“I am very pleased that Mr. Walcott has accepted Fordham’s invitation to be our commencement speaker,” said Father McShane. “His integrity, his commitment to teaching and learning, and his longstanding service to the diverse communities of New York City are in the best traditions of Jesuit education. I am pleased he will have the opportunity to speak to some of the most important issues facing our educational system, our city, and our nation.”

Walcott served as chancellor of the city’s public schools under Mayor Michael Bloomberg from 2011 to 2013; he joined the Bloomberg administration in 2002 as a deputy mayor. In these roles, he helped usher in reforms that significantly transformed the school system, dramatically improving graduation rates and cutting dropout rates. As chancellor, he led a $13 million-expansion of after-school programs as well as a new effort to help black and Latino students succeed academically. Walcott served as chancellor until the end of the Bloomberg administration.

Before he took the helm at the Queens Library in 2016, Walcott served as the New York state-appointed monitor of the East Ramapo School District in Rockland County, initiating a series of reforms to ensure the equitable delivery of service and opportunity to the district’s students.

Prior to his work in city government, Walcott was president and CEO of the New York Urban League, where he spent 12 years working to expand the organization’s educational and after-school programs. He began his career as a kindergarten teacher in his home borough of Queens.

Walcott is a New York City native and an alumnus of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, where he has served as an instructor in the Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership program. Fordham awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the University’s 2015 commencement ceremony. The previous year, the University of the West Indies named him a distinguished fellow.

In 2011, while addressing a group of school administrators on Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, Walcott spoke of his days as a Master of Social Work student.

“I vividly remember taking a night class, and then going home to Queens at 10:30 and standing on the [platform of the]  No. 7 line at Queensborough Plaza in December, with the wind cutting through my body, and asking [myself], ‘Is this all worth it?’” he recalled.

“What you’re doing is all worth it. The struggles that you face are all worth it. They’re worth it because we’re committed to the cause of making sure our children are educated and are able to contribute to society.”

Nine Notables to Receive Honorary Degrees

Nine other notable figures will receive honorary degrees from Fordham this May.

At the University commencement, Fordham will present an honorary doctorate of humane letters to actress Patricia Clarkson, FCLC ’82; Marianne Kraft, principal of St. Athanasius School; Louise Mirrer, Ph.D., president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society; William S. Stavropoulos, Ph.D., PHA ’61, board chairman emeritus of the Dow Chemical Company; and Peter B. Vaughan, Ph.D., dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Social Service.

At the Baccalaureate Mass on May 18, His Eminence Joseph William Cardinal Tobin, C.Ss.R., archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, was set to receive an honorary doctorate of divinity. Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, will receive an honorary doctorate of laws at the Law School diploma ceremony on May 22. Emanuel (Manny) Chirico, GABELLI ’79, chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the Gabelli School of Business master’s diploma ceremony on May 22. And at the Graduate School of Social Service diploma ceremony on May 23, Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Emanuel (Manny) Chirico, GABELLI ’79, is chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., one of the largest apparel companies in the world. He has expanded the company far beyond North America and engineered the acquisition of iconic brands, including Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. Chirico, a former Fordham trustee, has also made PVH a leader in social responsibility, promoting fair labor conditions throughout its supply chain.

Patricia Clarkson, FCLC ’82, is an award-winning actress whose work has ranged from critically acclaimed turns in indie movies like The Station Agent; to parts in Hollywood films, like The Green Mile; to classic stage roles, like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire; to a wide range of work on television, including her Emmy-winning performance as Aunt Sarah on HBO’s Six Feet Under and her portrayal of the enigmatic Jane Davis on Netflix’s House of Cards. Clarkson is a graduate of the Fordham Theatre program.

Sherrilyn Ifill has served as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund since 2013. Today she is a leading national voice on civil rights, fighting against voter suppression and advocating for policing reforms. In 1993, she joined the law faculty at the University of Maryland and investigated lynchings on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, leading to her critically acclaimed book, On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century.

Marianne Kraft, principal of St. Athanasius School in the South Bronx, was once described by The New York Times as “both grounded in urban reality and guided by a higher calling.” She began teaching at the school in 1972 and became principal in 1989. Under her steady leadership, the school has been a source of stability for students facing issues such as extreme poverty, homelessness, or the fear of having a parent deported. She plans to retire this year.

Louise Mirrer, Ph.D., has been president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society since 2004. During her tenure she has led a capital campaign that raised $100 million, launched renovations that made the space brighter, and presided over two major milestones for the society: the openings of its DiMenna Children’s History Museum in 2011 and its Center for Women’s History in 2017. The holder of a double Ph.D. in Spanish and humanities from Stanford, Mirrer was a professor of Spanish and comparative literature at Fordham.

William S. Stavropoulos, Ph.D., PHA ’61, is former chairman and CEO of the Dow Chemical Company and a former Fordham trustee. He joined Dow as a pharmaceutical research chemist in 1967 and served for 39 years with the company, primarily in marketing and management roles. Institutional Investor magazine named him one of America’s best CEOs three times. After retiring as board chairman emeritus in 2006, Stavropoulos established the Michigan Baseball Foundation, which supports youth organizations and brought minor-league baseball to Midland, Michigan, home of Dow’s headquarters.

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, often introduces himself simply as “Cardinal Joe.” He joined the Redemptorist order before being ordained in 1978, and was first assigned to his home parish in Detroit, where he helped establish an agency for refugees seeking asylum. Pope Francis elevated him to cardinal in 2016, and he is known to strive for tolerant dialogue around contentious issues, such as the role of women in the church. Last year he welcomed a group of LGBTQ Catholics to Newark’s Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

Peter B. Vaughan, Ph.D., is dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Social Service. He served as dean from 2000 to 2013, enhancing the school’s offerings with a new online MSW program and robust international programs. Vaughan has been an advocate for civil and human rights for more than 50 years. A decorated Vietnam War veteran, he co-chaired the Fordham Veterans Initiative, helping post-9/11 veterans acclimate to college life. He returned to Fordham to lead the University’s Task Force on Diversity in 2016.

Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, is CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit that provides comprehensive cradle-to-college services to thousands of children and families and is seen as a national model for addressing poverty. Prior to this role, she spent 13 years at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, where she helped to reform the child welfare system. In 2016, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed her to the advisory board of his Children’s Cabinet, which helps city agencies protect children.

Befitting the campus’s proximity to a world renowned performing arts center, the evening’s festivities kicked off with a cabaret performance by Eric Yves Garcia, FCLC ’00, which brought together alumni from Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), Gabelli School of Business (GABELLI) graduate division, the Graduate School of Education (GSE), and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS).

For Garcia, a graduate of Fordham’s theater program, playing cabaret standards on the piano in Pope Auditorium for an audience was a homecoming in the truest sense of the word, as he recalled sneaking into the space on many a late night to practice. When an acting career didn’t pan out upon graduation, Garcia said his musical talents enabled him to become successful professional cabaret performer.

He said that performing works such as A Streetcar Named Desire and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a Fordham student likewise influenced him today.

“Those plays are all old, but our professors impressed upon us that we had to invest in them vitality, and they weren’t museum pieces. You had to bring truth to them as best you could and work very hard to invest the words in them with meaning,” he said.

“I think that’s also true with the great American songbook. They’re not museum pieces, they’re about real-life things.”

On the plaza level, Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of FCLC, marveled at the transformation that the campus has undergone in the last several years, which he attributed in part to the generosity of FCLC alumni. The college’s annual reunion gift, which totaled $4,925,510 in this five-year reunion cycle, was presented by Patricia Dugan-Perlmuth, FCLC ’79.

Twelve floors up, Britanny Miller, GSE ’16, was rekindling the love she felt while working toward a master’s in education. A native of the Bronx who is now a school psychologist in New Rochelle, she said the University has a way of making New York City seem smaller than it is, because she frequently meets people who have connections to it.

“I’m not this person that’s very courageous to speak out or introduce myself to new people, but something about the Fordham community really empowers me to do so,” she said.

“I was a little wary of coming back because I didn’t know anyone who was coming, but I sat down at a table and the conversations just unfolded and flourished. You can just talk about anything when you’re here.”

At the PCS reunion, newly appointed Dean Anthony Davidson, Ph.D., also alluded to Fordham’s place in the city.

“It’s very refreshing and encouraging for me when I meet people, and they say ‘Oh, I went to Fordham,’” he said. “It’s always followed by, ‘What can I do to help?’”

In fact, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, noted that earlier that day, a PCS yellow ribbon graduate spotted him at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., as he was traveling back to New York.

“There I was in in Washington . . . and I had the great fortune and grace to run into one of you. [The graduate]  spoke with love and with great conviction not just about Fordham meant to him, but what Fordham did for him,” said Father McShane.

“I would be willing to bet if I ran into one of you on the No. 1 train, you’d start up a conversation just like the one I had with him, and I’d be, as I am tonight, filled with great gratitude and great grace of knowing you, working for you, and serving you.”

At the GSS cocktail hour, Dean Debra McPhee, Ph.D., welcomed 70 alumni, the oldest of whom was Patricia Young, GSS ’62. The gathering got off to a slow start, a fact that Father McShane attributed to the likelihood that GSS alumni were so dedicated to their jobs that they were likely still working at 6:30 p.m. Jonathan Roque, GABELLI ‘11, a 2017 graduate of the GSS/GABELLI joint Nonprofit Leadership program, said he was heartened by his exhortation that students remember to care for themselves as well as their clients. He plans to use his degree to help his local church.

At the Gabelli School of Business’ graduate gathering, Tricia Schwerdtman, GABELLI ’16, said coming to Fordham was one of the best choices she’s ever made. A Sarah Lawrence College undergraduate who majored in poetry, she worked as a graduate assistant for Benjamin Cole, Ph.D., associate professor of management systems, served as president of the management consulting club, and now works at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant for financial effectiveness in health care.

Working toward her degree strengthened her relationship with her father, too, she said. She recalled he’d made her dinner (macaroni and cheese) once when she was 7 years old, and pretty much never made meals beyond that. But that changed when she became the leader of a Fordham team participating in a case competition sponsored by the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG).

“I came home from the ACG cup prep at three in the morning. He’d waited up, made me dinner, and said ‘You know, you got this. Eat and go to sleep,’” she said.

“He’s really successful, so it was great to see that he’s proud of me and recognizes what I’m doing.”

 [doptg id=”88″] ]]> 70127 https://now.fordham.edu/colleges-and-schools/graduate-school-of-social-service/bny-mellon-gift-supports-students-in-nonprofit-leadership-program/ Wed, 02 Mar 2016 18:05:56 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=43353 On March 1, the Fordham Center for Nonprofit Leaders at the Graduate School of Social Service hosted Doris Meister, president of U.S. markets at BNY Mellon. Meister spoke to students enrolled in the nonprofit leadership program about philanthropy and charitable giving in the United States.

A gift from BNY Mellon is helping to provide scholarship support and mentoring opportunities to 60 students enrolled in the nonprofit leadership MS program for the 2015-16 academic year.

Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, CEO of the model anti-poverty nonprofit, told students that deliberate steps did not always mark her career path. She had no one to help her with college applications, she said, and started out as a lawyer but soon found herself working at the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

She never imagined she’d be running the Harlem Children’s Zone, but her friend Geoffrey Canada, education activist and the organization’s founder, invited her to work with him as chief operating officer in 2009. She took over as CEO in July 2014.

“I tell my story this way because I want you to know there was no grand plan,” she said. “My plan was to continue to do good work and to show up as my best self.”

A Growing Need

Williams-Isom’s audience was full of students preparing to take the next step in their own career paths—not only master’s degree students but also participants in the executive education certificate program in nonprofit leadership. Both programs are offered by the Graduate School of Social Service.

The center was established in 2010 in response to growing needs and trends in business and social work.

“The time was right,” said Elaine Congress, D.S.W., associate director of the program and associate dean of the Graduate School of Social Service. “[We] saw in the field a real concern that agencies have to look more at the bottom line or they’re not going to survive, and at the same time businesses need to look more at social responsibility.”

Congress said the master’s program, launched last summer, has been “incredibly successful,” with the first cohort of 38 students set to graduate in August.

With or Without Luck

Kwame Owusu-Kesse was one of three Harlem Children’s Zone executives who joined Williams-Isom in speaking with Fordham students at the Lincoln Center campus on May 4.

At just 30 years old, Owusu-Kesse serves as the nonprofit’s chief operating officer. He said his life has been affected by many of the same issues Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) students face: domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, single-parent households. But his mom happened to play bingo at a local Catholic school, and the nuns there gave him a scholarship. That small step put him on a path to Harvard. After a stint at Morgan Stanley, he found his way to HCZ.

“In many ways I feel like my personal story was luck,” he said, adding that in his work he strives to figure out how to “remove luck from the equation for tens of thousands of kids.”

“My purpose is to serve my community”

During the Q&A session that followed the panel discussion, two Fordham students revealed that they are alumni of HCZ programs, which aim to break the cycle of generational poverty in and around a 97-block zone in Harlem.

Victoria Draper is a graduate of one of the nonprofit’s most well-known programs: the Baby College. The program offers expectant parents and parents of young children a leg up from the start, providing them with parenting skills and an understanding of child development.

Draper, who expects to graduate from the master’s degree program in August, attended the Baby College with her daughter, Somnia Ray, who’s now 4. She’ll be returning to HCZ later this year. Before the Fordham event, she’d accepted a position with the nonprofit as a special education teacher. She’ll start this fall.

“I feel like my purpose is to serve my community,” said Draper, a Harlem resident and a single mom. “I was thinking about getting an MBA with a nonprofit focus, but then I’m not really a business person, so when I saw [Fordham’s nonprofit leadership] program, it was perfect.”

Draper said she’d like to start a community center in Harlem one day—one that offers college and career readiness programs.

Raised by her grandmother until she was 10, Draper was heavily influenced by the older woman’s devotion to education (she’d earned a PhD) and the black community. When her grandmother died, Draper was sent to live with various relatives and experienced real poverty firsthand.

“If I didn’t have that strong foundation,” she said, “I could have ended up anywhere.”

Draper said she’s “drowning in so many resources” at Fordham and has learned a lot not only from the faculty but also from her fellow students.

When she graduates, she’ll have the mentorship of a current or recently retired nonprofit CEO—a benefit extended to all graduates of the program. And while she appreciates her peers and professors for their resources and connections, there’s something beyond that, she said, with which she feels a kinship.

“They have that social justice mind.”

Beginning fall of 2014, the Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership program will integrate the schools’ respective emphases on management excellence and social justice to prepare future leaders for the unique financial and social demands of nonprofit organizations.

Applications to the program will open this fall.

“In this program, you’ll learn how to plan strategically for your business and also learn how to orient those strategic plans toward social change,” said Allan Luks, director of the Fordham Center for Nonprofit Leaders, which will oversee the program.

Although Fordham is not the first to offer coursework in managing nonprofits, this degree program takes the novel approach of giving two graduate schools equal weight in administering the degree.

“What’s unique about this program is that it is run jointly by the business and social work schools, with courses taught by both GSS and GBA faculty,” said Elaine Congress, D.S.W., professor and associate dean for continuing education and extramural programs at GSS. “Many other schools have courses in nonprofit management, but they don’t have the social justice orientation that you get from a social work school.”

The one-year program will require 30 credits taken over three trimesters. Students will take one intensive at the beginning of each trimester that runs Thursday through Sunday evenings. The remaining 21 credits will be offered as weekly evening courses.

The schedule, Congress said, aims to accommodate full-time workers, making it an ideal program for mid-level managers who want to advance their careers, professionals who want to switch from the corporate to the nonprofit field, clinicians who want to move into administrative positions, and others interested in leadership positions.

The program stems from an earlier endeavor by GBA and GSS, the executive education certificate in nonprofit leadership. The 18-credit certificate is earned over three consecutive all-day sessions that cover such topics as organization management, program development, and fundraising. Since its launch in April 2010, the certificate program has trained more than 600 students.

The new master’s degree allows students to delve even deeper into the world of nonprofits, exposing them to topics such as social entrepreneurship, volunteerism, the history of nonprofits, and public policy/advocacy. Students will also have the opportunity to work with mentors in the field in order to get firsthand experience with running nonprofits.

Together with its offer of a graduate-level degree, the comprehensive look at the worlds of both business and social work will make program graduates highly marketable, Luks said.

“Nonprofits have the key to making social justice a reality instead of just a dream,” he said. “It’s our job to teach leaders that they don’t just run their organizations for the numbers, but that they run them to change society.”

To learn more visit www.fordham.edu/nonprofits.