In their Feb. 21 talk, Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, deputy NYC mayor for Health and Human Services, and Catherine Blaney, FCLC ’86, development lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies, encouraged students to consider opportunities in government, nonprofits, and more.

The pair, both of whom are members of Fordham’s President’s Council, spoke in Keating Hall at Rose Hill to more than 150 students in the symposium, part of Fordham’s pre-law offerings, which also include advising, programming, and clubs. The symposium brings in speakers to help students learn about careers, prep for the LSAT, and analyze mock cases.

Though Williams-Isom has spent much of her career in government and nonprofits, she said the training she got in law school was “very important” to her work.

“I wanted to be a good writer, I wanted to increase my analytical skills [and] be able to synthesize information quickly,” she said.

Williams-Isom, previously the CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, said that she often pairs those skills with values she learned at Fordham.

“Through all of this, the decision to go to Fordham and to want to focus on justice, and to want to focus on service—I do think I have come full circle in what I’m doing … and how I’m able to lead at this moment,” she said.

Blaney said that “law school is a place that allows you, when you graduate, in whatever job you take, to think five steps ahead.”

That way of thinking helped her develop a close connection with her boss, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor.

“He is a very precise, analytical, driven human being, and he wants to put action and results together, and he wants you to quickly analyze the problem and come up with a decision,” she said.

Thinking about Public Service and Law

For students, learning about the different paths and skills that law school can provide made an impact.

“I want to become a lawyer, but more the public service route—I want to be helping communities do better,” said Vincent Brandy, a first-year Fordham College at Rose Hill student, who plans to major in international studies.

Sinclair McKinney, a first-year Fordham College at Rose Hill student studying environmental studies, said that she appreciated learning about the role Fordham played in the speakers’ careers.

“The most interesting for me was … how Fordham’s focus on social service and helping others has followed them throughout their lives and led them to where they are,” she said.

Jade Belliard, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill majoring in history, said that she appreciated their message that students can “do anything with a law degree,” and that they spoke about balancing their careers and family.

“Especially for women, I feel like you have to choose between a career or starting a family—especially being in law,” she said. ”It was kind of a relief that they were like, ‘just go for it.’”

Additional reporting by Franco Giacomarra.

And throughout the project, which is focusing on questions about regulations in public housing, Watson learns as the students learn.

“I believe we’re the first college in the United States to bring together multiple disciplines to collaborate on a Watson system for an undergraduate research project,” said Erin Burke, assistant dean at Fordham College Rose Hill and director of undergraduate research and Fordham’s pre-law program.

The Watson project merges a graduate course on cognitive computing with an undergraduate pre-law tutorial on how to use the system. The collaborative courses are being taught by Frank Hsu, PhD, and Burke. Hsu is the Clavius Distinguished Professor of Science and director of the Laboratory of Informatics and Data Mining.

Watson is being fed all the regulations from New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), formatted in a way so that Watson can identify the answers to specific questions. Some questions include “What do I do if my building loses heat? Can I have a pet? What are the income restrictions for public housing?”

The documents analyzed by Watson and the students will eventually help lawyers working with underserved communities to obtain legal information more quickly and accurately than ever before, said Burke. She noted that even plainly written websites that seek to translate regulations into accessible language presume that the reader knows how to phrase the question appropriately—or is even looking in the right place. Watson can better understand what people mean to ask in their everyday language.

“What we’re doing will have real applications for the community in which we’re living by making it easier to navigate critical information,” said Burke.

Burke, who is a graduate of both Fordham Law and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (she holds a master’s in computer sciences) already knows the cross disciplinary approach firsthand. She said that lawyers, who are held to a high standard of language, must understand how technology is processing that language.

“Pre-law students are getting exposure to technology that will inevitably accompany them in their careers,” she said. “We’re producing more relevant future lawyers and, at the same time, our computer scientists will better understand developments in the law.”

The chance for the students to work with Watson before it becomes available to the general public represents an extraordinary opportunity, said Hsu. A small group from both classes convenes each week in the informatics and data mining lab to fine-tune the questions, as well as the answer documents being entered into Watson. Some students, like senior Dominick Marinucci, have had experience with law through internships, while others, like sophomore Ian Granger, not so much.

“I have no legal experience so this project is teaching me how to dig into another field that I know nothing about,” said Granger.

Then there is the process itself, which includes predicting questions that lawyers may ask about NYCHA.

“We try to figure out what knowledge is out there; then we figure out how do we best deliver it to Watson,” said junior James Apfe.

“We also have to keep in mind the impact that this project will have on the lives of people,” added senior Amell Peralta.

The students are also aware they are working on the early stages of cognitive computing and of all the concerns that surround it and Artificial Intelligence.

“The technology itself won’t harm us and can never surpass human beings because we created it,” said graduate student Xiaojie Lan. “But the terrible thing is people behind the technology may use it in the wrong way.”

It was a concern shared by Granger.

“Watson will become smarter than us and while that does scare me a bit, I think that there’s a potential for new learning and new concepts.”

Hsu was more holistic in his view.

“There are three directions of scientific discovery: one is the science of the physical universe—like physics and chemistry. The second is the science of the living systems—such as biology and neuroscience. Then the third is the science of information knowledge.

“That’s what this work is about: from data, to information, to knowledge, to wisdom, and then to enlightenment.”