Befitting the campus’s proximity to a world renowned performing arts center, the evening’s festivities kicked off with a cabaret performance by Eric Yves Garcia, FCLC ’00, which brought together alumni from Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), Gabelli School of Business (GABELLI) graduate division, the Graduate School of Education (GSE), and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS).

For Garcia, a graduate of Fordham’s theater program, playing cabaret standards on the piano in Pope Auditorium for an audience was a homecoming in the truest sense of the word, as he recalled sneaking into the space on many a late night to practice. When an acting career didn’t pan out upon graduation, Garcia said his musical talents enabled him to become successful professional cabaret performer.

He said that performing works such as A Streetcar Named Desire and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a Fordham student likewise influenced him today.

“Those plays are all old, but our professors impressed upon us that we had to invest in them vitality, and they weren’t museum pieces. You had to bring truth to them as best you could and work very hard to invest the words in them with meaning,” he said.

“I think that’s also true with the great American songbook. They’re not museum pieces, they’re about real-life things.”

On the plaza level, Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of FCLC, marveled at the transformation that the campus has undergone in the last several years, which he attributed in part to the generosity of FCLC alumni. The college’s annual reunion gift, which totaled $4,925,510 in this five-year reunion cycle, was presented by Patricia Dugan-Perlmuth, FCLC ’79.

Twelve floors up, Britanny Miller, GSE ’16, was rekindling the love she felt while working toward a master’s in education. A native of the Bronx who is now a school psychologist in New Rochelle, she said the University has a way of making New York City seem smaller than it is, because she frequently meets people who have connections to it.

“I’m not this person that’s very courageous to speak out or introduce myself to new people, but something about the Fordham community really empowers me to do so,” she said.

“I was a little wary of coming back because I didn’t know anyone who was coming, but I sat down at a table and the conversations just unfolded and flourished. You can just talk about anything when you’re here.”

At the PCS reunion, newly appointed Dean Anthony Davidson, Ph.D., also alluded to Fordham’s place in the city.

“It’s very refreshing and encouraging for me when I meet people, and they say ‘Oh, I went to Fordham,’” he said. “It’s always followed by, ‘What can I do to help?’”

In fact, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, noted that earlier that day, a PCS yellow ribbon graduate spotted him at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., as he was traveling back to New York.

“There I was in in Washington . . . and I had the great fortune and grace to run into one of you. [The graduate]  spoke with love and with great conviction not just about Fordham meant to him, but what Fordham did for him,” said Father McShane.

“I would be willing to bet if I ran into one of you on the No. 1 train, you’d start up a conversation just like the one I had with him, and I’d be, as I am tonight, filled with great gratitude and great grace of knowing you, working for you, and serving you.”

At the GSS cocktail hour, Dean Debra McPhee, Ph.D., welcomed 70 alumni, the oldest of whom was Patricia Young, GSS ’62. The gathering got off to a slow start, a fact that Father McShane attributed to the likelihood that GSS alumni were so dedicated to their jobs that they were likely still working at 6:30 p.m. Jonathan Roque, GABELLI ‘11, a 2017 graduate of the GSS/GABELLI joint Nonprofit Leadership program, said he was heartened by his exhortation that students remember to care for themselves as well as their clients. He plans to use his degree to help his local church.

At the Gabelli School of Business’ graduate gathering, Tricia Schwerdtman, GABELLI ’16, said coming to Fordham was one of the best choices she’s ever made. A Sarah Lawrence College undergraduate who majored in poetry, she worked as a graduate assistant for Benjamin Cole, Ph.D., associate professor of management systems, served as president of the management consulting club, and now works at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant for financial effectiveness in health care.

Working toward her degree strengthened her relationship with her father, too, she said. She recalled he’d made her dinner (macaroni and cheese) once when she was 7 years old, and pretty much never made meals beyond that. But that changed when she became the leader of a Fordham team participating in a case competition sponsored by the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG).

“I came home from the ACG cup prep at three in the morning. He’d waited up, made me dinner, and said ‘You know, you got this. Eat and go to sleep,’” she said.

“He’s really successful, so it was great to see that he’s proud of me and recognizes what I’m doing.”

 [doptg id=”88″] ]]> 70127 https://now.fordham.edu/uncategorized/long-time-history-professor-lauded-at-retirement/ Thu, 13 May 2010 18:22:56 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=42717 Before Fordham had a Lincoln Center campus, it had John Roche, Ph.D.

Roche, a professor of history, arrived at Fordham’s Woolworth Building as a freshman in 1942 and, after service in World War II, graduated in 1948 from the University’s City Hall Division, which had moved to 302 Broadway.

While earning his Ph.D. from Columbia University, he began teaching at Fordham in February 1951. Although he retired in 1995, he continued to teach in FCLC, FCLS, and the College at 60.

On Wednesday, May 12, Fordham acknowledged John’s 59 ½ years of teaching here at a retirement party thrown by colleagues and friends in the 12th Floor Lounge at the Lowenstein Center on the Lincoln Center campus.

Robert R. Grimes, S.J., Dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, took the occasion to go back through Roche’s personnel file and read a citation that had been written by Anne Mannion, Ph.D., associate professor of history, on the occasion of John’s first Bene Merenti award for 20 years of teaching.

Grimes concluded by adding, “John, for all you have given to Fordham over the years, mere words are not enough, but they are the best we have. Thank you to one of Fordham’s greatest alumni, one of Fordham’s greatest teachers, one of Fordham’s greatest. Period.”

Mannion, who reminisced about first meeting Roche as a student of his at 302 Broadway, said that even though she grew up in Long Island, living by railroad tracks made her feel that she, like Roche, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, was a city kid. As a fellow historian, she noted that they share a special sense of time and place.

“When I go through life, I count my blessings, and when I look at John, I count them twice,” she said.

Roche said he relished being able to see the University grow and change as it added campuses in Manhattan and integrated women into its student body. He also served on the first faculty senate.

“One can say one is fortunate to live and work in interesting times, and that’s certainly been true of these years at Fordham. Really, in terms of the overall history of the institution, one would be hard-pressed to find another period in its long history in which so many significant changes and elements of growth have occurred,” he said.

“I’ve had a happy time at Fordham. There have been a few rough passages, of course, over so many years. But all in all, thanks in a great part to my association with you, it’s been a very good experience, indeed.”

—Patrick Verel

The annual Ailey/Fordham BFA Program benefit performance is an opportunity for dancers to thank supporters with a beautiful performance. Photo by Chris Taggart

The hour long performance was followed by an exclusive meet and greet with the seniors in the program who graced the Pope Auditorium stage for the last time.

“It’s kind of bittersweet because I’ve been doing it for four years and this is it. But it’s also nice to see the progression of all the different classes involved in the show,” said Preston Miller, who has trained in the choreography track of the program. “It’s wonderful to be able to perform for the people who make it happen and may not get the opportunity to come to Ailey. This way they can see exactly what it is that they are contributing to and what they are providing scholarships for, so that those who come after us can come to us.”

Miller, 22, hails from Chicago, but chose to apply to the Ailey/Fordham BFA program for an opportunity to work with some of the finest names in dance.

“Artistically, Ailey stands alone,” he said. “Fordham, in that sense, is one of the greatest academic institutions that has connected itself with one of the greatest artistic institutions so to be able to perform on both levels and excel on both institutions is a unique ability that no other institution can provide. It’s the height of both worlds.”

Miller and fellow students in the program wowed the audience with a diverse and vibrant selection of dance numbers that made it easy to forget these are college students.

“They are not just tremendously talented in dance, but also intellectually talented,” said Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “We’ve had national merit winners, presidential scholars and lots of dean’s scholars.”
Father Grimes, speaking at a reception in the Center Gallery that preceded the performance, recounted many of the successes in the program’s nearly 12-year history.

“Through all the years, about two thirds of the graduates have gotten professional contracts to dance after graduation. Last year, 81 percent of the graduating class got professional contracts,” he said. “This past summer, one of our seniors, Michael McBride, found out he was accepted into the first company of Ailey. They managed to get him back into town for the Senior Solo Performance in February. He gave us no doubt why he is in the first company.”

Dancers like McBride are why the program has gotten support from organizations such as the Jerome Robbins Foundation and the Liberace Foundation, and individual donors, many of whom attended the benefit performance.

“Since we’ve started these benefit concerts in 2001, we’ve raised just over a half million dollars—$250,000 of that for current-use scholarship and another $250,000 in endowed scholarships,” Father Grimes said.
Scholarships make it possible for students to get top dance training, which in this program, goes hand-in-hand with academics.

“We have dancers who are really smart and who sometimes question decisions and make us a little uncomfortable but that’s all part of the process,” said Denise Jefferson, director of The Ailey School. “They look at things not just in one narrow way. Fordham is a big part of this—the students analyze what things are about, what they are saying when they perform and how they can communicate with the audience.”

It’s an attitude Ailey/Fordham dancers bring to audiences all over the country and world. Many of the program’s graduates get accepted into Ailey II, the second company of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that tours extensively.

“The United States Congress has named Alvin Ailey as America’s Cultural Ambassador to the world,” said Sharon Luckman, the executive director of The Ailey School. “Between the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and Ailey II, they really travel much more than any performing arts organization in the world. In the [Ailey/Fordham B.F.A.] program, they are trained in the best way possible and then they are out there nourishing the whole dance world. We’re really a central part in the whole ecology of the dance world, just like Alvin Ailey wanted us to be.”

All of this is made possible thanks to the many organizations and individuals that contribute to the scholarship fund, said Ailey/Fordham senior Preston Miller.

“A lot of us of us don’t come from where the greatest dancers and performers just stop by, so we’re instantly thrown into this world where you realize, ‘I’m a professional’ and ‘I’m around the greatest professionals’ so the scholarships provide the greatest opportunities and possibilities,” he said.

The hour-long event followed a reception in the Center Gallery, where Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, reflected on the first benefit performance in 2001, at which one of the student dancers burst into tears when she described what the program meant to her.

“Some have burst into tears because they say, ‘I want to dance, I want to dance,’ and then they come here and they say, ‘I don’t want to dance that much,'” he said, “because it is a very, very rigorous program, and it’s absolutely astonishing the energy and enthusiasm that these students put into it.”

Father Grimes noted that $250,000 had been raised since the inception of the program, and thanked attendees for their generosity.

“One of the things we have discovered is that financial equity and talent seem to be inversely proportionate, so very often some of our very best dancers have very limited means,” he said.

To emphasize how valuable the scholarship fund is, Denise Jefferson, director of the Ailey School, talked about how the program found $2,000 to help a student pay for the spring semester of his freshman year.

The four-year, 153-credit degree enables students to become highly versatile dancers and well-educated adults. Photo by Chris Taggart

By March of his senior year, that student was fielding offers from three ballet companies, and went on to join the Kansas City Ballet. Since then, three graduates have joined the Ailey company, and every year, four to eight BFA graduates join the ranks of the 12-member Ailey II.

“This program means a great deal to me personally, because I think dancers are very smart. They’re wonderful time managers,” she said. “They are ephemeral in some ways and very grounded and rooted in other ways, and for them to be able to exercise their intellect the way they exercise their bodies, makes them double, triple, quadruple threats.”

After the performance, Daniel Harder, a senior from Maryland reflected on how the last four years of relentless dance classes, rehearsals and performances, paired with regular class work, taught him how to master time management.

“This has always been my passion, and it takes hard work and a lot of discipline to do what we do, and this program instills that,” he said. “If you don’t come in with the skills of being focused and learning to multi-task and learning to do a lot of other things at the same time, you either step up to the challenge or you fall behind.”

Harder plans to audition for the Ailey company on April 27, but he is also open to working on Broadway and in other dance companies in New York and Europe.

Students study at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus and at the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation’s Joan Weill Center for Dance in Manhattan. Photo by Chris Taggart

“Ailey and Fordham have exposed me to so much over these past four years, from having that one goal of wanting to do Ailey, it’s grown into so many goals now,” he said.

Lara Wilson, a senior from Michigan who has been juggling a major in performance, a minor in women’s studies and a choreography independent study, noted that the seniors have been performing the final number of the show, Pyrokineses, on tour for last few months. As far as she knew, this was the last in a long line of performances, making it even more special.

“We got together before the show to give ourselves a pep talk about it and come together and feed off each other’s energy, which we don’t always do, because everyone has their own pre-show ritual,” she said.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said the partnership brought a great deal of life and liveliness to the campuses.

“When we watch the students move, not just dance, we watch them move and weave their magic with their fellow students, it brings us great delight. It also reminds us that beauty is the foundation of joy for us all, and that’s what Ailey is all about,” he said.

“I’d like to think that Fordham is dancing always with Ailey and learning grace from that dance.”

“Brother Lawless was a true teacher,” said Robert R. Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “His enthusiasm for his students even outweighed his enthusiasm for his subject. Whenever he heard of a success by one of our alumni, he was in my office announcing it.”

Brother Lawless, a Xaverian brother, was born in Louisville. He held a B.S. from Catholic University, an M.S. from St. John’s University, and Ph.D.s in science education and biochemistry from New York University.

He joined Fordham’s Liberal Arts College in 1969 as the first scientist on the faculty of the young college, where he taught for 34 years. (FCLC, then known as “The Liberal Arts College,” began classes in September 1968.) Brother Lawless founded the Department of Science and Mathematics, which later became the Department of Natural Sciences, at Lincoln Center, and began FCLC’s very successful PreMedical Program. He was named associate professor emeritus in September 1990 (a mandatory retirement at age 70 was then in place), but continued to teach at FCLC until 2003, when he returned to Louisville to live at the Xaverian Brothers retirement home.

“Brother Lawless was a creative and insightful researcher,” said Joan Roberts, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Natural Sciences. “I personally benefited from our scientific collaboration. He was extremely generous as a mentor and arranged for many of our undergraduate students to do research work at Rockefeller University. He will be missed by all of us; scientists, mathematicians and all the faculty who knew him and worked with him here at Lincoln Center. We send out love to his family and have him in our prayers.”

Before coming to Fordham, Brother Lawless taught at Mt. St. Joseph’s High School in Baltimore, Md.; was headmaster of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Bardstown, Ky.; and taught for five years at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The wake and Mass of Christian Burial will be held for Brother Lawless at Ryken House, the Xaverian Brothers’ home in Louisville, on March 3 and March 4, respectively. Cards and flowers may be sent to:

Xaverian Brothers
1607 Poplar Level Road
Louisville, KY 40217