These are the words that Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, spoke to 10 members of the University’s support staff, facilities workers, and custodial crew at the 36th anniversary celebration of the 1841 Awards. The awards ceremony, named after the year Fordham was founded, was held on Nov. 29 in Bepler Commons. It recognizes the day-to-day operations employees who have worked at the University for either two or four decades. This year, there were 15 award recipients. (Five of them were unable to attend the ceremony.)

They are the ones who sort mail, plow snow from sidewalks, preserve Rose Hill’s historic woodwork, and give behind-the-scenes support to the University’s students and faculty. Many of them are also the proud parents of Fordham alumni and current students.

Among this year’s recipients were immigrants from Poland, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the island of Barbados. One awardee—Saul Morales—is a custodian who informally taught Spanish to other Fordham employees and has been known to sing while polishing the floor, unknowingly serenading nearby staff. But as a whole, said Father McShane, they are Fordham’s keystone—the pieces that keep the University together.

“Everyone relies on you. Without you, the great arch of Fordham would not be able to stand,”  Father McShane told them.

Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim provost, lauded one employee—Anne-Marie Sweeney, executive secretary in the theology department—for her commitment in coming to work last summer despite nursing a fractured knee.

“Anne-Marie returned to work as speedily as possible, using crutches to navigate the halls and sitting at her desk with one leg up on her guest chair,” he said. “The image was emblematic of her career at Fordham, which over her 20 years, has also become the alma mater of her beloved daughter Katie and son Jimmy.”

Peter A. Stace, senior vice president for enrollment and strategy, complimented another awardee—Lorraine Prainito, senior enrollment operations representative—for her diligence, frankness, and sense of style.

“Lorraine always comes to work in high heels, looking her best,” Stace said, gesturing toward her black stiletto boots. “Colleagues look up to her for her much-needed advice on work, as well as fashion, health, and dieting tips. We think of her as the office therapist.”

The anecdotes were tinged with both humor and humility. One awardee, a Rose Hill custodian named Cesar Merejo, was reluctant to receive thanks for his decades of service.

“He felt it was he who should be thanking the University for offering him this opportunity,” Marco A. Valera, vice president for facilities management, told the audience. “He says—and I quote—‘I always tried to pass this message to my coworkers, especially the new ones: to appreciate and understand what it means to work in a great place such as Fordham.’” A few seats away, another awardee, foreman-turned-postal clerk Carlos A. Mendoza, nodded his head.

Mendoza’s 20-year-old stepson, Genssey Paula, applauded his stepfather. He said Mendoza taught him that no matter where you’re from and what you experience, you can still succeed in life.

“I’m proud that he’s been here for 20 years, supporting the community,” Paula said.

As administrators praised them from the podium, the awardees stood and listened a few paces away. Before them were their family members and friends, who rose from their seats and snapped photos with their smartphones. Beside them was Father McShane, who shook their hands and hung gold medallions around their heads. But once in a while, Father McShane would murmur something to each person—perhaps a question or joke—and the two would laugh together quietly.

As Father McShane thanked each employee at the end of the ceremony, one award recipient—John Borrelli Jr., who works in the mail room at Lincoln Center campus—swiped tears from his cheeks. He said he was grateful that his mother Candida Borrelli, who has cancer, was able to watch him win the 1841 Award.

“I’ve met so many people over the years—staff, students. I have wonderful coworkers, a great supervisor … I’m blessed to have this job I’ve had here [for 20 years],” he said. “It’s been beautiful here at Fordham.”

The 1841 Award Recipients for 2018

Twenty-Year Medalists

John Borrelli Jr.—Lincoln Center Mail Room

Kazimierz Gorski—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Emma Lostumbo—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

Anthony Matthews—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Carlos A. Mendoza—Rose Hill Post Office

Cesar Merejo—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

Nanette Michel—Graduate School of Education

Saul Morales—Grounds and Transportation

Helen A. Norgard—Grounds and Transportation

Diane Pinero—School of Law

Lorraine Prainito—Enrollment Services

Daniel M. Reilly—Facilities Operations, Rose Hill

Winston Rose—Facilities Operations, Lincoln Center

Anne-Marie Sweeney—Theology

Forty Year-Medalist

Michael Cioffi—Custodial Services, Rose Hill

In gatherings held at each of the Rose Hill and the Lincoln Center campus, Father McShane formally unveiled Continuous University Strategic Planning (CUSP), which follows Toward 2016, the 10-year comprehensive strategic plan the University created in December 2005.

But before that, he addressed serious racial and anti-Semitic incidents that took place at the Rose Hill campus last week. He speculated that the perpetrator of the first incident, in which a racial slur was found on the door of an African-American student’s room, was a freshman who “has not had enough time in our midst to absorb and be positively infected with the spirit of our University.”

The incidents are shocking, disturbing, disheartening, disorienting, and makes him furious and very depressed, he said, because they illustrate how the University was not able to protect a vulnerable member of the community.

“Please, faculty members who are here, I’m asking you to address these matters—the incident, the causes of racism, and what we can do to get a healed campus back,” he said in an afternoon address at the law school.

“We have a lot of work to do. And as we go forward, I ask you please, let us draw together, let us come together, let us knit ourselves together as a community which will make clear to every student, and everyone here that this kind of behavior—hatred, violence, and intolerance—has no place here at Fordham, period. There is no excuse for it. Ever.”

Father McShane also formally welcomed several new senior members of the administration: Martha Hirst, Fordham’s senior vice president for finance and chief financial officer; Elaine Crosson, new general counsel; Maura Mast, the new dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill; Eva Badowska, the new dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Virginia Roach, the new dean of the Graduate School of Education; and Matthew Diller, the new dean of the School of Law.

Higher Ed in Transition

In embracing CUSP, which is being overseen by a 22-member committee from various University departments, Father McShane noted that the world of higher education is changing at an extraordinary rate, and as such, traditional strategic plans are of little use now.

“What we have to do is move away from an exercise which would create a document that we are supposed to live with for 5, 7 or 10 years, and move toward a process of continuous strategic planning, which will enable us to be far more agile in reacting or responding to what is going on, and plotting a course that will differentiate us from others,” he said.
The guiding principle going forward, he said, lies on key aspects to achieve greatness “on Fordham’s own terms.”

“[It] means making Fordham the model—‘the,’ not ‘a’ model—urban Jesuit university for the 21st century,” he said.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to a question and answer session with CUSP co-chairs Patrick Hornbeck, PhD, associate professor of theology and chair of the department; Debra McPhee, dean of the Graduate School of Social Service; and Peter Stace, vice president for enrollment.

Hornbeck noted that although Toward 2016 had merit, it failed to anticipate such developments as the financial crisis of 2008 or the drops in demand for legal education and graduate studies in the arts and sciences.  He made a distinction between strategic planning and operational planning.

“Strategic questions are the ones that ask us to step back and take the sort of 30,000 foot view of the institution. What is Fordham, and why are we here?” he said, noting that for him, CUSP can be summarized by the phrase, ‘This is not business as usual.’

“I think very often here at Fordham we’re used to thinking, acting, or perceiving in certain terms. We’ve gotten used to the way that we do our business, and part of this planning is disrupting and figuring out how we can be ourselves in a better, more effective way,” he said.

Hornbeck emphasized that although there are 22 members of the committee, the process, which is expected to go through three-year-long cycles, will be inclusive of all members of the University community—from faculty, staff, and students, to alumni and University neighbors. Contributions can already be made at http://www.fordham.edu/cusp.

“We’re going to be creating a culture of planning here at Fordham. We want to build planning and planning-related thinking into the work that we do on an ongoing basis,” he said.