We’re seeing migrants from all parts of Africa coming to Senegal to make it to Europe. Why are they coming and why this specific route?

“Well, one reason is because of profound uncertainty about their futures. We have to understand that, for various reasons across this continent, people are just uncertain about what their futures will bring. They have economic uncertainty because you have in the rural areas … uncertain rainfall. You don’t know what the crops are going to yield year to year. And then you have growing populations in urban areas where there’s just increasing reliance on informal markets, and people don’t know if those informal markets and those informal jobs that they have in the informal sector are going to be there tomorrow. They have changing agreements, changing politics, which means that people just don’t know even if they have a livelihood today, will they have it tomorrow? Will they be able to provide for their families and communities tomorrow? And coming through here to Senegal is a relatively affordable route to take the boat to get to the Canary Islands.”

We’ve seen various agencies trying to explain to people that this is an extremely dangerous way to get to Europe to try to prevent people from going. People keep on taking this journey. Why?

“Yes, well, it’s a conundrum as to why so much money is thrown at these kinds of raising-awareness campaigns that the European Union will carry out. Why don’t these ever seem to work? Why don’t there ever seem to be any measurable results from these campaigns? And it’s because there’s actually a cultural script for migrating here that’s existed for hundreds of years, where young men will come of age through migration. In fact, that’s how they become men. That’s how they gain status and prestige in their communities. And that’s exactly what they’re seeking when they migrate abroad. They’re seeking voyage. They’re seeking to discover new places. They’re seeking to go to places like London, Paris, New York, places that, you know, I would also like to go to, but we also migrate for all these various reasons. And thus, they want to confront risk. Confronting risk during their journeys makes it even more prestigious, makes it show that they can overcome that risk. And these people, in many places across West Africa, come from communities where not migrating is not living.”

There have been a lot of efforts from Europeans to fund development projects here on the continent to try to make people stay. In fact, where we stand in Senegal, it’s one of the fastest growing economies in the world. So why is it that people are leaving despite there being some level of economic opportunity right here at home?

“I mean, that’s a great question. I think people ask that a lot, and the real reason is because people aren’t seeing the benefits. These people who are leaving are simply not seeing the benefits of this economic growth. There is significant economic growth, but unfortunately, the people who end up seeing that are often not from not from these countries, for example. The agreements that have been made with previous governments aren’t always the most advantageous, and they’re just not trickling down to people … who are seeking to migrate now. Second of all, people know that if they migrate, the kinds of jobs that they can get in Europe—which, by the way, needs their labor in many ways—they know that they can remit much more money than these aid packages will ever give. I mean, the amount of money they remit, as you know, just makes what European and American aid [provides]seem so much smaller. And so people much prefer to migrate as opposed to experience the kind of social death they might experience here, even risking actual death. They don’t want to suffer that kind of social death of failing nearby their families and community.”

“The Initiative on Migrants, Migration and Human Dignity” is spearheaded by Assistant Professor of Theology Leo Guardado; Associate Professor of Spanish, Carey Kasten; and Associate Professor of Theology, Jim McCartin. The professors recently received a $200,000 grant for their work from the Cummings Foundation, a Massachusetts-based non-profit.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, in 2022, over 100 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide by conflict, poverty, and human rights violations, an increase of more than 10 million individuals from 2021.

The grant will provide funding for a two-year pilot program, based at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, that aims to “cultivate student leaders committed to becoming activists, policy-makers, and researchers who are dedicated to affirming the human dignity of migrants and prepared to address complex challenges related to migration in U.S. society into the future,” according to the professors’ proposal.

As a first-generation immigrant, Guardado knows the migrant experience intimately. He made the difficult journey across the border with his mother as a child when he was just 9 from their remote mountain town in El Salvador. He has spent most of his young academic career working with NGOs and churches on the US-Mexican border helping migrants detained by ICE and those seeking sanctuary.

“I’ve been at Fordham for four years. When I got to New York, it felt like there wasn’t much at Fordham in terms of long-term sustainable engagement with migration,” said Guardado.

“My vision was building this interdisciplinary team of scholars thinking together and bringing disciplines and critical thinking from the academy to bear on the questions that the people on the front lines, the activists, the pastoral workers, the NGOs, have,” he said, explaining his inspiration for the proposal.

“Then we can develop relationships at the border and locally where a community group says, listen, ‘we, we need data on this because if we have data on this, maybe we can file a lawsuit. Maybe we can create an advocacy campaign.’ Here are the tools that we need to do that. Here’s the expertise that we need to make this happen.”

As part of the grant, faculty and students will partake in immersive workshops on current immigration issues, trips to the border, internships with migrant organizations like the Kino Border Initiative and LSA Family Services (two of the grant’s main partners), and several courses that are refocusing their curriculum to incorporate community-engaged learning. Arts and Sciences courses like the Politics of Immigration, and Global Health and Psychosocial Humanitarian Aid will offer new opportunities for students to get out of the classroom and into the community to interact directly with New York City migrant communities and organizations working on the border.

For Kasten, it was a trip to the border in 2019 that really sparked her desire to help create a more hands-on learning approach to immigration issues.

“I teach Spanish in the modern languages department. And my research, when I came to Fordham, was really about contemporary Spain,” Kasten said.

“I started teaching a bit more about migration realities in New York City, and kept wondering how to bring that into my research. In 2019, I went to the border with a group of faculty on a trip that professor McCartin was leading. It was through that I started thinking more deeply about connecting my research work to migration.”

McCartin envisioned the grant as an opportunity to connect Fordham faculty and students more directly with the University’s mission.

“This is a Jesuit institution, and my work is substantially about trying to invite all sorts of faculty members at Fordham—Catholic, Jewish, nonbelievers, Buddhist, etc.—to find ways to connect more with Fordham’s mission,” McCartin said. “So, the idea is this will not only enhance the experience of their work, but that will also redound to the mission of the University more.”

A major component of the initiative is what McCartin, Kasten, and Guardado refer to as “accompaniment.” The trio describes this practice as being there, side by side, and immersing students and faculty within migrant communities, so they can just absorb, without trying to critique or problem-solve.

They see accompaniment as a crucial component, but also as one of the greatest challenges and possibilities of the program.

“Since we are not located close to the border, it will look more like immersions for now, with groups of faculty going to the border for short trips,” said Guardado.

Much of the direct accompaniment work students are doing now involves hands-on interactions with recent migrants to New York City, many of whom arrived this fall on the buses sent from Texas and Florida. Through LSA Family Services, they have been working with a mostly Mexican population in East Harlem, helping them begin their asylum cases and assisting with direct needs like food, clothing, etc., Kasten said. Student interns are also helping families navigate the high school and college admissions processes.

“The longer-term accompaniment will come when students do their summer internship and spend months with these communities,” Guardado added.

“Accompaniment really means walking together, simply spending time together, and just really listening and learning from humanitarian workers and migrants on their journey. They will teach us what Fordham can do to support their struggle.”

–by Jonathan Schienberg

Since 1914, the church has been celebrating the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. As I am sure you know, the plight of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers worldwide is increasingly dire. This year, the Jesuit Conference President and Provincial Superiors of the United States and Canada have invited everyone in the Jesuit community to expand our advocacy efforts on behalf of our migrant brothers and sisters in advance of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees on September 29.

The University and its students, faculty, and staff already do much in this area, but in accordance with the letter from the President and Provincials (link below) I will be asking our cabinet and our deans to be mindful of opportunities to support migrants and refugees wherever possible, in addition to the many laudable efforts you in the campus community already make as individuals.

Thank you, as always, for everything you do in service to the human family.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

Read the full Document: President and Provincials Letter on Migration

Students stepped into the lives of migrants—those crossing the border both legally and illegally—at a Rose Hill workshop on March 27.

As part of a two-day forum called “Voices from the U.S./Mexico Border,” Campus Ministry hosted an interactive workshop where students could better understand how difficult it is to immigrate to the U.S.

Leading the workshop was Joanna Williams, director of education and advocacy at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI)—a faith-based organization on the U.S./Mexico border that serves deportees and asylum-seekers.

“One of the most common questions that comes up for us is, ‘Why aren’t people just coming legally? Why are people trying to cross the desert instead of just going to the consulate and getting a visa?’” Williams said. The workshop attempted to provide an answer.

In Bepler Commons, Williams simulated the crisis at the southern border with about 30 students. To the right of the room: a group of chairs labeled “U.S. consulate,” where migrants apply for U.S. visas. To the left: the “port of entry,” where migrants show their documentation to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. And finally, in an empty area between the two stations was a “third-world country”—the group of countries migrants were fleeing from.

Each student was then given a slip of paper that explained their new identity. Some of them were border patrol agents and visa interviewers. Others were migrants attempting to legally enter the U.S. But if they found no legal way in, the student “migrants” could break the law. One student, for example, successfully entered the U.S. with fake documents.

What made the simulation special was each of those characters. They were based on actual individuals—migrants who Williams and her colleagues met through the KBI or U.S. state department employees.

“In that sense, this is not a game. It’s not pretend,” Williams said. “These are real people’s lives that you’re going to be representing for half an hour.”

She urged them to think carefully about the people they were representing: “Be conscious of them. Embrace that character. And make decisions the way that you think they would have made them.”

Immersed in a Different Perspective

Christopher Shoudt, a first-year Gabelli School student, played a migrant. He was “Josué,” a coffee bean farmer from Chiapas, Mexico, who made 75 pesos a day—the equivalent of almost $4. He bartered his belongings in hopes that he’d be able to work in the U.S. and pay for his children’s education. But in the process, he lost his home in a scam.

Living Josué’s life for 30 minutes humbled Shoudt. It made him reflect on how privileged—and lucky—he is to be able to afford to attend Fordham. He also said the simulation better prepared him for an upcoming meeting with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Jose Serrano, where he planned to advocate for a Catholic Relief Services initiative to help migrants.

“I hope I can bring [the issue]to her and show exactly what was shown to me today—to understand their situation and be able to empathize a bit more,” Shoudt said.

In an open, post-simulation reflection, students spoke about other things they experienced during the role play. Among them were pawning wedding rings to purchase legal papers and watching wealthier migrants receive aid more quickly. In a more dangerous situation, a drug cartel told a migrant that he and his family would be killed if he stopped paying them.

“At first, you try to go through some kind of a legit process, because you don’t want to stoop so low,” said one student, who simulated a single mother with three children. “And then you realize like … once you’re screwed by the system, you don’t care what you have to do in order to protect your family.”

Migrants weren’t the only ones who faced difficulty. So did those on the U.S. side of the border.

“People would come up and have these really powerful stories,” said a student who represented a U.S. consulate employee. “And you just had to deflect them and be very stonewalled.”

For her, it was a “sad” situation. But for actual migrants, it’s their life.

“As much as it feels realistic, this is still a fraction of how real it is,” said Brett Musalowicz, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior.

An Expansion of Empathy

For one student, the simulation was a close parallel to a past experience. In her junior year of high school, Gabelli School sophomore Samantha Barrett visited the Kino Border Initiative and met migrants who had recently been deported, she said. One of them was a man named Raul, a 29-year-old Mexico native who was taken to Los Angeles when he was three months old.  

“The morning I met him, he had just sprained his shoulder and dislocated his knee, falling off a cliff while trying to cross back into Arizona. He was going to try and cross again the very next day, not giving himself any time to heal or come with up a plan because he was just so desperate to get back into our country,” Barrett said. “To this day, I don’t know if he’s alive or if he’s dead.”

She said the experience has stayed with her: “Even three years later, these people are still people that I think about every single day.”

Overall, the simulation at Rose Hill was a chance for students to recognize the complexity of the U.S. immigration system and expand their empathy for migrants who, far too often in news headlines, are simply a statistic.

“We encounter people for a few moments at the border. You, in the simulation, have represented people for a few minutes. But what I ask and encourage you all to do is to continue to think about that one person you were representing,” Williams urged the students. “Pray for them. Be conscious of them—and how their story continues.”

“I was persecuted for my sexual orientation, so I came here for a chance at a better life,” said Rosario, wearing a suit and tie. “I could never dress this way or be who I am. I was shamed, couldn’t live my life, and could never sleep. One thing that is ignored is the mental health of asylum seekers and the mental stress they have experienced before [coming here]. It puts you in a shell.”

Rosario was among the asylum seekers who shared their personal stories at Fordham’s “Women and Girls on the Move,” a March 16 event sponsored by the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) and held in conjunction with the United Nations 63rd Commission on the Status of Women.

The conference, which brought together educators, politicians, social workers, health care providers, lawyers, and students, came at a time when nearly 80 percent of the 68.5 million refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless and displaced persons documented in the last fiscal year are women and young people; 52 percent are children under 18.

Held at Fordham Law School, the conference aimed to shine a light on the intensifying struggles of women and girls who are fleeing their homes in the midst of violence, persecution, and disaster. The organizers hope to use this knowledge to better help others who are also seeking new lives.

And the time for new solutions is now, presenters said. One person is displaced from their home every two seconds, noted Sandy Turner, Ph.D., director of the GSS Institute for Women and Girls, which presented the conference with the International Health Awareness Network (IHAN).

In addressing the U.N. event’s theme—social protections and public services—the conference also highlighted displaced women and girls’ limited access to health care, education, justice, and humanitarian protections throughout the process of migration and resettlement.

“This is about finding solutions to the global migration crisis,” said Sorosh Roshan, M.D., IHAN founder and president.

A panel discussion featured several women, including Rosario, who represented different communities of asylum seekers.

Mahnaz Sarachi, Ph.D., Executive Director of IHAN, said it’s important to understand the different kinds of people in crisis. “Why are they moving?” she said. “They are in search of a better life… they have left their homes to seek safety.”

A Hard Adjustment

Anna Elvira Brodskaya, an LGBTQ and asylum-seeker rights activist, left Russia, where there is a homophobic culture and the LGBTQ community is often victims of violence. In New York, job opportunities were few.

“Women are not perceived as good enough for decent jobs like ones requiring strength,” she said. “You face harassment and you can do nothing about it, because you are undocumented and you have no rights.”

Rosario spoke of how her life here was initially weighed down by locating affordable health insurance, housing, and health care. “Living in New York is expensive, so you might have to live on the street,” she said. “Yes, there are shelters, but they are not always safe.” Now, thankfully, life has improved for Rosario; she has a wife and is writing a book.

Julia Gagliardi, FCRH ’19, of the Social Innovation Collaboratory at Rose Hill, delivered a moving narrative that was created from a collection of stories from resettled students attending colleges and universities in New York City. “On my own, I had to apply for health insurance outside of my university, because I was not eligible, and pay for it at a higher cost,” shared Gagliardi, quoting a student. “On my own, I had to look for ways to finance my tuition, because I was not eligible for financial aid or scholarships. On my own, I had to meet with a lawyer several times a week to apply for a work permit. On my own, I was connected to an independent donor who heard my story and helped fund part of my tuition.”

Ideas and Suggestions

Discussion led to ideas about how universities can create safe spaces.

Brodskaya suggested schools could offer free courses to women new to the U.S. about career options. “They need to be enlightened about the possibilities … they can be employed not just as nannies and cleaners,” she remarked.

Panelists suggested college campuses would be a safe space to learn about U.S. procedures impacting migrants. “Many are now afraid to apply for asylum,” said one.

They also agreed that universities might help the public understand migrants’ lives.

“We could incubate goodwill on campuses,” said Gagliardi, an English and sociology major.

New Challenges

The conference also featured dialogue about what migrants entering the U.S. are facing, including word that the accepted number of refugees entering the country has been lowered.

Frank Kearl, J.D., LAW ’18, spoke of a “walled prison facility” in Dilley, Texas, where migrants are being held in poor conditions.

Although there are lawyers and advocates helping women and children in Dilley, more volunteers are needed, he said.

“These people are sick, they are scared, and they have no idea what is going to happen to them until a volunteer sits down with them and tells them,” said Kearl, a Workplace Justice Legal Advocate at Make the Road New York. “It’s disgusting what is happening now.”

–Meg McCaffrey

For GO! Mexico, a January Global Outreach service project organized by Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) senior Ciara Walshe, 10 undergraduate students lived and worked at Community Links, a sustainable agriculture teaching farm in the Sierra Norte de Puebla region.

A Physical Challenge

Howard Hughes, an FCRH junior, said the physical labor component of the experience was a challenge, given the site’s 7,000-foot elevation. Students stayed in a house constructed from a mixture of mud, sand, hay, and limestone; the group helped construct a kitchen addition by tilling soil and sifting it for use in the mixture.

They also helped tend a garden where corn, onions, coffee plants, soybeans, and herbs were grown.

[doptg id=”100″]“It was really interesting to see how they’re able to get everything they need from such a small area of land,” he said. “The idea [of the farm]  was to teach the community that these methods can be implemented across a wider scope.”

Hughes, an integrated neuroscience major, had previously participated in GO! trips to San Diego and India. The Mexico trip—in addition to giving him a chance to use his five years of Spanish lessons—brought him face to face with coffee production, which he said he’d developed an interest in as a high school student on a service trip to Rwanda.

“Ever since then I’ve been obsessed with how it works. I loved working with local farmers, picking the coffee ourselves, seeing the roasting process, and seeing how much work goes into something so simple, yet complex at the same time,” he said.

The trip was also inspiring for chaperone Puja Thomas, GABELLI, 17, who is pursuing a master’s degree in accounting at the Gabelli School and who has an interest in sustainability. Upon graduation, Thomas said she hopes to work in the nonprofit sector.

Touching the Community

Although Thomas has visited Mississippi, Haiti, Ecuador, and Colorado on GO! trips, she said the Puebla trip brought students and community members closer together than any other trip she’s been on. She singled out a man named Renato, who does maintenance for Community Links, and who, coincidentally, helped install the floors of the Rose Hill gym in 2005 when he was living in Yonkers.

“Even though there was a language barrier, he opened up to us and taught us so much. He even joined us in reflection the last two nights,” she said.

“We were able to learn more about the culture of his community because we had that close connection. He took us to meet his cousin, who owns a taquería. I don’t think we could have done that otherwise.”

The group also learned about the global migration crisis firsthand via a visit La Sagrada Familia, an organization that provides food and shelter for 48 hours to people fleeing violence from places like Honduras.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” said Thomas, who said her parents are immigrants too. “I’m a first-generation American, so I’m blessed that that’s not my reality.

“It’s pretty scary to hear about how dangerous their journey is. They didn’t choose to be born into the situations they’re in.”

Every year, millions of birds die from colliding into buildings, glass, oilrigs, and communications towers. While there have been reports about the impact that these man-made structures have had on birds, researchers don’t yet know how bridges are affecting night-migrating birds.

“The magnitude of migration through our urban landscape is beyond comprehension,” said J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who is conducting the study. “You might suspect that there could be a problem because some bridges are quite high [and]some of them are very brightly lit and often isolated.”

The study, which began on April 24 and continues through May 13, will focus on three bridges in Minnesota: the Hastings Bridge in Hastings, MN, a free-standing, tied-arch bridge with linear LEDs; the tied-arch I-494 Bridge where Interstate 494 crosses the Mississippi River; and the Washington Ave. Bridge, a six-span bridge with a glass pedestrian upper deck and a vehicular lower deck that connects the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

“A lot of bridges are probably not problematic,” said Clark. “None of the bridges in the study are like the Golden Gate Bridge or something that’s gigantic. Nonetheless, it would be really good to know [if they’re affecting migrating birds].”

According to Clark, the study will use small-scale vertical and horizontal avian radar to determine how many birds are flying near the brides and what height and direction they’re flying. The radar will also examine whether the birds are being drawn to the bridges if they change the direction of their flight, and whether their trajectory is actually in a collision course with the bridge.

Clark will also use acoustic recorders to monitor the nocturnal flight calls of night-migrating birds, which will help him to identify the species of birds that are flying over the bridges.

Bird watchers from Audubon Minnesota and the University of Minnesota will serve as volunteers, helping to recover any dead or injured birds on the Washington Ave. Bridge, he said.

If the study reveals that bridges in fact have an impact on migrating birds, Clark believes it can help to inspire action, especially given the large numbers of species that migrate. According to the National Audubon Society, at least 4,000 species of birds are regular migrants, which amounts to 40 percent of the total number of birds in the world.

“It’s hard to retrofit things that already exist, but there are things you can do, including changing the lighting systems on the bridges so they deliver less intense lighting, ” he said. “Just knowing whether or not there is a problem with bridges, is the start of the conversation.”

1. What is the single biggest obstacle facing humanitarian aid workers today?

Without a doubt, the single biggest obstacle is access. We are able to produce a lot of the resources that are needed by the beneficiaries—those refugees or displaced persons. Our problem is that we can’t get to them.

In many of the countries where we operate, we can’t deliver food and other things because of political obstacles. For example, to deliver aid in Syria today, agencies have to cooperate with whatever limits [President] Assad wants to impose—that includes which agency we can deliver aid through, and where the aid can go. Obviously he is not going send aid into the areas that are opposing him. Therefore it makes it very difficult to deliver aid neutrally, impartially, and independently. There are enclaves where no medicine has gone in for years, no anesthetics. You are putting people in medieval conditions. And it’s not just Syria. Almost everywhere we go, oppositions want to stop humanitarian agencies from delivering aid.

2. Is there another significant obstacle?

The other point is that money is tight. We are probably about a billion dollars short for the crises we have today in the world. In the 1990s most of the large agencies were a third of the size they are today and there were not many small independent NGOS. If a crisis got 20 or 30 agencies, that was a good turnout.

There were more than a 1,000 agencies that responded to the 2010 Haiti earthquake crisis. Where did they all come from and the question we could ask—which is suitable to this ground—is how qualified are they to be there? No one wants to deny the good heart, but there are too many agencies vying for the same monies.

3. Is forced migration overloading global humanitarian efforts?

The migration problem is massive. In the humanitarian aid world, we work with internally displaced people and refugees forced from their countries [as opposed to economic migrants]. People are fleeing from violence. They are saying there are 65 million people displaced in the world, a huge number. And it doesn’t seem to be getting any lower.

The economic migrant is the larger portion of migrants–coming from countries in desperate straights because of climate disasters or violence. It is very difficult to measure their numbers, very difficult to control them, very difficult to send them back, and very difficult to house them in your country.

Sadly, the animosity and aggravation that people have toward migrants is going to grow. To be honest, migrant populations are one lever for Britain to have made the choice that it did last week [on Brexit].

If there was peace and there were jobs in their own countries, most migrants would stay. Some people say wouldn’t it be better spending our money on creating peace, rather than providing aid for the people who are displaced. Now, we are back into money and political will.

But we are not doing enough about prevention.

4. How does the IDHA program address these problems? 

One of the strengths of the program is that we are up to date. We look at every crisis as it is today, not from 5 years ago. Every student that we have is going out to today’s crises, and what we did a decade ago no longer applies.The moment you get on the ground in any crisis, in the first few hours everything changes. The police should be there; they’re not. The government should be there; it’s not. Everything is changing constantly.

In order to make sure we are up to date, we change our lecturers each and every term. We bring them in strait out of the field. This session we had a young Kenyan woman who has been in the field for 5 or 6 years. We have two people who were just in Gaza. These lecturers can talk about the ethical or political questions, or even about communications problems, because they were literally just there.

Whether they can tell us that ‘it worked,’ or ‘it would work better with something else,’ they remind us that humanitarian aid is a moving philosophy—and you have to go with it.

“Migration has been part of the story of New York City for centuries, and it’s also a powerful image for what is both rich and conflictual about the city,” said Beaudoin, an associate professor of religion in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

“We’ll be looking at all kinds of migration—forced and chosen migrations across borders, migrations through the prison system, migration into and out of religions, migrations through the journey of faith and spirituality—and asking how we are contributing to life in places where migration is happening. There are many ways to relate to this topic, but what’s most important is that people’s lives and livelihoods are at the center of it.”

The lived experience of real people is the central concern of practical theology, said Beaudoin. Rather than focusing exclusively on ideas and concepts, practical theologians study how religions and theologies directly and indirectly influence people’s actions, experiences, and practices.

“We see theology as interventionist,” Beaudoin said. “We do theology because we want to facilitate life and facilitate deeper or renewed practices in different environments.”

Many of the conference sessions will explore the intersection of practical theology with critical contemporary issues, such the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. A plenary session on this topic will feature a panel of speakers that includes BLM activist Darnell Moore and Rev. John Vaughan, executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary and a leader in the BLM movement.

“The idea is to ask how the effects of your theology honor the lived witness of the BLM movement,” Beaudoin said. “Whether you’re doing religious education for second graders or systematic theology for the university, how is your theology helping to realize these goods?”

Conference participants will also have the opportunity to head across Fordham Road to Tuff City Styles, where alumna Tamara Henry, PhD, GRE ’14, will discuss urban art, religious education, and practical theology. In conjunction with Henry’s talk, graphic artists at Tuff City will be revamping the APT logo in the style of graffiti art.

“This is a way to connect the study of religion at Fordham and the neighborhood we’re in,” Beaudoin said. “That’s very important to me.”

Registration for the biennial conference is open now through March 10. Visit the conference website to learn more and to register.