An additional 8% are international students. This is the third-largest class ever admitted to Fordham, with more than 2,500 students enrolled as of Monday, Aug. 26.

“With the Class of 2028, Fordham did as it always has done: admitted a group of students whose academic drive and diversity of experience make for an enriching learning environment—one in which all students feel a sense of belonging and support,” said Patricia Peek, Ph.D., associate vice president and dean of undergraduate admission at Fordham.

“It’s wonderful to be able to welcome these students we’ve worked with for such a long time through the admissions process,” she said. “We’re excited to bring them into the Fordham community and to see what they’ll contribute and achieve here.”

A Tradition of Serving First-Generation Students

First-generation students are 27% of the entering class (up from 24% last year), the most in Fordham’s history—a number that resonates with Fordham’s legacy of welcoming students who were first in their families to attend college.

“I’m proud to see that Fordham continues to carry on the legacy of its founder, Archbishop John Hughes, who wanted nothing more than to provide opportunity to struggling Irish immigrants who were unwelcome in the 19th-century school system in New York City, helping them gain a foothold in America,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University.

Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action has created uncertainty in university admissions across the nation, noted John W. Buckley, Fordham’s vice president for undergraduate enrollment.

“This ruling has been unsettling for higher education generally, but Fordham has always pursued strategies that foster diversity at the University,” he said. “A key part of our strategy is recruiting from a wide range of high schools, public and private, to ensure that every entering class comprises the widest possible variety of exceptional students.”

Black and Hispanic students account for nearly 7% and 26% of the incoming class, respectively, he said. The number of students from each group has increased substantially compared with last year’s entering class. The number of Black students is 26% higher, and the number of Hispanic students is 28% higher.

A Diverse Class of Exceptional Students

Other figures attest to the class’s academic strength and diversity:

The class has an average SAT/ACT score of 1404. The average high school GPA was 3.64 on a 4.0 scale.

Students came from 55 countries, 46 states, the District of Columbia, and three U.S. territories. Beyond the tristate area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the three states that sent the most students were California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

Nearly 600 students represent New York City’s five boroughs, including a 32% year-over-year increase in students from the Bronx and an 11% increase in students from Manhattan, boroughs where Fordham’s Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses are located.

Fordham’s international student population also continues to grow year over year. The increase of students coming from Canada and India is notable, Peek said—each country sent twice as many students to Fordham compared to last year.

“We’re thrilled to welcome the Class of 2028!” Buckley said. “We look forward to seeing the impact you make here at Fordham and out in the world.”

High school students and their families seeking to learn more about Fordham are encouraged to connect with the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admission. The University offers numerous opportunities to visit campus or attend virtual information sessions to experience Fordham firsthand.

Note: Data are current as of Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. The final entering class is typically set by late September.

Fordham can’t wait for the Class of 2028! 

On March 15, the admission team shared decisions with applicants, officially inviting future Rams to be part of the Fordham family.

Accepted students were drawn from the nearly 44,000 candidates who applied for Fordham’s full-time undergraduate programs in the 2023-2024 application cycle. With applicants hailing from across the country and around the world, Fordham has one of the largest applicant pools in the nation for private colleges and universities, ranking as high as 15th for the number of applications received in recent years.

“Fordham attracts talented students with a diversity of interests and experiences. Our applicants are leaders, athletes, writers, researchers, advocates, performers, and artists,” said Patricia Peek, dean of undergraduate admission. “They come from a variety of backgrounds and locations. We have a very qualified pool of applicants who would be successful at Fordham.”

A Nationwide Draw

Fordham received applications from students in all 50 states; Washington, D.C.; and Puerto Rico, and has continued to expand its presence beyond the Northeast. While New York still comprised the highest number—more than 13,000 applications this year, including 1,800+ from the Bronx and 2,200+ from Manhattan—many applicants hail from New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas. Peek said Fordham has seen increased growth in Puerto Rico, Illinois, and Louisiana over the past few cycles. 

Students applied from a diverse group of more than 9,000 high schools, including public, private, and Jesuit, to be a part of this year’s class, Peek said.

Global Growth

With students applying from more than 150 countries, the University has seen an 8% increase in its number of international applicants. India, Vietnam, Brazil, Ghana, and Venezuela are a few of the countries where interest in Fordham continues to grow.

Attracting students from around the world who can enrich and be enriched by the Fordham community has been a priority for the University, Peek said. 

“The diverse mix of international and domestic students creates a rich, vibrant campus environment for everyone. Not only are Fordham scholars living and learning in the greatest city in the world—they’re also benefitting from a wealth of perspectives and experiences.”

Talented Applicant Pool

Fordham received applications for nearly every one of its 70+ majors, ranging from biological sciences to journalism, from finance to theatre. About 3,500 students applied as undecided, which allows them to explore their varied interests and develop new skills. 

On average, applicants have a high school grade point average of 3.57, (90+ or A/A-). Peek said that many students have taken challenging courses, such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and honors classes, which the admission team considers as part of its holistic application review. Fordham is test-optional, meaning that students are considered for admission, scholarships, and honors programs whether or not they submit scores. Peek said that academic performance and preparation in high school are always reviewed in the context of the student’s experience and are a core element of the application review.

Greater Interest in Business

While Fordham College at Rose Hill received the most applications overall, with more than 22,000 this year, the Gabelli School of Business programs at Rose Hill and Lincoln Center continued to see an increase in applications, as did Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Supporting Students Amidst FAFSA Delays 

While this year’s financial aid application process has been complicated by the delayed FAFSA, Brian Ghanoo, associate vice president for student financial services, said the University is committed to helping students and their families through the process. 

Because the University uses another financial aid form called the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA, Ghanoo said that they’ve been able to provide families with a preliminary financial aid offer. 

“Fordham is committed to upholding the financial aid offer that you’ve received,” he shared with families. “It may go up, but it should not go down, as long as all of the data on the FAFSA is consistent with the information you provided on the [CSS] Profile.”

Ghanoo noted that the financial aid offer that students receive for the first year is renewable for the remaining three years, as long as students meet the renewal criteria and complete the FAFSA. 

Peek said that both the undergraduate admission and financial aid offices “believe in care of the whole person and work with families and their circumstances individually.” The offices often work together to host joint virtual sessions to help students throughout each stage of the process—from application to admission to enrollment. 

“Both offices interact with students on campus and virtually, and want to help make what is often a stressful process as easy as possible,” she said.

Class of 2028 and Beyond: Looking Ahead to Future Rams

Reviewing applications for the incoming class is just one part of the admission team’s work. Counselors are also actively engaging with prospective high school juniors and sophomores—meeting with them in their schools, at college fairs, or on Fordham’s campuses— as they begin the college search process.

Students interested in learning more about Fordham are invited to visit campus and see what student life is like. There are a variety of opportunities, including tours, information sessions, and fall open houses. Fordham also offers recently expanded pre-college summer programs for high school students interested in challenging themselves and gaining college experience. 

“We’re excited to welcome the Class of 2028 and all our future classes of Rams,” said Peek. 

Learn more about admissions opportunities and how to apply to Fordham. 

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.”

“Being an immigrant myself—first-generation college student, first person in my family to go into medicine—my reasons for going into medicine were always to serve the underserved and people who are marginalized and sometimes don’t have access to care,” said Mendoza, a 2012 graduate of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “And those are particularly the communities that have been struggling a lot during the pandemic.”

In her role as a psychiatrist at Maimonedes Medical Center in Brooklyn, Mendoza has seen how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected immigrant communities. But she’s also seen glimmers of hope, such as more people coming in to treat their mental health needs than before. And she’s drawn on her Fordham education to help serve them.

“I feel like so much of the Jesuit tradition in education is about asking questions rather than having answers, and this has been a time where there are so many more questions than answers,” she said. “So it helps to be more comfortable with the unknown as we kind of navigate through this time.”

Mendoza and four other Fordham alumni who work in health care shared their experiences at “Caring for Others in a Pandemic,” an April 19 online panel discussion hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations in partnership with the Office of Undergraduate Admission. The discussion drew a broad Fordham audience, including newly admitted undergraduate students and their families. The panelists shared five takeaways for how their Fordham education in both the liberal arts and sciences has allowed them to succeed in their fields.

Caring for the Whole Person

Dr. Hussein Safa, FCRH ’12, an attending physician in the immunodeficiency clinic at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, said that one of the Jesuit principles he learned at Fordham, cura personalis, or care of the whole person, is something he practices when working with patients.

“I’m not just thinking about, ‘Here’s your HIV medicine,’ but it’s like, ‘OK, here’s your HIV medicine, but also you’re struggling with food and you have trouble with housing,’” he said, adding that people often need support in dealing with issues beyond their physical ailments. “‘How can we make sure that we take care of this whole person, this holistic approach?’”

Safa, who previously did his residency at Montefiore in the Bronx before working in Philly, said that he has tried to employ cura personalis even in trying times, such as dealing with a crush of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic from March to June 2020.

“And I think that’s part of where the Fordham mantra comes in—you see somebody and you know you have the ability to help and to be in solidarity and to provide whatever services that you can,” he said. “I think a lot of that came from Fordham, trying to be like, ‘How can I be of service?’’’

Safa said that while at Fordham he volunteered with the Center for Community Engaged Learning (formerly the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice), which helped him gain an understanding of the range of needs people have and barriers they face.

“Everything that I’ve done at this point for my career has been based off of what I had learned in my experiences with the Dorothy Day Center and focusing on asking these questions about privilege and access—what does it mean to be underserved or uninsured, and why are people underserved?” he said.

Working with Empathy, in Solidarity with Others

Mendoza, who earned an M.D. from Duke University, conducted research in the Dominican Republic as a graduate student, working with people living in poverty, with limited access to health care. She said she drew upon skills she learned as an undergraduate, both in the classroom and through a Fordham Global Outreach project in Nicaragua.

“It was so much more than a service trip, because there’s a very robust training before you even travel anywhere,” she said of the Fordham program. “It was really helpful to have that background to help me prepare. What does it look like to go somewhere where people are really struggling, and how do you ask these scientific questions in a very empathetic and sensitive way and try to make the work really relevant and really help them?

“It really helped me to think about it in a very well-rounded way, and then … interact with people in a kind, service-oriented way.”

Using Problem-Solving Skills to Handle Difficult Situations

When Dr. Daniel Barone, FCRH ’01, was completing his residency at Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center, he said one of the attending physicians he worked with “didn’t give a compliment to anybody about anything. But he did say this one thing: ‘Anybody who I know who came through here who went to Fordham, they always know how to think.’”

Barone, the associate medical director of the Weill Cornell Center for Sleep Medicine and an attending neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said that line has stuck with him throughout his career, particularly during the pandemic.

“I thought that was a beautiful testament to the University,” he said. “So I think in these situations, these unprecedented times, being able to think outside the box or think a little bit differently than the standard is really important.”

Using Liberal Arts Courses to Improve Scientific Skills

Dr. Ronald A. DePinho, a distinguished university professor and immediate past president of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, moderated the panel discussion. He said there were two essential courses he took at Fordham, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences in 1977.

“For me as a scientist, the most important courses that I took at Fordham were my communications course and English,” he said. “The ability to write and communicate effectively is fundamental to being a good doctor and being a good scientist.”

Christine Schwall-Pecci, a 2009 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill, agreed. She said that when she was an undergraduate, she would talk with her science major friends from other colleges, and she realized that her courses at Fordham put more emphasis on developing strong written and verbal communication skills. Those skills have provided the foundation for her career, said Schwall-Pecci, who went on to earn a Ph.D. in biochemistry and is now the senior medical director for medical strategy and scientific affairs at BGB Group, a health care communications group.

“I think I had a leg up going into grad school and a Ph.D. program with a bunch of scientists who, some of them hadn’t written a lot of papers before and all of a sudden were forced to think about how to communicate what we’re learning,” she said.

“Now in my job, [taking]complicated scientific concepts and bringing them into a language that’s more accessible to different patient groups—it’s really been invaluable to have that kind of skill set in my back pocket,” she said.

She said other courses she took as a part of Fordham’s core curriculum exposed her to perspectives and ways of thinking that have proven useful.

“In taking my core classes, I was opened up to sociology, which is to me kind of the foil of biology, chemistry, the hard sciences—it’s another way of looking at the world around you,” she said. “And I take a lot of those learnings through to what I’m doing now, particularly because I am more involved in thinking about a more public health landscape and what this means across the board for patients and for physicians versus just very specific outcomes for a specific study.”

Developing a Broader Perspective

Mendoza said that one of the biggest benefits of attending Fordham was the fact that she was able to learn more and do more outside of just the sciences.

“[The core] really pays off because you’re thinking about history and how it affects the way people live,” she said. You’re thinking about philosophy and different ways of thinking. Even the courses on religion—there’s so many diverse courses you can take to learn about different religions and to learn about Christianity—and so all of that together I think really inspired me to be very curious about how people live and how people develop.”

For Schwall-Pecci, another benefit of her Fordham education was being encouraged to volunteer and join extracurricular activities that she said might not have been offered at a more technical school.

“Fordham provided that opportunity to become more of a well-rounded person, with more opportunities outside of just focusing on what I primarily wanted to study,” she said. “And that, to me, was a game changer, because while I was interested in science, I didn’t want to close the door on learning other things or having the opportunity to give back or do other extracurricular activities.

“Caring for Others in a Pandemic” 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 “Community Building in the Time of Binge-Watching.”

The April 29 event was the deans’ second forum for alumni on their commitment to furthering the University’s action plan for addressing racism and educating for justice. Fordham announced the plan in June 2020 after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice prompted members of the Fordham community to describe their own experiences of discrimination on campus.

“We’re asking hard questions, addressing proposals that have come forward, and moving forward indeed with hope and confidence into a future … that is marked by greater inclusivity, greater diversity, and greater commitment shared to building a much more just world as we educate for justice and seek to eradicate racism,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, in opening remarks.

Father McShane and the four deans were joined by moderator Valerie Irick Rainford, FCRH ’86, a Fordham trustee who is spearheading anti-racism training efforts within the University, and Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s chief diversity officer.

The panelists spoke of changes underway in the curriculum, recruitment of faculty and students, new programs, and other efforts to embed anti-racism in the University and effect permanent change.

“For students to come here from different backgrounds, it is vitally important that they feel that this institution represents them, that they do not feel like … they are here on sort of sufferance, that they feel that their communities are a part and parcel of what makes Fordham tick, what makes Fordham an excellent place,” said Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Faculty Diversity, Community Connections

Stovall emphasized the importance of forging links between the University and the diverse, vibrant communities surrounding the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. Zapata noted current efforts like a collaboration with the Bronx Book Festival and a speaker series focused on Bronx writers facilitated by faculty. “We are an institution of this wonderful borough, and I think that’s something we need to talk about a little bit more,” he said.

In efforts to diversify the faculty, Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, said 50% of the arts and sciences faculty members recruited to begin this academic year are people of color. In addition, Fordham announced the creation of the Margaret Peil Distinguished Chair in African and African American Studies and is currently recruiting for a newly created postdoctoral fellowship in critical race studies in the sociology and anthropology department, as well as a new position in the English department—a rhetoric specialist—to support the faculty’s work on revising the composition program toward anti-racist learning objectives and pedagogy.

Arts and Sciences also announced the creation of a new affiliate program in African and African American studies to elevate that department’s visibility and foster an interdisciplinary approach to anti-racism, Badowska said. Fifteen faculty members across departments have committed to joining the initiative.

On the point of hiring diverse faculty, Rainford noted that “once you hire those individuals, I think it’s also about inclusion and access.”

Stovall said a newly formed group of Fordham faculty members of color would be meeting soon to discuss diversity among faculty and at the University generally. “I think these leaders are going to have an awful lot to say, and it’s going to be up to us to listen,” he said.

He pointed out the importance of integration, “one of the terms we tend not to talk about.”

“Ultimately, what we are all about in this endeavor is producing an integrated educational experience and ultimately an integrated society,” he said. “Study after study has shown, in despite of people’s fears of integration, that actually integrated education benefits not just students of color but all students, and makes them stronger students.”

“This is a major pathway towards the ultimate goal of Fordham University,” he said.

Zapata said his office is offering a grant program titled Teaching Race Across the Curriculum to help academic departments integrate questions of race within their courses, particularly those that all students take.

“Students want to see themselves in the people that teach them, that they encounter throughout [the University], but they also want to see themselves in the curriculum. They’ve talked a lot about that,” he said.

Expanding Scholarship and Internship Opportunities

Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, pointed to the Office of Undergraduate Admission’s “above-and-beyond” efforts to increase diversity among incoming students. Changes this year include an effort “to appreciate and value a wider range of student experiences in the admissions process,” she said, as well as new events for prospective students of color who would be part of the fall 2021 entering class.

Also important, Auricchio said, is the recently created Trustee Diversity Scholarship Fund, which grew out of a scholarship fund that Rainford founded. “Before we could even announce it, we were starting to get donations,” Rainford said.

A new Cultural Engagement Internships program, funded by Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Fordham College at Rose Hill, has created paid internships that place students with New York nonprofits and cultural organizations that mostly serve communities of color or advance the work of anti-racism. “This opens up the internship opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to afford” to take unpaid internships, Auricchio said.

And diversity in the yearlong Matteo Ricci Seminar for high-achieving students on both campuses has grown by opening it up to all students who want to apply, rather than relying on a select pool of students recommended by faculty, she said; she also cited the importance of bringing on Assistant Dean Mica McKnight, a woman of color, as co-leader for the Fordham College at Lincoln Center program.

Supporting Students

In other efforts on the undergraduate level, Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, said administrators on both campuses are developing a program to support first-generation students—61% of whom are students of color—and their families as the students navigate college life. At Rose Hill, the college is expanding access to undergraduate research opportunities by developing a one-credit course on the ins and outs of conducting research, such as developing a proposal and finding a mentor, Mast said.

“It’s … so important that we intentionally support students as they are and who they are, when they get to Fordham and when they’re at Fordham—that we are transparent and effective in this work,” she said.

In a culmination of longstanding efforts to increase diversity in the college’s Honors Program, 60% of students offered admission this year are either BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or people of color) or first-generation students, Mast said.

The University has also secured a planning grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to join a national learning community aimed at building capacity for developing inclusive, equitable, anti-racist approaches to STEM education—in first-year “gateway” courses, in particular—to support students who are underrepresented in these fields, she said.

The panelists took questions, including one about why the University doesn’t have an Asian American studies program with a major and minor offered. Badowska said she had met with members of the faculty—which would have to propose any new program, according to University statutes—about surveying the existing classes and resources to see what might be offered immediately while they work on developing a program.

“It is the curriculum that reveals who we are, and it is our academic programs that say we’re an anti-racist university or we are not an anti-racist university,” she said. “So that’s one of the reasons why an Asian American studies program is so critical for us to develop at this moment.”

Eradicating Racism

In response to another question—“Do you really believe that racism can be eradicated at Fordham?”—Rainford spoke of a long-term effort.

“There are some that still believe that racism doesn’t exist,” said Rainford, who is Black. “But the fact of the matter is, it’s in the fabric of everything in the country.”

“It will take time and effort, and we will not eradicate racism in our lifetime, but we certainly can help advance racial equity,” such as through the efforts the deans described, she said.

Zapata responded, “It’s going to take courage, the courage to … listen to the experiences of people who don’t always feel they have a chance to voice their experiences.”

Stovall said, “We currently live in a world where scientists are literally talking about creating human immortality in less than a century. So in that kind of world, I think all sorts of things are possible, including eradicating racism.”

Hurdles to Surmount

Asked about obstacles the University faces, Mast mentioned funding—for staffing, on-campus housing, and financial aid, for instance.

Badowska spoke of the challenges that would be inherent in changing the University’s culture to a point where everyone in the arts and sciences community would possess the five competencies that the deans have proposed:

• Knowledge about racism, white privilege, and related topics;
• Self-knowledge and a commitment to self-work and continuous learning in these areas;
• Commitment to disrupting microaggressions and racist dynamics in the classroom, the workplace, and beyond;
• Commitment to systemic change through examining policies and practices to make sure they support racial equity; and
• Reimagined community and allyship, or a capacity to form equitable partnerships and alliances across racial lines.

“We know that we have a long road before we can say that everyone has these five capacities, but we’ve identified them,” she said.

The event drew 64 attendees, nearly all of whom stayed nearly a half-hour beyond the event’s one-hour allotted time.

“That, I think, shows the great hunger and thirst that the people of Fordham have for this great work that we’re about together,” Father McShane said. “One of the things we have to remind ourselves is that this is a beginning, and that’s an important observation and an important thing for us to own. We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are up for it and will keep at it.”

The hourlong discussion, hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations in partnership with the Office of Undergraduate Admission, drew a broad Fordham audience, including newly admitted undergraduate students and their families. Each of the five alumni participants spoke about their reasons for choosing Fordham and how their college experiences, on campus and in New York City, have shaped their lives and helped them adapt and thrive amid the tumult of the past year.

Here are some of their stories and pieces of advice for incoming students.

James Olearchik: A Fordham Education Inspires People for Others

For the past 17 years, James Olearchik, a 1999 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate, has worked in the New York Department of Education. He’s currently the director for restorative justice in Brooklyn and Queens, where he works with students and teachers to de-emphasize traditional punitive discipline and help build social-emotional learning skills, such as conflict resolution, emotion identification, and problem solving.

Olearchik said that his Fordham education was crucial to helping him adjust to the challenges of the pandemic at work.

“It saved me and helped me get through the past year. There became this need very quickly to take care of people—people [who worked in the school system]  were just melting down. And so my team and I were like, ‘How can we help?’”

He said they developed new training programs for staff members, and he ran a recreation center for children of those working on the front lines of the pandemic.

“I just made sure that what we were doing had an impact, and that all ties back to this [Fordham Jesuit]  idea of [being]  men and women for others that I’ve really proudly carried around for the last 20-plus years, because it just makes you feel like your work means something when you are helping others.”

A Connecticut native, he recalled exploring New York City museums as an undergraduate and said to this day, the city still feels like his classroom. He encouraged incoming students to “take advantage of everything that comes at you.”

“If there is a lecture, go to it. If there’s a club, join it. Go see that show. There’s always cheap tickets,” he said. “So just go.”

Meggan Schilkie: From Theater Directing to Health Care Advocacy and Management

Meggan Schilkie enrolled at Fordham with dreams of someday working in theater, but during her senior year, the events of 9/11 prompted her to change course to nonprofit work.

“I shifted from political theater to political advocacy, and I decided there were other ways I could continue to give back to the community and … advocate for better rights for people living with mental illness and [for people to have]  better access to health care,” said Schilkie, a 2002 Fordham College at Lincoln Center graduate who is now a regional vice president at Health Management Associates.

After the September 11 attacks, she recognized “the deep repair and recovery and support that community members needed,” she said. She was already working a part-time job at a behavioral health agency, and her Fordham education gave her the tools to pursue that full time.

“What Fordham offered me was this combination of academic rigor and a fantastic theater program—so many schools had one or the other. You could get a great honors program or have a great academic program, but then the arts were not as emphasized or vice versa, and Fordham had both, and that was really what I was looking for.”

In Schilkie’s current role, she oversees more than 60 consultants, and she relies on the skills she learned in her theater production course.

“Being a theater directing major was one of the best trainings for management … that you could possibly imagine,” she said.

“As a directing student, you were really given this charge of … interpreting complex systems and … putting together a team of people as diverse as lighting designers and actors and prop masters and costume developers, and really leading a team and helping them to achieve something. And when that curtain went up, you’d better have … that beautiful production developed.”

Brandon Kim: Using Business as a ‘Vehicle for Good’

Brandon Kim said one of the best decisions he made was becoming a philosophy major. The 2015 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate said the critical thinking and writing skills he developed as an undergraduate help him run Brevite, the direct-to-consumer backpack company he started with his brothers.

“I ended up choosing to get a degree in philosophy instead of something that’s more vocational, because it was the one moment where I felt that my mind was truly expanding, where I was learning how to think rather than just learning how to do,” he said.

“The whole pandemic forced us to really think critically. And so, you know, I attribute my education [in]  philosophy to allowing me to think a little more clearly during that time, to really be significantly scrappier, to do more with less.”

Taking his company’s success and using it to help others, such as donating backpacks to those who are homeless, is something else Kim attributed to his Fordham education and his work at the Fordham Foundry.

“We look at business not just as a vehicle for profit but as a vehicle for good, a vehicle where we can have purpose and continue to have broader reach than we would have ever had as individuals,” he said.

Kim said that he and his brothers try to “just keep moving,” which is something that he encouraged the incoming students to do as well.

“Keep pushing down a path. Keep figuring it out. It doesn’t matter what you end up doing, because you’ll eventually reach the right place.”

Jessica Morales: “It’s What You Learn for Life Skills”

When Jessica Morales started at Fordham, she had already been working in the U.S. district attorney’s office since she was 16 years old. Fordham Law School’s reputation had put the University on her radar, she said, but it was advice from her mentor who pushed her to apply to Fordham.

“The education that I received at Fordham was so well-rounded and helped me in so many avenues personally and [with]  difficulties in life and in my career that I had to overcome,” she said. “You end up being so flexible and adaptable because the education is so well-rounded, from philosophy to theology to business courses.”

Morales, who graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1997, said the University was “ahead of [the]  curve … in terms of not only what we learned in our curriculum but even volunteering outside in our communities.”

“It’s all of these attributes,” she said, “not just learning what you learn at Fordham; it’s what you learn for life skills.”

She said a Fordham course called Death and Dying helped her develop those skills—skills she has drawn on as the founder of Be You Bloom, where she works to help organizations create a positive culture, and to cope with the loss of her mother and brother.

“I took [that course]  because I was so fearful of it,” she said, stating that as part of the course she began volunteering at Calvary Hospital, a hospice and palliative care facility in the Bronx. “And it taught me not to fear death. It taught me that I could walk with people who were ill or terminally ill.”

Jake Braithwaite, S.J.: From Finance to the Society of Jesus

Soon after graduating from Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business in 2011, Jake Braithwaite began to work in finance on Wall Street. But after a few years, he felt that wasn’t right for him, so he returned to Fordham to work in alumni relations. Soon after earning a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2015, he left to join the Jesuits.

“I studied finance, and I’m obviously now very far from the world of finance,” said Braithwaite, a teacher at Brooklyn Jesuit Prep who is in his sixth year as a Jesuit seminarian with five more to go before he is ordained. “But one of the things I often joke about with my Jesuit friends is one of my favorite jobs [as a student]at Fordham was [as]  an athletics tutor. And now I still teach math.”

Despite his business major, Braithwaite always had a passion for theater, so he ended up taking a performance course, which he said helps him still to this day.

“Some of the stuff I learned in that class [was]  about human emotion—because when you’re singing a song on stage, you have to know what the emotion is, what people are feeling, and be able to interpret [it]  when [you]  watch [your]  classmates. And I use [that]now in my ministry as a seminarian,” he said. “I’m really able to tap into people’s emotions. So I certainly didn’t expect it at the time, but it has proved super valuable.”

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