“She was a strong advocate for students with disabilities and was persistent in getting things done right if she believed in it. Her spirited advocacy, commitment, and unyielding persistence left a strong impact on those who were her students and mentees,” wrote her colleagues at the Graduate School of Education, Chun Zhang, Ph.D., and Abigail Harris, Ph.D., in a joint statement. “She will be dearly remembered by many of her students, colleagues, and those whose lives have been touched because of her work.”

From 1989 to 2007, Ellsworth taught scores of Fordham students how to serve children with disabilities in the classroom. She recognized the importance of collaborating with school psychologists and counselors, and she encouraged research related to the assessment of learning and methods for teaching literacy, said her colleagues. 

Ellsworth advocated for individuals with special needs at home and abroad. In New York, she worked closely with the state education department and national professional organizations to earn accreditation for special education programs; on a citywide level, she worked to improve bilingual public school education by expanding training for special education teachers. She also worked with special education teachers in China and co-authored a 2007 journal article that examines the country’s development of the special education field. 

“I remember Dr. Nancy Ellsworth as an insightful and stabilizing influence during a time of significant transition … in the special education field,” her colleague John Houtz, Ph.D., professor of educational psychology at Fordham, wrote in an email. He noted that her expertise had an impact at a time when the special ed field was in need of new programs and facing new state accreditation standards. “Her years at GSE were marked by hard work and significant problem solving. She was a favorite of students and a model and mentor to our next generation of faculty.” 

Ellsworth was born in August 1932 in San Marino, California, to Larry and Jane Hood. She graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in education, with a focus on English and social studies. 

She began working at the World Affairs Council, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, and went on to teach middle and high school students in the Bay Area, where she realized her lifelong passion as an educator. In 1969, she married Robert T. Ellsworth, Jr., and moved to Bedford, New York. The couple enjoyed camping, whitewater paddling, and the performing arts together. 

Over the next two decades, she earned a master’s degree in education, specializing in reading and learning disabilities, and a doctorate in education, with a focus on special education, both from Columbia University. 

In 2005, Ellsworth returned to her native California to live closer to her family. As a retiree, she was an active member of her local bridge, book, and film groups. In her final months, she spent most of her time with her family. Her daughter, Susan Flierl, recalled making morning coffee and breakfast for her mother and watching The Queen’s Gambit and The Crown together, often with the family dog, Cooper, lying at her mother’s side. 

“Nancy was blessed with a full, active, and independent life through her 88th birthday,” Flierl wrote in an email. “Although last year was challenging due to the pandemic, the silver lining was that we had more time than ever together. We formed a social bubble, and she came over for dinner most evenings. For her birthday, I drove with her out to the California coast that she loved.” 

Predeceased by her husband, Robert in 1998, Ellsworth is survived by her children, Carol Ellsworth and Alex Sturgeon (Princess) of Kansas City, Missouri; Susan Flierl (Markus) of Ladera, California; stepdaughters, Linda Ellsworth of Tempe, Arizona, and Nancy Swenson (Larry) of Heath, Texas; and two grandchildren, Andreas and Sofia Flierl.

Ellsworth’s family is hosting a virtual event to commemorate her life on Saturday, March 20 at 2 p.m. EST. Members of the Fordham community can reach out to [email protected] if they are interested in attending. 

Celia Fisher, Ph.D., knew she was onto something in 1997 when she asked Joseph M. McShane S.J., president of Fordham who was then dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, to fund a series of faculty seminars around the topic of ethics. In 1999, the success of those seminars led to the creation of the Center for Ethics Education.

Twenty years later, Fisher, the Marie Ward Doty University Chair in Ethics, says she’s still amazed at what the center has accomplished. The center, which received initial funding from the National Institute of Health and Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, currently oversees educational programs on the undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate level. It has produced over 200 publications and has received a total of $11 million to conduct research supporting the rights and welfare of vulnerable populations. For the past eight years, it has also administered the HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics Training Institute.

Interdisciplinary From the Start

Fisher said one of the center’s greatest points of pride has been its interdisciplinary focus.

“The center’s success was built on the support, encouragement, and involvement of faculty of all the different schools and programs at Fordham,” she said.

“To be able to put all that together with the support of an interdisciplinary faculty, advisers, and teachers has been an incredibly wonderful experience.”

From the very beginning, Fisher, whose background is in psychology, has had two associate directors hailing from the theology and philosophy departments. Curran Center for Catholic Studies Director Christina Firer Hinze, Ph.D., represented theology when the Center for Ethics Education started and was followed by Barbara Andolsen. Currently, the position is held by theology professor Thomas Massaro, S.J.

Michael Baur, Ph.D., an associate professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of law, joined in 1999 as associate director and never left. It helps, he said, that he is “constitutionally built” to be interdisciplinary.

“For those who are predisposed to think beyond boundaries, the center provides a huge playground of full opportunities to think creatively about different disciplines,” he said.

“The center has made it really easy for me to start conversations with people I never would have spoken with about economics, psychology, biology, and neurosciences.”

In 1999, Baur recalled, the goal of the center was to create a space for crossing boundaries to address ethics and being open to whatever came along as a result. The interdisciplinary minor in bioethics, which was first offered to undergraduates in 2013, is an example of how the center has evolved to meet the needs of students.

“We already had the goodwill and the communications among different faculty. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel,” he said.

Debating Issues of the Times

When it comes to public programming, the center, which kicked off its 20th-anniversary celebration with a March 7 lecture titled “Ethics and the Digital Life,” has hosted events dedicated to nearly every thorny issue debated in the United States today.

Its first public event was an April 2000 workshop titled “The Ethics of Mentoring: Faculty and Student Obligations.” In a lecture four years later, Christian ethics professor Margaret Farley, Ph.D. weighed in on the use of human embryonic stem cells in research. The drug industry was the focus of a 2005 forum, “Bio-Pharmaceuticals and Public Trust,” and in 2012, the center co-sponsored “Money, Media and the Battle for Democracy’s Soul,” where former Senator Russ Feingold issued an ominous warning about the role of money in politics.

In 2013, a conference tackled the uncomfortable reality that the United States accounts for about 5 percent of the world’s population, but is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s prison population. Four years later, the center’s decision to co-sponsor “In Good Conscience: Human Rights in an Age of Terrorism, Violence and Limited Resources,” proved prescient, with the actual lecture coming two weeks after terrorist attacks in Brussels.

For Fisher, one of the most emotional events was “Moral Outrage and Moral Repair: Reflections on 9/11 and Its Afterlife,” a daylong conference co-organized with Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture in April 2011.

“It was so moving. We had clerics from all different religions, we had philosophers talking about forgiveness, all sides of it. We had survivors and families of survivors. It was such an emotional experience,” she said.

A Flexible Master’s Program

The center’s efforts are not confined to lectures and panels. In 2009, at the suggestion of former Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Nancy Busch Rossnagel, Ph.D., the center began offering a Master of Arts in ethics and society under the direction of Adam Fried, Ph.D, GSAS’ 13, 17. It is now overseen by Rimah Jaber, GSAS’ 16.

Yohan Garcia, GSAS ’18, one of the program’s 57 alumni, recently accepted a position as national formation coordinator for the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Pastoral Migratoria (Migration Ministry) program.

A native of Mexico who moved to the Belmont neighborhood in 2003, Garcia earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Hunter College in 2015. In 2013, he attended a spiritual retreat and realized he wanted to incorporate his faith into his studies. As a Fordham master’s student, he took classes such as Natural Law (at the Law School); Race, Gender and the Media; and Introduction to Thomas Aquinas. Today, he’s able to apply what he learned in each of those courses to his work around immigration.

Although he’s only just started his job in Chicago, he’s already considering applying to Ph.D. programs.

“When it comes to issues like immigration, there’s no easy solution,” he said.

“We all have a different idea of the common good, but at the end of the day, as a society, we have to work toward a common goal that will benefit all of us. Listening is a great skill and a gift to have when it comes to this issue.”

HIV Research Training

Faith Fletcher, Ph.D., an assistant professor of health behavior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, completed training with the HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics Training Institute (RETI) in 2016. The institute, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has to date provided over 42 early career professionals in the social, behavioral, medical, and public health fields with an opportunity to gain research ethics training.

A native of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was one of the first students to pursue a bioethics minor as an undergraduate at Tuskegee University, she has focused on the ethics of engagement with African American women living with HIV.

“Before coming to the research ethics training institute, I had training in both bioethics and public health, but I really struggled with finding the academic spaces, and even the language to combine these disciplinary areas,” Fletcher said.

“The institute is definitely the highlight of my academic career.”

Because she works with marginalized populations, Fletcher said her biggest challenge is avoiding situations that jeopardize the safety of them or researchers. It’s a real issue, as researchers engaged in qualitative research sometimes conduct interviews in vehicles, bars, and other unorthodox places to make sure the people they are interviewing are not further stigmatized.

“What I’ve learned from the training is we have to rely on research participants as research ethics experts, because they have these daily experiences with stigma, and are skilled at navigating and circumventing stigma. These are the individuals we have to go to as we’re designing our research ethics protocols,” she said.

It’s humbling work, and Fletcher said the women she’s interviewed have taught her much about resiliency.

“I’ve learned so much about the way that they’re able to navigate through society despite high levels of stigma and stress, and the way they’ve coped with it, risen above it, and not allowed it to define them,” she said.

“I’m thankful for them allowing me into their spaces, because not only does it enhance my research, but I’ve grown personally from their stories.”

Protecting the rights and welfare of vulnerable populations has been a common theme running through the centers’ NIH-sponsored research. For instance, Fisher was the principal investigator on a 4-year series of studies designed to reduce the burden of HIV among young sexual and gender minority youth.  The results of one of these studies were published in the journal AIDS and Behavior.

In 2014, based on a project supported by the Fordham’s HIV, Research Ethics Institute, Cynthia Pearson, Ph.D., was awarded a grant, along with Fisher, to adapt a culturally specific ethics training course for American Indian and Alaska Natives populations. Fisher also led a study in 2006 to assess and develop procedures to enhance the capacity of adults with mild and moderate mental retardation to provide informed consent for therapeutic research; the results were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A Shared Dedication to Social Justice

Going forward, Fisher said she wants to expand the involvement of the faculty and alumni in center programming, recruit more international students, and establish a research center on health disparities among marginalized populations.

Since its beginnings, the Center has been grounded in Fordham University’s commitment to intellectual excellence, human dignity, and the common good. The success of the center, she said, is due in no small part to the breadth and depth of Fordham’s faculty dedication to these ideals.

“Faculty, students, and administrators share this dedication to social justice and helping others that just implicitly supports what we’re doing. So, when we reach out to faculty, they are already providing students with the tools for critical and compassionate engagement in creating a just world,” she said.

“They may not do work in ethics per se, but the way they think, because they’re at Fordham, they are committed to caring for the least among us.”

The laudatory occasion—the first of its kind at Fordham—is part of an ongoing initiative to advance research throughout the University and bring recognition to Fordham, its faculty and students, and its Jesuit-centered approach to higher education.

Recipients of the Funded Research Scholar Award were:

• Asif Siddiqi, Ph.D., associate professor of history in Fordham College at Rose Hill and and recipient of a National Science Foundation grant, “From the Postcolonial to the Global: The Making of the Indian Space Program, 1962-1992;”

• Tina Maschi, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work in the Graduate School of Social Service and recipient of a National Institutes of Health/John A. Hartford Foundation award, “Institute on Aging and Social Work,” a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholars award from the Gerentological Society of America, and John A. Hartford/Council on Social Work Education funding for “Moving Stories Project/BSW Experiential Learning Program;” and

• Jason Morris, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in Fordham College at Lincoln Center and recipient of a NIH-National Institute of General Medical Science grant for research on “The Molecular Identification and Functional Characterization of Fried, a Gene Required for Drosophila Growth.”

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From left to right: Asif Siddiqi, Ph.D., Tina Maschi, Ph.D. and Jason Morris, Ph.D.
Photo by Bruce Gilbert

Faculty members received their awards from Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and the University’s chief research officer.

“The quality of research by Fordham faculty is quite astounding,” Busch said. “It is part of the mission of the University, which explicitly embraces a commitment to research that assists in the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of social justice, the protection of human rights and respect for the environment.”

Busch noted that external faculty funding awards have grown steadily over the last five years (from 58 awards to 85), as has the number of faculty members submitting proposals. The University currently manages $38.6 million in outside funding.

The winners were chosen from a pool of 400 professors who were nominated by members of the Fordham community. That list was narrowed to nine finalists—three each in the categories of humanities, sciences and social sciences/professions.

James Wilson, director of Faculty Development, said that the finalists were chosen in consultation with the Office of Sponsored Programs and the University Research Council (URC), which devised a weighting process that included peer commentary, project impact and longevity of funding, among other factors.

The final three were chosen by members of the URC, each of whom made his or her individual selections independently.

The remaining finalists were:

• Joshua Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and W.T. Grant Foundation;

• Jon Friedrich, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Fund for Astrophysical Research;

• Amy Aronson, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies, funded by Iowa State University and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study;

• Benjamin Dunning, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology, funded by Harvard Divinity School and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation;

• Emily Rosenbaum, Ph.D., professor of sociology and anthropology, funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and

• Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics, funded through the Veteran’s Affairs Administration and NIMH-Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.

The celebration marked the close of a daylong initiative, “Growing Research at Fordham,” sponsored by the Office of Research and held at the Lincoln Center campus. That event gave prominence to other faculty initiatives as well, including a presentation of “Digital Humanities at Fordham” and roundtable discussion of the platform’s future role in academic scholarship.

Two Fordham doctoral students have earned full scholarships to a distinguished summer program at the Gennadios Library, which is part of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students Matt Briel and Jon Stanfill were the only two students who received scholarships for the entire program, said Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of GSAS and Chief Research Officer/Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs for Fordham.

“It is the most prestigious opportunity to study Medieval Greek,” Busch said.

In the month-long Medieval Greek Summer Session, Briele and Stanfill will partake in daily analysis and translation of Byzantine texts; paleography; introduction to the bibliography of Byzantine philology and collections of the Gennadius Library; visits to area museums, libraries, sites, museums and monuments outside Athens. The pair will also get individual tutorials and assignments determined by their specific needs and field of study.

The objective the summer session program is to familiarize students who have a sound foundation in Classical Greek with Medieval Greek language and philology by exposing them to primary sources, different kinds of literary genres and electronic tools, drawing on the resources of the Gennadios Library. The library houses 117,000 volumes and archives and is devoted to post-classical Hellenic civilization.

The group attended the Macy’s fireworks display as the finale of a cultural/academic experience that marked, for some, the first time they left the African continent or set foot on a plane.

“I’ve seen fireworks before,” said Peter Maibelo, a post-graduate student at UP, “but . . .  here in America on July 4, they’re something not to be missed.”

Maibelo and nine other University of Pretoria students arrived in late May to earn certificates in Fordham’s Emerging Markets and Country Risk Analysis Program and to experience American culture via New York.

The men and women, who left July 5, were co-sponsored by the consul general of South Africa. They lived on campus in Tierney Hall and, in their spare time, saw much of what the City had to offer.

“Two shows in five weeks! Broadway was amazing,” said Bridgette Layloo, a post-graduate student of economics at UP. “Back home, we don’t really go to theatre.”

“Living in the Bronx was great,” said Maibelo. “It helped us to see another side of the U.S. than what you see in the movies.”

The students also were invited to informational sessions at the city’s leading financial houses, including J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse.

Fordham’s UP Students in Times Square on June 11.

But UP economics professor Reyno Seymore, who acted as a chaperone, singled out as the trip’s highlight a June 11 visit to the NASDAQ Times Square trading floor to kick off the 2010 FIFA World Cup, opening in their native South Africa, The students joined South African Consul General Fikile Magubane in ringing the opening bell.

“We missed the opening ceremony in South Africa,” said Bernard Mohlakwana, a UP graduate student in economics, “but we had a different kind of opening ceremony right here.”

Following the NASDAQ opening, the visiting students walked from Times Square to New York’s Paley Center for Media to watch the match.

“We were blowing on our Vuvuzellas and wearing our South African t-shirts,” said Maibelo. “Everybody was staring at us and smiling, and it made up for our not being home.”

UP student Peter Maibelo and GSAS student Oudolapo Fakeye were roomates in TIerney Hall.

A few Fordham students joined the South Africans on their outings. GSAS graduate student Loren James enjoyed the chance to go backstage at Chicago, and to visit Washington D.C., where the group toured the Capitol and visited the United States Agency for International Development.

“I would never be able to do these things on my own, so this program has helped me,” said James, who in August 2009 was among the first Fordham students to attend a summer session at UP. “Being able to share Fordham with them—and especially those places they might not get to see otherwise—has been worthwhile.”

Mohlakwana said he found the coursework in risk analysis particularly relevant to his future plans. Each student had to choose a country to study, and Mohlakwana chose Tanzania, which he analyzed for its strength as an emerging developing market.

“Africa is on the verge of becoming the next big emerging market, and I want to be there and see it through,” he said. “This was my first time off the African continent, and I am taking a lot home with me.”

Oudolapo Fakeye, a GSAS student in economics who took classes with the students, agreed.

“What Fordham is doing is monumental,” he said. “It has offered a course on emerging markets and so many African markets are primed to be very big over the next few decades. South Africa is at the forefront. It shows great promise and has political stability. So an exchange between Fordham and UP students is very significant.”

Seymore said that both Fordham and UP have begun listing each institution’s economics faculty members and their areas of expertise, hoping to match up those professors with similar interests. For Seymore, it was a “thrill” to meet Dominick Salvatore, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Economics and the author of International Economics, the textbook that Seymore routinely uses in his UP classes.

“It’s our hope that UP and Fordham will end up with some joint research, which would be good for both institutions,” said Seymore, a specialist in environmental economics and international trade.

Nancy Busch, Ph.D., was appointed chief research officer at Fordham more than two years ago. One of the goals of her office, as outlined inToward 2016, the University’s strategic plan, is increasing external research funding to between $75 and $90 million.

Speaking at a March 23 event designed to recognize faculty fellows and research grantees, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, emphasized the importance of expanding and enhancing the University’s research enterprise.

“External research funding is critical,” Father McShane said. “Not just for the raw dollars, but because it speaks to the quality of the research that is happening at Fordham.”

The event at which he spoke, “Growing Research at Fordham,” was one of two public exhibitions that gave recognition to Fordham scholars who have worked with the Office of Research to lay the building blocks for future external funding. The events included PowerPoint presentations summarizing the winning research abstracts and receptions for those who received the awards.

Dean Busch talked briefly about her plans to achieve the University’s research goals with Inside Fordham.

Q. What was the status of Fordham’s research enterprise when you began
leading the Office of Research?
One of the delightful things I found was how much research of very high quality was going on at Fordham. Because we’re a student-centered institution, a lot of scholars don’t talk as much about their research as others do elsewhere. Since then, I’ve tried to emphasize the need to celebrate our research, and speak with pride about it, both within the University community and externally as well.

Q. Who are the faculty who were honored at “Growing Research at Fordham?”
First is our faculty research grant program, which is available to faculty as soon as they come to Fordham. It supplies money to do pilot work, perhaps taking ideas from dissertations and turning them into programmatic research.

This past year, we placed an increased emphasis on first-year faculty members to apply for faculty research grants. As part of “Growing Research at Fordham,” we honored 25 first-year grant recipients.

Q. What are the awards for more established scholars?
The other type of award we celebrated at “Growing Research at Fordham” is faculty fellowships. These are internal awards that faculty members are eligible to apply for after their first reappointment, usually at the beginning of their third year. It provides relief from academic responsibilities other than research, namely, teaching and service.

Fordham pays the faculty member a full salary for one semester. Faculty fellows are also eligible to be away from campus for a whole year, and those who choose to do so are encouraged to work with grant officers to find external funding sources for the remainder of their salaries.

Q. What other campus events will springboard from “Growing Research at Fordham?”
This fall, we will be scheduling mini-symposiums across campus where faculty can present the results they developed from their University-funded research. We hope to group these events by theme—sustainability, for example. We have scholars who study it from a philosophical perspective, who approach it as biology, and some faculty who specialize in environmental law.

In the spring, we will showcase those who have received prestigious external awards. This is still being developed. Overall, it’s important for our faculty to see that the work they do may be synergistic with their fellow scholars, and I don’t think they realize that sometimes.

Q. How will these events further the University’s strategic goal of increasing external research funding?
Ideally, our faculty research grant awardees can someday further their projects through faculty fellowships, develop them more fully, and use them as a springboard to external funding. We really see this as the beginning of the growth of research at Fordham. It’s our hope that more and more faculty will see Fordham as a place where they can receive outstanding assistance in examining their scholarly areas of inquiry.

John Disterhoft, Ph.D., (GSAS ’68 and ’71), delivered the spring Gannon Lecture, which delved into the mysteries of the brain in “Learning in Young and Aging Brains: A Neuroscientific/Psychological Perspective.”

By applying neuroscientific measurements and behavioral tests, Disterhoft’s research into the hippocampus—the area of the brain involved with associative learning—has deepened the understanding of how one’s ability to learn deteriorates as the brain ages.

Using Pavlovian “eye blink conditioning” tests on young rabbits, rats and some humans, Disterhoft documented that neural cellular activity in a certain region of the hippocampus exhibits “excitability” as animals and humans learn associative tasks.

When older animals were tested, their associative learning was much slower. Further in vitro testing confirmed that on a cellular level, the animals’ “excitability” during learning had significantly decreased as well.

“Even though we’ve had to do most of these experiments in animal models to actually characterize the cellular changes, we can assume that humans have the same kinds of cells,” said Disterhoft, who is the director of the Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program and the Ernest J. and Hattie Magerstadt Memorial Research Professor of Physiology at the Feinberg School of Medicine. “We know that as these neurons become less excitable, it contributes to one characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease—learning impairment.”

Disterhoft’s decades of research have helped in the development of drugs that “stimulate” the hippocampal neurons, thus offering hope to Alzheimer’s patients for increased learning capacity or possible reversal of memory loss. Further research is being done to determine how the brain permanently stores information in the neocortex, Disterhoft said.

Marvin Reznikoff, Ph.D. and Nancy Busch, Ph.D.

Disterhoft, who is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and recipient of the prestigious MERIT award from the National Institute on Aging, said he first developed an interest in the science of learning as a GSAS student.

“At Fordham, I had mentors who exposed me to the idea that the brain really controls behavior,” he said. “My approach [to research]reflects the training and interest that I had here.”

Nicolas G. LaRocca, Ph.D., (GSAS ’72 and ’81) complemented Disterhoft’s lecture with a presentation on how such research can be applied in patients with Multiple Sclerosis. MS is a disease that ages the brain but not the body. LaRocca is vice president of health care delivery and policy research at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Following the lecture, some 160 GSAS faculty and alumni celebrated the 75th anniversary of Fordham’s Department of Psychology by honoring the department’s former chairman, Marvin Reznikoff, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology, with a Sapientia et Doctrina medal and a scholarship in his name.

Reznikoff, who taught at Fordham from 1968 until 2007, mentored more than 80 doctoral candidates in the department and received 14 research and training grants.

“As my circle of contacts grows, the importance of the contributions by one very special individual is mentioned over and over again,” said Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of GSAS. “Tonight we celebrate [his]pivotal role in the department’s history.”

Now in his eighties, Reznikoff received a standing ovation from faculty, friends and former students. He was lauded for his mentoring guidance, compassion and inspiration, in addition to having mentored what is thought to be a record number of dissertations within the department.

“People of my age have seen many moments,” said Reznikoff, who said he developed such close bonds with students that he even walked one of them, Mary Byrne, Ph.D., down the aisle when she married. “Fordham has been the centerpiece of my life, and it will continue to be for ever more.”

Communitas ’09 was GSAS’s third annual celebration of social and academic activities for alumni and friends at the Rose Hill campus.