them were women, including Charlene Mitchell and Shirley Chisholm—the first African American woman to be elected to U.S. Congress, said Greer. 

What black women want to see in their 2020 presidential election candidates, said Massiah-Arthur, is a commitment to three things: gun reform, better health care, and the safety of their families. 

“Being able to go into a church and kill people is now a reality. And when you consider the fact that the African-American political experience is one that is based in the black church, and that black women have always been most influential in that church … you’ve now come into someone’s home,” she said. 

Black women also hold significant power in the voting process—perhaps surprisingly so, Greer said. 

“Black women vote for the Democrats. They vote for the Democrats so much more than everyone else [from other races]that it looks like all women vote for Democrats. And it’s actually not true,” Greer said. 

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 94% of black women voters supported Hillary Clinton, compared to 82% of black men and 42% of white women, said Greer. 

Why Stacey Abrams Is Ruining Kamala Harris’ Shot at the Presidency

There is one woman of color among the current 2020 Democratic presidential candidates: Kamala Harris, senator and former attorney general of California. According to The New York Times’ latest analysis, Harris is one of the underdogs. 

If not for the actions of Stacey Abrams, former Georgia House Democratic Leader—another woman of color—Harris might be doing better, said Greer.

The two women are very similar. They both attended historically black colleges and graduated from Yale Law School. But the similarities stop there, said Greer. 

“Stacey decides to go to Georgia and organize poor people and help voters work on voter registration … [she goes]to the nether regions of the state of Georgia, where there’s barely any electricity or running water in multiple parts, and actually mobilize poor white people, poor black people, undocumented folks from Central America and Asia … She rises through the ranks and becomes the minority leader of the Democrats [in the Georgia statehouse],” Greer said. “Kamala, on the other hand, becomes the DA—which is a prosecutor—and then she becomes the attorney general for the state. One of her signature policies was to incarcerate parents if their children were truant … Her defense is no parents ever went to prison for this. That doesn’t matter. Someone taking off one day of work could’ve changed their lives forever, especially if you’re working an hourly wage job.” 

If it wasn’t for Abrams’ success, said Greer, more people would be more lenient toward Harris.

“If we didn’t know that this career path could exist for black women, I think people could understand. You make concessions. That’s sort of how you get ahead,” Greer said. “But we’ve seen a different path. And I think that’s what’s making Kamala’s road so complicated and difficult, especially among black women of a certain age.”

Getting Ready for Nov. 3, 2020 

At the end of the event, Greer advised the audience on how they could prepare for the 2020 presidential election: 

Donate what you can: “I developed this concept called political tithing. I give money to candidates across the United States who I think—on local, state, and national levels—are contributing to a positive discourse in this country. For so many small races, small amounts of money actually can make a difference.”  

Primaries matter: “Most people, especially young people, aren’t taught what primaries are. They think, I can just show up on Nov. 3. And then when they show up, they’re disappointed with the selections. The primaries are actually when you get to choose.” 

Pay attention to statehouses: “That’s where the action is. There’s billions upon billions of dollars that pass through statehouses. People are deciding education policy, reproductive policy, environmental policy, whether or not public schools get funded properly.” 

Do your own research. “Spend five minutes a day on your democracy because five minutes a day can help inform you about so many issues. You realize there’s certain candidates that may say something, and then once you scratch the surface, you realize that they may not necessarily be the candidate for you.”

One of the biggest ways people can make a difference, said Massiah-Arthur, is within their immediate reach. By posting photos and thoughts online, people have the power to change the narrative of the political game. 

“You live in an age where you actually get to be your own media,” she said, specifically addressing the students, who made up the majority of the audience. “Every time I turn around, there’s a ding, there’s an Instagram, there’s a Twitter. You guys will tweet about the most stupid things,” Massiah-Arthur said, to laughter. “But by the same token, you also have the capacity of sharing your views, as people of a certain age.”