Many fans arrived early to mix and mingle at a special pregame reception on the deck in center field, and all attendees received a Fordham maroon quarter-zip sweatshirt with the Fordham and Yankees logos. 

“He was like another dad to me. He befriended, loved, kept up with, and supported me,” said Catherine McGovern, FCRH ’81, echoing the sentiments of alumni of many generations. 

Father Daly served as director of Campus Ministry at Fordham from 1980 to 1987. Later, he became assistant alumni chaplain, providing pastoral support to Fordham’s global community of more than 200,000 alumni from 2015 to 2019. This included attending alumni receptions and retreats, as well as writing seasonal prayers to alumni, often with a personal and poignant touch. He also served as chaplain to the women’s basketball team from 2017 to 2019, earning recognition from Fordham Athletics for his work. (Fun fact: His old Campus Ministry office served as the office of the fictional Father Damien Karras in the movie The Exorcist, said Beth Tarpey Evans, FCRH ’84, who once worked in Father Daly’s office. “He was so proud of that! He left that nameplate on the door,” Evans said.) 

A Second Father

What alumni remember most about Father Daly is the way he cared for them in the same spirit as a father, comforting them during difficult times and rejoicing with them during the most important moments of their lives, said those who knew him. He was a gregarious, fun, witty, and kind priest who took great pride in their accomplishments, said McGovern, who is part of a circle of women that fondly refer to themselves as “Leo’s Ladies.” 

He traveled across the country, marrying, baptizing, and blessing thousands of people—sometimes multiple generations in a single family, said his niece, Elizabeth Shortal Aptilon, FCLC ’85, GABELLI ’90. 

“You don’t meet that many people who are genuinely good people. There aren’t that many people that stay in touch with you for decades. But my uncle was someone who really maintained lifelong friends,” said Aptilon. 

An Advocate at Home and Abroad

Father Daly was born on July 29, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, to Joseph Daly, a salesman, and Margaret McGowan Daly, a homemaker, both of whom had Irish heritage. He graduated from Brooklyn Preparatory High School, a Jesuit school in his home borough. He went on to earn a Master of Arts degree from Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a degree in counseling psychology from Columbia University. 

Father Daly entered the Society of Jesus in 1948 and was ordained a priest at the Fordham University Church in 1961. He served his fellow New Yorkers in many roles, including assistant principal at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City; administrator at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York; high school counselor at Regis High School and Xavier High School in Manhattan; community superior at Xavier High School; and assistant to the rector of the Jesuit community at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City. He conducted retreat work as a staff member and director at St. Ignatius Retreat House on Long Island before it closed in 2012. Father Daly also served communities abroad, as campus minister at the University of Guam and as a chaplain at a U.S. Army missile range in the Marshall Islands.  

Father Daly was a great storyteller who treasured time with family and friends, said his niece. In his spare time, he loved listening to jazz music and playing golf, she said. 

His friend and former colleague Daniel J. Gatti, S.J, who used to serve as Fordham’s alumni chaplain, recalled the time Father Daly nearly made a 165-yard hole in a single shot—and almost won a free car in the process. 

“Leo was about eight inches [away],” said Father Gatti, who had attended a Fordham Gridiron Golf Outing with Father Daly and two other Jesuits. “The whole day, no one won the car. … But Leo, I think, was the closest,” he said, chuckling.

‘He Served God’s People Well’ 

Four years ago, he was diagnosed with a parotid gland tumor, said McGovern, an OB-GYN whom Father Daly jokingly called his “personal obstetrician.” Despite dealing with serious illness during his final years—surgeries, radiation, immunotherapy, and partial loss of vision and hearing—Father Daly remained cheerful and involved with his Jesuit community and those he loved, said those who knew him. 

“Throughout his long life, he served God’s people well,” Father Gatti said.  

Father Daly is survived by his niece; grandnephew Brandon Craig Aptilon, GABELLI ’22; grandnephew Bradley Edward Aptilon; and nephew, James P. Shortal, his wife, Denise, and their daughter, Kristin. He is predeceased by his sister, Helen Shortal, née Daly, GSE ’49. His wake will be held at Murray-Weigel Hall on Jan. 19 from 3 to 8 p.m. The funeral Mass will be held the next day at the University Church at 11 a.m. and livestreamed on Campus Ministry’s website. Father Daly will be buried at the Jesuit Cemetery in Auriesville, New York. Gifts in his name may be made to the Leo Daly, S.J., Scholarship Fund. 

Alumni spanning seven decades made it back to campus—some who are frequent visitors, some reunion first-timers, but all eager to reconnect with friends, see how the University has grown over the years, and do their part to give back.

This year’s reunion classes contributed more than $75 million to the University since their last Jubilee, in 2018. All of the money raised supports Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, the University’s $350 million campaign to reinvest in all aspects of the student experience.

A Family Affair

For Anne Mickut Valentino and Christopher Valentino, who met as members of the Fordham College at Rose Hill Class of 1988, this year’s Jubilee was a special one—their first time attending alongside their son Peter Valentino, FCRH ’18. Christopher, an Army lawyer who retired from active duty in 2006, said, “Out of all the people I’ve met around the world, none have the quality and integrity of fellow Fordham graduates.”

Another Fordham couple, who were catching up with friends at the Go Rams! Pub Party under the Jack Coffey Field bleachers Saturday afternoon, said they never met as undergraduates. Instead, Billy and Melissa Barbour, both FCRH ’93, were introduced at their first Jubilee, in 1998, and were engaged the following year.

Now, when Billy finds out a student of his at Easthampton High School on Long Island is attending Fordham, he makes sure to tell them: “Don’t miss your Jubilee. You might meet someone.”

A Culture of Service

Elsewhere on campus, the Class of 1973 gathered in the library to reflect on the ways they’ve dedicated themselves to the greater good—from activism to community service to their careers—and to hear from Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning on the ways in which the University continues to partner with the community and local organizations.

In Butler Commons, members of the Marymount College community recognized the lives and accomplishments of their fellow graduates, honoring four alumnae for their community service and professional success.

Debra DeVenezia, MC ’83, won the Gloria Gaines Memorial Award; Rena Micklewright, MC ’90, won the Golden Dome Award; Sharbari Zohra Ahmed, MC ’95, won the Alumna of Achievement Award; and Linda McMahon, Ph.D., MC ’63, was honored posthumously. 

Camaraderie and Corn Hole

At the all-class picnic held on Martyrs’ Lawn Saturday afternoon—complete with a barbecue, face painting, and games of corn hole—a group of 2013 graduates who were involved with both the Philippine American Club and the Asian Cultural Exchange on campus expressed how important those student clubs were to their college experience.

“It helped me connect with my roots,” said Danielle Flores, FCRH ’13, whose parents immigrated from the Philippines and who double-majored in economics and Spanish language and literature as a member of the Fordham College at Rose Hill Honors Program.

Thinking back to her arrival as a first-year student, Gillian Pantaleon, GABELLI ’13, ’14, echoed Flores’ sentiments on the strong balance of classwork and connection she found at Rose Hill.

“I never knew that … I would have really intellectual conversations in the classroom, learning a lot of lifelong lessons and building a fantastic network here,” she said. “If I could do it all over again, I would.”

Video by Rebecca Rosen

A Tribute to the Trailblazers

At their annual luncheon, a few dozen alumnae of Thomas More College, Fordham’s undergraduate school for women from 1964 to 1974, presented an award to Tania Tetlow, president of the University, and designated her an honorary alumna of the Class of 1968, the college’s first graduating class.

Introducing Fordham’s trailblazing president, who is the first woman and first layperson to lead the Jesuit University of New York, Meredith Waltman, TMC ‘68, noted that the women of TMC are “part of a list of firsts,” too, opening “the door for generations of women afterward to benefit from the rich tradition of a Jesuit” education at Fordham.

“Hereafter, when pictures are taken of the alumni of Thomas More College, she has to be in it,” Waltman said, referring to Tetlow.

Accepting the award, Tetlow admitted to sometimes grappling with a catch-22 of sorts when thinking about the trails blazed by the women of TMC and others like them.

Younger women enjoy a greater degree of freedom but may not fully “understand how hard the fight was to get it to them,” she said. “We are torn between wanting them to be grateful and also wanting to liberate them from any knowledge that it was ever true that people would underestimate them.”

“I don’t know if they will always think of you and remember you, but I will,” she said.

—Adam Kaufman contributed to this story.

Terry Begley, GABELLI ’86, the CEO of corporate banking at PNC Financial Services Group, kicked off the evening. He shared that as the new chair of the council, he’s excited to harness its passion for the University to help Fordham’s new president, Tania Tetlow, with “what she’s trying to accomplish.”

Fordham’s ‘Knights of the Round Table’

The reception served as the first official opportunity for Tetlow to meet the council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile.

“I am so excited to have my own council!” she told them at a reception prior to the mentoring event, which was held in the Lowenstein Center’s 12th-Floor Lounge. “I’ll think of you as Fordham’s Knights of the Round Table: You bring your wisdom, your contribution, your expertise—so much—to Fordham and our students.”

Tetlow said she loves hearing about the ways council members not only “help with the kind of donations that pay forward opportunity” but also engage with “our students quite directly—mentoring them, giving speeches, doing so much for the school.” She added that she’s “eager” to take in their advice and work with them to continue to enhance the Fordham experience for students.

Forge New Connections

Margot Reid, GABELLI ’21, special events and professional development chair of Fordham’s Young Alumni Committee, opened the roundtable discussion portion of the evening by welcoming alumni and parents “back here, back home, to Fordham.” She encouraged the students and recent graduates to really “make the most of this unique opportunity to connect with … the Fordham family” in the room, a group that included graduates from class years spanning five decades.

At 10 tables, each one featuring at least two mentors, attendees shared their stories—from what brought them to Fordham and who in the Fordham community has had the biggest impact on them to how to navigate the workforce while staying true to their values along the way. Guided by discussion prompts, they also delved into how Fordham’s global network of more than 200,000 alumni can help.

Garismar Ramirez, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior studying neuroscience, asked the mentors at her table how they transitioned to the workforce after college, noting that she feels it would be a big jump to go from worrying about GPA and test scores to performing well every day on the job.

Thomas E. Kelly III, PAR ’11, ’13, said that he did it by learning to be comfortable with ambiguity and trusting in his ability to do a “good job.”

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be anxious,” he said, adding they should aim to perform with as much excellence as they can.

Kelly, a member of the President’s Council, also encouraged students and recent graduates to use the resources Fordham offers, through the alumni relations office, the Career Center, and the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services, to help overcome any nervousness or anxiety they might have about interviewing and networking.

Trust the Process

Guthrie Garvin, FCRH ’99, a managing director at the real estate and investment firm JLL and member of the President’s Council, said that it’s important not to put too much pressure on yourself to find “the job” you’ll have for the rest of your life.

“I’ve been doing the same thing for 18 years, but it was a pretty circuitous path before that,” said Guthrie, who spent some time in education and sales before turning to real estate. “Find what you think you’re passionate about and jump in, but don’t be afraid to pivot if it turns out that there’s another path that seems more exciting. It’s part of the process.”

Speaking of process, Errol Pierre, GABELLI ’05, senior vice president of state programs at Healthfirst and member of the President’s Council, told the students that internships could help them determine what they’re most passionate about. Thanks to a series of three internships he completed as an undergraduate, he learned what he didn’t like. And “if you can align passion and profession, the sky’s the limit,” he said.

Remember You Belong

Halley Rodriguez, a Fordham College at Lincoln Center senior and a member of Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), said she was curious about how to combat imposter syndrome.

In response, Garvin encouraged each of the students at the table to “be confident in yourself and where you should be,” to resist the temptation to “run from what’s a little uncomfortable,” and to remember always that they will bring value to the organization that hires them.

“Constantly tell yourself, ‘I’m supposed to be here,’” Pierre said. “The time it takes to be in your head [worrying]takes you away from performing.”

This year’s events come as the Fordham football team is off to its hottest start in nearly a decade—and as the University prepares to celebrate the inauguration of its new president, Tania Tetlow, who will be on hand to welcome alumni and families back to the Bronx campus.

Led by quarterback Tim DeMorat, who was named the NCAA FCS National Player of the Week after Fordham’s 52-49 win over Monmouth University last Saturday, the Rams enter the game with a 2-0 record. It’s the team’s best start since 2013, when Fordham advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs and finished the year ranked No. 10 in the country.

On Saturday, the Rams will take on the University at Albany Great Danes. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. on Jack Coffey Field.

For the Fordham faithful, however, Homecoming promises more than exciting action on the field. The weekend’s festivities kick off on Friday night, when undergraduate students will join Tetlow at her inaugural President’s Ball, a semiformal dance under the Homecoming tent on Edwards Parade. At the same time, recent graduates will reunite downtown and take in the views of lower Manhattan on the ever-popular Young Alumni Yacht Cruise.

Before kickoff on Saturday, students, alumni, and friends will take part in the 11th annual 5K Ram Run, which starts at 9 a.m. outside the new McShane Campus Center. For those not participating in the fun run, Patricia Peek, Ph.D., FCRH ’90, GSAS ’92, ’07, dean of undergraduate admission, will lead a campus tour to highlight the new facilities and offer advice for families with students preparing to apply to colleges.

At 10:15 a.m., all attendees are invited to a meet-and-greet breakfast with Tania Tetlow in the Great Hall of the campus center, where Sally Benner, FCRH ’84, chair of the Fordham University Alumni Association, will introduce the University’s 33rd president, who took office on July 1 and will be officially inaugurated on Oct. 14.

The Homecoming tents will open at 11 a.m. and feature food and drinks, as well as activities for kids, including face painting and balloon animals. Award-winning author Stacey D’Erasmo, associate professor of English at Fordham, will be on hand to sign copies of her latest novel, The Complicities (Algonquin, 2022), this year’s selection of the Fordham Alumni Book Club, which members of the community are invited to join.

Also at 11 a.m., Robert Reilly, FCRH ’72, LAW ’75, former assistant dean of Fordham Law School, will lead a tour called “Hidden in Plain Sight: Discover the Jesuit Presence at Rose Hill.” Those looking for an alternative to the game are invited to venture across the street at 1 p.m. to explore the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden using an exclusive Fordham group rate.

The day will conclude with the annual Homecoming Mass at 4:30 p.m. in the University Church.

For more information and to buy tickets in advance for one or more of the Homecoming events, visit fordham.edu/homecoming.

As first pitch approached, fans settled into the centerfield sections next to the iconic home-run apple, many wearing Fordham caps and more than a few wearing Fordham sweatshirts to stay warm on a breezy Queens night. More than 100 people joined the Fordham contingent, using up every ticket allotted to the group.

“Citi Field’s probably the best place to see a baseball game in the country, as far as I’m concerned,” said John Sebesta, FCRH ’90, who was attending the game with a group that included his son, Aidan Sebesta, FCRH ’21, GSAS ’22. “It’s a very nice stadium and a very cozy place to see a baseball game. And it’s the Mets.” (Though as Aidan added, despite the team’s hot start, “You gotta be careful with the Mets. You can’t get too excited.”)

Sophia Zehler, FCRH ’21, a Mets fan living in Philadelphia while pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, jumped at the chance to see her favorite team in her hometown. She attended the game with Jasmine Ali, FCRH ’20, her junior-year roommate.

“I’ve been a Mets fan since I was a child, and I wanted to come with my best Fordham friends, and they all like the Yankees,” Zehler said. “But she was the good sport that was willing to come.”

Added Ali, who wore the black David Wright jersey distributed to everyone in the Fordham group: “I’m a Yankees fan, but I can be a New York fan for tonight.”

Those who attended the April 30 game were treated to a pitcher’s duel early, with the Mets clinging to a 1-0 lead through six innings. But in the seventh, the Phillies jumped ahead on a Kyle Schwarber home run that landed right in Section 140, where many alumni in the Fordham group were sitting. The Phillies would go on to win 4-1, and on a night when the Mets mustered just four hits, the home fans didn’t have a lot to cheer, other than perhaps the wave that started in Section 142, another with members of the Fordham group.

But on this night, the game’s result was secondary to reconnecting with former classmates.

“I think people love baseball, and people like to really gather in large groups, and they really haven’t had the chance to do that with the pandemic,” said Michael Bennis, GABELLI ’17, ’18, the special events chair of the Young Alumni Committee who helped plan the event. “This is a great way for alumni to bring a bunch of friends, see a good game, and pretty much do the thing we weren’t able to do for like two years.”

—Joe DeLessio, FCLC ’06

This summer, Fordham alumni will have two more opportunities to take in a New York City sporting event together.

On Saturday afternoon, July 9, Fordham grads will head to Yankee Stadium to see the New York City Football Club in action against the New England Revolution. Learn more and register.

And on September 8, the Fordham University Alumni Association is hosting its 4th Annual Fordham Night at Yankee Stadium, when the Bronx Bombers will take on the Minnesota Twins. The first 1,000 fans who purchase tickets through this offer will receive an exclusive New York Yankees jersey co-branded with the Fordham logo. Learn more and register.

Fordham College at Lincoln Center graduate Marquetta L. Goodwine, Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, sang those lines from the spiritual “I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long” at the beginning of her presentation during an April 25 panel on environmental and climate justice. The event, held online, was sponsored by Fordham’s MOSAIC alumni affinity chapter and the Office of Alumni Relations. It featured alumni, faculty, and other experts who discussed how environmental and climate issues disproportionately affect certain populations—and how we can, both globally and locally, work toward lessening those impacts.

The lyrics Queen Quet sang also speak to the work she has been doing for more than two decades as chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, a sovereign people who live along the Atlantic coast from Pender County, North Carolina, to St. John’s County, Florida. On the low-lying land populated by the Gullah/Geechee, flooding has been a longstanding problem only heightened by the increasing number and severity of storms due to climate change.

As one of two keynote speakers, Queen Quet emphasized the importance of communicating about climate change in ways that are easily understandable to every community.

“It cannot be spoken of in terms of carbon emissions and CO2 and these types of things, because that is not everyday common vernacular throughout America,” Queen Quet said.

She also discussed some of the specific work the Gullah/Geechee Nation is doing to prepare for natural disasters caused by climate change, including building resiliency hubs to store supplies and solar power charging stations, which could also serve as an airdrop point for food and other necessities. And while her nation has already seen a great deal of damage from flooding and beach erosion, Queen Quet said that speaking at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2019 was an opportunity to share optimistic ideas with other leaders from around the world.

“We’re all trying to show each other living examples of what we’re doing where we are to make this world a better place, to try to heal it, try to reverse some of the impacts,” she said.

‘We Must Be Willing to Serve’

The second keynote speaker, Dr. Daniel Chidubem Gbujie, a climate activist, writer, and oral surgeon from Nigeria, seconded Queen Quet’s call for effectively communicating the risks of climate change to every community.

“Context matters,” he said. “The way you deliver your message is very important.”

Dr. Gbujie pointed to the ways that sub-Saharan Africa has already been devastated by climate change, from flooding in his native Nigeria to drought that has played a role in conflicts like the Sudanese Civil War, which in 2017 the U.N. World Food Program called “the first climate change conflict.”

As the founder of the Team 54 Project, a nonprofit organization with the goal of raising awareness about the impact of climate change and the need to take urgent global actions, Dr. Gbujie said that he has found inspiration in the mission of Jesuit education and the idea of cura personalis—care for the whole person—when thinking about how best to approach the climate crisis.

“For everything that we experience here,” he said, “there’s a level of empathy and sympathy we have to have. To resolve the climate crisis we have right now, we must be willing to serve. …

We must be willing to look for new, innovative ideas, and we must be willing to ensure that we have a moral compass that guides us when we negotiate.”

Along with the keynote speakers, the panel—which was moderated by Marion Bell, FCLC ’92, one of MOSAIC’s co-founders, with support from fellow chapter co-founders Felicia Gomes-Gregory, FCLC ’88, GSAS ’98,  and Marlene Taylor-Ponterotto, FCRH ’79—featured presentations from several speakers who discussed the infrastructural keys to adapting to and mitigating climate change, both at Fordham and beyond.

Using Infrastructure and Policy to Prepare for the Future

After opening the event with a prayer, Bell, who is also the chairperson for environmental and climate justice of the NAACP mid-Manhattan branch, introduced Marco Valera, vice president for administration at Fordham. Valera, who took on his current role in 2019 after serving as vice president for facilities management, discussed the work that has been done and will be done infrastructurally to reduce the University’s carbon emissions,—continuing to improve building insulation, for example, moving the University’s vehicle fleet to electric, and using available surface space for green roofs and solar panels, like those atop the Rose Hill regional parking garage.

The second speaker was Sameer Ranade, a climate justice adviser for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), a public-benefit corporation whose mission is to “advance clean energy innovation and investments to combat climate change, improving the health, resiliency, and prosperity of New Yorkers and delivering benefits equitably to all.” Ranade’s position at the authority was created as part of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019—which was signed into law at the Fordham School of Law—and he provides support for both New York’s Climate Action Council and the Climate Justice Working Group.

Ranade presented some of the state’s energy and climate justice goals, which include reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 60% of 1990 levels by 2030 and to 15% of 1990 levels by 2050.

“Clean energy can actually lower emissions in all sectors, but especially so in buildings, transportation, and electric power generation,” Ranade said, noting that moving to clean energy would also add 10 jobs for every one job displaced, according to a study by the state’s Just Transition Working Group. He also encouraged audience members to attend one of the Climate Action Council’s remaining public hearings to share input on the scoping plan for New York’s climate goals.

Fordham professor John Davenport, Ph.D., discussed another element of mitigating the effects of climate change that is particularly important to New York and other coastal communities: managing stormwater runoff. As the danger of strong storms and flooding continues to increase, Davenport said, it will be essential to use infrastructure like green roofs and street trees to absorb water and limit runoff, and to provide tax incentives to land and building owners for implementing methods of runoff reduction.

“It’s going to be important to start using the language of savings,” Bell said in response to Davenport’s presentation, touching on the same need for good communication highlighted by the keynote speakers. “What it will save us rather than how much it will cost us.”

That thought experiment was at the center of a Forever Learning Week lecture by Patrick Hornbeck, D. Phil., professor of theology and interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham.

“What I want to talk about tonight is what Ignatius of Loyola would have to say about our particular moment, where it often feels like we are talking past each other,” Hornbeck said during the March 28 event, held online and sponsored by the Fordham University Alumni Association. He argued that “the Jesuit tradition equips all of us with skills and tools and opportunities to be human, even when we’re conversing with each other through the technology that we find ourselves with today.”

Hornbeck noted that Ignatius was no stranger to great advancements in communications technology: By the mid-16th century, the printing press had spread throughout Europe, democratizing the sharing of information in a way with parallels to the growth of the internet, he said.

He presented three quotes from Ignatius to help the audience imagine what kind of guidance the Spanish priest and theologian would offer if he were writing today.

‘Be More Ready to Justify Than to Condemn’

The first quote he shared is from The Spiritual Exercises:

“It must be presupposed that any good Christian has to be more ready to justify than to condemn a neighbor’s statement. If no justification can be found, one should ask the neighbor in what sense it is to be taken, and if that sense is wrong, he or she should be corrected lovingly.”

Hornbeck contrasted that idea with a social media environment in which people are quick to try to score points against strangers, often with an assumption that others mean the worst.

“The important thing here is he’s not saying, ‘Don’t judge,’” Hornbeck said. “He’s saying, ‘Don’t judge too quickly.’ He’s saying, ‘Don’t leap to judgment, don’t have a prejudice about what the person you’re speaking with might have to say.’

“And so, part of what Ignatius is inviting us to do is to see the person and to correct or to engage with or to disagree with that person as someone who is fundamentally a bearer of equal dignity as we are,” Hornbeck continued. “I think that what Ignatius is presuming in his presupposition, is this common, shared belief [that we are made] in the image and likeness of God, and if we can’t maintain that, I think that’s something that we all need to think quite a bit about today.”

Avoid ‘Excessive Fervor’

The second quote Hornbeck shared with the attendees is from a letter Ignatius sent to Jesuit scholastics in Coimbra, Portugal, in May 1547:

“Disorders in the life of the spirit arise not only from coldness of heart (ailments like tepidity), but also from overheating as where there is excessive fervour. … The philosophical dictum ‘Nothing in excess’ applies to everything, even justice itself. … When such moderation is absent, good is transformed into bad and virtue into vice, and many problems arise for those taking this path, blocking their basic purpose.”

“What Ignatius is asking us to do is to find something like a middle way or a middle path, not because we shouldn’t believe deeply in the things in which we believe,” Hornbeck said, noting that while sometimes decisive action is needed, it may not be appropriate in every moment. “It’s in this moderation and the pushing against the temptations or instincts that we have that we learn to become more fully ourselves.”

Cultivate Ignatian Indifference

The final quote Hornbeck offered is one from The Spiritual Exercises that speaks to the ways that any created tool—including the internet and social media—can be used for both positive and negative ends:

“The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by so doing to save his or her soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created. It follows from this that one must use other created things in so far as they help towards one’s end, and free oneself from them in so far as they are obstacles to one’s end. To do this we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things.”

This passage describes a form of spirituality that “acknowledges that all that we have on the face of the Earth is neither good nor bad unto itself, but good or bad only as we use those things,” Hornbeck said, clarifying that the indifference Ignatius referred to was not the same as apathy, but “the sense of not being attached to something, not being convinced that a certain career or a certain way of life, or a certain standard of living is in and of itself good.”

“And so Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and all of the other tools that we have at our disposal, I think Ignatius would say are neither good nor bad. It’s how we use them. It’s … deciding when to engage [and] in what kind of spirit we should engage.”

Toward the end of the event, moderator and Fordham University Alumni Association board member Jake Braithwaite, S.J., GABELLI ’11, GSAS ’15, raised a question about how Ignatius would handle deep disagreements not only with strangers online but also, say, at the Thanksgiving dinner table with loved ones.

“Ignatius was a man of very strong convictions,” Hornbeck answered. “And so my guess is Ignatius might have been quite feisty at the Thanksgiving dinner table. But I think that what he would encourage us to think about is how [to do] it while doing our very best to maintain our relationships—that we can gently, and without that kind of excessive passion that he was talking about, say, ‘You know, I just don’t see it that way,’ and then explain how it is.”

This event was part of Forever Learning Week, a series of free talks and tours featuring Fordham experts that is sponsored by the Fordham University Alumni Association.

The quotes from St. Ignatius Loyola used in this article are taken from the Penguin Classics edition of Ignatius’s personal writings.

Composed by Bernstein, conducted by Maurice Peress, and choreographed by Alvin Ailey, MASS was included in the opening festivities for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Like the times, the musical theater performance was emblematic of a shattering world and worldview that needed to be repaired and renewed, said Stephen Schloesser, S.J., of the Department of History at Loyola University Chicago, speaking at the virtual event “Things Get Broken: A Jesuit Reflection on Leonard Bernstein’s MASS.” That brokenness was similar to what St. Ignatius Loyola was feeling when a cannonball shattered his leg on the battlefield, he told the Fordham audience on Sept. 23.

“We’re commemorating the conversion of his vision, the vision as it evolved after the shattering of a leg, yes,” Schloesser said. “But more importantly, after the shattering of an old world and an old worldview. The past was gone, pieces needed to be picked up and reimagined for a new future.”

The lecture kicked off Fordham’s celebration of the Ignatian Year, a commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus.

“It’s a year that recalls the moment 500 years ago, when a cannonball shattered the leg of a Spanish soldier Ignatius of Loyola on the parapets at Pamplona; the wound put an end to Ignatius, his youthful dreams of personal glory, but it started him on a journey of conversion that has by one path or another, led us all here,” said David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture, which sponsored the event.

Schloesser said those themes of brokenness and renewal were particularly prevalent during one of the key scenes in the performance, when the celebrant takes the monstrance holding the Eucharist and throws it to the ground, breaking it.

“Back in 1971, the breakage in Bernstein’s MASS was intimately connected to the Kennedy assassinations, and the Vietnam War,” he said. “50 years later, we remember other more recent breakages, how easily things get broken.”

Five Themes

Schloesser explored five overarching “tropes” that Bernstein used in MASS—youth and lost youth, street protests, magnifying and sanctifying, appearance vs. reality, and lost youth refound.

The theme of youth came up again and again throughout the performance—and throughout the time period in which MASS took place, Schloesser said.

Schloesser cited a passage from A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger, a historian who served as special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, where Daniel Patrick Moynihan, assistant secretary of labor at the time, was talking about Kennedy’s death with Washington Post reporter Mary McGrory.

McGrory said, “We will never laugh again,” and Moynihan responded, “Heavens, Mary. We will laugh again, it’s just that we will never be young again.”

Also interwoven throughout the piece was a conflict of appearance vs. reality, particularly in the “climactic crisis,” Schloesser said.

“As the veil is pulled away, trust in appearances collapses,” he said. “This conflict leads to questioning what is real and what is show.”

This also relates to a crisis of faith and a crisis of humanity in that moment in time that Bernstein was trying to evoke throughout MASS, Schloesser said.

“The crisis of faith that he is evoking extends far beyond religious faith of any kind, how easily things get broken,” he said. “This is a cry of the heart, about human existence in general—the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy; the 1970 Kent State shooting, which was just one year before the premiere of MASS.”

Bernstein carried the theme of losing youthfulness and innocence throughout, and that’s how he chose to end MASS, Schloesser said.

“Bernstein celebrates youth regained,” he said, discussing the final scenes. “However, it’s youth with a difference. A youth tempered by the experience of doubt, rage, death—youth has been shattered and broken by a cannonball or an assassination…. Although the world returns, it is not the same world, it is a renewed world.”

Ignatian Year at Fordham

The Ignatian Year, celebrated by Fordham and Jesuit communities throughout the world, encourages that kind of discernment. While recovering at home, Ignatius began reading texts about Jesus and the lives of the saints, as they were the only reading materials available to him at the time. This period of reflection led to his intense spiritual conversion and gave Ignatius a new sense of purpose.

That idea of having our own “cannonball moments” and using them to embark on a new path is a goal for theFordham community throughout the celebration of the Ignatian year.

Some departments, including the Office of Alumni Relations, have embarked on their own ways to mark the year. So far, Alumni Relations has held an event featuring alumni sharing their stories about how Jesuit education impacted their lives. The office is also hosting an Ignatian Year Service Tracker that encourages alumni to serve their communities and track their hours and has been continuing to post Magis Minute video reflections.

The Ignatian Year will conclude on July 31, 2022, the Feast Day of St. Ignatius Loyola.

Molly Hellauer, who studied communications and political science at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, plans to be among those tuning in.

Though she graduated in 2016, Hellauer said her ongoing connection to the University has made the time fly. “Fordham still feels very close. It doesn’t feel like five years at all, but it is nice to have that community as a resource five years later—and I know it will continue to be a resource 10 years, 15 years from now.”

Staying Connected Through Service

Hellauer immersed herself in the Fordham community as a student, serving on the Campus Activities Board and volunteering as both an orientation leader and captain prior to working as an orientation coordinator for two years. Each of these activities helped her learn “a great deal about professionalism,” she said, and inspired her to keep the Fordham connection going after graduation.

She joined the Young Alumni Committee in 2016, and last year led its social justice subcommittee, which organizes service projects for recent graduates. In recent years, they have worked with the Bronx Is Blooming to plant new trees and clean up parks, and with Socks in the City—a nonprofit founded by Cat Fernando, FCLC ’20—to get socks and other supplies to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

Before the pandemic, that meant organizing a day for young alumni to go out in small groups and distribute supplies. “It’s also really about building connections,” Hellauer said. “So, they’re not just giving things to folks; they’re talking to them, learning about their lives, hearing their stories, and making them feel heard.”

In the past year, the subcommittee embraced remote service work, joining a Socks in the City initiative to order supplies and have them shipped to a central location for volunteers to distribute. And Hellauer helped organize a Zoom-based letter-writing campaign, during which alumni gathered virtually to write letters and holiday cards to people living in nursing homes.

“We all just figured it out and were able to keep people engaged, and that’s just a really good feeling,” she said. “Obviously, I would rather do things in person, but I’m just really impressed with everyone’s adaptability.”

Putting Her Fordham Education to Work in Politics and Public Relations

Giving back to Fordham and its local communities may keep Hellauer quite close to the University, but she has indeed spread her wings since graduating. The summer following her senior year, she was awarded a Students for a New American Politics PAC Organizing Fellowship. Run by Yale University students, the political action committee provides a stipend for fellows to work as grassroots organizers for progressive candidates running for Congress. Hellauer was sent to Rochester, New Hampshire, to work on Carol Shea-Porter’s campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives.

To Hellauer’s surprise, she was placed with another Fordham Ram working as a field organizer in the state’s 1st Congressional District. “It was a very exciting time to be working on a statewide national campaign—and it was doubly exciting because New Hampshire is a very politically active state,” she said. She was able to learn “a lot about campaigns and electoral politics, and it was just a really exciting way to spend your first summer out of college.”

Once the fellowship concluded, Hellauer went into public relations. Today, she’s the manager of communications and research for the Office of the President at Columbia University—a “really good fit” for her, she said, in part because it allows her to draw on the skills she picked up as a student leader and orientation coordinator at Fordham. 

Fordham Five (Plus One)

What are you most passionate about?
For my entire life, reading has been one of my absolute favorite things to do—definitely because it is a pleasant and relaxing activity but also because I get excited about how much there is to learn from a new book. After finishing—or often even while still reading—a great work of nonfiction, I have to immediately go down a “Wikipedia hole” to learn more about the figures or events covered in the book. But even in works of fiction that we might not consider as instructive, I learn so much about how to improve my own writing and how to be a person moving through the world.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
That you don’t have to do everything right on the first try. Personally and professionally, I always find myself fighting off embarrassment after making a mistake when doing something for the first time—even and especially when I am alone in my own kitchen screwing up a new recipe, despite there being no one around for me to be embarrassed in front of. It helps me to take a breath and ask myself: Why would I be expected to get something perfect when I’ve never done it before? It’s wonderful when you turn out to be a natural at something new, but learning where you may have veered off course and how to do something better the next time is valuable, too.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
There are so many corners of the city that I’ve missed visiting during the pandemic. If I had to choose a favorite, I’d have to say the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I used to love visiting during their late-night hours on Saturdays. It’s a favorite because I like to pick a certain section deep in the museum and immerse myself in it. I love the feeling of being so far removed from the city outside, but it’s also an experience that is quintessentially New York.

In the world, definitely Cape Cod, Massachusetts. My family has been spending summers there for most of my life. My absolute favorite day is spent on a beach in Cape Cod in the sunshine with a book, with dips in the ocean in between chapters. As I’ve grown older, I’ve enjoyed visiting at all times of year, not just summer—it’s a very special place that has something wonderful to offer year-round.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
My favorite books as a child were in the Eloise series by Kay Thompson. I love her spirit and independence. Eloise was always able to have a good time on her own, but she was also glad to take others (humans or animals) along for the ride. And, looking back on it now, I think she may have had an influence on my desire to one day live in New York City.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
Most of my best friends are Fordham grads, and I admire and look up to them all for their intelligence and passion for doing good—qualities that were instilled in us all at Fordham.

The professor I admire most is Christina Greer, who I had for several courses in political science as a student (the thrill of seeing her on MSNBC has not grown old in the five years since I graduated, for me or my parents). I appreciate how she is able to communicate political concepts to students—no matter their major—and make them eager to know and do more outside the classroom. She [helps people]understand the issues and how they directly affect our lives. She cares a great deal about each and every student, and it shows.

The event was the third in a series, hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations in partnership with the Office of Undergraduate Admission, designed to appeal to Fordham graduates as well as newly admitted undergraduate students and their families.

Here are some of the stories Fordham alumni shared.

Learning to Be Flexible

Before the pandemic hit New York City in March 2020, Javier Morgado, GABELLI ’06, had never produced a TV show from home. Morgado, the executive producer of CNN’s 11 a.m. weekday show At This Hour with Kate Bolduan, said he remembered being sent home on a Friday in mid-March, unsure of how he and his team would pull off their next show.

“I remember … getting a note from the president of CNN saying, starting on Monday, I need you to do your show from home and figure it out. We’ve never done that,” he said. “Adjusting to change is part of reality in the business of entertainment and news.”

It’s something Morgado said he had to do as a graduate student at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business.

“I started grad school in January of ’03, and America went to war in Iraq in March of ’03, so I was barely eight weeks in and I worked on the international desk at NBC, and now I was faced with being a part-time business student, needing to tell my professors that I can’t go to class because we’re at war,” he said.

Morgado said that his professors were extremely willing work with him to help him make it through graduate school.

“I actually found all of my professors beyond accommodating—they completely understood what I did,” he said. “Most of the other students in my classes were finance people or people that were marketers and accounting types, so [they were]like, ‘OK, we get it. You’re the news guy. No problem.’ And we found ways to work around it.”

Samara Finn Holland, FCLC ’03, senior vice president at Kaplow Communications, said that Fordham taught her practical life skills that help her remain flexible in a changing work environment, something she tells people to this day when they ask her about what she learned in school.

“I learned how to problem solve. I learned how to ask questions. I learned how to critically think. I learned skills that I’m applying every single day, no matter what type of project … I’m working on,” she said.

Thinking Creatively

Amen Igbinosun, GABELLI ’10, an actor, producer, and teacher at California State University in Los Angeles, had been directing a play in March 2020, but COVID-19 caused that project to end abruptly. He said lessons he learned at Fordham helped him get through a difficult time.

“I was upset and quite concerned, but at the same time, people were getting sick—I had members of my family get sick, so I was a lot more concerned about other things during that time period,” he said. “But I do think that one of the great things … about Fordham is that they don’t teach you how to be a cog in the machine—you know, just shuffling papers. I was able to think outside the box.”

He said the pandemic gave him a chance to turn back to personal projects he is passionate about, such as telling stories of the African diaspora in the United States.

“I was able to engage my community,” said Igbinosun, who was born in Nigeria and grew up in Rahway, New Jersey. “I was able to continue engaging my craft, continue to stay afloat during this time of uncertainty.”

Managing Compassionately

For Morgado, who got his MBA from Fordham, the past year has made him think back to a class he took with James A.F. Stoner, Ph.D., called “Management, Spirituality, and Religion.”

“We’re [usually]taught to manage by looking at profit and loss statements and bottom lines,” but Stoner’s course focused on the benefits of “managing with compassion and heart, and understanding that people are human,” he said. “That was never more tested than in the last year.”

Morgado said he had to communicate uncertainty to the members of his team and help them deal with their fears about getting sick and working during a pandemic.

“How do you deal with all that? I would say that the backbone of all that was birthed in that classroom, and little did I know 15 years later, it would play out with a global pandemic while I was managing my own show,” he said. “But Fordham made me ready.”

Learning from Your Connections

Besides learning from her professors, Zubi Ahmed, FCRH ’12, a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and host of Kutti Gang, a live comedy show featuring South Asian performers based in Brooklyn, said that learning from her classmates at Fordham really helped her in her professional and personal life.

Ahmed said she met a fellow student through Fordham’s Commuting Students Association who said that he tried to reflect daily on what was happening to him and take notes on it each day. That lesson on the value of reflection and journaling stuck with her, and it became something she did to get through the pandemic.

“I literally just started to reflect on everything that I had gone through— if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have realized how far I had come and how much growth there has been,” she said. “I did have to take therapy, and that helps a lot, but [a lot of]that is realizing what parts of your life do you want to grow in. Reflecting has definitely helped me, and that’s something that I learned from Fordham.”

Taking Advantage of New York

One of the biggest things that impacted Igbinosun’s career was the access that Fordham provided him while in school. As a football player in the business school, Igbinosun said he and some of his teammates decided to take Invitation to Theater as one of their electives. As part of the course, students went to see plays throughout New York City and then discussed them in class.

Seeing King Lear performed at the Classical Theatre of Harlem was life-altering for Igbinosun, who has gone to act in TV shows, such as TNT’s hit show The Last Ship, History Channel miniseries Texas Rising, and Tina Fey’s multicamera comedy pilot The Kicker.

“It was an all-Black cast, and it was the first time in my life that I saw someone who looked like me, a Black man, walk on stage and say, ‘I am king,’” he said. “And I believed them. It was so powerful for me to see those images that instantly I had to stop what I was doing in the business school, and I ran into the theatre program.”

Igbinosun, who graduated with a business degree and theatre minor, said that he immediately began spending countless hours in Walsh Library reading stories and plays by Black authors, while also creating his own works.

“That kindling happened at that time I was at Fordham, where I was vulnerable to receiving ideas and collaborating and thinking of what could be,” he said.

“Community Building in the Time of Binge-Watching” was one of three events in a series titled From Fordham to Your Field. Read about the two other events in this series, “Forge Your Own Path: Creative Career Journeys” and “Caring for Others in a Pandemic.”