Lynn Neary, TMC ’71, who developed National Public Radio’s religion beat in the 1990s and whose longtime role as books and arts correspondent made her arguably “the envy of English majors everywhere,” is retiring this month after a 37-year career at NPR.

“Lynn Neary’s gorgeous voice has graced NPR’s airwaves for nearly forty years,” said Ellen Silva, NPR’s chief arts editor, in announcing the news. She described Neary as “one of public radio’s most distinctive and accomplished personalities,” “an incisive intellect,” and “a wise and generous mentor to scores of reporters, producers and editors.”

Neary grew up in Westchester County and in 1971 earned an English degree from Thomas More College, then Fordham’s liberal arts college for women. After graduation, she worked at a psychiatric hospital and as an actor and waiter before landing a job as a reporter at WRMT, a commercial radio station in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

“I knew immediately I had found the right thing to do,” she told FORDHAM magazine in 2011. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I found it.’”

She spent a year in Rocky Mount before moving to WOSU, a public radio station in Columbus, Ohio, for two years.

Neary arrived at NPR in 1982, and after starting as a newscaster on Morning Edition, she moved on to hosting Weekend All Things Considered, the weekend version of the network’s flagship news program, from 1984 to 1992. During that time, she covered such historic events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and conducted interviews with illustrious writers and artists, including Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and David Byrne.

Examining Religion from All Angles

In 1992, Neary joined NPR’s cultural desk, where she developed the network’s first religion beat, covering what she described as “the religious landscape” of the country at a time when religion and politics were beginning to intersect in profound ways. She did a four-part series on Islam in America, interviewed the Dalai Lama, and covered two papal visits to the U.S. In 1996, she earned an Alfred I. duPont award for her reporting on the role of religion in the debate over welfare reform.

“We want[ed]to be able to look at religion from a cultural perspective, a faith perspective, and also a political perspective,” Neary told WFUV’s Lauren Naymie, FCRH ’11, during a 2010 interview at Fordham’s public radio station. “It’s always a subject I’ve found kind of fascinating—what people believe in and why, and how it affects the way they act in the world.”

Since 2008, Neary has served as an arts correspondent at NPR covering books and publishing, reporting not only on new releases and authors but also on industry news and trends.

She has returned to Fordham several times in recent years. In 2010, she met with students at WFUV, guest taught a communication and media studies class, and addressed her fellow alumnae at a Thomas More College reunion, where she spoke about the need for journalistic objectivity amid the increasingly hyped-up, opinionated tone of cable news.

“People think, ‘How can you be really, really objective?’ Well, you have to be very open-minded,” she said. “When I was covering religion, I was meeting up with people who believed things, whether it was a political belief or their faith, that I did not believe at all.”

She also noted the value of her early experience in Rocky Mount, the kind of small-town reporting that she believes can be beneficial to young journalists. “It was a very good experience,” she told FORDHAM magazine, “going to another part of the country, seeing how other people live.”

An Acclaimed Career Comes to a Close

Neary’s tenure at NPR has been a lesson in the ways that stories—in the news and in fiction—can take on new relevance over time.

In 1985, she interviewed the writer Margaret Atwood about her book The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel set in a near-future theocratic society in which women are subjugated. Could such a nightmare scenario come to pass, Neary asked.

“[I]f you see somebody walking towards a large hole in the ground, you’ve got two choices,” Atwood told her. “If you want them to fall into it, you don’t say anything. And if you want them not to fall into it, you say, ‘Watch where you’re going.’”

In spring 2017, shortly before the premiere of the popular TV series based on The Handmaid’s Tale, Neary had the opportunity to ask Atwood whether our society had fallen into the ditch she said her novel was warning us about 22 years earlier. Atwood told her that we hadn’t yet, and that we still have the power to change things.

This kind of reporting, with an eye toward the social implications of art and policy, has earned Neary several honors throughout her career, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award, an Association of Women in Radio and Television Award, and the Catholic Press Association’s Gabriel Award.

In a recent exchange on Twitter with NPR’s Ari Shapiro, Neary expressed sadness at leaving the station while declaring her optimism about its future.

“I will miss everyone at NPR so much but I am so glad to know that my generation is leaving it in such good hands.”

“Thank you for all your energy, your passion, your vision,” said station manager Chuck Singleton, who hired her in 1994 to host FUV’s midday show. “Thanks for piloting FUV’s musical direction for two-and-a-half decades.”

As WFUV’s program director since 2012, Houston has developed a national reputation as a tastemaker for new music and a champion for emerging artists—both on the air and in live music settings. Along with her administrative duties, Houston still hosts her Friday night show, The Whole Wide World, where the anniversary celebration was heard live.

With her co-workers celebrating around her, Houston proceeded to play her signature eclectic blend of tunes. The Friday evening program, which airs from 6 to 9 p.m., welcomes listeners to the weekend with music she says will get you dancing in the kitchen. It showcases artists from the ’60s and ’70s, like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, as well as singer-songwriters and indie bands from today’s scene, like Andrew Bird and the Mavericks.

Houston knows fans have come to depend on her to introduce them to new music they’ll love.

“When listeners hear something new at WFUV, there’s an inherent trust it has been selected with their general taste in mind,” Houston said. “You develop trust with the audience, with artists, and with record labels. You become a trusted source.”

The music that Friday was interspersed with recorded messages from artists such as famed rhythm and blues singer Mavis Staples and the Indigo Girls.

“I love you girl,” cooed Staples. “You keep on keeping on.”

There were also appeals for donations in the station’s spring fund drive, with one of Houston’s fans pledging a matching gift of $25,000 in honor of her anniversary.

Dressed in a flowing white- and blue-striped blouse, with her mop of curly blond hair falling on her forehead, Houston went live after spending the afternoon preparing for an upcoming interview with singer-songwriter Patty Griffin. Her voice that night was vintage Rita: upbeat, conversational, informed, and at times, personal.

Upon reflection, Houston said she was a bit surprised it had been so long since she began working at WFUV on April 5, 1994. But, she said, for all the changes in the radio and music industries, the essential element of her work remains the same.

“I have the same passion for the work that I had 25 years ago,” she told listeners. “There’s no coasting. There’s always new stuff to learn. And like any creative work, there are always new layers to peel.”

Houston has held many roles over a quarter-century at WFUV, Fordham’s public media station. After starting as the station’s midday host, she became FUV’s music director, and since 2012, has served as the station’s program director. Her current post includes involvement in radio programming and content for WFUV’s website, as well as fundraising, membership programs, and WFUV’s live concert series.  She also produces and sometimes emcees live shows for WFUV’s Marquee members—those who contribute $125 or more a month—at small venues like Rockwood Music Hall and City Winery in lower Manhattan. Performers have included Lucinda Williams, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, and Richard Thompson.

The digital revolution in the music industry has broadened Houston’s work—and changed how music lovers hear the songs they grow to love. Many of WFUV’s 400,000 weekly listeners access the station, as they always have, on the radio dial at 90.7 FM. Others also stream WFUV live on their desktop computers, tablets, or mobile phones. Others, still, listen to archived shows online at WFUV.org and attend WFUV events in the New York metropolitan area.

“We have dreams at WFUV, and we work to make them happen,” she said.  “But the competition has never been greater, with Spotify and other streaming services. When I started here, if you wanted to hear Joni Mitchell or Dar Williams, we were the only place to hear them. It’s a crowded field today.”

Houston’s national reputation has been developed partly through the station’s relationship with National Public Radio. WFUV is a member of the NPR Music partnership, a group of stations that collaborate with NPR on content. Houston has anchored NPR Music’s coverage of the Newport Folk Festival for several years, providing input into its “best music of the year” lists, appearing on NPR’s Morning Edition, and contributing to a project that spotlights women in music.

“Rita is an irrepressible force,” said Anya Grundman, NPR’s senior vice president of programming and audience development. “She has a great relationship with artists that shines through every time you hear her.”

Her friendships with recording executives like indie record label executive Daniel Glass, founder/president of Glassnote Music,  also keep her informed about new talent on the rise.

Glass calls Houston “the definition of soul.”

“She is a deeply soulful person, the music she plays has soul, and the artists she discovers, nurtures, and champions all have soul, regardless of the genre of music they fit into,” he said. “We are all enriched by Rita Houston’s ability to escape to a blissful aural theater.”

Houston, a Westchester native, moved to Nyack, New York, in 2002 to a home she shares with her wife, WFUV new media director Laura Fedele, and her Boston terriers Banjo and Emmy Lou, rescues from Tennessee.

The music Houston enjoys at home—like the music she plays on the air—spans more than a half-century – from Frank Sinatra and the Grateful Dead to Lucinda Williams and the Hot Sardines. When she goes to what she calls her personal “music church,” she listens to ’60s rocker Van Morrison, who Houston heard play in Chicago in April. And though she didn’t listen to the Grateful Dead during that band’s heyday in the 1970s, when she was deep into disco, punk, and new wave, she has since gained an enduring appreciation for the group.

“The Dead was so rooted into American roots music, and they brought it somewhere nobody else had taken it,” she said.

As much passion as she has for classic artists like those, Houston’s love of talented emerging musicians has been a large part of her success—and that of the station. In addition to playing their tunes, she often engages these artists in live studio interviews for the WFUV audience.

“Rita is hugely respected for her ears, and her ability to discover rising talent,” said Singleton. “She has smart, informed conversations with them about their work. She champions them and maintains a relationship with them throughout their careers.”

Marcus Mumford, leader of British folk-rock band Mumford & Sons, recalls meeting Houston at WFUV’s home in Keating Hall on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus during the band’s first tour in the U.S. several years ago.

“Fundamentally, her importance is rooted in the fact that she cares so much about her job and the team around her and the music she is passionate about,” he said. “It’s pure and untainted, and by no means naïve. Quite the opposite. She has the rare quality of a wealth of experience without being at all jaded. Rita is a real legend, and we feel, as many artists and non-musicians do, grateful to know her. We’ve deeply appreciated her support over the years.”

That passion for the music is one of the things that kept Houston’s spirits up during her recovery from ovarian cancer in 2014, after surgery and several months of chemotherapy. She remains in treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering in an immunotherapy clinical trial, which has kept her healthy almost five years after her initial diagnosis.

“It has been quite a roller coaster,” she said. “Getting healthy is a full-time job in itself. I’m still in treatment, have a job I love, and surround myself with beauty and the healing power of music to keep me going.”

–David McKay Wilson

A nameplate reading “Cultural Angel,” a reference to a piece she once did on the play Angels in America, is mounted above her keyboard, near the window. The space is surprisingly small for one of NPR’s signature voices, but a look around reveals a certain equality in the newsroom: everywhere people are squeezed into tiny spaces. Neary, dressed in black but with an open face and eyes lit with curiosity, lobs a comment to the music reporter on the other side of her cubicle wall before settling into her chair, ready to begin the day.

Three years ago, Neary, TMC ’71, took the books and publishing beat at NPR after occupying, since 1982, seemingly every other on-air position public radio has to offer: newscaster for Morning Edition, host of Weekend All Things Considered, religion reporter for the culture desk. She has interviewed Mayan weavers in the hidden interior of Mexico and heard David Byrne’s rough demo of the Talking Heads’ smash hit “Burning Down the House.”

“It instantly made sense to me,” she says of the transition to her current assignment. “It’s a really old-fashioned business, and I’m really old fashioned.” She paused a beat, a comedian delivering a punch line. “Now it’s completely changing.”

Neary, who has never been a business reporter, finds herself on the cutting edge of the e-book revolution, writing as much about author Ann Patchett’s literary salon in Nashville as she does about the profit margin of electronic readers. It is both exhilarating and challenging. “I try to bring a writer’s eye and a feature reporter’s sensibility” to the task, she says.

And that may well sum up her career, which didn’t begin in journalism at all, but rather in social work, with a job at a psychiatric hospital. She also acted and waited tables (more the latter than the former), before landing a job covering local news at a radio station in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. “I knew immediately I had found the right thing to do,” she recalls of her first on-air gig. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I found it.’”

North Carolina was a long way for a Westchester County girl to go to find herself. Neary spent the first two years of her university career at Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., before transferring into Fordham’s then all-female Thomas More College.

It was the late 1960s, and the world was splitting open, with Vietnam protests seizing campuses and gripping the nation. Neary wanted to be a part of it. “I wanted a bigger world than I felt like I had [in Tarrytown],” she says. An English major, then a political science major before switching back to English, Neary knew the career expectations at the time for women generally, and in her family in particular, covered a fairly small spectrum: teacher, nurse, secretary. Her acting experience tipped her off that she had a knack for performance, though, and her desire to do something socially significant led her to a course in radio journalism. The rest, as they say, is history.

She spent a year in Rocky Mount, covering Kiwanis meetings, the police and the chamber of commerce, interviewing people on the street, learning the radio news business from soup to nuts. “It was a very good experience,” she says, “going to another part of the country, seeing how other people live.”

A woman in local government suggested that Neary look into public radio. Two years at WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, followed, with Neary covering education, but taking it “a little beyond traditional education reporting,” she says. At the time, American hostages were being held in Iran, and President Carter was reinstating registration for Selective Service. Neary interviewed students on campus about the military, then went to a swearing-in ceremony for people who had just joined the service. She called NPR to tell them about the tape, some of which they used on air.

“It was one of those things,” she says, “where I happened to be ahead of the news for once in my life.” After that, NPR started calling her periodically, asking for contributions. It was only a matter of time before they came calling with a regular job. Two years as a newscaster on Morning Edition followed, then eight years as the host of Weekend All Things Considered before that led to the religion beat on the newly formed culture desk.

Neary had a tremendous curiosity about what she calls “the religious landscape” of the country at the time. The religious right was ascendant, and welfare reform was being pushed through Congress; politics and religion were intersecting in new and explosive ways, and she had her finger on the pulse. She even did a four-part piece in 1993 and 1994 on Islam in America, once again ahead of the news tide.

“She is just amazingly confident and self-possessed behind a microphone, whether hosting a program or recording a piece,” says Laura Bertran, supervising editor for the NPR arts desk and Neary’s immediate boss. “She has mastered how to talk to an audience.”

Part of that mastery has to do with Neary’s own enthusiasm for her topics, a curiosity Neary describes as part anthropological and part journalistic.

The books and publishing beat suits Neary’s home life in Washington, D.C., which includes her husband David Hall, a retired cameraman for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and her 14-year-old daughter, Maya. She could never have raised a child getting up at 2 a.m. every day to work on Morning Edition, and the weekend hours of All Things Considered began to wear on her after a while, as well. Still, those were extremely fruitful years, leading to a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award, and an Association of Women in Radio and Television Award, among others.

“I’ve really been a generalist. I have a curiosity and an openness to ideas and different kinds of people, and to walking into situations a lot of people might not want to go into,” she says. “I’m in a pretty happy place. I don’t know what’s next but I think I could do this for a while.”

—Julie Bourbon is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and a frequent contributor to this magazine.

Gonzales interviewed his son, Fordham upperclassmen, parents of other Freshmen, and Father McShane. Listen here: “When the Kids Go Away to School.”