“It is an honor and a thrill to welcome Stevie Wonder to Fordham,” said Fordham President Tania Tetlow. “His music has charmed us, consoled us, elevated us, and entertained us for more than six decades. He is a shining example of an artist’s ability to stir the soul.”

A child prodigy, Wonder—born Stevland Morris—was signed by Motown Records at age 11, and in 1963, as 12-year-old Little Stevie Wonder, he became the youngest recording artist to achieve a No. 1 single, with “Fingertips, Part 2.” He’s regarded as a musical genius and a pioneer—a master of many instruments and groundbreaking in his use of synthesizers. His songs have topped the charts for decades, bridging the genres of pop, R&B, funk, soul, gospel, and jazz.

To date, Wonder has amassed 49 Top 40 singles, 32 No. 1 singles, and worldwide sales of over 100 million units. He has earned 25 Grammy Awards, the prestigious Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. His iconic 1976 album, Songs in the Key of Life, is archived in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress for its cultural, historic, and aesthetic significance.

“Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories,” he once said. “And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.”

While Stevie Wonder’s songs are unequivocally classic and his influence timeless, equally laudable are his humanitarian efforts, philanthropic leadership, and generosity of spirit. His accolades include awards from the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, and the American Association of People with Disabilities. In 1983, he spearheaded the realization of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday, and his single “Happy Birthday” was the rallying song for the movement.

His participation in the 1985 “We Are the World” fundraiser for hunger in Africa is a music industry milestone, while his involvement in efforts to put an end to apartheid in South Africa is legendary. In 1999, he became the youngest recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. He is a Commander of France’s National Order of Arts and Letters, and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Last year, he was awarded the inaugural Icon Award from the Legal Defense Fund. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a designated United Nations Messenger of Peace with special focus on persons with disabilities.

In 2016, he called for U.N. member states to join the Marrakesh Treaty, which expanded the availability of published works in accessible formats such as Braille, large print, and audio books. “Imagine if others like me were given the opportunity to function at their full potential, how much better our world would be,” he said to delegates, noting that just 25 member states had ratified the treaty at the time. Today, 118 countries have signed on.

The University will also confer honorary degrees upon Jennifer Jones Austin, a 1993 graduate of Fordham Law School, chief executive officer of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies in New York City, and a prominent advocate for underserved children, individuals, and families; Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and a leader in advancing the climate agenda of Pope Francis; Norman Francis, a widely respected civic leader and civil rights advocate who led the transformation of Xavier University of Louisiana during his 47-year term as president; Sharon Greenberger, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York and leader of its current strategic plan to foster healthier, stronger New York City communities; Jeh Johnson, an attorney and widely quoted expert on national security issues who served as secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017; and Regina Pitaro, a 1976 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate and a managing director of GAMCO Investors who is also a philanthropist, author of a book on merger arbitrage, and a Fordham trustee fellow.

Gabelli’s gift, made by the Gabelli Foundation, supersedes his 2010 donation as the largest single gift in Fordham’s history and will help set the pace of Fordham’s maturing philanthropic culture.

“Words are inadequate to express our gratitude to Mario Gabelli and Regina Pitaro for this second transformative gift, and for their longtime philanthropy and service to Fordham,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this gift—it will allow us to better prepare more deserving students for positions of leadership in business and finance around the globe. That by itself is deeply impressive but is just a part of the gift’s significance. There is no greater endorsement of the Gabelli School and of Fordham’s mission than a gift of this magnitude coming from two alumni who are ideally situated to understand the University’s strengths and its potential. This generous gift—and Mario and Regina’s previous donations—are a tangible manifestation of the power of a Fordham education. It is a gift not just to an institution, but to the ages. On behalf of the Fordham family and its many generations to come, I thank Mario Gabelli and Regina Pitaro from the bottom of our hearts.”

Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School, agreed.

“Mario’s incredible gift comes at the perfect time in our history. As we celebrate 100 years of our past, his generosity will allow us to continue to position the Gabelli School as a leader in ethical, innovative, global business education,” she said.

Fordham’s Board of Trustees also extended its gratitude to Gabelli and Pitaro in a Dec. 14 resolution that extolled their “extremely generous support” and “philanthropic leadership.”

This transformative gift will be used in a multitude of ways. It will go toward scholarships for MBA and Ph.D. students as well as enhancement of the MBA program and the Ph.D. program—including faculty support in recognition of outstanding research and industry-relevant innovative teaching. For example, it will be used to expand the Gabelli School’s Student Managed Investment Fund program, which currently has junior and senior finance students working together to invest more than $1 million of Fordham University’s actual endowment. The result—in addition to a proud track record of above-the­-benchmark performance—is a hands-on learning experience like no other. The gift will allow for additional portfolios, including an ESG fund for the school’s graduate and undergraduate students to manage.

“A portion of Mario’s gift is being used as a challenge to inspire and motivate other alumni and friends to stand with him as an investor and believer in Dean Rapaccioli’s vision for the Gabelli School of Business,” said Roger A. Milici Jr., vice president for development and University relations at Fordham.

Gabelli and Pitaro will match dollar-for-dollar scholarship gifts for the Gabelli School’s MBA and Ph.D. students, up to $7 million.

Gabelli is a philanthropist, investor, and Chairman and CEO of GAMCO Investors, Inc. A native of the Bronx, his mother was born in Italy, as was his sister. His father returned to Italy from Western Pennsylvania at the age of 2, following his own father’s death in a coal mining accident. In addition to his Fordham degree, he earned an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in 1967. His wife, Regina M. Pitaro, is a 1976 graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill and a trustee fellow of Fordham University. Pitaro also holds a master’s degree from Loyola University Chicago and earned her M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School in 1982.

“The underpinning of meritocracy is education. Education requires faculty, facilities, financing, and great students,” Gabelli said. “We are privileged to support our Fordham alma mater.”

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.” 

Women are more likely to feel compounded economic impacts, adverse health effects due to the reallocation of health care resources and priorities, and an increase in unpaid “care work,” such as taking care of children or elderly parents, the report concluded.

That’s one of the reasons why this year’s Fordham Women’s Summit: Philanthropy | Empowerment | Change will feature panels and speakers addressing financial literacy, COVID-19 work trends, personal resilience, and modern home economics.

“The Fordham Women’s Summit is a unique opportunity for Fordham alumnae, faculty, and friends to discuss and celebrate their achievements as leaders, activists, and philanthropists, as well as attend professional and personal development sessions,” the event description reads.

The fourth annual summit, which will be held virtually for the first time, will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 21, beginning at 10 a.m. EDT.

Mary Ann Bartels, GABELLI ’85, GSAS ’92, who most recently served as the head of the Research Investment Committee and exchange-traded fund strategy at Bank of America Securities, will be the keynote speaker.

Bartels said through her talk she will aim to “encourage and empower women to achieve financial freedom,” and to help them understand their impact and force in the economy, and how they can learn to use that power to support causes and philanthropic interests that matter most to them.

A series of four panel discussions will offer attendees concrete strategies to deal with the current economic and social stresses:

Building Personal Resilience: Yes I Can! Yes We Can!
Career Outlook: COVID-19 Trends & Perspectives
Perfection Intervention: Finding Strength in Letting Go
“Who’s the Boss?”: Perspectives on Modern Home Economics

The summit will also honor three Pioneering Women in Philanthropy at Fordham—Regina Pitaro, FCRH ’76, managing director of GAMCO Investors Inc.; the late Mary Heyser, R.S.H.M., MC ’62, former Marymount College alumnae chaplain; and the late Monica Kevin, O.S.U., UGE ’48, GSAS ’61, ’64, a longtime biology professor who was the first woman to lead the Faculty Senate at Fordham.

This year’s virtual summit is free to attend, but summit organizers encourage attendees to consider supporting Fordham students by joining a Women’s Giving Circle or making a one-time gift to another area of the University. For more information and to register, visit fordham.edu/womenssummit.