Fordham’s donors, alumni, and friends gathered on Nov. 8 not only to honor the Founder’s Scholars—Fordham students whose scholarships are supported by the event—but also to pay tribute to the evening’s honorees: Emanuel “Manny” Chirico, GABELLI ’79, PAR; his wife Joanne M. Chirico, PAR; and Joseph H. Moglia, FCRH ’71.

“I would like to thank all of you for supporting this long-overdue annual celebration of our beloved University,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

Father McShane noted that there was “eager longing” for this Founder’s Dinner, in part because of the last 18 months but also because it kicked off the new campaign for the student experience.

“We also celebrate the public launch of the Cura Personalis campaign, a campaign that will make it possible for the University to continue to redeem the promise that it has made to its students for 180 years: the promise to provide them with the kind of personal, empowering, and transformative care that has always been the hallmark of a Fordham education,” he said. “I am happy to tell you that, thanks to the generosity that you have already shown, we have already raised $170 million toward the $350 million goal. And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

All attendees were required to be fully vaccinated and wear a mask when entering The Glasshouse, which featured sweeping views overlooking the Hudson, outdoor terraces, and an airy ballroom lit by modern chandeliers.

Supporting the Students

David Ushery, the anchor for NBC 4 New York’s 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekday newscasts, emceed the Founder’s Dinner, which began in 2002 and has raised more than $42 million to support the Fordham Founder’s Scholarship Fund. Ushery received an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2019, and his wife, Isabel Rivera-Ushery, is a 1990 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

“You have supported 130 Fordham students through this program—students who would not have benefited from our fine Jesuit education without your support and generosity,” Ushery told the more than 1,000 attendees. “You have impacted the scholars’ career paths as they are ‘setting the world on fire.’ Your impact on them guides their impact on others.”

The New Campaign

That impact will be taken to new levels through the University’s new fundraising campaign. Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, which aims to enhance the student experience as well as prepare students to work for social justice and be leaders in today’s world. The campaign pledges to renew Fordham’s commitment to care for the whole student as a unique, complex person and to nurture their gifts accordingly.

The campaign features four main pillars: access and affordability, academic excellence, student wellness and success, and athletics—with diversity, equity, and inclusion goals embedded in each of them. The night also featured the debut of a new campaign video that highlights the student experience at Fordham.

Founder’s Scholar Sydney Veazie, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said that the Jesuit value of cura personalis, or care of the whole person, has been an essential part of her experience at Fordham. At Fordham, Veazie said, the Latin noun cura is transformed into a verb—something that students, faculty, and staff put into action.

“[Cura Personalis] becomes an active call, a mission statement, and a defining feature of this University to care for the students who call it home—to attend to us and to our needs,” said Veazie, a double major in international political economy and classical civilization. “Each student can expect personalized care, personalized attention during our time here.”

Veazie, a Fordham tour guide who currently volunteers as a team lead for the Fordham chapter of Consult Your Community and at Belmont High School, said she plans to take the lessons of cura personalis that she learned at Fordham and carry them forward.

“I’ll be going to law school in the fall of 2022, and I eventually hope to work in government and politics and infuse cura into everything I do,” she said.

Veazie said that none of this would have been possible for her or her fellow Founder’s Scholars without the support of those in attendance.

“I cannot stress enough how important this kind of investment is,” she said. “Fordham’s emphasis on cura personalis yields a student body, a community, that itches to pay forward the lessons, the care, and the holistic development we’ve received during our time here.”

Thomas Reuter, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill and United Student Government president, served as student MC for the second half of the program. He said the campaign will help ensure that all students feel at home at Fordham and that they’re able to take advantage of the opportunities the University offers.

“This campaign will invest in what we love most about Fordham…its student-centered Jesuit, Catholic education that nurtures the whole person,” he said. “This campaign will renew and enhance our distinctive educational experience that has transformed lives since Fordham was founded in 1841.”

Honorees

Father McShane expressed gratitude to the evening’s honorees for their efforts to support Fordham’s mission and its students.

“You are extraordinary … you are generous with your time, treasure, and talent … and you stand as exemplars of the renewal of the University in its identity and mission,” he said.

Manny Chirico, a titan of the fashion industry, is the longtime chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., the world’s second-largest apparel company; he plans to retire next month. Chirico served as the company’s CEO beginning in 2006 and as its board chairman since 2007. He currently serves on the boards of Montefiore Medical Center and Save the Children, while Joanne serves as the vice president of the Parish Council at Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe, New York, and is on the board of Montfort Academy.

Manny, who is also a Fordham trustee, recalled that when he was a senior at Fordham, he took a philosophy class with a Jesuit professor who quoted St. Ignatius Loyola: “Go forth and set the world on fire.”

“I really like that quote, it sounded like something Vince Lombardi would say just before he sent his team out to play in the Super Bowl,” Chirico said. “I had no idea what it meant, but I wrote it down in my notebook.”

Chirico said that he asked the priest what this quote actually meant.

“In typical Jesuit fashion, he said to me, ‘Young man, that’s what you need to figure out,’” he said. “So for the last 40 years, I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to go forth and set the world on fire—I’m still working on it—but I do realize that there is no formula and no set answer. It’s a challenge to make a difference in the small things we do every day.”

Joe Moglia has combined his love of finance and football throughout his life, working as a championship-winning defensive coordinator at Dartmouth before joining the MBA training program at Merrill Lynch and eventually becoming CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade, a post he held for more than 24 years, before returning to football as the head coach at Coastal Carolina University. Moglia currently serves as the chair of athletics at Coastal Carolina and board chairman of Fundamental Global Investors and Capital Wealth Advisors.

When he was a senior at Fordham, Moglia took a job coaching at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, and said that he wanted to provide his players with something more than just a desire to win.

“How do you lay the foundation upon which those boys become men?” he said.

“We created a philosophy that said, ‘A real man, a real woman, a real leader, stands on their own two feet, takes responsibility for themselves, always treats others with dignity and respect, and deals with the consequences of their actions,” he said.

Moglia said that this mindset and philosophy came from Fordham.

“This is a university for others, that loves others, so for me, for whatever I may have accomplished in my life, at the end of the day I’m so incredibly proud to be part of Fordham … and hopefully as I go forward, I continue to make Fordham proud,” he said.

The Chiricos and Moglia were originally supposed to be honored in 2020, but that Founder’s Dinner was canceled due to the pandemic. They were also recognized earlier this year at a virtual toast for scholars and honorees.

The night also featured several performances: Tyler Tagliaferro, a 2017 graduate of the Fordham College at Lincoln Center, played the bagpipes as guests walked in; the Young People’s Chorus of New York City performed; Jesira Rodriguez, a Fordham College at Lincoln Center senior and a Founder’s Scholar, sang the national anthem; and the Fordham Ramblers closed the evening with an a cappella rendition of “The Ram,” Fordham’s fight song.

Father McShane called on those in attendance to honor the members of the Fordham community who preceded them by investing in and supporting current students.

“You were formed by and now possess the intangibles that make for Fordham’s greatness, and that distinguish Fordham from other universities,” he said. “You are men and women for others. You are men and women of character, grit, determination, integrity, expansiveness of heart, and restlessness of spirit. And so, I turn to you to enable Fordham to make the kind of rich transformative experience that you received here available to your younger brothers and sisters.”

“Work 2040: Future of Work in a Sustainable World,” a daylong Gabelli School centennial event held at the Lincoln Center campus, brought together leaders from the private sector and academia to share their thoughts, hopes, and dreams with Gabelli School students, faculty and alumni for the way people across the globe will earn their keep in 20 years.

The day kicked off with a “fireside chat” between Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School, and Emanuel “Manny” Chirico, GABELLI ’79, chairman and CEO, PVH Corp. Chirico, whose firm hosted the January kickoff celebration of the Gabelli School’s centennial, said the key to surviving and thriving in business is accepting that volatility and unpredictability are the norm now. Resilience and nimbleness must be built into any long-term plans.

Prepare for Constant Change

“There’s more uncertainty today, and you have to accept that as part of how you’re going to manage your business,” he said, citing the coronavirus outbreak as an example.

“You have to build a business-planning process that allows you to be flexible and adjust, and a workforce that is highly resilient and can deal with constant change coming at them. That’s what we constantly talk about. I don’t know what’s coming around the corner, but I know there’s going to be something.”

He noted that the apparel industry—of which PVH is a major player, with brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger—has already been subject to major changes over the last five years. In addition to shifts toward online sales, there will continue to be challenges with supply chains. One of the unexpected side effects of shifting production to Bangladesh from China, for instance, was that factories that could once be built horizontally now had to be built vertically, thus increasing risks to workers. After an eight-story building in Dhaka collapsed in 2013, killing 1,134 people, Chirico said the industry made major changes to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

Balancing profit and purpose is always going to always be tough, he said. PVH, for instance, has set an ambitious goal to protect the global climate by reducing energy use, driving a 30% reduction in its supply chain emissions by 2030, a tall order for a company that currently generates 65% of its profits and 50% of its sales from overseas, and must therefore negotiate myriad government regulations and incentives.

“Each of the decisions we make is impacting our associates, our consumers, our suppliers, communities where we operate, and society at large,” he said.

“People want to work for companies they can be proud of. It’s not just about the check you take home every week.”

One thing he said he did not see happening is the return of manufacturing of toys and clothes to the United States.

“Would you rather work in an office or a service environment, or would you rather be in a factory in the deep south, sewing dress shirts in 95-degree heat for minimum wage and still be uncompetitive with other parts of the world? That’s romanticizing an industry here in the United States that once was. It’s just not practical and doesn’t make sense,” he said.

“Do we really want to compete with Bangladesh, Ethiopia, or Cambodia? We want to compete with Germany, China, Japan, and Korea with high-tech manufacturing that creates high-paying jobs.”

Bringing Business Schools into the Conversation

Educating future company leaders was the subject of the day’s last panel discussion. Rapaccioli; William Boulding, Ph.D., dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business; and Josep Franch, Ph.D., dean of the ESADE Business School; sat for questions with Ellen Glazerman, executive director of EY.

There was a broad consensus that business schools bear some responsibility for the decisions that were made leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and therefore, graduates should be trained differently.

Boulding said that corporations long ago abandoned the old model of elevating the person with the highest IQ to CEO and simply letting that person tell everyone else what to do. The strongest team, he said, is going to be more successful than the smartest person, which is why there is now an emphasis on recruiting students with high levels of DQ, or decency quotient.

You can find signs of DQ in a prospective student’s letters of recommendation, he said, as well as admission interviews. If an applicant responds to a question by answering another question they prefer to talk about, that’s a red flag. At Duke, he said they also ask candidates to share 25 random facts about themselves.

“Each one of those facts will truly be random, but when you put them together in total, it’s not going to be random at all. It’s going to reflect who you are and what you care about,” he said.

“Some people are ‘me, me, me, me, me,’ and then you have other people who show humility, a sense of humor, make fun of themselves, and you have people who elevate moments when they were able to celebrate someone else’s success.”

Rapaccioli said one of the ways the Gabelli School is working to prepare students for these challenges is increased group projects, where students are forced to refine their communication skills.

“You’re placed on teams, and we almost hope that you have a dysfunctional experience, because you can then use it as a learning experience, and, you know [think], ‘What do I do when this happens in the future?” she said.

It has stuck with him ever since. “He basically said the world is out there, you have to find your purpose.”

It’s safe to say he found it. Today he is chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., the world’s second-largest apparel company and parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Manny, GABELLI ’79, has won numerous accolades for proving that profitability and corporate social responsibility are compatible. For example, PVH recently placed at No. 16 out of 300 firms in the recent Newsweek ranking, “America’s Most Responsible Companies 2020.”

This month, the company announced a partnership with the Gabelli School of Business to help develop its sustainability curriculum, and is contributing $1 million to the effort. On January 28, at its Calvin Klein offices, PVH will host the kickoff event for the Gabelli School’s yearlong centennial celebration.

Manny and his wife, Joanne, support a variety of health- and education-related organizations, including investing in Fordham, particularly in the area of career services and experiential education. Their consonance with the mission of Fordham will be highlighted on March 30 at the Fordham Founder’s Dinner, where they will be among the recipients of the Founder’s Award. (Editor’s note: The 2020 Founder’s Dinner has been canceled; the Chiricos will be honored at the Founder’s Dinner on Monday, March 22, 2021.)

The Chiricos have long been involved with the University; two of their three grown sons are Fordham alumni, and Manny has served on the Board of Trustees. They recently spoke with FORDHAM magazine about some of the balancing acts in their lives—between profit and purpose, and between helping your college-age children versus letting them learn hard lessons on their own.

How has your Fordham education influenced your leadership of PVH?
Manny: I’ve always admired the Jesuits for putting forward the Catholic social justice traditions and engaging with societal issues, and I’ve tried to bring that perspective into my decision-making. I’ve been with PVH for more than 25 years, and we’ve always had a purpose as a company that went beyond just driving profitability each quarter. I think it’s important that you have that corporate purpose and that you balance all your stakeholders when you’re making business decisions. Our corporate purpose, “we power brands that drive fashion forward for good,” sums up how we manage our business.

How does that work in practice?
Manny: Our company has a number of stakeholders—our shareholders, associates, suppliers, customers, and the communities where we operate. All of these groups are impacted by our business decisions, and the most difficult decisions are the ones that negatively impact people’s lives. For example, if a decision is made to close one of our factories and outsource the production in order to save $10 million per year, two stakeholder groups are going to be directly impacted: our shareholders positively and our factory employees negatively. Our shareholders will enjoy the financial benefits of the cost savings while our factory employees will lose their jobs. I think the only way to make these types of decisions is to always consider what is best for both the long-term health of the company and its stakeholders. The company must be financially strong and competitively positioned for the future so it can continue to invest in its business and its talent. For the negatively impacted employees, the company has as obligation to provide a reasonable transition through a generous severance and benefit package as well as future job training. It’s the right thing to do—for the employees but also for the company. Your company’s reputation in the market sits with customers, shareholders, and your future, current, and former associates.

Financial results are critical, but there needs to be a shift in focus from short-term quarterly results to long-term financial performance. By focusing on creating shareholder value over the long term, you bring all stakeholders’ interests into greater alignment.

As parents of three successful college graduates, what would you say to today’s students and parents? Fordham experts have warned of the increasing anxiety and perfectionism hampering today’s students. Any advice?
Manny: I would say there’s too much pressure put on grades and too much “your resume has to be perfect.” Those things are not unimportant, but as a parent, you want to try to bring some perspective to all of that. You don’t need to have five jobs, or be in 15 clubs. Bring some balance to it. And let them make mistakes, within boundaries. You have to experience failure. Everything is not going to be smooth all the time, and as a parent, I think you’ve got to get that point across. That’s the nature of life and business. I always say, “fail fast and move on.” At PVH, when we’re looking for talented people, we’re looking for people who can adapt, get things done, and deal with adversity and constant disruption. The only way you build resiliency is by struggling.

Joanne: As parents, you can’t fix everything. If one of our kids came home saying something negative about a professor, Manny would say, “Well, one of your bosses is going to be the same way.” I think college is a maturing process. You’re going to take classes you love, you’re going to take classes you hate, and maybe you’re going to find out in your third year that you’re in the wrong major and have to switch and make up a couple of classes. Sometimes your major isn’t even what you end up doing. And you need those different experiences.

Our kids always worked—not during the school year, but they had to work during summer. They weren’t going to sleep until noon, they had to get up with alarm clocks. They commuted to the city, they worked in mail rooms, they worked in different areas so they get a feel of what they wanted. Our youngest son worked at our church—answering the phones, painting the school bathrooms, and one day he came home covered with dirt because he had to help dig a grave. I thought it was a great experience for him because he knew he didn’t want to be doing manual labor in 90-degree heat in the middle of the summer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he knew that wasn’t for him.

Manny: We pushed very hard for our boys to be involved at Fordham, because clubs and activities balance out what you’re learning in the classroom. And they all played sports, which really teaches you how to work as a group, one of the most important things you have to do in a business. We always found their grades were better during seasons when they had less free time, because they had to manage the demands better.

How should students approach internships? Is it all about skills and hands-on experience?
Manny: It depends what you want. If you want to be in public accounting and you get the opportunity at an internship with one of the big accounting firms, you should take that experience because it’s going to lead to where you want to go. With the internships, it’s about the job you’re doing, but it’s also the experience you’re getting. And as much as possible, try to reach out and get exposed in that environment to as many people as you can. Talking to them about their experiences is as valuable as the actual job experience. It opens up a sphere and you get to see things through other people’s eyes. I think that’s one of the real benefits of internships.

Why did you feel it was important to invest in career services and experiential education at Fordham?
Joanne: Our kids’ advantage was that they had Manny at home. So, they had someone that was pushing them in the right direction, pushing them with mock interviews and things like that. Not everybody has that. Some kids are coming out of families that are not in the professional world. They don’t have that guidance, and that’s why it’s so important for the schools to help.

The firm has 35,000 associates of its own, but its supply chains extend around the world into countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and India. Over a million factory workers are affected by the firm’s decisions.

Chirico, GABELLI ’79, PAR ’08, ‘13 a former member of the Board of Trustees and the President’s Council, takes that responsibility very seriously.

“When I talk to our associates I always end by saying, ‘We have to be measured more than just by our balance sheet, or our income statement. We have to be measured by how we conduct business around the world, and how we treat people,’” he said.

For PVH’s commitment to promoting human rights, preserving the environment, nurturing employees, and maintaining transparency with investors, Corporate Responsibility (CR) magazine recently bestowed Chirico the 2016 Responsible CEO of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.

Chirico called it one of the most gratifying awards he’s won.

“Getting the accolades from an independent third party makes you feel really good, and I think it says a lot about the way we conduct business around the world,” he said.

It’s gratifying, he said, because while the apparel industry is one of the least technical manufacturing industries—and is therefore ideal for providing opportunities to lesser developed countries—the decentralized nature of the industry makes it vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous actors.

“If you could figure out how to save 25 cents a unit on the shirts you manufacture, that’s a significant impact, but if you do that by not paying the appropriate overtime, or are using a factory that doesn’t have safe working conditions, those are compromises you can’t make,” he said.

“You can’t be in every factory at every moment in time as if it were your factory, so you have to make sure you’re doing business with partners who share a common set of principles about how things should be done.”

The notion of corporate responsibility that extends beyond the balance sheet has been around since the early 90s, but Chirico said that today, it’s more proactive and not as focused on damage control. For him, it’s also a way to put into action the lessons he learned from growing up in the Bronx and receiving a Jesuit education.

He cites Jesus’ exhortation that, ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required’ as his inspiration.

“We have all this wealth and prosperity so we have to think about other parts of the world, and people around the world who are not in the same situation,” he said.

“How do we make their lives better?”