America’s failure to commit to Afghanistan and Iraq for the long haul has created an environment in which extremists are once again creating chaos in the countries we sought to liberate from despotic regimes, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Fordham University audience this week.

“When you go in and occupy a country, when you occupy Afghanistan, when you occupy Iraq, you take on a 40- or 50-year responsibility,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace on Nov. following a leadership lecture at the Fordham Law School. “Not four years or five years. Not ‘let’s go in, topple the government, give them a little bit of help’ and then say ‘good luck’ and leave.”

Pace served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs under President Bill Clinton and chairman under President George W. Bush. Both men, he said, made thoughtful, considered decisions on the use of military force, but Bush’s decisions were not accompanied by a strongly made case to his constituents.

“President Bush could have done a better job of educating the American people about what this really means,” Pace said of the wars.

Click here to read the full story on Gabelli Connect.

After 40 years of serving in the military, including two spent as the 16th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, USMC (Ret.), has learned a thing or two about what it takes to be a leader.

He shared those insights on Sept. 24 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, when he delivered the Graduate School of Business Administration’s Flaum Leadership Lecture.

Pace delivered “Leadership Biases,”a talk rich with anecdotes from his long and storied military career, to an audience that included a cohort of military veterans. He recalled how, as a second lieutenant serving in Vietnam, he radioed a commanding officer three times to ask which way he thought the patrol he was leading ought to be heading. Pace said that, upon his asking the question a third time, his commander responded with a string of curse words.

“I promised myself that if I ever got chewed out again, it was going to be for going too far. If you are in a healthy organization and you are a young executive, that organization expects you to push out [on your own]a little bit, to make mistakes. That’s how you learn,” he said.

He offered another example from 1972. While working on his master’s degree, Pace said he read about a young executive who’d lost $10 million for his company.

“The senior executives wanted to fire this guy [but]the CEO said something that I never forgot. He said, ‘Why would I want to fire someone I just paid $10 million to educate?’” Pace said.

“Now, if he makes the same mistake again, fine. But think about it. If you have subordinates who are honestly coming to work and doing their best, [even if]they’re making mistakes, that’s not all that bad.”

On July 30, 1968, a member of Pace’s squad was killed by a sniper while on patrol in Vietnam. Infuriated by his death, Pace said he called in an artillery strike on a village where he believed the sniper had fired from. His platoon sergeant shot him a look that made him reconsider—and sweeping through the village on foot, they found only women and children.

Pace said he didn’t know how he could live with himself today had his subordinate’s look not changed his mind.

“You will be morally challenged when you are the least emotionally prepared to deal with it. And if you don’t pick your anchor right now and decide who you are, morally you will not respond the way you want yourself to,” he said.

He said that many students may not remember most of what they’re taught at the University, “but you will have a way of thinking, and a way of problem solving, and a way of envisioning things that you will [apply]through your entire life. It’s not that you know exactly what you’re going to do; it’s that you know you have a moral compass.”

Gen. Pace was appointed the 16th Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. armed forces, in 2005.

Pace made the remarks on Nov. 13 at a lecture sponsored by the Fordham Wall Street Council, Cyberterrorism and Implications for Financial Markets and Platforms.

Within days of the talk, the Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T executive Frank Jules said that cyberattacks on AT&T had doubled in the last four months and the Washington Post reported that President Obama issued a secret directive allowing the military to act more aggressively toward cyberattacks.

Pace currently serves as distinguished visitor-in-residence at the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA), a position that stands as just one example of cybersecurity relationships being forged by the University with a cross-section of leaders from government, industry, and the academy.

Pace said that coordination between the private sector and the government will be key to protecting the nation’s computer networks from an inevitable attack.

Currently, nation-states are the only entities that have the ability to launch a crippling attack on another nation. But that will change, said Pace—and it’s not a question of if, but when.
“Whether it’s nation-state sponsored or terrorists, criminals, or hackers, we have got a huge problem,” said Pace. “And part of the problem is we have not been able to talk about it.”
Fordham adjunct professor Anthony J. Ferrante, FCRH ’01, GSAS ’04, teaches two courses on cybersecurity in the Department of Information and Computer Sciences, which he unofficially refers to as “extreme hacking” courses.

“Academia is uniquely positioned to moderate this discussion because its focus is on research and development and it comes from a neutral position,” he said. Since 80 percent of the Internet is privately owned, coordination, not competition, will play a key role, he said.
Fordham tackled the subject in 2009 when the University partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to launch its first International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS). It has co-sponsored three more ICCS conferences since, and it remains the nation’s only cyber security conference partnering with the FBI.

ICCS, which will be held again in August 2013, is co-organized at Fordham by D. Frank Hsu, Ph.D., Fordham’s Clavius Distinguished Professor of Science, and Dorothy Marinucci, executive assistant to Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“The Holy Grail of cyber security is everybody sharing information,” said Marinucci. “What’s unique about Fordham’s approach is its partnership with the FBI; you need to factor in the law enforcement angle when dealing with cyber security.”

If the DEFCON hacker convention in Las Vegas is the “black hat” convention of computer hacking, then Fordham’s developing reputation, with its overwhelming law enforcement angle, could very well become a “white hat” antidote.

Pace said the challenge for the federal government is to maintain national security secrets while assisting the business community which is under constant attack. Even at the federal level, those who understand the nation’s cyberattack capabilities are reluctant to communicate with those on the defense side.

“Our system is set up so that only the people who absolutely have to know, know the most important secrets of our country,” said Pace.

He added that if dealing in secret information presents a challenge within the government, it gets far more complicated when protecting the private sector.

“We need to get those folks together and sit down and [talk about]how they would be attacked,” said Pace. “And now, understanding the vulnerabilities, how might we work together?”

Pace said that while securing individual computers is one thing, securing an entire corporation is another matter entirely. It is also big business; the Wall Street Journal quoted AT&T’s Jules as saying it could be a $40 billion market.

David A. Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA), said that cyber security has become part of “business sustainability.”

“It’s a huge practice,” he said. “It’s now the way that businesses think about how they set themselves up and there’s a lot of pressure to secure the critical operations of the firm.”
GBA is gearing up to the challenge through the IBM-sponsored Center for Digital

Transformation under its founding director W. Raghupathi, Ph.D. Raghupathi also holds law degree in intellectual property in information technology from Fordham Law, underscoring the University’s emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach to the problem.

Indeed, the cyber talent pool freely flows across several Fordham schools and the colleges, and includes the foremost among the University’s experts on national security and terrorism, Karen Greenberg, Ph.D., director of Fordham Law School’s Center on National Security, which puts out the weekly “Cyber Brief.” (Greenberg recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled, “Will the Apocalypse Arrive Online?”)

Meanwhile, Hsu is working toward developing other cyber security programs at Fordham as well.

“The idea is to bring emerging technology to government and industry on both a national and international level,” said Hsu.

Pace gave a talk on Nov. 13, sponsored by the Fordham Wall Street Council, onCyberterrorism and Implications for Financial Markets and Platforms.

Pace currently serves as distinguished visitor-in-residence at the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA).

Sharing sensitive information is a tricky business, said Pace, and the challenge for the federal government is to maintain national security secrets while assisting the business community that’s under constant attack.

Nation-states are the only entities that have the ability to launch a crippling attack on another nation. But that will change, said Pace—and it’s not a question of if, but when.

“Whether it’s nation-state sponsored, or terrorists, or criminals, or hackers, we have got a huge problem,” said Pace. “And part of the problem is we have not been able to talk about it.”

The general said that people on the Federal level who understand our cyber attack capabilities are reluctant to communicate with those on the defense side.

“Our system is set up, so that only the people who absolutely have to know, know the most important secrets of our country,” said Pace. “But all the things that protect the secrets, make it more difficult to help the defenders.”

He added that if dealing with that dichotomy is difficult within the government, it gets more complicated when sharing information with the private sector. Though by his own rough estimates, he said that the cyber threat is about 20 percent for the government and about 80 percent for business.

While Pace said he doesn’t consider himself “a big government guy,” he acknowledged that a certain set of standards need to be in place for the business community to protect itself. And in order to access those standards, the business community needs to be involved.

“We need to get those folks together and sit down and [talk about]how they would be attacked,” said Pace. “And now, understanding the vulnerabilities, how might we work together?”

Pace’s position at GBA stands as just one example of the cybersecurity relationships that have been forged by the University with a cross-section of leaders from government, industry, and the academy.  The University has taken a leading role in cyber security issues since 2009, when it launched its first International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS), co-sponsored with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Another ICCS conference is scheduled to take place at Fordham in August 2013.

On November 14-16, Fordham Westchester will host the Fordham Forum on Leadership and Growth, a new intensive three-day program for executive decision makers. Westchester’s retreat like campus is expected to foster a think-tank atmosphere for senior executives, managers, and specialists, said Francis Petit, Ed.D., associate dean of executive programs.

The Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA) sponsored event will feature an all-star lineup, including retired General Peter Pace, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bill Baker, Ph.D., Fordham’s Claudio Acquaviva S.J. chair and president emeritus of WNET, will discuss his new book written with Michael O’Malley, Every Leader is an Artist (McGraw-Hill, 2012). And John Tognino, PCS ’75, chairman & CEO of Pepper Financial Group, will discuss ethics on Wall Street.

“Every top rank business school has an active executive education program and this will act as our flagship,” said Petit. “This program is positioned to present diverse ideologies, so that participants can take away at least one or two new ideas from each session.”

Participants will also be taking away armfuls of books, including Noble Enterprise: the Common Sense Guide to Uplifting People and Profits (Cosimo, 2008). The book by Darwin Gillett uses the turnaround of ailing ATT Canada as case study. Bill Catucci, the company’s former CEO responsible for the rescue, will be at the forum to give his own firsthand account.

Fordham Distinguished Visiting Scholar Dominique Moïsi will bring a geopolitical perspective to the program with his book The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World (First Anchor Books, 2010). Jonathan Story, Emeritus Professor of International Political Economy at INSEAD, will analyze the business climate in China through his book China Uncovered: What you need to know to do business in China (Financial Times Series, 2010).

With the worlds of geopolitics converging with the worlds of broadcast, Wall Street, and the military, the diversity and scale promises to bring the participants up close with a variety of successful leaders.

“The overall concept of the program is that no matter what the economic condition, leaders have the chance to grow,” said Petit.

To apply to the conference click here. For more information contact Dean Francis Petit at (914) 367-3271 or [email protected].

The unveiling of “World Program,” a partnership between GBA, Clipper Ventures, Talent Q, Ashridge Business School, and Beijing International MBA (BiMBA) at Peking University, was followed by a forum “Business in the New World: The Relevance of Geo Politics.”

“We are taking determined steps to reposition the school for the pressures and needs of the moment and make the school a world business school,” said David Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the GBA.

“As great as New York City is, and as great an asset as it is to be situated right in the heart of New York City, we have to recognize that the world is unfolding in very exciting, dramatic and even in some cases disturbing ways, and we are obliged to understand the world of business well beyond the comfort that is within the boundaries of New York City.”

Earlier in the day, participants visited the North Cove Marina in Battery Park City to view the preparations for the Clipper Race yachts’ departure for the last leg of its 40,000-mile race around the globe. The year-long circumnavigation, which draws 650 crew members from 41 nations, is meant to impart leadership and teamwork skills for business leaders who have no previous sailing expertise.

Story continues below

The Clipper fleet passed through New York harbor as part of a trip around the world. Contributed Photo

Speakers at the forum tackled a wide array of topics connected to geopolitics. Jonathan Story, Ph.D., emeritus professor of International Political Economy at INSEAD, addressed the various political contexts in which business takes place around the globe. He noted that, despite all that is currently happening in Europe now, it is still a better environment to do business than either China or Russia.

Dominique Moisi, senior adviser for the French Institute for International Relations, explained the significance of the recent defeat of Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election in France to the Socialist Party candidate. Moisi cautioned against reading the election as a referendum on Sarkozy’s economic policies of austerity.

Rather, he said the French presidency entails both the concrete role of a prime minister and the ceremonial role that the Queen of England occupies.

“As prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy did pretty well. But as queen, he did very badly, and the problem is that in France, the president is at the same time the prime minister and the queen,” he said.

“He desacralized the function of the elected monarch that is the president of France.”

Other speakers included Peter Pace, retired Marines General and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; John Tognino, former vice chairman of NASDAQ and chair of the Fordham Board of Trustees, Sir Robin Knox Johnson, chairman of Clipper Ventures, and Jamil Qureshi and Andrew Greening from Clipper Greening Ventures.

General Pace explored the myriad challenges that cyber crime poses to businesses. In five to ten years, he predicted, small groups of individuals will have the computing capacity to inflict serious damage.

“When I talk to C.E.O.’s, I say, call your C.I.O., and ask him or her, ‘Has your database ever been penetrated?’ If they tell you no, get a new C.I.O, because you have been penetrated.”

Tognino noted that the most important asset any business has its reputation. As a young trader at Merrill Lynch on November 22, 1963, Tognino and colleagues said they immediately put in orders to sell when they found out that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. As a result, they made a windfall in the short period before the markets were shut down at 2 p.m.

This did not sit well with their supervisor, who demanded that they call back all the clients they sold to and cancel the trades. It was a lesson he said he has always taken to heart.

“There is no price on reputation,” he said. “We’re in a global marketplace. You can’t hide. What you do tomorrow in Shanghai, we’ll know immediately in New York, and based on that alone, you’ve got to protect each one of your reputations.”

(See Fordham’s Commencement Page for times and locations of diploma ceremonies and all other Commencement-related information.)

(Please click here to see Fordham’s 166th commencement streamed live on the Web.)

Brian Williams, award-winning anchor of NBC Nightly News and 2011 commencement speaker, will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, at the 166th commencement on Saturday, May 21, at the Rose Hill campus.

Also being awarded that degree at that ceremony are philanthropist Glorya Kaufman; Tony Award-winning actress Marian Seldes; and Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy! and active supporter of many causes. Steven E. Sanderson, president and chief executive officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society, will receive a doctorate of science, honoris causa, at the Rose Hill ceremony.

“We are delighted to have Brian Williams address the Class of 2011,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “His breadth of experience, his integrity and his record of accomplishment in journalism are second to none. I cannot think of a speaker better suited to address Fordham’s graduating class as they prepare to make their way out into a tumultuous world.”

The University will present two additional honorary degrees at the Fordham School of Law diploma ceremony on Sunday, May 22, and one at the diploma ceremony for the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA) on Tuesday, May 24.

George E. Pataki, former governor of New York, and Earle I. Mack—arts advocate, businessman, and former U.S. ambassador—will each receive a doctorate of laws, honoris causa, at the Fordham Law diploma ceremony, where Pataki will give an address.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace (Ret.), former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, at the GBA diploma ceremony, where he will give an address.

Brian Williams

Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, has earned numerous awards and commendations for his reporting on events including Hurricane Katrina and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A native of Middletown, N.J., he attended George Washington University and the Catholic University of America. After working at local stations, he joined NBC News in 1993, later becoming NBC’s chief White House correspondent and then anchor and managing editor of The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC before becoming anchor ofNBC Nightly News in 2004. His coverage of Katrina was dubbed “a defining moment” by The New York Times, and Vanity Fair reported that during the crisis he became “a nation’s anchor.”

The most highly decorated evening news anchor of modern times, he has won 11 Edward R. Murrow Awards, a dozen Emmy awards, and the George Foster Peabody Award. In 2006, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Glorya Kaufman

Glorya Kaufman, while growing up in Detroit, acquired a passion for dance and also learned from her parents the value of helping others. Today, she manifests both of those interests through her support of educational institutions and arts organizations that bring dance programs to the underprivileged.

During her marriage to Donald Bruce Kaufman, co-founder of the home-building firm Kaufman and Broad, the couple supported 40 charitable organizations, showing a philanthropic spirit that Glorya Kaufman carried on after his death in 1983. She funded the restoration of the dance building at the University of California, Los Angeles, after the earthquake of 1994, and her giving has benefited numerous other organizations including the Los Angeles Public Library and the Music Center of Los Angeles County. Through the Glorya Kaufman Dance Foundation, she has supported various efforts to bring the psychological and emotional benefits of dance to underserved youth.

In New York, she funded a new dance studio at the Juilliard School and has pledged generous funding for educational programs at The Ailey School, including its B.F.A. program offered in conjunction with Fordham. Kaufman has made an endowment to the Music Center in perpetuity for various organizations to support the teaching and performance of dance and choreography, and to provide a means for underserved audiences to become acquainted with dance, which has universal appeal and is an effective tool to build bridges between people of different social and cultural backgrounds.

In addition to promoting performances, she has provided complimentary tickets to underprivileged audiences for greater awareness to the overall Los Angeles community, hosted world-renowned artists (i.e., dancers and choreographers), and given master classes, lectures and other educational and outreach programs on dance performances, affording children, adults and the elderly opportunities to actively participate in dance.

After the 1994 earthquake, Kaufman learned that St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica was carrying patients out of the hospital because the damage was so severe. She walked into the hospital the next day and offered a substantial gift to help restore it.

Kaufman, along with Dr. Leonard Apt, started a pre-school mobile eye unit in Los Angeles. Last year they celebrated their 10th anniversary. The unit now has two volunteer doctors and has seen more than 5,000 preschoolers, 8 percent of whom were found to have eye problems.

Marian Hall Seldes Photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Marian Hall Seldes has won Tony Awards and Obie Awards, and earned a place in the Theatre Hall of Fame, during her long and distinguished career as an actor and teacher.

The daughter of Alice Hall and cultural critic Gilbert Seldes, she studied at New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse under legendary teacher Sanford Meisner and attended the School of American Ballet. She made her Broadway debut in 1947 in Medea, won a Tony Award in 1967 for her performance in A Delicate Balance, and later gave an acclaimed performance in the play Three Tall Women.

A matriarch of the New York stage, Seldes taught at the Juilliard School for 20 years before joining the faculty at Fordham College at Lincoln Center about a decade ago. She is widely known for her gracious and exuberant spirit, as well as her work ethic—she earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Recordsfor appearing in every performance of Deathtrap during its four-year Broadway run.

Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek is widely known as host of Jeopardy!, one of the most popular and long-lived game shows. Less visible, however, is his work on behalf of the less fortunate around the world. He has supported several charities and educational organizations, including The Smile Train, a charity that provides cleft palate surgery for children in the developing world. Through his work with World Vision, he helped build medical and educational facilities in a village in Zambia that he adopted, and in another village in northern Uganda. He has also helped World Vision promote its efforts to help children around the world, in part by serving as a spokesman for its Haiti relief efforts following the 2010 earthquake.

A native of Sudbury, Ontario, he earned degrees in philosophy from the University of Ottawa before going to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He began his U.S. career hosting Wizard of Odds in 1973. Following a number of other shows, he moved on to Jeopardy!, which he has hosted for 27 years, winning five Daytime Emmy awards for Outstanding Game Show Host. This year, he was announced as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Television Academy. He and his wife, Jean, have two children, one of whom attends Fordham.

Steven E. Sanderson

Steven E. Sanderson has served as president and chief executive officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society since 2001, expanding its efforts into more than 60 nations and leading the revitalization of the Bronx Zoo, among many other initiatives.

Sanderson, a former Fordham trustee, is a respected scholar in the area of Latin American politics, agricultural development and trade. After earning his doctorate in political science at Stanford, he taught for 18 years at the University of Florida, chairing the political science department and co-founding the university’s Tropical Conservation and Development Program. He was also a Fulbright scholar and a program officer with the Ford Foundation in the mid-1980s in Brazil, where he created a program on rural poverty and resource use. Before coming to the Wildlife Conservation Society, he served four years as dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta.

George E. Pataki

George E. Pataki, former three-term governor of New York, was educated at Yale and Columbia Law School before embarking on a political career marked by upset victories against powerful incumbents. As governor, he pursued an agenda of both economic development and environmental protection.

Among many achievements, he created a tax credit program for “green” buildings and implemented the first integrated strategy for creating transportation networks using renewable fuels. He established a brownfields program that brought about the redevelopment of contaminated sites across the state, and protected more than 1 million acres of open space, the most since Gov. Theodore Roosevelt. In 2007 he joined the law firm of Chadbourne and Parke, where he works in the environmental, energy and infrastructure practice area.

The grandson of immigrants, Pataki gained a strong work ethic and faith in human potential from his family while growing up on a farm in Peekskill, N.Y. His family’s motto: “Pray for a good harvest, but keep hoeing.”

Earle I. Mack

Earle I. Mack has distinguished himself in a variety of roles including arts advocate, film producer, benefactor of higher education, and successful businessman.

He is a senior partner at the Mack Company, where he began his real estate career in 1963, and also served on the board of directors of Mack-Cali Realty Corp. He has produced notable films including an Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Children of Theatre Street, in 1977, and has contributed to many arts organizations. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of the New York State Council on the Arts, and in 2000 earned the New York State Governor’s Arts Award for his leadership in this area.

He is a graduate of Drexel University, where the law school bears his name to honor his giving, and has served in public roles including U.S. ambassador to Finland from 2004 to 2005. Among his many service activities, he personally arranged five medical rescue missions in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Gen. Peter Pace (Ret.)

Marine Gen. Peter Pace (Ret.) began his military service as a platoon leader in Vietnam and ended as principal military advisor to the president of the United States before retiring from the Marine Corps in 2007. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Teaneck, N.J., he earned his commission at the U.S. Naval Academy, later serving as deputy commander of Joint Task Force Somalia and commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command. He served as vice chairman and then as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first Marine to serve in either position. In June 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor the president of the United States can bestow.

Gen. Pace holds an M.B.A. from George Washington University and serves on the advisory council for Fordham’s Graduate School of Business Administration. He supports charities including serving as chairman of the board for Wall Street Warfighters Foundation, an organization that provides training, support and job placement services for disabled veterans interested in careers in financial services.