“Navigating the independence and autonomy that comes with being away at school can be difficult,” says Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services (CPS) at Fordham. “There’s a whole set of stressors students might experience, such as homesickness, academic pressure, financial demands, and anxiety related to developing new relationships and fitting in.”

Simply put, being a college student today isn’t easy—and there are statistics to back it up: A 2018 American College Health Association study revealed that more than 87% of college students surveyed felt overwhelmed by all they have to do. And more than 40% reported that they were so stressed, it was difficult to function.

“Increasingly, more students arriving on campus have a tendency toward perfectionism,” Ng says. “We have to deconstruct that. It is part of the human experience to err and be fallible. The idea of letting go of perfectionism is really important.”

In addition, Ng adds, overly involved parenting and the pervasiveness of social media and technology are contributing to the rise in anxiety and depression on college campuses nationwide.

So what can parents do to help their children make a smooth, healthy transition and thrive in college?

Talk about what to expect.

Fordham’s orientation programs are designed to help students (and parents) as they make the adjustment to college and a more independent life. But you can also help your student imagine ways they might cope with some of the typical stresses of their first year by talking to them even before they get on campus, Father Marcotte says. These might be practical chats about doing their own laundry or keeping their room or suite clean, or deeper conversations about emotional vulnerabilities like feeling lonely or being disappointed about a test grade.

“We want them to feel that they are the agent of this process and that they are ready to face what’s going to come down the road,” he says. Discuss the fact that it’s normal to feel vulnerable at different times in life and that it’s healthy to seek out support, Ng adds. “Parents can help students identify what resources are available and how to access them if they should ever need help working through an issue.”

Encourage your student to get involved.

One of the most common challenges first-year students face is finding new peer groups and making friends. They also might get so wrapped up in academics that they forget the importance of human connection, play, and downtime.

“Studies show that students who become engaged on campus are usually more successful than those who don’t,” Ng says. So whether your child is into sports, music, journalism, or something else, encourage them to seek out clubs and activities where they can do what they enjoy while building a new social network. An easy way to do this is at the club fairs at the beginning of each semester, so remind them to attend.

Advise them to put social media in its place.

The overuse of technology and social media has been linked to mental health issues, Ng says. It interferes with essential human relationships and can foster low self-esteem by exposing young people to curated versions of other people’s lives.

“They are constantly comparing themselves,” Ng says. “We encourage our students to be more intentional, thoughtful, and discerning about how they perceive and relate to social media,” he adds, something parents should cultivate, too.

Remind them to be kind to themselves.

When students encounter the pitfalls and unexpected obstacles everyone experiences in adulthood, help them adopt a “growth mindset,” Father Marcotte says.

“The best way to build resilience is to see everything from a growth perspective. Even failures, disappointments, and losses hold within them important lessons that teach us how to go forward in a better way,” he adds. Encourage your student to focus on what they can learn from difficult experiences. Practicing generosity and meditation, Father Marcotte says, are other ways to build inner strength and “enlarge the soul.”

Finally, Ng emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and self-care, advising students to remember the basics: exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Fordham’s on-campus fitness centers and registered dietitians can help them get what they need.

Let go and trust them.

By the time your student arrives at college, they already have a moral compass that you have helped build over the years. “We have to trust that,” Ng says. “I know it’s hard to do, but it’s part of letting go.”

Father Marcotte agrees. “Parents need to see that their work is to help their children into ‘interdependence,’ where they remain connected, but the child has the ability to act on his or her own and become a full adult. This is the season for that to begin.”

—Claire Curry

Fordham’s deans of students are always available to talk to parents. If you need advice or would like to schedule a private meeting about any concerns, please reach out to them.

For more information about on-campus resources for students, check out the Quick Links for Parents section of the Fordham website.

It was a gloriously sunny New York day that greeted new students and their parents on both campuses for Fordham’s Opening Day on Aug. 25. Unseasonably cool and with no humidity, it prompted Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, to joke with students that “this is the way it is all the time.”

In welcoming remarks made between the actual move-in and getting-to-know-you exercises, Father McShane doled out practical advice alongside words of encouragement and comfort. For parents, he said, it’s natural to “ping pong between pride and panic.”

“You are dealing with the reality of saying goodbye to an adolescent who has already become an adult and who remains the joy of your heart and the pride of your life,” he said to the parents.

To the students, he said the University has been preparing for their arrival for 178 years, since the first class arrived on June 24, 1841. With 47,871 students applying for just 2,273 seats in the Class of 2023, this year’s first-year students are a far cry from their 18th-century brethren. They come from more than 50 countries with a mean test score of 1355 and a mean GPA of 3.64. Seventy-eight percent were in the top 25% of their high school class.

Father McShane told them that a world-class faculty who have never lost their love of the classroom awaits them. He added that their professors will “never insult them with low expectations.” And while he was on the theme of expectations, he said much would be expected from them, too. Referencing scripture, he said, “Of those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

An Early Start in the Bronx

As early as 7:30 a.m., new students and their families began rolling onto the Rose Hill campus. One family drove across more than five states to reach their daughter’s new home. They arrived to cheers from their fellow Rams and bottles of water being handed out by Father McShane.

“We drove from Mississippi, which is about a 21-hour drive,” said Noelle King, a first-year student whose family rented a minivan and drove from Wiggins, Mississippi, to move her into the residence hall, Queens Court Residential College. “We broke it up into three days.”

Other students had already settled into their residence halls a few days before. Angela Payne from Fort Worth, Texas, was among the first-year undergraduate students who participated in Urban Plunge, a pre-orientation volunteer program that introduces students to the Bronx community. Payne said she and her new peers spent time uprooting invasive species at the New York Botanical Garden, where they learned how much work goes into maintaining a public space. They also embarked on a hip-hop history tour in the Bronx. And the night before, she tried tacos at the Bronx Night Market and took the subway to Koreatown in Manhattan, where she bought boba tea.

“I got to learn about the Bronx, its history, and Fordham’s place in the Bronx,” she said, perched atop her new bed in Loyola Hall.

So did Francis Brown, a first-year student from Connecticut who plans on studying finance in the Gabelli School of Business.

“People talk about Arthur Avenue and the Botanical Garden, but they haven’t really explored the Bronx and interacted with the people who live there,” said Brown, who lives in Queens Court. “That was really special for me.”

The day was also special for first-year students who, after months of texts and emails, finally met their roommates in person, like Noah Kennedy and Ahan Dhar. Kennedy is a Connecticut native who plans on studying environmental studies; Dhar is a communication and culture student who was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands and raised in India. They soon discovered that they shared something identical—their navy blue towels from Bed Bath & Beyond.

“We ended up buying very similar bedding and exactly the same towels,” Kennedy said with a sheepish grin.

“By pure coincidence,” Dhar chimed in.

Kennedy also shares a special history with the University. His grandparents, who are Fordham alumni, were expecting their first child—his mother, Lea Graner Kennedy—during their first year of college. On the day of her final exam, she went into labor.

“Lo and behold, she failed her first and only exam because her water broke during the exam,” said Lea, who was born at Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx.

A few floors up from the Kennedy family were the Schmidts from North Carolina, moving in their daughter Jordan Schmidt. Her parents, Bill and Laurie, had already dropped off her twin sister in Boston. Today was Jordan’s turn.

“School [is your]first [priority], right?” said Bill, giving his daughter advice for the next four years.

“Yeah,” echoed Jordan. “Go to class.”

“Stay safe. Make good choices,” Laurie said.

“The most important thing, though—have fun,” said Jordan’s father. “This is going to be the best four years of your life.”

Later that evening, a candle-lighting ceremony and carnival rides on campus provided plenty of opportunities for the fun and memory-making to begin.

Living Up High at Lincoln Center

At Lincoln Center, 60th and 62nd Streets were closed to traffic so that families could pull up McKeon and McMahon Halls with ease. Like the Bronx, the newcomers were greeted by their fellow students with raucous cheers and bottles of water. The newcomers were told that they didn’t have to lift a finger—the student volunteers brought all their belongings to their rooms. It was a gesture that put many a parent at ease. Sonya Jefferson of Dallas said it made all the difference.

“The student welcome eased all the tension and made it easy for me to relax,” said Jefferson, whose daughter Miah hopes to major in screenwriting at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC).

After serving in the Navy for 23 years, Sonya said she had only been separated from her daughter once, when she was deployed to Guantanamo Bay. After moving around a bit, they settled back in her hometown of Dallas.

“It’s bittersweet; there’s a fear of the unknown,” she said. “I’ve never left my baby except for when I was deployed to Cuba.”

Down the hall, Griffin Harrington chose a bed near a window overlooking the Metropolitan Opera. He said that he’d been to campus several times before to see his sister McKenna perform plays with the Theatre Program and even stayed in the residence halls one summer when he went to The School of the New York Times, which rents space on campus each year. He said that the decision to come to Fordham wasn’t a clear one at first.

“I came to see the campus partly to humor my sister, but Gabelli [School of Business] ended up being the obvious choice for me,” he said, as his mother Lisa hung hangers in his new closet.

With two students at Fordham, Lisa said she and her husband were now empty nesters. The two will be taking a well-deserved vacation to Montreal and Lake Placid, she said. But she’ll be back to visit soon enough.

“We’re excited to come back and see the Fordham shows, we’ve never missed a show,” she said.

Outside of McMahon Hall, Mukund and Arti Kshirsagar waited by their car for their daughter Srushthi to register and begin to move in. Arti said that she was glad that as a Gabelli global business student, her daughter would be exposed to an international business community in New York. The couple came to the United States from India for their education and stayed on to raise their family in Maryland.

“Now this is home,” said Mukund of life in the U.S.

Meanwhile, downstairs outside of the Ram Café, Patricia Gillespi waited in line to rent a locker for her son Andre, a commuter from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. A born and bred New Yorker, Andre went to the Loyola School and Manhattan School of Music.

Mother and son live not far from the Carlyle, where Andre’s father headlined as a pianist before he passed away in 2017. Andre credits his dad for his musical talent and said that he felt he could have gone to gone one of the prestigious music schools in the city.

“Jazz and classical are literally in my blood,” he said.

But he only applied to one school—Fordham. His mother said he made the decision after a campus visit when he was a sophomore in high school. While he expects to major in music, he said he wanted to come to Fordham so that he could have a broad-based education with an opportunity to shift focus should he choose.

“I chose one school, and I got in to that one school,” he said, as his mother beamed a smile.

— Story co-author: Tom Stoelker
— Video by Dianna Ekins, Dan Carlson, and Elizabeth Houston

“There’s enough knowledge of what causes cancer right now that, if simply applied, could reduce it up to 50%,” says DePinho, co-founder and chairman of Unite to Prevent Cancer (UTPC), a group of health innovators and social entrepreneurs who aim to bridge the gap between knowing and doing to make cancer prevention a reality.

“By bringing together an uncommon table of stakeholders—legislators, technology or pharmaceutical companies, academic organizations, care delivery systems, et cetera—and taking a targeted approach,” he says, “we can reduce the incidence of cancer relating to specific instigators.”

Engaging a New Generation in the Fight Against Cancer

DePinho, who was born and raised in the Bronx, previously served as a scientific director at Dana-Farber Cancer Center; as a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at Harvard; and as president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he is currently a distinguished professor in the cancer biology department. It was there that he spearheaded the launch of the Moon Shots Program, an effort to accelerate the conversion of scientific research into lifesaving cancer treatments.

UTPC’s efforts are a little different, he says. Beyond the preventative focus, the organization’s work is largely aimed at young people—like the effort to raise the age of tobacco purchase to 21, or the push to vaccinate children for HPV. Many of the best ways to prevent cancer in adulthood involve taking action in childhood and adolescence, says DePinho. Which is why UTPC is working to engage young people, their families, and communities.

“Just as what happened with traffic safety or recycling, we want to engage and mobilize that part of society to help drive cultural transformation,” DePinho explains. This kind of work, he says, can save trillions of dollars and millions of lives.

That’s why he was so excited to find that his daughter Alexis had written a paper on the importance of vaccinations for her high school U.S. Government and Politics class. DePinho saw the impact his daughter’s voice could have with her peers, and encouraged her to submit the paper to a Houston magazine, which published the article with an introduction from DePinho. “As a nation,” he wrote, “we must address vaccination and protect our youth—it is a childcare responsibility. But don’t take it from me—take it from an 18-year-old whose future is at stake.”

DePinho says he’s always been “careful not to influence Alexis one way or another” when it comes to academic pursuits, including her choice of college.  But when she finally chose to attend Fordham in the fall, he was “over the moon” about it.

Deep Fordham Roots

The family’s connection to Fordham began years earlier, with DePinho’s father, Alvaro, a Portuguese immigrant who stowed away on a ship bound for the United States. Alexis knows the story by heart.

“My dad and all his siblings tell it all the time,” she says. “When he first arrived in the Bronx and was looking for work, my grandfather lived in an abandoned building across the street from Fordham. And he used to tell himself that he would be able to send his kids there one day.”

Alvaro went on to own a real estate and construction company, and he sent his children to Fordham: DePinho graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1977, his sister Helen from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1976, and his sister Ester from the Graduate School of Education on the Lincoln Center campus in 1974. All three lived at home and commuted to campus each day.

“My father was extremely generous and altruistic; he supported many in need,” DePinho says. “The core values I was taught at home in terms of respect and service to others were a framework that my Fordham education built upon. It gave me an opportunity to see a path forward, where I can live a life that’s full of service and societal impact.”

Alexis says she didn’t necessarily expect to follow in her father’s college footsteps. She first became intrigued by Fordham in 2017, when she met other alumni at a Houston Presidential Reception her father hosted with the Office of Alumni Relations. But it wasn’t until she attended a summer program at the Lincoln Center campus in 2018 that she could see herself as a Fordham student.

With interests ranging from journalism and political science to math and physics, she’s especially attracted to the University’s broad foundation in the liberal arts and sciences. “I can’t reduce all my interests to one category yet,” she says. And though she knows she’s extending a family tradition, she says she’s also glad she’ll be living and studying at the Lincoln Center campus so she can create her own Fordham path: “I know I’ll have my own experience.”

DePinho is looking forward to helping her move into McKeon Hall on August 25 and begin her Fordham studies. “I think it will be an interesting journey for her,” he says.

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?
Reducing pain and suffering from cancer. Getting my medical training, establishing a laboratory, and earning accolades for the scientific impact of my research was on one level very gratifying. But what felt quite empty was the fact that all of that knowledge did very little for my dad, who was suffering and ultimately died from colon cancer in 1998. That was a turning point for me, where I started to ask about everything: “Can this knowledge be applied through medicine, diagnostics, or policy?”

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My father told me, and also showed me, that you should serve others before you serve yourself. And that has really dominated my entire life and all my pursuits.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
In New York City, it’s Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, of course. I’ve always loved the feeling I get when I get there. It gives me a sense of renewed energy and inner peace.

In the world, I would say Jerusalem and Rome, because of their historic and cultural importance—for different reasons—in modern history. I am a student of history, and I often reflect on major turning points, and I think those two cities have really shaped the modern world like no other. 

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
The Bible. I think it speaks the truth of what it is to be a good person. In fact, as a scientist, when you look at the magnitude of the universe and the many forces that exist for which we have no explanation at this point, that awe just makes you feel like there is a higher power that operates to create and maintain this incredible universe.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I would say that there has been a village that supported my development and has inspired me in many, many different ways. More recently, Father McShane’s leadership of the Fordham community inspires me.

Father Daniel Sullivan really catalyzed and inspired my pursuit of biology. Ruth Witkus, who was chair of the department at the time, gave me career advice and helped me understand that medicine and science were intimately linked and important.

And I would say Dr. James Forbes, who taught a course known as Chordate Morphogenesis, which instilled fear into all pre-med students. He subscribed to the notion that pressure makes diamonds. I learned so much that helped me throughout medical school and my medical training; he really formed the foundation for my understanding of anatomy and physiology. But what was really impressive about him was that he never made you feel like you knew what you needed to know. I remember once I was able to answer one of his questions in class almost verbatim from the textbook, because I was a very compulsive student and had memorized it. And he said, “That’s very good, DePinho, but what page was that on?”

He was pretty intense, but he did it in a respectful way. With him you not only had to be on your best game, you had to exceed it.

These were among the 161 projects presented at the twelfth annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rose Hill on April 10. The symposium was part of Fordham’s first-ever Undergraduate Research Week, which celebrates undergrad research at Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and the Gabelli School of Business.

Fordham College at Rose Hill

The Rose Hill symposium marked a milestone in Fordham history. Since the University’s first symposium in 2007, students have co-authored more than 100 publications with faculty mentors. More than 150 students are first or second authors on non-Fordham conference presentations. And their research has made its way to conferences across the U.S. and beyond, as far as France, Germany, and Spain.

“This symposium started 12 years ago, and it was pretty small, according to my archival records—about 30 presentations, mostly in the sciences,” said Maura Mast, dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, addressing the students, faculty mentors, administrators, and guests on the second floor of the McGinley Center. “As you can see, we’ve grown quite a bit.”

Through oral presentations and glossy research posters, this year’s symposium showcased the work of more than 300 undergraduate students across disciplines.

“You’ll learn about crystal structures, the effects of pollution, and how cortical vision changes with age,” Dean Mast said. “But you’ll also learn about the relationship between linguistics and music, the fascist aesthetic in Italian films, and how the theme of justice appears in Shakespeare’s plays.” 

Does An Internship Lead to a Post-Graduation Job?

Kirsten Anastasio, FCRH ’19, weighed the value of having a college internship. Her main question: “What is the likelihood of getting hired [after graduation], given that you have internship experience vs. not having internship experience?”

“I was driven to conduct this research because of the inequities that exist in the market for undergraduate internships,” she said. “As many internships are unpaid or even require one to pay for college credit to pursue, there is an incredible barrier to entry for lower-income students.”

To find out, Anastasio and her colleagues created more than 1,400 fake resumes for 2018 graduates applying to summer and fall positions based in New York City. Each resume pair was virtually identical. However, only one had internship experience; the other had campus-related experience.

Every pair was then submitted to the same, real-life job application. In total, Anastasio’s team applied to more than 700 jobs. Then they waited to see which resumes received call-back interviews.

They found that those with internship experience were more likely to receive a call-back than those who didn’t. However, their results also varied by job industry. In the finance sector, resumes with internship experience received call-backs 6.3 percent more than those without. But in the human resources and marketing industries, those numbers were 2.4 and 2.8 percent, respectively.

“Our results, though preliminary, point to the fact that not all industries place a greater value on internship experience than on-campus/extracurricular work,” said Anastasio, who plans on pursuing her Ph.D. in economics. “There are many opportunities to advance oneself personally and professionally while in college.”

Which Skills Lead to Higher Productivity in College Students?

Itunu Ademoyo, FCRH ’19, wanted to pinpoint which skills predict better productivity in the workplace. There are two types of skills: “cold skills,” which involve planning and working memory, or “hot skills,” which involve emotional perception, sympathy, and social connection, she said.

She and her partner Natasha Chaku, GSAS ’20, asked 30 Fordham students to complete online games and a survey, which evaluated their mental skill set. After analyzing the students’ results, Ademoyo found that cold skills, which are linked to academic achievement and success, predicted higher productivity.

She said that these tests could be a handy tool for employers across disciplines.

“[The goal is] being able to help employers figure out what helps employees have a more productive day or what makes them work more effectively,” said Ademoyo, a psychology major and member of the Rose Hill Honors Program who plans on applying to consulting jobs this summer. “So having this series of tasks for them to perform will help employers figure out what makes each employee more productive in a given work setting.”

Powering the Future with Fuel Cells

William Beatrez, FCRH ’19, is helping to develop more efficient fuel cells for cars—cells that are good enough to make renewable energy a viable way of powering vehicles, rather than nonrenewable resources.

Beatrez is a chemistry major whose research focuses on nanotechnology and renewable energy. Through a collaboration between Fordham and the University of Connecticut, he and his team have synthesized a new type of catalyst, he said. Catalysts are microscopic substances that speed up chemical reactions. Normally, they aren’t hollow. But Beatrez and his team decided to do something different.

“We bore a hole in it so that it’s more effective in doing the reactions that it’s supposed to do,” Beatrez said. “It’s more effective because [now]there’s more surface area. Catalysts are all about high-surface areas.”

These catalysts are present in fuel cells. And the faster the catalyst, the more efficient a fuel cell can be.

“Renewable energy is viable,” said Beatrez, who will study catalysts this summer as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “We just need to get the science right.”

Lauren Beglin, FCRH ’19, delivered one of the 39 oral presentations at the symposium. She spoke about her research with dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells—devices that can convert sunlight into chemical energy.

“Think solar panels, but instead of generating electricity, they generate chemical compounds,” said Beglin, an environmental science major and chemistry minor.

These compounds can be used for fuel cells, a type of cell that can cleanly produce electricity, water, and heat. The only problem, said Beglin, is these cells are expensive and difficult to produce on a widespread scale. Her research aims to increase their efficiency.

Just two weeks ago, Beglin’s team made their first batch of devices in the lab. Beglin, a graduating senior, won’t be able to watch her project grow. She recently accepted a teacher-in-residence position with Achievement First Public Charter Schools and will be working toward becoming a high school chemistry teacher. But her team has recruited a student to continue her work.

“I’m looking forward to passing on my project to the next generation,” Beglin said.

Fordham College at Lincoln Center

With 38 presentations filling Platt Court and more than a dozen performers and artists spread out through galleries in Lowenstein, plus a makeshift dance studio downstairs, Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s annual Arts and Research Showcase highlighted student research on a wide variety of topics. Dubbed ARS Nova, the event featured poster presentations on biology, history, chemistry, and psychology as well as choreography, painting, and acting.

In Unrequited Research, Student Finds a Calling

For senior Katrina Arutunyan, who was participating in the ARS Nova undergraduate research fair at Fordham College at Lincoln Center on April 11, her research didn’t pan out as she had hoped. Arutunyan, an art history major, was examining the Round City of Baghdad, which was built in the 8th century and resembles a spoked wheel with the caliph’s palace at the center surrounded by a swath of empty space.

“I was interested in the fact that there was such a concentration of power surrounded by vast empty space. The plan reminded me of an astrolabe, which is an astronomical instrument,” said Arutunyan. “The fact that the caliph Al-Mansur, who established the city, was very into astronomy and into geometry, led me to believe that maybe there was some cosmological symbolism going on in the design.”

Arutunyan interns at the Islamic Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She worked her contacts and they helped her find additional sources. She tapped into the Aga Khan Documentation Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she connected with expert resource librarians. She eventually concluded that the design had more to do with defense purposes than the stars, even though she found that the caliph had consulted several astronomers before building the city.

“When I first read that, I got really excited, because I thought I was about to get proven right, but really, the astronomers were more for what were called electional horoscopes, which basically calculates the best day for you to do something with a big event, like the establishment of the city,” she said.

She continued to dig, and found similar designs in the Firuzabad Plain of Iran, in a city called Gur. There too, defense was the central design component.

With funding coming in from the Fordham Undergraduate Research Grant, Arutunyan said she felt she “wasted Fordham’s money.” But her adviser, Maria Ruvoldt, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of art history, told her that it was quite the opposite.

“My adviser basically told me this happens all the time, especially in art history and especially with cases of something that is so old that we barely have any documentation on,” she said.

Arutunyan said the experience has only whet her appetite to find work in museum administration.

“I definitely went into this research with a holistic point of view because, I was kind of grasping at the air, trying to find non-concrete things and making them into something concrete,” she said. “But in the end, I found there are other areas of art history that I’m really really obsessed with and though I probably don’t see myself going into research, I definitely want to work in museums.”

Through Theater, Student Meets Grandfather He Never Knew

Senior James Kenna took a familial approach to his project, titled Italian Rose. The theatre major’s research combined a solo show and an educational workshop. The project sprung from a need he saw as a teaching artist in public schools that are cutting back on the arts.  

“As artists, the impetus is on us to keep arts education going and provide the next generation of artists with the tools that they need,” he said.

The show, which is about his grandfather Harry, who he never knew, was created through a series of interviews with family members. He traveled back to his high school alma mater in central New Jersey to perform the piece, offer a workshop, and show students how it was created.

“I demonstrate that this is a creative process, then I get into the assembly, and show them tools that I actually used in my process of writing the show,” he said. “I’m showing students that the creative cycle doesn’t have to be as endless and as impossible as it seems. Then I give them really concrete strategies if they want to write a play or do a movie, but also writing their own papers.”

Even with concrete strategies in place, Kenna said the project took some unexpected turns. In interviews with his Italian American family, he began to get the sense that some family had dealings with the mafia.

“I think it was probably the brother figure, the older brother is the one who was involved,” Kenna said of his great uncle. “He left New Jersey at some point to go to Arizona. It happened all very fast. There’s a lot of questions about why that happened. Harry stayed home.”

In the play, he plays all the characters, including the grandfather he never met, and whom family members say he looks like. He also plays his great Aunt Rose, who provided him with the richest material.  

“In our interview, she had a moment where she paused and it got emotional for her,” he said. “She got up and found some journals where she had written down memories.”  

The two poured over the journals and black and white photos as his aunt reminisced.

“She’s an amazing person. It was therapeutic. I never met my grandfather. And I’ve heard so much about him. So, it’s interesting, now I feel like I know him.”

Making a Magazine

When junior Emma Childs was in high school, she created a magazine called Childs Play. At Fordham, she honed her publishing skills by majoring in new media and digital design. That, plus a Fordham Research Grant, allowed her to realize her high school dreams in print and online with a website.

“The grant enabled me to print, commission photographers and models, set up the website, and allocate funds for sets and production,” said Childs.   

Childs said the focus of the magazine is for “female identifying individuals,” and takes on meaty subjects with titles like, “Conversations on Privilege.”

“We discussed how privilege plays into their lives, whether it’s with race, social media, women’s health, menstrual health, and then whether they’re privileged or a victim of the systematic oppression,” she said.

Childs called herself a one-person team, so she had to create deadlines and make sure they were met.

“It required me to stay on top of things, and it was a healthy pressure for me,” she said. “So, it is online too, but with print, I had got through a lengthy process of checking and double checking. A friend who is training to be an editor looked it over as well.”

She said that she was very happy to be able to use whichever media she finds best to address a subject.

“I personally always want text, because a big part of how I process things is through reading, but sometimes a photo or video is all you need,” she said.

Gabelli School of Business

On the same day as the Rose Hill symposium, the Gabelli School of Business hosted its eighth undergraduate business research conference, where students shared their original findings.

Does Market Competition Lead to Accounting Fraud?  

John Lichtmann, a senior at the Gabelli School of Business, wanted to know if market competition could predict a company’s likeliness to commit fraud.

“If there’s too much competition, perhaps that’ll incentivize fraud. Since there’s such a small market and a lot of people fighting over that market, it seems harder for someone to get better because you’re kinda stuck where you are. And so the only way to pretend that you’re better than someone is to commit fraud,” said Lichtmann, who studies accounting at Fordham. “Some managers feel they need to do that in order to make their investors or customers happy.”

To find out, he conducted statistical analyses on financial data for several firms between 1991 and 2011. He measured multiple factors: the size of firms, profit margin measures, complex codes. Based on his research, he thought there would be no correlation between marketing competition and the probability of fraud. But ultimately, he found that competition helps mitigate fraud.

“The higher competition you have, the fewer fraud results,” said Lichtmann, who will intern at KPMG this summer and return to Fordham in the fall for his master’s degree in public accounting. “The mere presence of competition seems to have a healthy effect on preventing companies from committing fraud, given that everyone is monitoring each other.”

Thanks to a recent renovation, the second floor of the Lowenstein Center is home to a brand new welcome center for undergraduate admission, where potential Rams can learn about all that Fordham has to offer.

For decades, the admission office at Lincoln Center served as the place where staff greeted visitors and staged tours. But the space was confined to a few small offices adjacent to the second-floor lounge, and in recent years it had become difficult to accommodate a growing number of guests.

In the 2017-2018 academic year, admission staff welcomed more than 14,000 visitors to the Lincoln Center campus. That included nearly 6,000 prospective students—a 68 percent increase in student visitors from 2010.

The new welcome center, which remains on the second floor of Lowenstein, is designed to comfortably accommodate many more people than before. Its offices have been reconfigured, and the space has expanded to include a large presentation room with a state-of-the-art display screen, a workspace for student employees, and a new seating/reception area. 

“The new space gives us an opportunity to greet prospective students and their families in a way that is far more gracious and inviting than we have been in the past,” said John Buckley, vice president for admission and student financial services.

The renovated center has replaced what used to be the second-floor lounge. But the University has taken several proactive steps to maintain the amount of study space available to students. A new lounge on the plaza level (PL-100) was recently opened and offers ample seating. And there are additional lounge options on campus, both in Lowenstein and in 140 West.

Three new seating areas are also currently being installed, said Frank Simio, vice president for Lincoln Center. In the west wing of Lowenstein’s third floor, there will be 24 new seats, along with electric outlets for laptops and phone chargers. In the Quinn Library, there will close to an additional 100 seats available in quiet study areas. And on the eighth floor of Lowenstein, there will be a smaller seating area, also with electrical outlets. The first two areas will be available to students before final exams begin.

The seats in the library will be in QuinnX (an abbreviation for Quinn Annex), an open stack area that holds more than 260,000 titles. It is located down the law corridor from the library entrance.

“Opening QuinnX answers the need for additional quiet study space for Lincoln Center students and provides for open browsing of the stacks, which is so valuable to faculty and researchers,” said Linda LoSchiavo, director of University Libraries.

The new admission welcome center will open for business this month. In celebration, the center will host a reception with refreshments for students and staff on a date to be determined. 

I moved to New York City from Bucharest in 2014, when I enrolled at Fordham. At the beginning of my first year, I felt as though the cultural divide would be too great for me to overcome. But then, after I joined the student newspaper, a friend suggested that I write about my experiences as an international student who was new to the United States.

It was the first time it dawned on me that my being foreign could be an advantage, that I could bring something to the table that no one else could. I wasn’t less qualified because English wasn’t my native tongue, I was simply better qualified to tell different stories. That piece became an honest account of how hard it was being away from home, yet how thrilling it was to discover New York on my own. I was sharing my experience with my peers, each of whom could relate to it in one way or another.

It was an accomplishment achieved in no small part thanks to the help of a certain editor, a fellow student one year ahead of me. She acknowledged my hardship and homesickness. It turned out that I reminded her of her mother, an immigrant who had once upon a time moved to the U.S. from Italy, when she was about the same age I was. Until that day, I never thought I could feel such empathy from someone from New Jersey. Yet there we were—she having moved to Manhattan from across the Hudson River and I having flown across the Atlantic—sharing a table in our school’s cafeteria, both trying to figure out how to survive college. She is still one of my closest friends.

Living in diaspora is difficult, but powerful. It teaches resilience and courage. Having moved here makes me feel that no other challenge I might face in the future will be as daunting—and that’s a powerful feeling, to know the reaches of one’s bravery.

1. Give yourself time to process the huge transition you are going through. It’s a big change and you’ll be out of your comfort zone, feeling thrilled and exhausted at the same time. Homesickness will come head to head with the desire to discover your new surroundings, but as time goes on, you will start to feel at home on campus and embrace the adventure.
2. Once you’re more acclimated, use your time wisely. Join clubs, go to campus parties, and take advantage of your professors’ office hours. Develop your skills and your relationships in your new community; both will help in the long run.
3. Play to your strengths and make light of your differences. Make fun of your home country’s customs and American customs alike. Humor can be a great tool in bridging the divide.
4. Lean on people at school and back home; share what you’re going through. My mother knew everything I was up to on a daily basis, and it made me feel as though I was sharing the journey with her. My American friends were supportive when I was feeling homesick or struggling with classwork in English.
5. Let yourself be amazed by what you’ve accomplished. Look back once in a while and be proud of having taken the harder, less-comfortable path. You have high goals for yourself and you are fighting for them. That is no small feat.

—Ana Fota is a 2018 alumna of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. After graduation, she worked as a news assistant at The New York Times. She is currently a social media manager and reporter for POLITICO Europe.

This complex topic was the subject of a candid and lively panel discussion at a recent Fordham Alumni Career Workshop titled “How to Succeed as a Diverse Candidate.”

Fordham MBA candidate Bliss Griffin moderated the event, which featured alumni working in finance, communications, health care, and software engineering. Griffin, a former actor and a trainer for diversity and inclusion programs, laid the groundwork for the discussion by noting that diversity is “absolutely more than things that are visible,” and it can include everything from age, race, and gender to educational or geographical background.

One major takeaway was a piece of advice from Karthy Bhatt, GABELLI ’18, a product manager at clinical lab company Quest Diagnostics: “Get comfortable with the uncomfortable,” she told several dozen Fordham students and recent graduates in the audience. Conversations about diversity can be tough, but they’re necessary.

Know Your Self-Worth

Bhatt and others touched on some of the disagreeable situations that can arise when you’re the only employee of your race, gender, sexual orientation, or age group at your job. These ranged from racist comments made about minority family members to insensitive remarks about accents.

“Sometimes [turning those uncomfortable situations around is] not as easy as having a conversation, and sometimes it is,” Bhatt said. “So I do find them happening in the workplace, but I think for myself, having that self-awareness and the emotional intelligence to handle those situations helps. I know myself, I know my self-worth, and I know what I bring to the table. And when you show people that piece of you, it does start to change mindsets, but it’s not easy.”

And at times, change can seem far off or slow in coming. Until workplaces themselves start to look more varied, diverse employees can find themselves living in a duality—code-switching or being a slightly different version of themselves depending on the context, said Brandon Stanford, GABELLI ’18.

“Your duty is to [extend] your hand down and bring [other diverse] people up because there are not enough of us here,” he said. “That’s the only way you get this political capital that will be a way to move the needle.”

Finding Mentors and Affinity Groups

When it comes to advancing in your career, all the panelists were largely in agreement: It’s your connections with others—whether they are mentors or peers—that will help you move forward.

“It’s all about networking,” Stanford said. “You have to talk to people; there is no way around that.”

In Stanford’s case, he forged new links via LinkedIn with those whose careers he admired. One of those connections ultimately led to his current position as a senior consultant at Ernst & Young—a departure from his previous career in education where he worked his way up to director of operations for a charter school network.

Mentors can also provide advice and guidance as you navigate your career trajectory, which is key for advancement, said Bhatt. She has prioritized making sure those advisers offer a variety of perspectives, too.

“I think there is so much value in mentorship,” Bhatt said. “I took it upon myself to reach out and find those mentors at my workplace and outside of my workplace. … I was very purposeful about picking my mentors and making sure that that group was diverse as well. So my mentors range [and include] different races, women and men, different age groups. It also should be someone that you not only aspire to be, but you aspire to emulate their characteristics.”

Affinity groups at a workplace—those focused on gender, race, sexuality, or other commonalities—can also provide excellent support networks to diverse candidates, the panelists said. And if your workplace doesn’t have one? You can always take charge and create one either at your job or elsewhere. Panelist Victor Luciano, PCS ’02, vice president of sales at Spanish-language TV network Azteca América, did just that at Fordham. He currently chairs MOSAIC, the alumni affinity chapter that looks to support diversity and inclusion in the Fordham community.

Jemina Molines, a Fordham sophomore and the vice president of the Black Students Alliance at the Lincoln Center campus, said she was inspired by the panelists and their stories.

“I think these events are a system of support for students, and it helps us to know that there are [people]like us that have gone through difficult things but have been able to get past that and go on to their respective fields and be successful,” Molines said.

Bottom line: starting conversations on diversity can pave the way for changing the images of what accomplishments look like—and who can achieve them.

Lorelle Reid, FCRH ’14, who transitioned from a career as a model to a software engineer, summed it up this way in her advice to attendees: “You don’t have to look a certain way to succeed in a certain way.”

—Kelsey Butler, FCLC ’10

Here are some recent graduates who have experienced just that.

Kamrun Nesa, FCLC ’16

Major: English

Minor: Political Science

Course: Publishing: Theory and Practice
The aim of this course is to develop a clear understanding of the publishing industry. Students examine a wide range of genres and hear from speakers in the field.

Current Jobs: Associate Publicist at Grand Central Publishing; Freelance Writer for NPR, USA Today, and Others

“This course was my first foray into book publishing, and it helped me secure my first book-related internship. Thanks to these internships and a wealth of experience in my classes and at The Observer, my first job right after graduation ended up being in publicity at a publishing house.”

Peter Vergara, FCRH ’18

Majors: Art History and Philosophy

Minors: Latin American and Latino Studies and Political Science

Course: Modern Latin American Art
This course looks at two great shaping forces of modern Latin American art: nationalism, which called on visual art to create a national identity and to reflect it; and modernism, an aesthetic movement that insisted on artistic autonomy.

Current Job: Day Sale Administrator for Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s

“In studying art by Latino artists post-1920, I was able to see dialogue and interaction between Latin America and the United States, along with how artists deal with the heritage of colonial Spain. This fascinated me, and it helped shape where I want to go with my career.”

Elaina Koukoulas, GABELLI ’17

Major: Public Accounting

Course: Contemporary Issues in Financial Forensics
This course focuses on methods of fraud investigation, detection, and prevention, including the professional responsibilities of the CPA.

Current Job: Financial Investigator at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office

“I decided to enroll in this class after my forensic accounting internship at the Manhattan DA’s office. The class not only explained the basics of forensic accounting but also dove into extensive detail and explored its relevance to the business world today. It increased my passion for forensic accounting and served as a confirmation that I had finally found what I wanted to pursue after college.”

Luis Benitez, FCRH ’19

Major: Computer Science

Minors: Mathematics and Cybersecurity

Course: Philosophy of Human Nature
A philosophical reflection on the central metaphysical and epistemological questions surrounding human nature.

Current Job: Technology Associate at Wellington Management

“My liberal arts classes taught me to think and have even influenced my approach to programming and coding. In this philosophy class in particular I saw a lot of connections to computer science. I learned to express my train of thought and also to separate feelings from observations, to think of things objectively—like you do in computer programming. It’s all logic.”

Nicholas Hardiman, GABELLI ’17

Major: Business Administration

Concentrations: Finance and Marketing

Minor: Information Science

Course: Consumer Behavior
This class focuses on the role of psychological factors in the behavior of humans as consumers.

Current Job: Account Manager at Google

“My Consumer Behavior course taught me to pay attention to the compounding factors that lead people to make the decisions that they do. Focusing on figuring out consumer behavior patterns has helped shape my career in digital advertising. As data-driven marketing continues to evolve, I hope to be on the forefront of helping businesses develop new advertising strategies.”

Emily Rubino, FCLC ’17

Majors: Humanitarian Studies and Sociology

Course: Gender, Crime, and Justice
This course describes, explains, and challenges the treatment of victims, offenders, and workers in the criminal justice system. In the process, students examine and critique issues of criminal law, race, class, and sexuality.

Current Job: Director of Policy and Outreach at Peace Action New York State

“This is one of the courses that had a big impact on the ways I think about social justice and how we function as a society. My study abroad in the U.K., Nepal, Chile, and Jordan further complicated my thinking on these issues, as everywhere I traveled it was clear that people had been impacted by U.S. foreign policy. This was extremely helpful since my job requires knowledge of both international relations and domestic social justice issues.”

Chloe Potsklan, GABELLI ’17

Major: Information Systems

Minor: Spanish

Course: Cybersecurity in Business
This class explores the value cybersecurity and computer science professionals bring to business.

Current Job: Cyber Risk Consultant at Deloitte

“My cybersecurity class helped me learn more about today’s cyber landscape in the business world. I took the class just after accepting my full-time offer with Deloitte after my summer internship there. It served as a continuation of what I learned during that internship and prepared me for my current work environment.”

Nathan Miranda, FCLC ’16

Majors: Computer Science and Music

Minor: Mathematics

Course: Speech and Rhetoric
This course examines rhetorical theories and strategies of thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Stephen Colbert, and explores how to listen, ask questions, persuade and be persuaded, and suggest new directions of inquiry.

Current Jobs: Software Engineer at Compass; Front-End Engineering Instructor at the Flatiron School; Piano Instructor

“This class was key in transforming some of my introverted tendencies into extroverted confidence. I gained awareness that has helped me both in my career and in expanding my relationship circles. The environment of the class was typical of Fordham—open to all ideas with complete ownership of presenting topics in a manner that would engage your peers.”

Suliman Al Aujan, GABELLI ’15

Major: Applied Accounting and Finance

Course: Special Topic: Alternative Investing
This course covers the evolution and outlook for a range of alternative investments. Students analyze research and case studies, and hear from guest speakers.

Current Job: Mandates Portfolio Manager for the Global Real Estate Team at Credit Suisse Asset Management London

“The Gabelli School applies both theoretical and practical learning experiences. This capstone course emphasized application-based learning and drew upon real-world problems, like how financial institutions can support developing access to fresh water sources in Africa. Our professors treated us like analysts and urged us to solve these problems, an analytical experience I draw upon in my current work.”

Natalie Wodniak, FCRH ’18

Majors: Environmental Studies and Humanitarian Studies

Minor: Biological Sciences

Course: International Humanitarian Action and New York City
This course examines international responses to various types of humanitarian crises.

Current Jobs: Field Organizer at NextGen America; Master in Public Health Candidate in Global Health Epidemiology and Disease Control at George Washington University

“This class greatly impacted my career path. I was able to expand my knowledge about global crises and learn about ways to get involved in the humanitarian community. Humanitarian studies courses like this one, along with my Intro to Virology course, helped me decide to enter the field of global health.”

Do you have a classes to careers story of your own? Email us at [email protected].

The group, which visited from January 6 to 11, was there for Applied Design Thinking, a new course being taught this semester by Janet DiLorenzo, Ed.D., clinical assistant professor of marketing at the Gabelli School of Business.

“When we teach new product development, we talk about how you come up with ideas, then test the concept, test market it, and then launch it,” DiLorenzo said.

“Design thinking is a very similar concept, except you never give up. Even when your product is in the market, you keep experimenting to make sure it’s working.”

Disney World is the ideal place to observe the concept, she said, because the Disney company is renowned for its human-centered approach, epitomized in the book One Little Spark! Mickey’s Ten Commandments and the Road to Imagineering (Disney Publishing, 2015), by Martin Sklar.

Sklar’s book was required reading for the class before their trip. When students arrived, one of their assignments was to apply commandments such as “Communicate with visual literacy” to an aspect of the Magic Kingdom.

“They weren’t just going on rides. They were trying to figure out how design thinking was applicable to Disney. They had to gather as much secondary and primary data as they could when they were there,” said DiLorenzo.

For Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Nicole Berni, the trip was an opportunity to see in a very different light a place she has visited, by her own estimate, 20 times. Berni, an international political economy major who is minoring in marketing at the Gabelli School, was drawn to the course by the Disney connection and came away with an appreciation for design thinking.

“What I really enjoyed about it is, it’s not just ‘Let me sell you something for the sake of selling you something,’ but ‘Let me think of you as an individual person, and what can I do to create the most utility and the most happiness?’” she said.

“It’s not a linear process where you have a product at the end of the day. You keep coming back to the starting point and making sure you’re keeping up with what your goal was.”

With Sklar’s 10 commandments serving as their framework, students were tasked with identifying something at each of the Disney parks deserving of a “Mouscar,” which is the company’s in-house award (think mouse plus Oscar). They also had to identify something that deserved a “Goof” (the opposite of a Mouscar), and then suggest improvements. Their final paper for the class will be their plan for improvements.

Berni and her partner took the commandment “Keep it up. Maintain it. Keep it relevant.” and applied it to the Grand Fiesta Tour at Epcot.

“It’s a fun enough ride, but we’re going to take something new, running off the movie Coco, and create a new ride that gives more modern relevance to the pavilion,” she said.

Jacklyn Onody, a junior at the Gabelli School majoring in business administration, and her partner, trained their sights on Spaceship Earth, also at Epcot. The ride showcases technological improvements over the years, but stops short of the most recent innovations, she said.

“We’re hoping to incorporate virtual reality and artificial intelligence into it to make it more fun, but also educational at the same time. Epcot is due to undergo renovations, so we thought this would be a good renovation,” she said.

The students didn’t just wander around the public areas of the park during their time. Keys to the Kingdom, a five-hour behind-the-scenes tour, took them into the underground “Utilidor” tunnels that allow people and supplies to travel unseen beneath the park. They also attended classes taught by Disney employees on culture, teamwork, leadership, and design thinking.

Greer Jason-DiBartolo, Ph.D., associate dean for academic administration at Gabelli, said the latter was what drew her to propose the visit to DiLorenzo. Design thinking piqued her interest, she said, in conversations at conferences for AshokaU, the consortium of schools dedicated to fostering social good and strengthening society that Fordham joined in 2014.

“Social innovation is a differentiator for us, and design thinking is a tool used by social innovators, so I thought we should really expose as many students as possible to this,” she said.

“Disney may not be a model of a socially innovative company, but their decisions are human-centered because it’s all about the customer experience. Certainly, they’re open to experimentation and coming up with new things.”

Although Jason-DiBartolo joked that looking at the parks in such an intensely analytical way kind of ruined Disney for her, Berni said she was unfazed, even after seeing “Mary Poppins” taking a break in the Utilidor. She’s applying to an internship at the park, and hopes to work there upon graduation. At Fordham, she’s involved in programming for senior week, so she said she appreciates all the work that goes on behind the scenes of a large production.

“It makes it a little bit more magical, because the logical part of me knows everything that goes into making this happen, and yet they’re still able to make it happen, and to deliver it with the consistency and scale that they do,” she said.

In her early years at Fordham, she struggled with an abusive relationship, a falling out with friends, and a breakup with a different boy she loved. She started school as a chemistry major on the pre-med track—but she wasn’t happy.

In the fall semester of her junior year, Govindan decided to take her life. On a cold day in October 2017, she sat at a Starbucks a few blocks away from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, drafting suicide letters to her family. Then she got a life-changing phone call from her mother.

Govindan’s parents—a pediatric anesthesiologist and a bank vice president who pulled themselves out of poverty in India—had refused to let her pursue stand-up comedy, something she had loved since middle school. But after hearing the pain in her daughter’s voice, her mother changed her mind.

“She [had]told me, ‘Indian girls don’t become comedians. They become doctors and scientists and biologists and engineers,’” Govindan, a Fordham College at Rose Hill senior, said at a Fordham event last fall. “But this time around, she said yes. And to me, that just meant so much because what she was telling me is, I don’t care what we think. I don’t care what other Indian families think. What matters to me right now the most is your happiness.”

Now, Govindan is a young comedian who has performed around the world, from Ireland to Houston, Texas. At the age of 21, she was invited to apply as a writer for a TV show. And after receiving therapy, she’s determined to destigmatize mental illnesses through candid discussions on social media.

“Happy #WorldSuicidePreventionDay,” she wrote on social media. “What ultimately ended up helping me was seeking out therapy and medication and investing in a hobby I found happiness in (comedy!!!).”

Last year, Govindan applied for a fall production internship at the Emmy Award-winning show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee—and got it. She transcribed news and TV clips, answered phone calls, and went out on coffee runs. In conversations with senior colleagues, Govindan said, she received “uncensored advice” that will help her develop as a stand-up comedian. And, thanks to one of those mentors, she was able to meet one of her biggest idols—Hasan Minhaj, an Indian-American comedian who co-created and hosts the Netflix series Patriot Act.

“Every day as I continue to pursue stand-up comedy,” Govindan said, “I thank the heaven and the stars that on that cold, crisp day in October of 2017, I chose my own happiness instead of choosing to end my life.”

Finding Humor in the Darkness

Govindan’s jokes begin with observations. If she makes a friend laugh, she said, she’ll record what she said in her phone. Those notes might make it to the official notebook that she brings and refers to on stage—the book that holds all her organized sets.

One of those stand-up sets is about her experience with being suicidal. When Govindan performs the set, she speaks about a much more private notebook—the place where she wrote why she should stay alive. One reason: never being able to taste another Cheez-it cracker again. Another: never knowing what would happen in the season finale of her favorite TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

“Probably my favorite reason—and perhaps the most ridiculous reason—was Kylie Jenner,” she recalled. “I was like, I can’t die without knowing whether or not Kylie Jenner is pregnant.”

More seriously, comedy gave her a reason to live. 

“Every time I was emotionally distressed, every time I went to this dark place, I would open up my notebook and force myself to write a comedy set,” she said. “I think that’s really what carried me through the darkness of it all … Being able to find the humor in everything.”

College Comedy and Beyond

Govindan’s first stand-up comedy show was a five-minute slot on December 2017 at Carolines on Broadway—a place where legendary performers like Jerry Seinfeld got their start. Since then, she has performed nearly 40 times in New York City; her home state of Texas; and Ireland, where she studied abroad for a semester. She says her shows usually run from five to 10 minutes, and her audience size is around 40 people.

In each show, she segues into bits and pieces of her own life: her identity as an Indian-American, dating, her struggles with mental illness, her experiences with therapy.

“I’m there to make you laugh—not talk about my own life,” she said. “But I also put enough of myself and my own truths in there that I feel good at the end of the day about what I’ve done … that I feel like I’ve been authentic with myself.”

Govindan reflected on two of her past shows this January. In the first one, she bombed. No one laughed except for her two high school friends, she said. Later that night, she performed the same seven-minute set somewhere else. But this time was different. She recalled two young Indian girls who came up to her and said, “We’ve never seen an Indian woman perform stand-up comedy live. Seeing you there, seeing you talk about the Indian-American experience, and seeing everyone else laugh just felt … amazing.”

In a few months, Govindan will graduate from Fordham with a degree in psychology; industry knowledge from classes in sitcom writing, documentary television, and screenwriting; and several internships under her belt. She says she’ll pursue a full-time job in either comedy writing or entertainment marketing. And she dreams of someday hosting her own late-night talk show. She’s even picked out a name for it—The Low Down. But in the end, she says, what matters most is the impact she has on the people around her.

“I hope I can be that salvation for someone else,” Govindan said. “If I can be that reason—if I can be the light at the end of the tunnel for anyone else, in the same way that stand-up comedy was for me—then I will be doing my job.”

Guidance for Students Experiencing Anxiety or Depression

Govindan isn’t alone in her struggles with depression and mental health. More than 63 percent of college students reported experiencing overwhelming anxiety within the last year, according to the American College Health Association’s 2018 National College Health Assessment. And almost 42 percent of surveyed students said they felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.

“Anxiety and depression are the most common presenting problems in our office as well,” said Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D., director of counseling and psychological services (CPS) at Fordham. “Student utilization of on-campus mental health services has been trending upwards for the past 10 years nationally, including at Fordham.”

But there are many different ways to combat anxiety and depression, both on one’s own and with help from loved ones and professionals. Ng offered some suggestions for students struggling with their mental and emotional health and those who care about them:

Practice self-compassion. “Students often have perfectionistic and unrealistic demands and standards for themselves—standards that they likely wouldn’t apply to others,” Ng said. “We encourage our students to try to be as kind to themselves as they would to someone you love or care about.”

Exercise. “Engage in physical activity or exercise,” Ng said. “Physical activity and exercise are incredibly effective for reducing mild to moderate anxiety and depression.”

Practice digital and social media literacy. “Social media constantly exposes and bombards us with airbrushed or curated versions of people’s lives. When we compare ourselves to what we see on social media, we may get the sense that ‘we’re not good enough or doing enough.’ This can contribute to lower self-esteem, which can increase our vulnerability to mental health problems,” he said. “We encourage our students to try to be more intentional, thoughtful, and discerning about how they perceive and relate to social media.”

Don’t forget the essentials. “Attend to basic needs like sleeping, eating, and playing,” Ng said. “Having social relationships and social interactions—those are basic needs as well.”

Remember that there are multiple routes to healing. “It’s important for students to remember that there are many, many different pathways or routes for healing and feeling better. Acceptance from our parents (as in Govindan’s case) is just one of those paths,” Ng said. “Unconditional acceptance is obviously very important for our mental and emotional health, but for some students, they may unfortunately never experience that level of acceptance from their parents. So it’s especially important for them to recognize that there are multiple pathways and possibilities for healing.”

Normalize vulnerability. “One of the most important things we can do to support our students is to normalize vulnerability, imperfection, and struggle as part of the human experience,” Ng said.

Seeking help. One local resource is Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center, with offices on the Rose Hill, Lincoln Center, and Westchester campuses. To make an appointment, students can call or simply stop by. During non-business hours, students can reach out to public safety or residential life staff for emergencies.

Off-campus, 24/7 resources include the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) and, for those who would rather type than talk, the Crisis Text Line.

“It’s important for our students to recognize that help-seeking is a sign of strength and maturity rather than weakness,” said Ng.

Titled “The Historiographical Journey of La Malinche,” the paper states that the historical narrative projected “contradictory constructions of La Malinche” that reflect the attitudes of those who wrote her story and reveal biases of ethnicity, gender, and class.

The paper received a Highly Commended award from the Dublin-based Global Undergraduate Awards in 2018, an honor bestowed on the top 10 percent of entries out of thousands of submissions from hundreds of colleges and universities. The awards program recognizes top undergraduate work from around the world and aims to connect students across cultures and disciplines.

A Variety of Perspectives

For the paper, Anthony examined books and texts from the 1500s to the 21st century and found the portrayal to be initially respectful, but progressively derogatory as the centuries passed, culminating in a Victorian-era publication that portrayed La Malinche as something of a “loose woman.” It wasn’t until recently that she received sympathetic treatment, with the publication of Camilla Townsend’s Malintzin’s Choices (University of New Mexico Press, 2006), which provided a 21st-century feminist view of her.

Anthony said that La Malinche was far more than a translator; she was akin to an adviser to Cortés and an intimate confidant. She had two children with him and yet her “importance was denigrated,” he said, and treated historically as though she “didn’t have any agency and was a hanger-on.”

“I think part of the reasons I was drawn to the stories was to see these different perspectives,” he said. “It’s also interesting to see how much control she wielded as the sole source of meaning for Cortes”

He said the different characterizations of La Malinche speak to the changes in society, and noted how looking at her through various lenses provided him with a clearer picture of the writers’ political motives.

“This research was pivotal work for me because it helped me with feminist perspectives,” said Anthony, whose work in the past focused primarily on general indigenous perspectives.

Looking Through the Lens of Native Peoples

Last spring, at Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s research fair Ars Nova, Anthony presented “Aztecs in Nuremberg: The Humanist Interpretation of the Conquest of Mexico,” which examined the humanist interpretation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He noted that 16th-century scholars from Europe viewed the experiences of the Aztecs through the lens of ancient Greece and Rome.

“My favorite historians of this period can read the Aztec language, look at their writings, and contextualize those,” said Anthony, who is double majoring in history and classical languages and literature with a minor in Latin American and Latino studies.

He noted that Aztecs were far from a homogeneous culture, but instead represented a variety of cultures and languages, not unlike Europeans.

“Studying the Aztecs showed me how many different sides of the story there are,” he said. “That’s crucial to understanding history and not getting bogged down by your preconceived beliefs.”

A Fresh Focus on Museums

Over the last few months, Anthony has been busy applying for graduate schools and thinking about his final project for his senior year. He’s been accepted to one doctoral program already, and he’s waiting to hear from others. Research-wise, he said he’s been concentrating on how museums display Aztec art and culture.

Museums often contribute to an “American exoticism” of indigenous cultures, he said, more often telling the story of the ancient cultures through the prism of U.S. sensibilities. He also noted that the way museums acquired such treasures needs to be highlighted in order to truly understand their colonial context.

“I want to look into how all these explorers in the 1800s discovered these artifacts and acted as if they were the sole owners,” he said.

He added that he sees his final project as a continuation of the work he started in his junior year and wants to examine, as he did with the 17th-century humanists, how contemporary historians and museums understand their holdings.

“In many ways, they emphasize that the so-called discoverers are heroes, as if discovering Aztec art were a form of finding Atlantis,” he said. “We need to see how, in some ways, the culture is unknowable and fundamentally different from the West, not something to exoticize.”

2019 Competition Is Open

Assistant Dean Josie Gregoire, who coordinates FCLC’s participation in this program encouraged other students to apply for the awards this year.

“We are so pleased and proud of all of our Fordham students who submitted their best work to the international Undergraduate Awards program; over 50 Fordham students submitted their best work last year! In 2018, for the second year in a row (and Fordham’s second year of participation) FCLC has a second Undergraduate Awards Winner,” said Gregoire.

“This year’s competition is now open and we encourage all students to submit their work.”