But some scholarship donors are advancing this goal through their focus on students from particular schools—like the Catholic schools in Fordham’s backyard.

One of the newest such efforts is the Cristo Rey‒Fordham Scholarship Fund, which supports Fordham students who graduated from schools in the Cristo Rey network. The fund’s initial gift came from Thomas Kelly, M.D., FCRH ’71, who sought to help students overcome financial need and receive a Jesuit education, which for him took place at Canisius High School in Buffalo, New York, and then at Fordham, with scholarship help.

“Those were important years for me, and therefore I’d like to see the next generation have that opportunity,” said Kelly, a member of the Fordham University President’s Council.

Schools in the Cristo Rey network serve students from lower-income backgrounds, providing a four-year corporate work-study program that helps pay their tuition. Nearly all Cristo Rey graduates at Fordham come from Cristo Rey New York High School in East Harlem. Kelly’s scholarship adds to Fordham’s own commitment, announced four years ago, to meet up to the full cost of tuition for students from the Cristo Rey network.

Bronx Catholic Schools ‘Feed’ Fordham

Further north, in the Bronx, are Catholic high schools with socioeconomically diverse students that have long been “feeder” schools for Fordham—educating many a first-generation Irish American like William Rockford, FCRH ’67, GSAS ’72. A “dayhop” student who commuted to Fordham and worked his way through, he established a scholarship to Fordham for students at his alma mater, All Hallows High School, seeking to help the less-advantaged students of today.

He and his wife have been contributing to the William D. and Beverly B. Rockford Endowed Scholarship for more than two decades. “I hope it helps out these kids that are probably very ambitious but couldn’t afford to get a good education,” he said.

Albert Salvatico, FCRH ’71, another Bronx native from a working-class background, established a scholarship with his wife, Jean, to enable graduates of his own alma mater, Cardinal Hayes High School, to come to the University. A believer in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, he wanted to help students overcome socioeconomic barriers to a Fordham education.

So far, the scholarship has helped eight Hayes graduates do just that. “It’s been one of the more rewarding things of my life,” he said.

Learn more about Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student and make a gift.

He is the founder of two scholarships at the Gabelli School, including one that honors the memory of his brother, Jonathan Gach, GABELLI ’82, who died from cancer in 2018. He also created a research award named for his parents, Harold and Sydelle Gach, and has given to various academic centers and other initiatives at the Gabelli School. He’s a member of the Fordham University President’s Council and a supporter of the Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund.

Gach’s teaching and philanthropy are informed by his own student experiences but also by values honed during his varied career with Accenture, the global technology and consulting firm he served for 37 years.

Tell me why you created the scholarship in your brother’s memory.
Ours was a working-class family, and our parents didn’t have money for the University, so my brother and I both worked to pay for school. We were not really beneficiaries of campus life because of our working schedules. As much as I loved the Gabelli School, and it set me up for life, I know I missed out on some opportunities, so I want to afford students a chance to have that broader experience.

Why do you support so many different areas?
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is the school’s integrated objectives. I’m involved in the Responsible Business Center, which is geared toward research on many of the world’s challenges. I started off with the endowed scholarships, but as I started to understand better the importance of research, I’ve started to give in that area as well.

You teach a course called The Ground Floor that’s popular beyond the Gabelli School. What does it cover?
We give the students a business foundation. They get a little bit of accounting, marketing, finance, operations, etc., but also mission and ethics. We have guest speakers who help them with career discernment. We also ask them to develop an idea for a startup that addresses at least one of the U.N.’s sustainable development goals, and almost every year, at least one or two teams try to launch their business. A few have even gone to the Fordham Foundry for help.

What’s your approach to teaching students about ethics in business?
The point I make to students is that very seldom do companies’ ethical issues arise from malevolence. It’s a slippery slope, and I teach them about the warning signs. Management is not infallible. They make mistakes. You can’t just assume, “I’m in the corporate world, I need to toe the line”; you need to have your own point of view. To me, this is deeply ingrained in Fordham and the Jesuit culture, and I think this is a broader lesson for the role of a citizen in a democracy or an employee in a company. Almost every company has whistleblower channels.

What other lessons do you emphasize in your courses?
The importance of maintaining relevancy in the business world. That’s terribly important, because business is changing very fast. Companies used to do five-year strategic plans; now they do one-year strategic sprints. You have to stay relevant in your domain and continue to invest in your ongoing education.

Scholarship gifts support access and affordability, one of the pillars of Fordham’s $350 million fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student. Learn more about our campaign and make a gift.

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.

You don’t need to dive headfirst into computer science and programming to succeed in those spaces, he told students in the Gabelli School of Business during a talk at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus in November.

Zangari retired in early 2023 from his role as global head of research and product development at MSCI after more than 25 years in the finance industry. His retirement was a short one, though: Last month, he was named a partner and head of the Americas at MDOTM, a company that specializes in “AI-driven investment solutions.”

What AI Can—and Can’t—Do

During the student enrichment event, Zangari reflected on his professional experiences and shared insights on data analytics to help students better prepare themselves for careers in the industry. He said technology skills aren’t as critical to long-term success in finance as understanding how to apply technical tools like artificial intelligence.

“In this space, students should do their best to understand how people make investment decisions, and then learn about artificial intelligence—learn about what it can do, and what it is capable of doing—and then apply that to how investors make investment decisions,” he said.

He encouraged students to see AI as a partner, not a substitute for effective portfolio managers, and he said problems may arise when people “think [AI] can solve certain problems, like predicting the future, which I think is really a far-fetched idea.”

A Living Resource

The students in attendance said they were grateful for the opportunity to hear from an industry professional firsthand, peppering him with questions about trends, investment strategy, and his experiences with different employers.

“I’m really interested in finance and tech, and looking to go into that after I finish my master’s,” said Ruth Kissel, who is studying business analytics. “So I wanted to listen to a really experienced professional speak about those same topics.”

The M.S. in business analytics (MSBA) and M.S. in information technology (MSIT) programs are offered by the Gabelli School’s Information, Technology, and Operations area.

In the MSBA program, students learn to integrate analytics techniques, data management, information technology, modeling, and statistical analysis to become more effective analysts and informed users of business data. The MSIT program focuses on systems development, training students to gain the technical skills they need to excel in IT management positions. Grads of the two programs have gone on to work at companies including Amazon, American Express, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Zangari, who studied economics at Fordham, said he knows how vital it is for students to have access to alumni and industry professionals, so he spends “as much time as possible being available to students.” He’s an adjunct professor at Drew University in New Jersey, and at Fordham, he’s a member of the President’s Council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists who are committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile.

“I see how the students kind of lean in,” he said. “When you tell a story about your career, you tell a story about your life because, in a nutshell, one’s career is a reflection of life.”

Zangari said that at Fordham, he had an opportunity to learn and work with “people from all different walks of life,” and it was invaluable.

It’s not all about the hard skills, he said. Everyone will have those, but “what makes an employee very attractive is someone who has super-interest in what they’re doing. They’re self-motivated. They’re resourceful.”

When It’s Fordham Students, ‘I Always Answer’

“I get emails or LinkedIn requests from at least two Fordham students every day—and I always answer the call,” said Caldwell, executive director at JPMorgan Private Bank and member of the Fordham President’s Council. “Every job I’ve gotten since I graduated college has been through a Fordham alum, so I feel like it’s my duty to give back, wherever I can.”

Caldwell spoke with Fordham students at the Oct. 2 President’s Council Executive Leadership Series Mentoring Event. The evening brought together senior students and young alumni with members of the President’s Council—a group of professionals and philanthropists who provide mentorship and support to students and the University—and guest mentors.

His friend Will Finn, GABELLI ’17, a managing director at PNC, took it one step further: “Once you meet someone, build a relationship—don’t just reach out to reach out, but do some research. See what their career has been, what their education has been, and try to touch on those points.”

The Value of Face-to-Face Networking

At the evening event held in Lowenstein’s 12th-Floor Lounge, students networked with the alumni and asked questions about their career paths while gaining interviewing tips and career advice.

Hector Cruz, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill majoring in math and computer science, is currently interning at Con Edison. He’s interested in staying in that field, working toward creating a greener energy infrastructure. He said the opportunity to hear from alumni was very helpful.

“This was a good chance, especially as a graduating senior, to really get to know people and further my career, as well as further my relationship with Fordham postgrad,” said Cruz, who is the president of the Commuting Students Association.

For senior Emma Balint, the chance to connect in person was powerful, especially in the age of Zoom.

“I missed that component of getting to socialize with people face-to-face because I feel like that’s really where I thrive,” said Balint, who is majoring in psychology and minoring in bioethics at Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Finn said that he was glad students got to see the alumni network in action.

“I think networking is incredibly important within business, and people want to help each other, and that’s probably one of the best things about Fordham—the fact that people are willing to pick up that phone call,” he said.

Less visibly, the event also showed the power of philanthropy. Hosting Ignatian Q is just one thing made possible by a fund that is creating new momentum around the University for initiatives that support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning students, plus other sexual and gender minorities.

Founded last spring, the LGBTQ+ Student Wellbeing Fund is supporting everything from pastoral care to academic events and the development of classes reflecting LGBTQ+ themes—with the promise of more initiatives to come.

“I’m really encouraged and optimistic about the kind of response the fund has gotten, not only from LGBT members of the Fordham family but also straight members of our family who are deeply committed to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Joan Garry, FCRH ’79, a former executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD and nationally recognized activist who serves on the Fordham University President’s Council executive committee.

Garry and her wife kick-started the fund last year by leading a Fordham Giving Day campaign for it and providing a $50,000 matching gift.

The need is plain, Garry said: The number of students who identify as other than heterosexual or cisgender is growing “off the charts.” These students “have all kind of struggles every day,” from self-acceptance to harassment to bullying, and suffer disproportionately from anxiety and depression, she said.

The fund is also needed because of a political climate that has become “downright terrifying,” she said, pointing to the Human Rights Campaign’s June 6 declaration of a “state of emergency” for LGBTQ+ people due to laws being enacted around the country.

By helping to foster a more inclusive campus community, the fund dovetails with a key priority of the University’s $350 million fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student.

Impact of the Wellbeing Fund

In addition to providing critical support to the Ignatian Q conference, the Wellbeing Fund has supported Campus Ministry programs including Queer Spirit Community and the Prism Retreat, as well as the publication of a Queer Prayer at Fordham booklet distributed at Ignatian Q, said Joan Cavanagh, Ph.D., senior director for spirituality and solidarity at Fordham.

The fund has also supported Center for Community Engaged Learning initiatives including scholarships that helped LGBTQ+ students take part in Fordham’s Global Outreach and Urban Plunge programs, a panel discussion on LGBTQ+ history, and grants for faculty. Co-sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, the grants support innovative classroom projects related to LGBTQ+ history and advocacy.

The Wellbeing Fund has “ignited an understanding that there is so much to do,” Garry said. “I am excited about the forward motion the fund is creating to educate, drive awareness, and galvanize support.”

Learn more about the uses of the LGBTQ+ Student Wellbeing Fund and make a gift.

Learn about Queer Spirit Community, the Prism Retreat, and other Campus Ministry resources for LGBTQ+ students.

See related story: Pope Francis Sends Warm Letter of Support for LGBTQ+ Conference at Fordham

The messages conveyed during keynote speeches, breakout sessions, a Mass, and other events made for a conference that was, in the words of one organizer, “amazing.”

“I don’t even know how to describe it. Everyone was crying. It was more than I could have ever hoped for,” said Ben Reilly, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill and chair of the Ignatian Q Planning Committee. “It seems to have breathed life into the conversation around LGBT life on campus and LGBT student community, and the importance of community both at Fordham and across our AJCU family.”

Speakers were unsparing in describing the obstacles to LGBTQ+ equality. The weekend began with a keynote at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, next to the Lincoln Center campus, by Bryan Massingale, S.T.D., a gay Catholic priest and the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham.

He spoke of the necessity of dreaming as a step toward creating a just society in which people no longer face intolerance and violence because of gender identity or gender expression.

“That dream is under attack—blatant attack, disturbing attack,” he said, citing laws against “life-saving, gender-affirming medical care” and discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools, among other things. “There are serious efforts underway,” he said, “to create a world in which we don’t exist.”

He decried the idea that “God does not love us and we are not worthy,” saying “we have to dream of a world and a church where that lie is put to rest.” During his address, he prompted everyone in the pews to turn to one another and give affirmations including “you are loved” and “you are sacred.”

Visibility, Understanding, Acceptance

Saturday’s keynote was delivered at the Rose Hill campus by Joan Garry, FCRH ’79, a nationally recognized LGBTQ activist and former executive director of the gay rights organization GLAAD.

“The LGBTQ movement for equality needs all of you—badly,” said Garry, who serves on the executive committee of the President’s Council at Fordham. She urged the students to be activists who foster greater inclusivity at their colleges and universities and provide a model for other LGBTQ students who may be struggling.

“Visibility drives understanding, and understanding drives acceptance,” she said. “When you are ‘out,’ you model authenticity and honesty, and you show people the way. We illustrate that one does not have to be controlled by the expectations of others, and do you know how big that is? That’s a superpower.”

The event was supported by Campus Ministry and the Office of Mission Integration and Ministry. Father Massingale celebrated Mass at the Lincoln Center campus on Sunday, and for some students, it was their first time attending Mass since coming out, Reilly said.

Also on Sunday, in a keynote at the Lincoln Center campus, James Martin, S.J., the prominent author and editor at large at America magazine, said the openness of more and more LGBTQ people in parishes and dioceses ensures that the Catholic Church will continue to become more open to them.

“As more and more people are coming out, more and more bishops have nieces and nephews who are openly gay. That just changes them,” he said. “And that’s not going to stop.”

“You can hear the symphony and cacophony of sound, as if you could and should be able to reach out and touch the creatures making those sounds. And yet it’s extremely difficult to see the creatures that are making those noises. You have to be patient, still, quiet, and keep looking,” he says. “Perhaps akin to God. You must have faith. You may witness the evidence of God in your life, yet you often must calm your mind, heart, and soul to feel and truly embrace that presence in your life.”

In the past 25 years, Davidson, a 1994 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate and longtime member of the Fordham President’s Council, has traveled to 50 countries—in part through his work as a consultant, keynote speaker, and managing director at firms including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and most recently JPMorgan Chase, where he was responsible for leading global corporate workplace operations, business transformation programs, and people strategies.

He’s also a wildlife photographer with a deep, abiding interest in conservation issues. Last summer, he traveled from New York to Southeast Asia to document the biodiversity of places—on Borneo, Komodo, and Sulawesi—that are increasingly threatened by habitat loss.

“Like so many people around the world, I was reading the headlines … about what was happening to the environment, to the rainforest, and to the orangutans,” he says in Through the Looking Glass, a documentary film he wrote and directed in September.

Borneo’s forests—home to more than 15,000 known species of flowering plants, 3,000 species of trees, 200 species of terrestrial mammals, and 400 species of birds—are thought to be 130 million years old. That’s twice the estimated age of the Amazon, Davidson notes, and yet “in the span of only 50 to 100 years,” those forests have been reduced by more than 50%, critically endangering orangutans, threatening Bornean elephants, and leaving other species vulnerable to extinction.

“One of the primary drivers for this deforestation is the palm oil industry,” he says. “Rainforests are clear-cut, all the layers of biodiversity are removed, and palm oil trees are planted. It provides a whole host of products that we like to use, we like to eat,” from shampoo and cosmetics to cookies and ice cream.

By making the documentary—which features photos, video vignettes, and forest sounds recorded on location—Davidson has added his voice to what he calls “a growing chorus” of people raising awareness of the effects of deforestation and human-caused climate change.

“We have a responsibility in how we consume, in how we live our lives,” he says, “that translates to what happens thousands of miles away.”

Honoring the Legacy of a Jesuit Brother

Growing up in New York during the 1970s and ’80s, Davidson says his earliest impressions of Southeast Asia as a boy were shaped by one-sided depictions in what was then mainstream entertainment. Reruns of films such as King Kong (1933), for example, with its fictional Skull Island, “didn’t do a great service to the image of Indigenous peoples,” he notes.

As a Fordham undergraduate, however, Davidson met a Jesuit who helped him develop a broader perspective on a distant corner of the world.

John J. Walter, S.J., had spent decades on Chuuk (formerly Truk), one of the Federated States of Micronesia. Beginning in the late 1940s, Brother Walter worked alongside the Indigenous islanders there to build Catholic churches and schools, including Xavier High School, which opened in 1952. A 1961 article in The Monitor, the official paper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, described him as a “bearded Jesuit from upstate New York,” a skilled carpenter, handy with “hammer, saw, and T-square,” and a musician who played guitar and accordion.

“When I met him in 1992, I was a junior at Rose Hill,” Davidson says, “and it was by chance that I was assigned to him as the elder Jesuit to visit” as a volunteer at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuits’ health care community in the Bronx.

“He had had at least one stroke that left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak words or sentences, but he had photo albums meticulously organized with typed captions for each photo through the years,” Davidson recalls. “This was how he introduced himself to me, and his inner personality and energy … shined through.”

Last summer, as Davidson planned to document his experiences in Southeast Asia, he recalled the work of his friend Brother Walter, who died in 1995, and he wanted to develop a project to honor the Jesuit’s legacy of service. “He was a pretty incredible person,” Davidson says.

‘The Greatest Gift’

Davidson arrived on the Indonesian island of Komodo on August 3 after a nearly 40-hour journey. For the next four weeks, every day was “filled with traveling, trekking, or exploring of some kind” from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., he wrote in the preface to the collection of photos he published in September. He spent the majority of his waking and sleeping hours “deep in rainforests alone with a guide,” he wrote, “immersed in vines, branches, climbing up and down hills shrouded in dense foliage, over fallen trees and boulders, rushing streams, into mangroves, along remote beaches, amid extreme humidity, relentless heat and capricious rainstorms.”

In the book and documentary film that Davidson produced, he pays tribute to the people he met “who took care of me, who looked after me, who guided me, who were absolutely gracious hosts,” including a woman who let him and his guide take shelter under the roof of her house during a storm. “I think that’s probably the greatest takeaway, the greatest gift I have from this trip,” he says in the film.

‘Through the Looking Glass’

Davidson adopted the title of his film from the novel Lewis Carroll wrote as a follow-up to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, young Alice goes through a mirror to find a world where everything, including logic, is reversed. For Davidson, the title is a call to reverse the logic of unrestrained growth that fueled the past two centuries.

“Perhaps in the 19th and 20th centuries, progress was clearing land to build buildings, homes, to support a burgeoning population,” he says. “Maybe in the 21st century, progress is not that, but it’s about how we restore green spaces that were overdeveloped.” He adds that amid “a crescendo of climate change globally,” it’s time to “gaze through the looking glass at the world we will leave for future generations and bravely acknowledge the many aspects of our lives we need to reverse now to truly make the progress necessary to save that which will survive tomorrow.”

Watch the film:

Now, as she helps plan this year’s Jubilee reunion weekend, she wants her fellow alumni to reconnect with their own college memories—and how their Fordham experiences have fueled their lives and careers.

“I had a world-class education, and I took every bit of advantage of it … but I also loved that I was in New York City,” said Sullivan, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Hogan Lovells, a global law firm. “I had organized my life so that I had no classes on Friday, and I would walk up to the D train, and I would go down to Fifth Avenue and window shop in stores that I couldn’t begin to afford.”

Sullivan is one of 15 alumni serving on the Class of 1973 planning committee, a dedicated group of volunteers helping to plan engagement events and reach out to fellow classmates leading up to the reunion celebration, from June 2 to 4. Though class years ending in 3 and 8 will be celebrated this year, all Rose Hill alumni are welcome.

As vice chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, Sullivan gets back to campus fairly often, but she said it’s not quite the same as getting to reunite with her fellow Rams.

“I am really excited at the prospect of seeing people who I have not seen in many cases since graduation,” she said, “and in some cases just rarely because I’m not in New York and a lot of my friends from Fordham stayed in the New York area.”

Breaking Ground—and Glass Ceilings

The women of Thomas More College—Fordham’s undergraduate school for women from 1964 to 1974—are known for being trailblazers in various fields, and Sullivan is certainly no exception. She’s one of the top energy lawyers in the country, having served as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Energy in the Clinton administration and as the department’s deputy general counsel for environment and nuclear programs.

Both of Sullivan’s parents—Eileen Ahern Sullivan, UGE ’42, LAW ’46, and Francis J. Sullivan, LAW ’34—were Fordham graduates, and they showed her firsthand the value of public service, particularly through their involvement with the fair housing movement. “We didn’t talk about ‘men and women for others’ then,” she said at a Presidential Welcome Reception she hosted with her husband, Larry Petro, at her firm’s offices in Washington, D.C. “That’s just the life they lived. And what they taught me.”

That sentiment fuels her efforts to combat climate change, both personally and professionally: She provided critical legal support for the world’s first deep geologic disposal facility for radioactive waste, for example, and negotiated the first agreements with electric utilities on voluntarily reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At Fordham’s 2015 Commencement, the University bestowed an honorary doctorate on her in recognition of “her exceptional and groundbreaking leadership in energy law.”

She’s passionate about giving back, as well. She’s a member of Fordham’s Doty Loyalty Giving Society and the 1841 Society, and has created and supported a number of endowed scholarships funds, including the Eileen Sullivan & Francis J. Sullivan Endowed Scholarship (named in honor of her parents), the Thomas More College Endowed Scholarship Fund, and the Fordham Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund.

Sullivan also has supported the Global Outreach program, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

‘A Very Fordham Thing’

Though she was a self-described “nerd” and serious student who focused her studies on metaphysics, Russian literature, and economics, she was among the student protesters who “took over” the University’s administration building during the Vietnam War. She described the early 1970s as an “era of protest” but added that their particular occupation was a very “Fordham experience,” meaning it was more orderly than most.

“I will never forget this guy in the business school had a can of Pledge,” she said, “and as we were leaving the building, he was polishing the table. We were very respectful of the space. It was totally Fordham, you know.”

Fordham Five (Plus One)

What are you most passionate about?
I am passionate about climate change. We are frying the planet, and there is too little urgency about the need to change our behavior. It is on all of us to do what we can to turn things around: Insist on carbon-free power from your local utility—it is available if you ask—take public transportation, don’t drink water that has traveled on the road (i.e., bottled water), “reduce, reuse, recycle” in every part of life, don’t order anything for home delivery if you can pick it up the next time you are out running multiple errands, and never order just one thing for home delivery. The traffic jam of delivery trucks in my neighborhood drives me crazy because of the horrific carbon footprint it represents. There are promising big solutions out there, but the little stuff that we can control matters more than we acknowledge.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I got was probably in first grade, when I told my mother school was too hard. She told me I could do it if I tried. Effort is not everything, but in my life, it has counted for a lot.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
In New York City, my favorite place is the Brooklyn Bridge, on foot. You can see the skyline of New York and the Statue of Liberty, which cannot help but inspire. At the same time, you can look at the river and New York Harbor and imagine New York before it was New York, when nature was all around. I think it is a magical walk.

The world has so many spectacularly beautiful and exciting places. Picking one favorite is hard. In the end, I come down to Antarctica. It is spectacularly beautiful and different from everywhere else I have been on the planet. And it is where I learned that penguins operate their own, very organized daycare centers. It was amazing to see some adult penguins stay behind with the babies who cannot yet swim while others went out and got food and brought it back for the babies and the daycare workers. For some reason, that made more of an impression on me than almost anything else I have seen in my travels.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
I confess that I am not as much of a reader as I wish I were or should be. Sitting quietly is not my strong suit. However, a couple of years ago, I picked up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman from one of those little neighborhood library boxes. I loved it so much I read it cover to cover twice in short succession. It was a tale of overcoming incredibly challenging personal circumstances with the help of acts of kindness of others. Notwithstanding the trauma underlying her story, I found it a very hopeful story.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I was a philosophy major when Fordham was home to a pantheon of philosophy giants: Norris Clark, S.J., Robert O’Connell, S.J., and Quentin Lauer, S.J., to name a few. I cannot pick one among them. I loved the education I got as a philosophy major and can remember 50 years later some of the insights I took away from their classes.

What are you optimistic about?
In my family, I am often referred to as Pollyanna, which has become a noun that means “an excessively cheerful or optimistic person.” Does that mean I am optimistic about everything? I think it really means I am good at forgetting the bad stuff. But I guess I am optimistic that we can make a difference in this world, which has many things to be pessimistic about, if we try.

“That richness of thought and perspectives really helps our work,” said Jonathan Valenti, FCLC ’98, a principal in the customer and marketing strategy practice at Deloitte.

Valenti, who majored in information science, was one of three Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) grads who participated in a Feb. 9 virtual panel titled “From FCLC to the World of Business.”

Tracyann Williams, Ph.D., assistant dean for student support and success at FCLC, moderated the discussion. She asked the panelists to share their experiences as Lincoln Center students, their tips on taking liberal arts skills into the job market, and what they like about hiring applicants with that background.

Maureen Beshar, FCLC ’86, majored in philosophy and political science, and today she is executive director of business development for the investment management firm Hardman Johnston Global Advisors. She said her Fordham Jesuit education—with its focus on well-rounded learning and being a person for others—has been valuable in her personal and professional life.

“Fordham’s [Jesuit] foundation … I really think it makes a difference in a person,” said Beshar, whose two daughters both attend Fordham and who serves on the University’s President’s Council, a group of successful alumni committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile. “It really, ethically, helped me think differently. I can attribute a lot back to Fordham, with how I treat others, how I think about situations.”

Make the Most of ‘Internship City’

Scot Hoffman, FCLC ’98, majored in English and assumed he would pursue a career in academia. But a public affairs internship at the Fresh Air Fund, which Hoffman found through Fordham’s Career Center, resulted in him becoming the organization’s director of public affairs after he graduated. He has worked in the public affairs and corporate communications field ever since, specializing in building and managing corporate reputation. Today, he is vice president and director of communications at the San Francisco-based investment firm Dodge & Cox.

“Internships are really, really important,” Hoffman told students, adding that Fordham’s location is helpful in getting that experience. “Explore what’s available to you. New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world. So many industries are represented there, [and there are]so many opportunities there.”

Blending Business Education with the Liberal Arts

The alumni panelists were joined by Robert Daly, assistant dean of the Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center, who discussed the opportunities for FCLC students to study things like marketing, business administration, and sustainable business by taking classes or minoring at Gabelli. He also emphasized that Gabelli undergraduates complete a liberal arts core, an example of Fordham’s faith in the value of a liberal arts education, and that he often encourages Gabelli students to consider FCLC minors like psychology to complement their business majors.

Williams said that the panelists’ perspectives were “invaluable” in helping students “understand how you may move from the liberal arts into business—that it is not necessarily a linear path, but one that is exciting.”

In her role as chief people officer at Phoenix Tower International, a wireless infrastructure company, Barry is responsible for “the whole people aspect regarding strategy, leadership, talent acquisition, retention, benefits, and payroll.” She is grateful to Fordham for the education she gained and the connections she forged—an underlying connectivity she taps into daily to help her thrive professionally (her last three bosses attended Jesuit schools) and personally (her husband, Tom, is Jesuit educated, too).

Embrace Your Past to Claim Your Future

This gratitude is why she works to uplift current students. A first-generation college graduate, she’s particularly interested in helping students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education.

Her parents, who immigrated to New Jersey from Italy, always pushed her to succeed, Barry said, adding that they were “dumbfounded” with pride when she graduated.

“Embrace that you are first-generation,” she said at an intimate ceremony for first-generation graduates in May 2022. “Talk about it because it defines who you are, and in life, it’s those stories that are really important to tell; you’re telling what your story is. Always embrace where you came from … because it defines who you become.”

All in the Fordham Family

Barry wants students and young alumni alike to connect with each other and remember how powerful the Fordham network is. With a tendency to keep her head down and just work, she didn’t always “realize the importance of networking and of really keeping that pipeline open.” But maintaining those connections—and creating new ones—is necessary for access to different opportunities, Barry said.

“Stay connected to Fordham because it’s a very strong community and it opens doors,” she said. “I graduated in 1992, and I’m still coming back; they’re still having me.”

Barry supports the Fordham Founder’s Undergraduate Scholarship Fund and serves as vice chair of the President’s Council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists who are committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile. The latter enables her to rekindle the excitement she felt as a student at Rose Hill.

“When I’m working with the people on the council, I still feel like I’m a student: eager and motivated,” she said. “And that same eagerness and adrenaline that I had every day I walked on campus, and I was so excited to be there, I’m feeling that now.”