Those words from keynote speaker Mary Ann Bartels, GABELLI ’85, GSAS ’92, summed up the sentiment at the fourth annual Fordham Women’s Summit: Philanthropy | Empowerment | Change, held on Oct. 21. The annual summit is an opportunity for women across Fordham to focus on philanthropy, leadership, personal growth, and professional development. This year, the virtual event drew more than 400 Fordham alumnae, parents, faculty, and friends who tuned in from locations around the globe. From the comfort of their own homes, they listened to expert financial advice and heard from four panels that explored topics like personal resilience, maintaining a career—and a household—amid a pandemic, and relinquishing the need for perfection.

A key theme of the summit was the importance of investing at a young age and learning how to create a plan for personal finances and philanthropy. In her keynote speech “Turning Financial Literacy into Philanthropy,” Bartels broke down complex topics in finance and offered advice for women that spanned generations. 

Bartels spent more than three decades on Wall Street, where she developed research that helped advisers and clients make better investment decisions. She worked for more than 20 years at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where she was known as a thought leader, and she’s appeared frequently on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business. 

She opened her speech with a few powerful statistics, including the percentage growth of women-owned businesses. 

“When we look at the employment that they are creating over the last five years, that’s actually up 8% compared to [the growth of]  all businesses of 2%. And when we look at women of color in the businesses that they are developing, their growth rate is at 43%,” Bartels said. “So not only will women have financial power—they’re creating new financial power.” 

Riding Out the Market Cycles

Bartels explained the big ideas behind finances to help her audience make better financial decisions. 

Markets have cycles that are generally controlled by fear and greed, she said. But more importantly, they tend to move in an upward trend. Long cycles tend to last 18 to 20 years, and the good news is that the most recent “uptrend” started in 2013, she said. She predicted that the U.S. will see at least one more decade of markets that reach new highs. But she also stressed that it’s critical to hold on to some investments even when the markets tank. 

“I can’t tell you the countless clients that came out during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 and never put money back in the markets again. Markets, I can guarantee you, will always go down. Do they always go down 50%? No. Will they go down 50% again? Yes, because that is the power of markets. That’s the power of fear and greed,” Bartels said. “But the diversified portfolio? If you hold it over time, you add to it over time, you collect dividends over time, that’s where the compounding and growth comes from … It’s called patience.” 

Perhaps most importantly, she urged the audience to start saving, investing, and growing their assets at an early age. 

“Build a solid financial foundation for yourself before you have any significant percentage of your assets given to someone else,” Bartels stressed. 

First Steps Into Philanthropy 

When you’re ready to start giving, ask your parents or family members about their financial advisers and find someone trustworthy who will listen to your needs, Bartels said.

“There are many advisers that will want to sit there and lecture you on what you should do, but they don’t listen to what you need or what’s important to you,” Bartels said. 

Bartels parceled out other pieces of philanthropic advice: Invest in things that are important to you, your community, and the world. Contribute, but don’t overextend. Consider seven key categories: family, finances, health, home, work, leisure, and giving. Don’t be afraid to ask charities how exactly your money will be spent. Finally, imagine your individual power as a single voice or instrument. 

“It’s beautiful to listen to one voice. But when you take a choir and listen to all the voices, it just magnifies—or if you take one instrument and you start blending in more instruments and creating a symphony, how much more powerful that becomes,” Bartels said. “Become that instrument to create that symphony that can have that impact [on]  what is important to you.” 

Honoring Pioneering Women

At the beginning of the summit, three accomplished women in the Fordham community were honored as “Pioneering Women in Philanthropy”: Mary Heyser, R.S.H.M., MC ’62 and Monica Kevin, O.S.U., UGE ’48, GSAS ’61, ’64, who were honored posthumously, and Regina Pitaro, FCRH ’76. 

The Impact of Scholarship Gifts

The event’s student scholar speaker, Taylor Bell, a sophomore studying international studies at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a member of the rowing team, spoke about how scholarship giving can help level the playing field. 

“Without scholarship support, there would be very few students of color at this institution,” said Bell, a recipient of the William Loschert and Paul Guenther endowed scholarships. “There’s such a gap between the marginalized and privileged in our community, and within that gap exists an opportunity to both educate those who have not known a life with such limitations and to expose possibilities to those who have been on the outside looking in for far too long.” 

“Sister Mary was much loved at Fordham, and by everyone who knew her,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “She was a guiding light to our alumni, especially the Marymount alumnae, and of course a dear friend and confidant to her fellow sisters of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The Fordham family mourns with Sister Mary’s loved ones and friends, and with the many alumni who knew her company, our grief leavened with the knowledge that she surely rests with the Lord today.”

Sister Mary was known for her service to others. As Marymount alumnae chaplain at Fordham, she tended to the spiritual, social, and educational needs of her fellow alumnae. She went wherever she was needed to support those in crisis, traveling as far as Zambia and Zimbabwe. And she did it all with warmth, humor, and patience, said her colleagues and loved ones. 

“In this day and age, we’re quick to find faults in people,” said Michael E. Griffin, Fordham’s associate vice president for alumni relations and executive director of the alumni association. “Mary was somebody who always found the good.”

Sister Mary, previously known as Sister M. Gailhac, was born on August 6, 1940, in New York City to Carl and Florence Heineman Heyser.

As a child, she was shy, athletic, and “a bit of a tomboy,” said her older sister, Sally Heyser Ryan, MC ’58. They lived on the Long Island Sound, where Sister Mary enjoyed swimming and playing tennis. When they grew up and Ryan had five children of her own—and, eventually, 14 grandchildren—Sister Mary was very fond of them, Ryan said. 

“She was my only sister,” Ryan said. “I’m going to miss talking to her weekly and hearing about all the good work she was doing.” 

In 1962, Sister Heyser graduated from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, where she received a bachelor’s degree in social studies/science and economics. At age 24, she entered the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Tarrytown. She spent the next four decades working in ministries across the globe, from her home state to the African continent. From 2003 to 2009, she served as a provincial councillor of the Eastern American Province of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. 

From 2009 to 2018, she served as the Marymount alumnae chaplain in the Development and University Relations (DAUR) division. 

“She would always start the day by coming to our section of the office and saying hi to everybody,” said Shannon Quinn, associate director of alumni relations. “She would bring up something or other that she knew about you and check in on you.” 

Quinn recalled Sister Mary’s great collection of “snazzy” floral blazers, her opportune sense of humor, and her penchant for Planter’s Punch cocktails. She said Sister Mary taught her three lessons: to assume good intentions in others, incorporate joy in all things, and lead a balanced life. 

“The best thing—and something that probably a lot of people would say about Mary—is that knowing her made you a better person. Because you couldn’t be around Mary … without taking to heart her kindness of spirit,” said Quinn. 

She was a “bright light” who loved the color pink and saw the positive side of things, said Jane Bartnett, MC ’76, former president of the Marymount Alumnae Board. At alumnae board meetings, she delivered thought-provoking prayers that were relevant to world events. And she was a “healing factor” for many Marymount alumnae, including those who were still unhappy that the college, located on the Hudson River in Tarrytown, had to close in 2007.

“She really helped bring Marymount into the Fordham family,” Bartnett said. 

At Fordham, she delivered the opening prayers for many big events, including 2015 Commencement and a Washington, D.C. alumni chapter event honoring Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor that same year. At the 2015 Marymount Founder’s ceremony at the Rose Hill campus, the school’s alumnae board honored her with the Mother Butler Leadership award in honor of her service. 

Sister Mary’s service extended beyond Fordham. In a 2019 story posted by her religious order, she described what it was like to assist refugees at the Annunciation House, a volunteer-run sanctuary in El Paso, Texas. She drove to local bus terminals and an airport, where she helped refugees receive their tickets. She made peanut butter jelly sandwiches, packed food bags for the refugees, and served meals on site. Although she wasn’t fluent in Spanish, she struck up conversations through a Google translation app. Sometimes, she worked as long as 11 hours. 

“Mary was a woman who was passionately committed to ministry. She was willing to go anywhere and do anything,” said Catherine Patten, R.S.H.M, MC ’61, a fellow sister and a friend. “She had this great sense of mission and great care for the poor, immigrants, and people who are most in need, wherever she was.” 

Sister Mary also spearheaded grassroots efforts against human trafficking. She was featured in the book If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission (Open Road Media, 2014) that described how she, along with six sisters from other New York congregations, formed a powerful coalition in 2005. 

“[She] became the glue for the group that would be known as NY-CRC-STOP: New York Coalition of Religious Congregations to Stop Trafficking of People,” wrote the book’s author, Jo Piazza, an award-winning reporter and editor. 

The group organized two Fordham conferences on human trafficking. Through the STOP Coalition, she helped raise funds for LifeWay Network to open its first safe house and assisted in opening two more safe houses in the New York City region. She served on the LifeWay Board for eight years. 

Last year, she moved to Immokalee, Florida, to begin a new ministry in immigration advocacy. Shortly before her death, she returned to the Marymount Convent in Tarrytown, where she received hospice care.

“She brought so much strength and joy to her role in building the bond between the Marymount College and Fordham University communities,” said Samantha MacInnis, MC ’00, current president of the Marymount Alumnae Board, in an email. “It was impossible not to feel that love and commitment when you were around her.”

She is survived by her sister, numerous nieces and nephews, and the members of her religious community. 

All services will be held at the Marymount Convent Chapel, 32 Warren Avenue, Tarrytown, NY. The wake is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 6, from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Vigil service begins at 7:30 pm. The Mass of Christian Burial will be Thursday, Nov. 7, at 10:30 a.m. The burial will be at Mount Calvary Cemetery in White Plains. In lieu of flowers, gifts in her name may be made to Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, 50 Wilson Park Drive, Tarrytown, NY, 10591.

For the last six years, she’s also been a bridge between Marymount College, where she graduated in 1962, and Fordham, which acquired Marymount in 2002. As the University’s current Marymount chaplain, Sister Heyser tends to the spiritual, social, and educational needs of the college’s alumnae.

[She has also been called on to deliver the opening prayers for the 2015 Commencement ceremonies at Rose Hill and for a D.C. alumni chapter’s evening honoring Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in September 2015.]

On Dec. 6 at a Marymount Founder’s ceremony at the Rose Hill campus, the school’s Alumnae Board will honor Sister Heyser and Sister Margaret Ellen Flannelly, RSHM, with the Mother Butler Leadership award.

Both women have served in the chaplain ministry: Sister Heyser since November 2009 and Sister Flannelly, a former Marymount professor and academic dean, from 2007 to 2009.

Sister Heyser never held administrative posts at the college, but whether she is working against human trafficking or on behalf of the Marymount family, she has always had a knack for making connections.

At Fordham, she makes connections with the Marymount alumnae via monthly newsletters, retreats at Cormaria House, and communications with women who attended the school that Mother Marie Joseph Butler founded in 1907. Part of the job, she said, is listening to alumnae who are still unhappy that the college, located on the Hudson River in Tarrytown, had to close in 2007.

“I listen, because it’s a journey of sadness they have. But I say, look at other women’s colleges that have closed. They have no place to gather, no place to have reunions, no place to have opportunities for educational talks,” she said.

“So we’re very lucky in that sense to have an institution that’s welcoming us and allowing us to be part of the big family.”

When Marymount closed, the alumnae also board started a legacy fund that grants scholarships to Fordham women who have a family member who attended an RSHM school.

Being part of a large Jesuit institution has also given her a platform from which to expand her passion of fighting human trafficking, which afflicts 21 million people around the globe.

She’s on the Coalition of Religious Congregations to Stop Trafficking of Persons (CRC-STOP), which organized two Fordham conferences on the subject. Through the STOP Coalition, she has helped raise funds for LifeWay Network to open its first safe house and to work to open two more safe houses in New York City area. She served on the LifeWay Board for eight years and just recently left that position.

Sister Heyser said the subject resonates deeply with the women in her order. One of the first actions Father Jean Gailhac took when he founded the order with Mother Saint Jean in 1849 was build a shelter for prostitutes and an orphanage for children.

“I look at things that need to be done and try to do them. I may not stay with them forever [as]I invite other people to join me and move on to something else.

“I can’t leave human trafficking issue though. It’s still such a terrible crime,” she said.

Awareness of the problem has been growing, she said, and authorities are beginning to finally focus less on prostitutes and more on johns. But challenges still remain, she said. One challenge is that many people can’t accept the possibility that trafficking could be happening right in front of them.

“It’s that attitude, of ‘Nothing like that happens in my neighborhood, it can’t happen in my building.’ So how do you become alert? You look for signs that persons may not really be in charge of their own lives,” she said.

“They don’t have any papers; they’re not even sure where they live. Maybe there are a lot of men going into a house, or there are a lot of women there. Why are there so many young people there? Just begin to ask the questions.”

If you do see something suspicious, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at (888) 373-7888.

It’s a knotty problem that taps into troubling issues of economics, sexuality, and psychology, and fighting it is firmly in line with the teachings of Jesus and of course Mother Butler, she said.

“When Mother Butler founded Marymount, she told the students they should be focusing out to the world ‘You should be somebody who speaks out in society, and knows what’s going on,’” she said.