“It is overwhelming, this thought of what is happening to the planet, of our own sense of powerlessness, sometimes, to do something about it,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham, in her welcome remarks, referring to recent global events like the Hawaii wildfires. “[But] we have to have respect for Earth, our home.” 

During the daylong summit, about a dozen alumnae offered perspectives from their unique industries. Below are four ways that prominent Fordham women are creating change—and their advice on how others can follow their lead. 

Addressing Ecological Challenges

Aiding a poultry farm in Africa: Keynote speaker Jeannette Ferran Astorga, GABELLI ’96, executive vice president of corporate affairs, communications, and sustainability at animal health company Zoetis Inc., helped to support a woman who runs a poultry farm in Uganda last year. “The work we do to support veterinarians and livestock producers and farmers around the world [to raise healthier animals]is helping all of us as we depend on animals for comfort, for food, and for well-being,” Astorga said. “My call to action is think about ways to create that sustainable future, intentionally looking to create that change through others.” 

Studying ecology and the environment: Faculty and students are working together to study potential predators of the notorious invasive spotted lanternfly (squirrels in New York City, for example) and the impact of air pollution on the honeybees, among other topics, said Marie Thomas, Ph.D., co-director of Fordham’s environmental science program. 

Reducing Food Waste 

Changing menus and buying local ingredients. Jordan Hunter, FCLC ’12, director of events for Italian restaurant group La Pecora Bianca, said her business condensed its lunch and dinner menus into a single menu that wastes less ingredients. They also try to buy more local ingredients, instead of importing from abroad, to lower transportation costs and emissions. 

Leaving less room for leftovers while donating what hasn’t been sold. Elisa Lyew, MC ’07, owner of gluten-free bakery Elisa’s Love Bites, said, “If you’re coming in 10 minutes before closing, you’re not going to find the same amount of food as if you had come in when we first opened. People get upset about that … People expect us to be wasteful, but then they also want us to be sustainable. … We need the public’s cooperation because it’s usually the consumer driving that demand that brings huge amounts of waste.”

Adopting innovative solutions. Gabriella Macari, GABELLI ’09, third-generation grape grower and director of operations of Macari Vineyards, said her business is practicing no-till farming, composting, and other sustainable activities.

Rethinking How We Use Clothes and Cosmetics 

Buying sustainable materials like mushroom leather and understanding what you’re purchasing. “The consumer must always ask to look at the labels and understand what’s making up the product that they’re buying, and also question how could this be so cheap? If it’s so cheap, there is someone probably not making minimum wage,” said Claudia Rondinelli, FCLC ’19, head of global raw materials, footwear and accessories, leather and trims at Ralph Lauren.  

Reducing plastic packaging and making more items recyclable, reusable, and refillable. “All of my bottles at home, be it shampoo, conditioner, dishwashing soap, hand soap, are in a refillable container. I really try to stay away from single-use plastics, and from a beauty company’s perspective, we’re moving there. Some of our foundations, you can go to a bar and have your foundation refilled,” said Stacey Ferrara, GABELLI ’10, director of strategic initiatives and operations at the Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation. 

Borrowing outfits from organizations like Rent the Runway. “When I’m going out, I just rent clothes, and I feel like my closet is happier, and I’m happier. There’s less clutter in both my brain and my closet,” Ferrara added. 

Buying less. “If I buy less things less often, and everything I do buy has an intention behind it, that’s one way to start as a consumer,” said Georgeanne Siller, GABELLI ’17, an assistant buyer for women’s apparel at Macy’s Inc.

Reimagining Fordham 

Bringing innovation to campus. “The administration and the facilities team at Fordham is working really diligently on tremendously innovative solutions, from expanding our solar array to utilizing found materials like recycled fishing nets for the new carpets in the Campus Center … to utilizing cow fertilizers on campus grounds,” said Julie Gafney, Ph.D., assistant vice president of strategic mission initiatives and executive director of Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning, who also spoke about Fordham’s green work and long-term plan. “This is something that we can lead from wherever we come from. We can lead from justice; we can lead from faith. But this is a vision for a hope-filled future.” 

The event was co-sponsored by Ernst & Young, Greenberg Traurig, Macari Vineyards, and Zoetis. View the speakers, sessions, and 2023 Pioneering Women in Philanthropy honorees at the Fordham Women’s Summit website.

“I think one of the reasons you’re here is to make the world a better place than the one you arrived to,” she said. “And philanthropy is an incredibly powerful tool for that. I want the women at the Women’s Summit to own that. I want them to see that. I want them to evangelize that.” (Update: Watch Garry’s address at the Summit.)

Making the World a Better Place

For Garry, the desire to make the world a better place stems, in part, from her personal life. In the early 1990s, two decades before the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage, she and her partner, Eileen, were discussing the next steps for their family.

“I believed really deeply that if we were going to have a family that it was incumbent upon us to do what we could to make the world as safe as possible for them,” she said.

They became plaintiffs in a precedent-setting case in New Jersey in 1993, and Garry eventually became the first woman in the state to legally adopt her partner’s biological children.

“It was a huge ‘aha moment’ for me, recognizing, cheesy though it may sound, that one person can really make a difference,” she said on an episode of the Fordham Footsteps podcast last summer. “And it was huge news,” she added. “The story of our family was educating people about members of the LGBT community in a very different kind of way. In the early 1990s, gay families were not common at all, and I realized that the media had this incredible power and responsibility to tell these stories and really shape how the LGBT community was perceived and understood.”

At the time, Garry was an executive at Showtime Networks, but her family’s victory in court inspired her to take her career in a different direction a few years later. In 1997, she was named executive director of GLAAD, a national nonprofit organization that aims to “rewrite the script for LGBTQ acceptance” and tackle “tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change.”

“Because GLAAD focused on the media as an institution where we could change hearts and minds, the bridge from corporate media to the nonprofit sector was a no-brainer for me,” Garry said.

Garry said that when she started at GLAAD, there were “precious few images at all” of LGBTQ people in the media, and when they were featured, the depictions were usually negative. She built partnerships with media executives to change that, working with the producers of Survivor to help get a gay man on the popular TV show in 2000 and successfully lobbying The New York Times to feature gay and lesbian couples in its “Vows” section.

“We are part of the fabric of society,” she said. “The object of the work was to ensure that the media representation reflected the diversity of our society that included LGBTQ members.”

Lessons Learned

Garry said her work at GLAAD was influenced by her previous jobs, particularly at MTV, where she began her career soon after graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill with a degree in philosophy and communications.

At MTV, Garry learned the “dynamics, energy, and the urgency of a startup,” which became valuable to her as she transitioned to leading GLAAD.

“Running a nonprofit organization, they have a very similar energy [to a startup]—moving quickly, often too quickly, under-resourced,” she said. “The other piece that corporate America provided me was an understanding that numbers tell a story.”

And even before MTV, while still a student at Fordham, Garry said she learned about the value of having a mentor.

She got her start at MTV, several months before the network launched in 1981, thanks in part to her mentor James N. Loughran, S.J., FCRH ’64, GSAS ’75, a Fordham philosophy professor who later served as dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill. Father Loughran encouraged her to reach out to a Fordham graduate who was looking to build a team for a new project at Warner Communications.

“All I know is that one moment I was unemployed, and the next moment I was sharing an office with someone and looking at the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, and feeling like I had won the lottery,” she said with a laugh. “Little did I know that we were creating the business plan for what would become MTV.”

The ‘Accidental’ Consultant

All of those lessons helped prepare Garry for another career transition—starting her own consulting firm for nonprofits.

After working at GLAAD for eight years, Garry decided to focus more on helping raise her three children, who were in middle and high school at the time.

“We believe that older kids need you even more than younger kids,” she said with a laugh. “And so I went home to be on the ground when they got home from school.”

She began to take on some jobs as a way to “maintain my sanity,” Garry said, adding that she became an “accidental” consultant. In 2012, she launched a website to share tips, advice, insights, and lessons she learned from her time in the corporate and nonprofit worlds. The site “took off,” she said, and eventually led to a full-time consulting business and a book, Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership: Because the World Is Counting on You (Wiley, 2017).

Garry said that she found that many nonprofit leaders don’t have advocates and supporters for their work, which is why she also launched the Nonprofit Leadership Lab to help provide support, networking, and professional development to leaders of nonprofits.

“These jobs—whether you’re running a food pantry or whether you’re researching the cure for a disease or you’re advocating for the Latinx community—these are hard jobs,” she said. “They’re really hard to get right and far too often these leaders do not have champions.”

Inviting People In

Garry said that one of the pieces of advice she plans to give those who attend the Summit, and one she often shares with nonprofit leaders, is to invite people in to be a part of their causes and work.

“It makes people feel good to give money to causes they care about—it is an invitation, an invitation to get closer to those things that drive meaning and purpose in your life,” she said. “And why wouldn’t you invite people to do that? They can always say no. But I’d like to be invited. And so I have grown to understand through all of the work that I have done raising money, that it is  [about]  offering someone the opportunity to bring meaning and purpose into their lives in a different way.”

In particular, Garry said that she wants to invite women to use philanthropy to support the causes they care about.

“Women have not been socialized in the same way as men to be philanthropic; they have had fewer opportunities,” she said. “And I would like them to leave feeling inspired to be engaged in philanthropy in whatever way it makes sense for them.”

Watch the Fifth Annual Fordham Women’s Summit. Garry’s keynote address begins at 3:44:20.

Those words from keynote speaker Mary Ann Bartels, GABELLI ’85, GSAS ’92, summed up the sentiment at the fourth annual Fordham Women’s Summit: Philanthropy | Empowerment | Change, held on Oct. 21. The annual summit is an opportunity for women across Fordham to focus on philanthropy, leadership, personal growth, and professional development. This year, the virtual event drew more than 400 Fordham alumnae, parents, faculty, and friends who tuned in from locations around the globe. From the comfort of their own homes, they listened to expert financial advice and heard from four panels that explored topics like personal resilience, maintaining a career—and a household—amid a pandemic, and relinquishing the need for perfection.

A key theme of the summit was the importance of investing at a young age and learning how to create a plan for personal finances and philanthropy. In her keynote speech “Turning Financial Literacy into Philanthropy,” Bartels broke down complex topics in finance and offered advice for women that spanned generations. 

Bartels spent more than three decades on Wall Street, where she developed research that helped advisers and clients make better investment decisions. She worked for more than 20 years at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where she was known as a thought leader, and she’s appeared frequently on CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business. 

She opened her speech with a few powerful statistics, including the percentage growth of women-owned businesses. 

“When we look at the employment that they are creating over the last five years, that’s actually up 8% compared to [the growth of]  all businesses of 2%. And when we look at women of color in the businesses that they are developing, their growth rate is at 43%,” Bartels said. “So not only will women have financial power—they’re creating new financial power.” 

Riding Out the Market Cycles

Bartels explained the big ideas behind finances to help her audience make better financial decisions. 

Markets have cycles that are generally controlled by fear and greed, she said. But more importantly, they tend to move in an upward trend. Long cycles tend to last 18 to 20 years, and the good news is that the most recent “uptrend” started in 2013, she said. She predicted that the U.S. will see at least one more decade of markets that reach new highs. But she also stressed that it’s critical to hold on to some investments even when the markets tank. 

“I can’t tell you the countless clients that came out during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 and never put money back in the markets again. Markets, I can guarantee you, will always go down. Do they always go down 50%? No. Will they go down 50% again? Yes, because that is the power of markets. That’s the power of fear and greed,” Bartels said. “But the diversified portfolio? If you hold it over time, you add to it over time, you collect dividends over time, that’s where the compounding and growth comes from … It’s called patience.” 

Perhaps most importantly, she urged the audience to start saving, investing, and growing their assets at an early age. 

“Build a solid financial foundation for yourself before you have any significant percentage of your assets given to someone else,” Bartels stressed. 

First Steps Into Philanthropy 

When you’re ready to start giving, ask your parents or family members about their financial advisers and find someone trustworthy who will listen to your needs, Bartels said.

“There are many advisers that will want to sit there and lecture you on what you should do, but they don’t listen to what you need or what’s important to you,” Bartels said. 

Bartels parceled out other pieces of philanthropic advice: Invest in things that are important to you, your community, and the world. Contribute, but don’t overextend. Consider seven key categories: family, finances, health, home, work, leisure, and giving. Don’t be afraid to ask charities how exactly your money will be spent. Finally, imagine your individual power as a single voice or instrument. 

“It’s beautiful to listen to one voice. But when you take a choir and listen to all the voices, it just magnifies—or if you take one instrument and you start blending in more instruments and creating a symphony, how much more powerful that becomes,” Bartels said. “Become that instrument to create that symphony that can have that impact [on]  what is important to you.” 

Honoring Pioneering Women

At the beginning of the summit, three accomplished women in the Fordham community were honored as “Pioneering Women in Philanthropy”: Mary Heyser, R.S.H.M., MC ’62 and Monica Kevin, O.S.U., UGE ’48, GSAS ’61, ’64, who were honored posthumously, and Regina Pitaro, FCRH ’76. 

The Impact of Scholarship Gifts

The event’s student scholar speaker, Taylor Bell, a sophomore studying international studies at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a member of the rowing team, spoke about how scholarship giving can help level the playing field. 

“Without scholarship support, there would be very few students of color at this institution,” said Bell, a recipient of the William Loschert and Paul Guenther endowed scholarships. “There’s such a gap between the marginalized and privileged in our community, and within that gap exists an opportunity to both educate those who have not known a life with such limitations and to expose possibilities to those who have been on the outside looking in for far too long.” 

The annual campaign aims to raise funds for Fordham scholarships, sports teams, academic programs, and more through donations from alumni, students, faculty, and friends of Fordham. Like last year, the campaign will last 1,841 minutes in honor of the University’s founding year of 1841 and end the next day, March 3, at 6:41 p.m. As in years past, the goal of Giving Day is to give back to the community that has positively shaped the lives of thousands of Rams around the world. 

“I get to be a part of a really incredible community that wouldn’t be possible without our donors,” said Nicole Goldin, GABELLI ’22, the Student Philanthropy Committee Giving Day chair. “Everything on campus is partially funded by donors, whether it be our clubs, sports teams, GO! trips, the libraries where we study, or the Plaza at Lincoln Center. Those are really what add to the Fordham experience and the incredible community that we have here. I just think it’s so important to make sure you give back to the community that gives so much to you.” 

Three Perspectives: Why Giving Day Matters 

Last year, donors raised nearly a million dollars on Giving Day. Among the students who benefited from the support is Kaitlin Morley, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill who has played on the University volleyball team since her first year. 

“Giving Day supplies us with everything, basically. It really funds our program. It helps us get an extra pair of shoes for training, our bags and kneepads—everything,” Morley said.  

Thanks to last year’s donations, her team was able to travel to Italy this past spring and play against their international peers for two weeks—a rare opportunity for student-athletes, who often have limited study abroad opportunities because of their busy practice schedules, said Morley. The day after commencement, they flew across the Atlantic Ocean and visited Venice, Milan, and Rome. It was hard to hold long conversations with their Italian-speaking opponents, but they shared meals, including pasta and salad at a vineyard, and felt “united by one sport,” said Morley. All of these experiences wouldn’t have been possible without the support of donors, she added. 

“It really means everything to us. You feel their support, and you want to play harder for not only yourself and your teammates and coaches, but for the other people invested in the program,” Morley said. 

Among the donors who made their first-ever gift to Fordham on Giving Day 2019 were Leanne and Hugh Mohler, parents to Hughie, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business. Over the past two years, their son has flourished, said his mother. Hughie, the first in his family to attend Fordham, is studying accounting, playing club lacrosse, and flying to London next fall for a semester-long study abroad program, she said. 

“The main reason we decided to give was that our son is having a really positive experience at Fordham. He is very happy—and because he’s very happy, we’re very happy,” said Leanne.

It’s a sentiment shared by many alumni, including Brendan O’Grady, GABELLI ’13. When he was a student at Fordham, he said he learned from professors who not only helped him with academics and professional challenges but also personal growth. Those lessons helped him better communicate and care for his colleagues at Ernst & Young, where he works as a manager in digital strategy, he said. 

These days, O’Grady is giving back to Fordham. On Giving Day 2020, he’s sponsoring the Class of 2020 Challenge. (If 50 students or parents from the class of 2020 make a gift, O’Grady will donate $2,020 to Fordham.) This will be his third time sponsoring a challenge gift for Fordham’s Giving Day. 

“For me, it’s very important to make sure that I do what I can do to contribute and hopefully help other people have that experience,” O’Grady said.  

Other day-long 2020 Giving Day challenges include:

• Big Giving Day Challenge: If 1,841 people make donations, Trustee Darlene Luccio Jordan, FCRH ’89, and Gerald R. Jordan will donate $50,000 towards scholarships and financial aid. 
• Parent Challenge: If 250 Fordham parents donate on Giving Day, Michael Emerson and Kathryn Naassan, PAR ’20, will donate $5,000.
• Student Club Challenge #1: The approved club that receives the most gifts—no matter the amount—will earn $250.
• Spirited Selfie Challenge: Share a photo of yourself donning your best maroon-and-white gear. Ramses will pick one lucky poster and give $250 toward the Fordham cause of their choice. Make sure to use #FordhamGivingDay.
• All Things Cute Challenge: Share a photo of your baby—or fur baby—in Fordham gear, including #FordhamGivingDay and the area of the University that matters most to you. One post will earn an extra $250 for their cause.
• Campus Beauty Challenge: Post your favorite picture of the Fordham campus with #FordhamGivingDay. Make sure to mention your favorite Fordham cause in the caption—one person will earn an extra $250 for their program of choice.

Make your Giving Day 2020 gift here. Visit the Fordham Giving Day website for more information.

“We had a record-breaking Giving Tuesday,” said Elaine Ezrapour, director of the Fordham Fund. “It’s very exciting to see the outpouring of ‘phil-‘Ram’-thropy.’” 

Held this year on Dec. 3, Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, has become an international day of charitable giving. Since 2015, Fordham has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on this day. But 2019 marked the first year that the University raised more than a million. 

Supporting Athletics

The majority of the 1,589 gifts made this year were for Fordham athletics. More than $300,000 in gifts will help support the Frank McLaughlin Family Basketball Court and University sports teams. That includes the Fordham men’s rugby football team, which is raising money to fly to Ireland for the club’s first international tour in more than 50 years. 

“Working with the Fordham Fund, we’ve created a Give Campus page for each of the varsity and club teams,” said Edward Kull, senior director of development and senior associate athletic director, adding that the student-athletes and coaches create videos for their teams letting everyone know what their needs are. “So it’s a real collaborative effort.” Squash, crew, football, water polo, and sailing were among the top raisers, he said.

Scholarships for Urban Plunge

More than $6,000 was raised for scholarships for Urban Plunge, a pre-orientation program where first-year undergraduate students participate in community service activities throughout the Bronx and Manhattan. The program, run by the Center for Community Engaged Learning, requires a $250 fee for each student that pays for their meals, transportation, and supplies. 

A Double Giving Challenge

This year’s Giving Tuesday offered Rams a double challenge. If 350 donors made a gift by 11:59 a.m. EST, then Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, and Thomas P. Salice, GABELLI ’82, would contribute $20,000. After the goal was achieved, the Salices presented the second half of the challenge: If 200 more donors made a gift by 11:59 p.m. EST, the couple would give another $20,000 to Fordham. Thanks to 550 donors, both challenges were met and the Salices donated $40,000. 

Student Support

Students across the University helped spearhead donation efforts, too. In O’Hare Hall, student callers reached out to dozens of alumni, parents, and friends of Fordham. Usually, they work three hours a day, Ezrapour said. But on Giving Tuesday, they worked from roughly 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and secured 150 gifts over the phone. 

Further downtown, the Student Philanthropy Committee at Lincoln Center set up a tabling session in the Lowenstein Center. For the first time, they created a “giving tree” fashioned out of chicken wire and multicolored leaf cut-outs. Committee members asked passing students to write on a leaf the things they are grateful for at Fordham—including causes they want to support in the future. 

“They wrote wonderful notes about the different areas on campus that they feel connected to and care about,” Ezrapour said. “It was a great effort on their part, not only in raising awareness about Giving Tuesday, but also demonstrating to the campus community just how many potential areas there are to support.” 

That was the central message of the third annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit on Oct. 23, held at Fordham Law School. 

“This year, we developed a theme that represents today’s overall message and program: transforming today, safeguarding tomorrow. From our families to our communities, from our workplaces to our world, women’s philanthropy creates positive change and preserves the things we love,” said Martha K. Hirst, senior vice president, CFO, and treasurer of Fordham, in her welcome address.

In attendance were nearly 250 alumnae, students, faculty, and friends of Fordham. Throughout the day, they listened to keynote speeches and panels led by women at the top of their fields, from presidents and CEOs to a mother-daughter doctor duo. 

Attendees shared stories about their lives and the things they learned, including the importance of giving credit where it’s due. They networked and mingled over lunch. They decompressed while watching a digital sunset through headsets provided by the Glimpse Group, a virtual and augmented reality platform. But above all, the women celebrated the ways philanthropy has transformed people’s lives.

“Right now, it’s not only a fact that 50% of our alumnae are women,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, addressing guests in the Costantino Room. “More than 50% of our students are women. So Fordham is now a majority women’s institution, and therefore, we are especially grateful and honored that you are here.” 

Rose Marie Bravo: From the Bronx to Buckingham Palace

The first keynote speaker was Rose Marie Bravo, a fashion industry icon whose past positions include CEO of Burberry and president of Saks Fifth Avenue. In recognition of her contributions to British fashion, Bravo was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in June 2006. 

At the summit, she spoke about how she helped revive the iconic Burberry brand, known for its raincoats and distinct tartan plaid, and met fashion giants like Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld. She gave advice on how to be a good boss (communicate your vision clearly and be kind to everyone) and emphasized the importance of escaping your comfort zone to expand your career. But the focus of her speech was on what inspired her to give back to her community.

“It all began in the Bronx,” Bravo said. “It began with my parents … this idea of giving back.”

Her father was an Italian-born barber who spent his Sunday mornings in a hospital, tending to patients who needed a shave and a haircut. Her mother—who is still alive at 97—was a seamstress from Sicily who offered her services to all, including those who couldn’t afford the cost, she said. Raised in the Bronx, Bravo graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and earned a bachelor’s degree in English cum laude at Fordham’s Thomas More College in 1971. 

Decades later, she gave back to the schools that had shaped her early life. At Fordham, she established the Biagio and Anna Lapila Endowed Scholarship Fund in honor of her parents and the Rose Marie Bravo Endowed Scholarship for students studying theology or a related field. 

In a fireside chat with Justine Franklin, senior director of development for major gifts, the conversation took a more personal turn. 

“I was diagnosed three years ago with a very rare ovarian cancer … I had surgeries, I had chemo, I went through the whole thing,” Bravo said. “But it taught me a lot.” 

“How do you touch people, in a way that’s special? And being able to say, thank you, God … [So that] when our time comes, we’re going to be ready to go on that journey,” she said, in a speech that ended with a standing ovation.  

Valerie Rainford: An Uphill Climb to Success

At every juncture of Valerie Rainford’s life, Fordham has played a central role.

“I feel like at every turn, Fordham has been there pouring into me, which is why I’m committed to pouring back in,” said Rainford, FCRH ’86, head of advancing black leaders and diversity advancement strategies at JPMorgan Chase and Fordham trustee.

When Rainford was a sophomore, her mother committed suicide and she dropped out of school. However, a few staff members in the Graduate School of Business, where Rainford was doing work-study at the time, refused to let her go. Rainford returned after six months.

“It doesn’t really matter how many times I walk up that hill from the bus stop. I get tears in my eyes and goosebumps that here’s this kid who dropped out of Fordham and who almost didn’t come back, and now I sit on the board of [trustees]—it’s pretty crazy,” she said in her keynote speech. 

Rainford said Fordham gave her confidence to go on after she lost her mother and helped her get her first job at the Federal Reserve.

“I got my first job through career planning and services,” she said. “I got my second job through a Fordham alum, who I met at an event outside of Fordham. There was a time I was thinking about leaving JPMorgan, by the way—it was a Fordham alum who convinced me to stay.”

Rainford emphasized that even those who don’t have the ability to make large donations can still give their time.

“For a kid like me, who grew up like me with nothing, 10 dollars matters,” she said. “For anybody to sit here and say they don’t have enough to give … everybody has something to give.”

Jazmin Nazario, FCLC ’20, the student scholarship speaker, proved Rainford’s point. 

Nazario, a mathematics major who works four jobs, received the Clare Boothe Luce Scholarship through Fordham during her sophomore year. It helped her work toward her goal: becoming a mathematics teacher. 

“It is important that we keep future Fordham women educated and supported through scholarships so other young women like myself can have similar accomplishments and confidence in their future careers,” she said.  

Fighting Imposter Syndrome

Many women experience “imposter syndrome”: the struggle to embrace their success because they feel like they don’t belong.

“You have made some terrific accomplishments … but you persistently think that you’re not bright and you’ve fooled others,” explained Toby Tetenbaum, Ph.D., a professor of educational leadership, administration, and policy at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education, in an afternoon workshop. “It leaves you with this crippling sense of self-doubt.”

Much of the syndrome’s roots lie in how women are raised and taught to conform to “societal ideals,” Tetenbaum said. Women are taught to be humble and modest while attributing their successes to luck instead of hard work and accomplishments.

“Women have a really hard time self-promoting,” she said. “No one wants to be seen as a braggart.” 

She encouraged women to fight the syndrome by being clear about their goals, asking for feedback to help better themselves, and identifying their strengths.

“You have to brand yourself,” Tetenbaum said. “You have to be known for something.” 

Celebrate What Makes You Unique

In the workshop “Guide Your Career (Not the Other Way Around),” guests learned how to bring their unique talents to the table. 

“Our brand is who we are and what we bring that might be unique and different, and what’s important about us,” said one of the presenters, Megan Taylor, senior director of employee experience at Adobe Inc. “It’s our key differentiator.”

To begin building your brand, it’s important to do five things, Taylor said: understand yourself, offer a distinct value, identify how you’ll get that information out there, network and market yourself, and re-evaluate your brand as you change and grow. 

Your personal network is also important in guiding your career, she said. A good way to keep track of all your connections is to physically map them out, said Taylor. Annette McLaughlin, director of Fordham’s office of career services, agreed. 

“You’re at the center of the circle. And then put all the circles and activities that you’re involved in—your volunteer [service], your work, your friends, your exercise, your gym—and look at all the people that are in those networks,” McLaughlin said. 

The Struggle to Embrace Our True Selves

Six women recounted their professional and personal obstacles in the afternoon panel “A View From the Top: Reflections on Success and Coaching the Next Generation of Women Leaders.” 

Elizabeth Zeigler, GSE ’00, president and CEO of Graham-Pelton Consulting, started working at the firm as a 32-year-old part-time employee and a new mom. The male CEO, at the time, was wary about assigning her on a project because of her gender. 

She confronted him. More than a decade after their conversation, she became president and CEO of their company. (And she mended fences with the old CEO, who became a mentor.)

Panelists also discussed the struggle to stay authentic to their true selves while countering negative stereotypes.

“If we are compassionate or supportive, then we’re weak … For black women, if something is not going right and I’m about to tell somebody, ‘You need to do this,’ then you have a chip on your shoulder,” said Valerie White, FCRH ’83, LAW ’96, an executive vice president at the Empire State Development Corporation. 

White said she used to be the only black woman managing director at her old Wall Street firm.

“I had braids … It was a big issue because I traveled all over the country. If I were in New York or New Jersey, it might be OK. When I was in Oklahoma or Arizona, someplace, there was always this look—‘I’m not sure if she’s going to be able to do a credit analysis,’” White said. 

“Unfortunately, that’s kind of how we have to gauge the environment that we’re in. But we’re women—we know how to do that, right?” she said, to affirmative “mmm-hmms” across the room. 

The Influence of Jesuit Education

In the afternoon Values-Based Leadership session, Joan Cavanagh, Ph.D., director of campus ministry for spiritual and pastoral ministries at Fordham, moderated a panel of three women of faith whose bold decisions led them to leadership roles in service of others. Each of them had a life-changing moment to look back on.

Debbie Santalesa, GABELLI ’91, global lead for emergency preparedness and planning for CARE International, was in a car accident early in her accounting career that almost took her life.

“That was the beginning of where I became who I was supposed to be,” she said. She soon began a career in humanitarian work that brought her to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Santalesa said she didn’t realize it until later, but the theology and philosophy classes she took at Fordham impressed upon her the importance of giving back to the community.

“When you feel that something needs to be changed,” she said, “that’s God calling you.”

‘A Life of Meaning’ 

The previous two summits have raised nearly $540,000 for Fordham. Many of the funds were achieved through Fordham’s giving circles—groups of individuals who donate money to a pooled fund. Last year, there were 16 circles; this year, there are three new ones: career services, higher education opportunity program giving, and living the mission. 

This year, the summit also honored six women who have supported Fordham students. Receiving the Pioneering Women in Philanthropy Award were Barbara Dane, Ph.D., GSS ’67, ’85, professor emeritus of clinical social work in palliative and end-of-life care at New York University; Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., UGE ’62, GSAS ’65, ’71, former cosmetics executive and retired senior vice president of Cablevision Systems Corporation; Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, a philanthropist who served as a vice president at Diversified Investment Advisors; Donna Smolens, FCRH ’79, GSAS ’81, senior advisor at Insight Partners; and the two keynote speakers.

They were honored for their service, which Father McShane said is something essential for a life well spent: 

“A life of meaning must always include service of others—service and causes that are greater than ourselves.”

Next year’s Women’s Philanthropy Summit will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020.

Complete bios of all of this year’s speakers, panelists, and honorees can be found here. 

—Kelly Kultys and Nicole LaRosa contributed reporting.

“What my aunt kept teaching me was that I could do whatever I wanted to,” says Bartels, who began her own career on Wall Street in the 1980s. “She empowered me not to be intimidated just because I was a woman.”

Bartels grew up on City Island in the Bronx and attended community college before transferring to Fordham, where she deepened her newfound passion for analyzing the economy as “a puzzle with a lot of different moving parts.” She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Gabelli School of Business in 1985 and later earned a master’s degree in economics at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Today, Bartels is a leading investment strategist with a knack for explaining financial concepts to the general public. As head of the Research Investment Committee and of exchange traded fund strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, she has often shared her expertise on outlets like CNBC. And she continues to come back to Fordham, she says, because “they gave me a chance.”

As a member of the President’s Council, Bartels has been a guest lecturer in classes and for the Smart Women Securities club, and has served as a judge at a Shark Tank-inspired event hosted by the Gabelli School. On October 23, she’ll be attending Fordham’s third annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit, where she’ll participate in a panel discussion titled “A View from the Top: Reflections on Success and Coaching the Next Generation of Women Leaders.” It’s an important event to her, she says, because “it’s women supporting women.”

“It’s nice that Fordham is creating an environment where women can come together and share their success and do good for whatever their cause is,” she says.

“You know, women have come a long way,” Bartels says, “yet we have a lot more to do. Many women used to be hostage to a husband and their views on how to use their wealth. Now women have their own finances and their own voice. But we still represent very small ratios in most lines of business.”

That’s why continuing to engage in mentorship is also important to Bartels. “For women and men alike, how do we grow without mentorship? It’s a way of giving back,” she says.

That desire to give back is something she sees in her daughter, Lorraine, a first-year student at Fordham College at Rose Hill. Bartels says that her daughter was most attracted to Fordham’s ethos of engaging with surrounding communities. She started her Fordham experience with Urban Plunge, an optional pre-orientation program run by the University’s Center for Community Engaged Learning where students participate in community-enriching programs throughout the Bronx and Manhattan.

“She is absolutely thriving,” Bartels says of Lorraine. “And I get to see Fordham in a new way—as a parent.”

What are you most passionate about?
At the end of the day, what’s most important to me are my two children. My main responsibility is to be a mother; it has to be.

My second passion, at least professionally, is that I love to assist people with their finances. I love sitting down and helping a client understand what they have and how we can get them to where they want to go.

Another passion I have, and something I’m really learning as I get older, is how to stay healthy and have a health program for longevity, starting with diet. In your 20s, you feel like you’re invincible; you snap back like a rubber band. In your 30s you still think you’re invincible, but you start to learn that the rubber band doesn’t snap back quite as fast. By the time you’re 40, the rubber band does not always snap back. And by the time you’re 50, you really need to have everything together.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
My Aunt Bernadette taught me the value of networking, and how a lot of life is about networking and meeting people. But I didn’t appreciate it until it worked for me. When I look at my past, through Wall Street, a lot of it was connected by people I met through the years and who I stayed in touch with, who became my friends within the industry both inside and outside my company. As you go through your career, you need a mentor, right? But you also need what’s called sponsorship, people that you work with who say “you are adding value to our business.” So you never know who that might be.

On a personal level, and we’ve all heard this from many different avenues, another piece of advice that has been important has been “learn how to accept yourself, take care of yourself, and love yourself.” As you get older and wiser, you really start understanding why that was said to you so often. You’re pulled in so many different directions, especially women, and many of us struggle with that. How many women have said, “Yeah, I just don’t do anything for myself.” And then they end up unhappy. You have to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Or you can’t help anybody, you can’t be at the top of your game. And even if you get there, you can’t enjoy it.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
My favorite place in the world is Alaska, the pristine and absolute beauty of the nature there. Especially in the winter. I get there and it’s my happy place. I’ve been there many times, fished there, seen whales and porpoises, been out on glaciers. The people are wonderful and grounded. It’s all about loving and being with nature.

My favorite place in New York is harder. I think it would be Battery Park. I worked down there for many years. My office was overlooking the water and I took the ferry twice a day. And I just loved being there on the river.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
So this is probably going to be very odd. Early in my career, my aunt told me to take this course on technical analysis. And the book we had to get for it was Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by the teacher, John Murphy. When I read that book in that course, I was like, “This is it for me.” It changed my life; it gave me confidence that I could actually do it. He wrote it in a way that I could understand. For me, that was a light bulb moment.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I’m going to say economics professor Dominick Salvatore. Not only is the man brilliant, and not only does he write great textbooks, he teaches in a way that makes economics exciting. It completely lights up, and he has this magnetism that comes through in his teaching. He’s great at taking concepts and explaining them so any student can understand. And that’s an important part of what I have to do in my work now, take the most complex situation or topics and be able to explain them to any audience.

“I got help from older students, especially my fellow Ram Van drivers, who helped guide me to the right courses and professors. The professors helped me find the right major,” he says, “and the alumni network helped lead me to the right career.”

Now Sutherland, a vice president of strategic client management at Morgan Stanley, wants to do the same for current students.

One way he does this is by encouraging more financial institutions to consider liberal arts graduates. As an economics major who minored in both political science and business administration, Sutherland says he was able to use the “critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills you learn as a liberal arts student” to succeed in his Morgan Stanley internship, which led to a full-time job offer.

In his current role, Sutherland often has to coordinate among multiple teams, something he feels Fordham prepared him well for. “You’re always challenged to find creative solutions at Fordham, to maintain a strong work ethic, and to collaborate. There are great candidates at both business schools and liberal arts colleges who can do that”

He got involved with the Young Alumni Committee’s philanthropy subcommittee and later joined the Fordham University Alumni Association (FUAA) Advisory Board, where he serves on a task force focused on Fordham’s reputation. “The way people think about Fordham is important for the student and alumni experience,” Sutherland says. “I want to be at the forefront of helping Fordham stay in the limelight.”

He also wants to help his fellow alumni reframe how they think about their place in the Fordham network. That includes telling all his fellow alumni and friends about this year’s Fordham Giving Day, which spans March 4 and 5.

“People don’t realize that the amount of donors is so important, no matter how much they give,” he says, explaining that the percentage of alumni who support Fordham is seen as a sign of just how much alumni value their Fordham degree. “If you can’t give $200, give $20, or give $2.50 instead of buying coffee,” he says. “It’s all impactful.”

More importantly, he hopes that telling his own story will inspire other alumni to donate to their alma mater. “Even with financial aid, I graduated from Fordham with a lot of debt,” Sutherland says candidly. But he says he would do it all again—the value of the degree, the friendships he made, and the network he created were worth it.

“I want to combat the negative stigma folks have about giving back when you have debt. And I want to afford other students the opportunity to go to Fordham and have these experiences with less debt,” he says. “I tell them it’s not about giving because you get something physical in return. It’s giving because when you were here, you got experiences and friendships for life.

“And if you can’t give financially, mentor a student. Hire an intern. There are other ways to give back and strengthen the Fordham network.”

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?
Fordham is really what I’m most passionate about. I think the opportunities that were afforded to me, the classes I got to take and the people I got to meet, it shaped my education, my career, and my life. And I’m indebted to it. 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
There are two, both from my parents. The first is that hard work pays off. I saw that this year when I got a promotion to vice president so early on in my career. And the hard work I do personally pays off because I get to represent organizations I love, like Fordham and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

The other one is that you need to be able to stand up for yourself and challenge the norm. I have always tried to do that, in the classroom and the workplace, and that’s helped me get to where I am today. I always had an opinion, didn’t really sit back quietly. Even though maybe something had always been done a certain way, I let my voice be heard if I thought I could provide insightful feedback. 

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
In New York City, I would say Central Park. I go up there for runs to clear my head, and it’s just so interesting that we have this green space here. It’s such a point of relief and relaxation in such a hustle-and-bustle city, especially working with finance.

In the world, it’s definitely Rome. I had a fantastic experience studying abroad there: took great classes, played on a Roman lacrosse team, built long-lasting friendships with the students I was with there from around the world. Some of my best friends are from study abroad, and I try to go back to Italy once a year.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
This is a tough one, but for a lasting influence, I think it’s The Great Gatsby, which I read in high school. What I got from it was trying to remember how precious life is, to see the true friends at hand—even though Gatsby had these huge parties, he only had one true friend in Nick—and to understand that material goods don’t fulfill your life. It’s making sure I don’t lose sight of what grounds me.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
Professor Booi Themeli. I took two Senior Values courses with him, so both centered on bringing the Jesuit identity and ideals and values into the classroom and into real-life situations. Those classes led to such great discussions. We would share thoughts about an opportunity or situation or problem and how we would handle it, and he would play devil’s advocate, and we would have to ask ourselves whether we were thinking about things ethically or economically, thinking about dollars and cents or the good of an organization. Those are decisions I have to make probably on a weekly basis at Morgan Stanley (whose four core values luckily align with the Jesuit identity), and Professor Themeli really drove those values home for me.

The all-day event aims to raise money for Fordham scholarships and financial aid through donations from alumni, students, faculty, and friends of Fordham. Unlike years past, the 2019 event features a new challenge: to garner the support of 1,841 donors in 1,841 minutes—in honor of Fordham’s founding year. All donations will support Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid or the donor’s fund of choice. Rams have until March 5 at 6:41 p.m. EST to make a gift.

But the purpose of Giving Day extends beyond financial donations, says a Gabelli School student.

“Giving Day is more than fundraising for Fordham,” said Chirayu Shah, GABELLI ’21, the Giving Day chair of the Student Philanthropy Committee at Rose Hill. “It’s about making time to reconnect with Fordham.”

This year, Fordham will host evening Giving Day receptions on March 4 for alumni, students, faculty, friends, and future Rams at the Rose Hill, Westchester, and Lincoln Center campuses. From 12 to 1:30 p.m., the Rose Hill reception will launch a kick-off toast, courtesy of the Fordham athletics department. From 4 to 7 p.m., the Westchester reception will feature face-painting, caricatures, and a visit from Ramses. And from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., the Lincoln Center reception will provide refreshments and giveaways.

For the first time, there will also be a Giving Day challenge for Fordham’s 36 regional chapters. The regional alumni chapter that exceeds its participation goal by the highest percentage will win a free happy hour.

The Giving Day festivities also extend to social media. If you download and print out a Ramses cut-out, snap a photo of him in action, and share it on social media with #FordhamGivingDay and a Fordham tag, then $1,000 could be donated to Fordham in your honor, courtesy of Cathy O’Brien Skinner, FCRH ’89.

Other 2019 Giving Day challenges include:

• Big Giving Day Challenge: If 1,841 people donate during Giving Day, Trustee Darlene Luccio Jordan, FCRH ’89, and her husband, Gerald R. Jordan, will donate $50,000 toward scholarships and financial aid.
• Future Rams Challenge, 3–6 p.m. EST: Have a future Ram in your family? Use #FordhamGivingDay and post a photo of your child (nieces, nephews, or grandkids are fine, too!) dressed up in Fordham gear. Rob Howley, FCRH ’89, will donate $500 to Fordham in the poster’s honor.
• Cap and Gown Challenge, 9 p.m.–12 a.m. EST: Dig up your favorite Fordham graduation photos and share them using #FordhamGivingDay for a chance to have $500 donated in your honor, courtesy of Rob Howley, FCRH ’89.
• Love Is in the Air Challenge, 7–10 a.m. EST: Did you meet your significant other at Fordham? Post a photo of yourselves, using the hashtag #FordhamGivingDay. Thanks to Jessica Leto, GABELLI ’98,’06, FAC, and Michael Leto, GABELLI ’06, $500 could be donated to Fordham in your names.
• Pet Post Challenge, 10 a.m.–1 p.m. EST: Share a photo of your pet celebrating Fordham Giving Day while dressed in Fordham swag using #FordhamGivingDay. Ramses will pick one lucky photo at the end of Giving Day and $500 will be donated toward the Fordham cause of your choice, courtesy of Gerry Tenebruso, GABELLI ’13.
• Faculty and Staff Challenge, 1–4 p.m. EST: Which Fordham faculty or staff members changed your life? Give them a shout-out on social media and use #FordhamGivingDay for a chance to have $500 donated to Fordham in honor of you and your mentors, courtesy of Eileen Hornor, GSAS ’92.

Brendan O’Grady, GABELLI ’13, helped sponsor the Recent Graduate Challenge. (If 200 alumni from the classes of ’09 through ’18 make a gift, $2,000 will be donated to Fordham.) He said he owes much of his success to Fordham, particularly his mentors at the Gabelli School of Business.

“The leadership at Gabelli really took the time to get to know each and every student—what they were going to school for, what they wanted to achieve, and most importantly, pushed them not only to achieve that but to think a little bit beyond that,” said O’Grady, who is now a manager in digital strategy at Ernst & Young. “That’s something that I’m incredibly appreciative of.”

The past two Giving Days have surpassed Fordham’s original goal. Thanks to the generosity of donors, the past two fundraising events have collectively raised more than $1.4 million.

The philanthropists are also very diverse. Last year’s donors span four continents and almost every U.S. state. Two donors are members of the class of ’23; one alum is from the class of ’51. And more than 120 donors are from the classes of 2018 and 2019.

Hara Chung, GABELLI ’20, the Giving Day chair in the Student Philanthropy Committee at Lincoln Center, recalled meeting Judy Zoller, a donor at the 2018 Women’s Philanthropy Summit. Zoller and her husband had created a scholarship that paid homage to their son, a Graduate School of Education alumnus who died at age 39.

“After being able to listen to the donors and the reasons why they give, it impacted me emotionally,” Chung said. “I wanted to give back more, even though I’m [still]a student.”

“Fordham has given us all so many different opportunities, whether it’s the people we’ve met or the professors we’ve had or the internships that we’re able to have because we’re in the city. So to give back to Fordham would be to give back to the next generation.”

Make your Giving Day 2019 gift here. Visit the Fordham Giving Day website for more information.

Now Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, and Thomas P. Salice, GABELLI ’82, have made another investment in Fordham and its students. Their latest gift—$2 million—will support several important initiatives, leading with student scholarship as a part of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid.

The Salices are among the University’s most generous alumni. In addition to other gifts, they donated to Fordham’s last capital campaign, Excelsior | Ever Upward | The Campaign for Fordham, to build the Salice and Conley residence hall on the Rose Hill campus, named in honor of their parents. The residence has housed hundreds of Fordham students since 2010.

Susan says there’s a good reason why they give.  

“We both required scholarship dollars in order to be able to attend Fordham,” she said. She was one of the first members of her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, as was Tom the first to attend college in his family.

“If Fordham hadn’t come through, our lives would likely be quite different. We felt that the Jesuit education and values we received and embraced at Fordham made a significant difference in our lives individually—and, of course, together. That’s very powerful when you think about it.”

She has fond memories from her four years at Fordham—tutoring middle school students in the Bronx, working the grill at the McDonald’s on Fordham Road, studying for what seemed like endless hours in the library, sitting at Sunday night Mass at the University Church with her future husband. She also recalled a more recent special moment from last May—the day she and her husband saw their daughter graduate from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service. But perhaps most importantly, she feels the weight of her Fordham education at work in the skills she developed as an undergrad: leadership, curiosity, and awareness of the world around her.

“I graduated from Fordham being much more community-aware, world-aware. You question everything, interested in understanding the why,” she said, “and understanding that you have an opportunity and a responsibility to become engaged difference makers in the community and the world at large, for the greater good.”

Tom, a Fordham trustee fellow, went on to become co-founder and managing member of a private equity firm SFW Capital Partners, and the chairman of its investment committee; Susan became a vice president at Diversified Investment Advisors, a retirement investment firm.

Today, Susan devotes much of her time and resources to the causes that are important to her and her family. She is co-chair of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid and a University trustee. She also serves on other nonprofit boards. In 2017, she was also a keynote speaker at Fordham’s first annual Women’s Philanthropy Summit.

“Giving [to scholarships]  is an opportunity to change a life—to make an impact in whatever capacity you are able to do so,” she said in her keynote speech.

“Many people can usually afford more than they think they can—and I mean that in a very simple way,” she added. “Perhaps one can give up Starbucks for a week and donate that money. Over the course of a year, that amount can add up and have an important impact.”

She encourages potential donors to reconnect with their alma mater and recall how it felt to be a young, 20-something college kid with all the possibilities in the world.

“When you first graduate, you’re busy. You’re working. You may be raising a family,” she said. “But if you are able to make time to go back to campus, listen to a lecture, attend an event, actually talk to students and professors, you’re going to reconnect with Fordham. You will see the promise students hold in their faces and the potential each has to live as women and men for others.”

The all-day summit drew about 250 alumnae, students, faculty, and friends to Fordham Law School for a series of keynote speeches, forums, pep talks, networking breaks, and even a five-minute yoga session. But more than that, it was a chance for them to gather in the same room and discuss something they all had in common: how much Fordham meant to them.

The Power of Philanthropy

One of the first speakers was Gabelli School junior Arnell Stewart, who explained how alumnae donations directly impacted her life.

When Stewart’s older brother died suddenly last year, the family faced financial hardship. But with the help of two women—Stewart’s CSTEP counselor Tiffany House and Christina Seix Dow, TMC ’72, who established the Fordham scholarship Stewart received—she knew she could continue to attend college.

“This was the first good thing to happen to my family since the tragedy,” Stewart said, fighting back tears.

“Because of this blessing and Ms. Seix Dow’s generosity, I can stand here before you today as a member of the Fordham community, but also as one of the strong leading ladies here in this room today.”

How Do You Begin?

Many of the day’s speakers acknowledged that for women, pride in one’s wealth and success—and the power they bring—has not always come naturally.

“Some women feel uncomfortable with the idea of wealth. For men, for generations, it’s been culturally and socially acceptable—generally speaking—to be okay with that idea of, ‘I’m wealthy. I’m rich,’” said Veronica Dagher, GABELLI ’00, ’05, a senior wealth management reporter at The Wall Street Journal and a panelist at the summit. “For women though, in general, that’s been frowned upon.”

So for many, thinking about philanthropy has not been top of mind. But guests gained some insight on how to take their first steps toward giving from the day’s first keynote speaker, Harriet Edelman, GABELLI ’80, Vice Chair of Emigrant Bank—the largest privately held, family-owned-and-run community bank in the nation. Her advice: first pinpoint what you’re passionate about, consider how you want to donate—alone versus with “like-minded souls,” establish a budget, learn how to say no, and research possible organizations through sources like Charity Navigator.

And while she acknowledged that differences between men and women may be part of the day’s discussions, it wasn’t a critical point of focus for her.

“What matters,” Edelman said, “is why you give—why one gives; and, based on the fact that you are here, it means we have a common desire to be intentional and responsible, and share a common interest in the success and sustainability of Fordham.”

Kirsten N. Swinth, Ph.D., associate professor of history and American studies at Fordham, spoke about societal challenges for women in her keynote, “Women Organizing for Change: Feminism’s Forgotten Fight for Work and Family.”

“We are one of two nations in the entire world that does not have [mandatory] paid maternity leave,” Swinth. “Our companion in that status is Papua New Guinea.”

Swinth said that women can take action by joining or creating groups like giving circles, building workplace networks and unions, getting more involved with the government, protesting when necessary, and, perhaps most difficult of all, prioritizing the “collective restructuring of society.”

At the keynote panel session Women’s Giving: How Women Accumulate and Distribute Wealth, panelists discussed how women are achieving parity in the United States.

“Right now, in the United States, 39 percent of the top wealth holders are women. Forty percent of U.S. households have a female breadwinner. And 45 percent of the millionaires in the United States are women,” said the panel’s moderator, Elizabeth S. Zeigler, GSE ’00, CEO of Graham-Pelton Consulting.

And at Fordham, thousands of women possess potential financial power—perhaps more than we think.

“More than half of Fordham’s living alumni are women,” said Martha K. Hirst, Fordham’s senior vice president, CFO, and treasurer. “Which means together with the women among the University’s friends, faculty, administrators, staff, and other supporters, our collective impact potential on the University we love is boundless.”

Having It All: A Career, Love, Family, and Happiness

One of the day’s most popular panels was Work/Life Balance at Every Stage of Your Life, a forum where women traded stories about how they balance their careers with everything else: motherhood, romance, and “me time.” They acknowledged that women often feel that others have a better handle on the balancing act than they do.

“We live in a day and age where you can constantly be bombarded with the ‘perfect’ [on social media] and somebody else who appears to be doing it better than you’re doing it. You have some sort of imposter syndrome. And why is that? You’re doing so well. You’ve achieved so much so early in your career. Why would you think that that’s not success?” said Beth Savino, GABELLI ’03, a partner in asset management practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Marianne Cooper, FCRH ’77, a managing director at IBM who is a breast cancer survivor and the mother of a child with special needs, noted that priorities shift with age. And, she said, it’s important to take stock of what you will leave behind.

“What do you want to get out of your life?” asked Cooper. “When you go on, hopefully, up to heaven, how do you want to be remembered by your family, friends, and colleagues?”

Finding Meaning in Giving

Alumnae held a candid conversation about the spirituality behind giving at Keeping the Faith: Engaging the Next Generation in Conversations of Spirituality and Service, a panel moderated by Christine Firer Hinze, professor of Christian ethics and director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham. 

“Beyond the huge terrible things that are going on in the world today, there are day-to-day tragedies and heartbreaks. You can feel overwhelmed, like nothing you can do makes a difference,” said Anne Conroy, FCRH ’79, director of development and communications at the Center for Family Representation. “By being involved—whether it’s a faith community, a social justice opportunity, whether it’s giving to nonprofits or volunteering—my experience has been doing those things makes me feel less alone; it gives me a sense of hope and optimism. And as a Christian, I feel more connected to God.”

The day’s closing keynote speaker, Anne L. Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone, talked about meaningful opportunities that giving can provide. She urged all the women in the room to consider how they could help others achieve the American dream. Williams-Isom, the daughter of a single mother from Trinidad and Tobago, acknowledged that it’s difficult—but not impossible.

“I know you guys don’t want to hear about ‘stretching beyond your reach’ because everybody feels like they’re pulled to their limit,” said Williams-Isom, who serves on the University’s President’s Council and works to end generational poverty in Harlem by providing high-quality education and social services to children and families. “I’m here to tell you that you haven’t even begun to touch all the potential that is inside of you.”

Honoring the Past, Looking Toward the Future

The summit honored a group of women who have supported Fordham students in various ways. Receiving the Pioneering Woman in Philanthropy Award were Mary Higgins Clark, FCLC ’79; Rosemary Santana Cooney; Eugenie F. Doyle, M.D., MC ’43; Christine Driessen, GABELLI ’77; Brenda L. Gill, LAW ’95; Alice Lehman Murphy; Frances K. Reid; Margaret Mary (Peggy) Smyth, FCRH ’85; and Valerie Torres, FCRH ’83, GRE ’01, ’08.

Doyle, a retired professor of pediatrics and director of the division of pediatric cardiology at the New York University Medical Center, was a pioneering practitioner of using open-heart surgery to save babies with a rare disorder: “blue baby syndrome.” She and her late husband, Joseph, established two scholarships that benefit pre-health students at Fordham.

“You have quite literally changed the world, one baby and one student at a time,” Justine Franklin, senior director of development at Fordham, said to Doyle. “And have shown all of us how working for the common good is truly life-giving.”

The second summit also recognized Fordham’s six new giving circles—groups of individuals who donate money to a pooled fund and collectively decide how the money should be spent—that were established at last year’s summit. In just a year, the circles have raised more than $400,000 in Fordham scholarship funds.

“Joining a giving circle is a great first step in the start of your charitable giving journey,” said Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, a University trustee and co-chair of Fordham’s Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid. “By raising money as part of a fundraising group, your giving impact is that much more powerful and allows for you to connect with others who share your unique passion for helping Fordham educate more deserving students.”

Last year’s inaugural Women’s Philanthropy Summit raised almost half a million dollars. Donations for this year’s summit are just starting to come in. But perhaps more important than dollar amounts is the question of how to educate the next generation of philanthropists, said one alumna.

“How are we ensuring that the next generation of leaders are being cultivated with a love of community, a heart for justice, and a heart for servant leadership and love of neighbor?” asked Laura Risimini, FCLC ’10, GSAS ’13, foundation manager of the Sister Fund. “And what are we doing to make sure that the next generation—which is going to be taking the reins of leadership soon in the next couple of decades—is prepared?

“Our future literally depends on it.”

Complete bios of all speakers, panelists, and honorees can be found here.