This was the first time the Gabelli School has been named in this ranking, and its inclusion reflects investments Fordham has made to nurture an entrepreneurial spirit, said Dennis Hanno, Ph.D., who leads the school’s entrepreneurship programming.

“We are gaining momentum,” he said. “We’re dedicating more resources both in our curriculum and in places like the Fordham Foundry,” Hanno said. He noted that the Foundry, which helps students and alumni start viable, sustainable companies, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. 

Hanno cited The Ground Floor course as one example of how first-year students are exposed to entrepreneurship. Every student who takes it pitches a new business idea to a panel of judges at the end of the semester.

The Princeton Review entrepreneurship rating follows other impressive rankings for Fordham’s business school. Poets & Quants ranked the school 21st among the best undergraduate business schools in the country for 2024. In September, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Gabelli School 77th in the country. It also singled out specific undergraduate business programs: The school ranked 13th for finance, 17th for international business, 14th for marketing, 21st for accounting, and 21st for entrepreneurship. 

Hanno also noted that entrepreneurship at Fordham extends beyond the Gabelli School. The Fordham Foundry, for instance, holds a separate pitch challenge that is open to all students.

“Whether you’re in business school or not, you’re going to have opportunities here from day one to connect with people who have been entrepreneurs and have worked with entrepreneurs of all different kinds,” said Hanno.

He noted that an expansive view of entrepreneurship can be seen in the work of faculty such as Gabelli School professor Michael Pirson, Ph.D., whose research encompasses humanistic management and sustainable models of business. 

“We embrace a broader definition of entrepreneurship to include social impact as a major focus of what we do,” said Hanno, who created a Fordham course called Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rwanda. He took a group of students to the African nation last spring. 

 “So if you want to change the world, Fordham is the place for you.”

The document set forth an ambitious seven-year plan for the University that touches on everything from facilities and curriculum to student involvement, all with the ultimate goal of combating climate change.

Just this month, Fordham received a $50 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency that the University will use to team up with community partners to address the issue.

Below are a few of the sustainability-related efforts, developments, and accomplishments that took place in the final quarter of 2023. Look for more updates in 2024!

Facilities

Going Hybrid
On Oct. 23, three hybrid minivans, including a wheelchair-accessible minivan, joined the fleet of Fordham’s Ram Vans. They replace gas-powered minivans previously used for wheelchair-accessible requests, trips to the Calder Center, and charter trip services. The vans use less gas, produce less CO₂, and can run up to 560 miles on one tank of gas.

Dining

Micro Farms
This fall, Aramark installed vertical hydroponic units called Babylon Micro Farms at dining halls on the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses. They grow fresh greens and herbs in a water-based solution (instead of soil, which requires frequent watering.) The greens are harvested for use in dining hall dishes and special student events.

Compared to traditional methods, each micro farm uses 96% less water, zero pesticides, 65% less fertilizer, and zero miles to transport. As a result, between January and June 2023, using them allowed Fordham to save 19,247 gallons of water, prevent 2.5 pounds of nitrogen from entering waterways, and reduce 32 pounds of food waste.

Academics

In the Classroom
Six undergraduate community-engaged learning classes offered in the Fall 2023 semester featured elements promoting sustainability: Anthropology of Food (Anthropology), Economics and Ecology of Food Systems (Economics), Thinking Visually (Visual Arts), Human Physiology (Biology), Consumer Behavior (Gabelli School of Business), and Leadership Integrated Project (Gabelli School of Business). At Fordham Law School, environmental law courses offered this semester included Environmental Law and Energy Law.

Fordham Law students wrote blog posts for the school’s Environmental Law Review on the Flint and Jackson water crises, NYC Local Law 97, the environmental damage caused by the fashion industry, and cell-cultivated meats.

Reading Laudato Si’
The Curran Center for American Catholic Studies held three seminars on Zoom this semester dedicated to reading Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and the 2023 follow-up, Laudate Deum. Visit the center’s website for more information on future seminars.

A Systems Approach
This semester, the Social Innovation Collaboratory and Career Center hosted a collaborative workshop on systems thinking, focused mainly on sustainability. The workshops, which were open to all undergraduate students, allowed them to explore the practice and application of systems thinking, which is rooted in a holistic approach to society’s more complex issues. The process is attractive to companies since it’s rooted in the idea of looking at complex problems with a new perspective. Contact Sadibou Sylla at the Collaborary for information on future workshops.

Students Take the Lead

Green Week: United Student Government sponsored Fordham College at Rose Hill’s Sustainability Week in November. It featured the Fordham Flea Pop-Up as well as a seminar on composting basics.

The Lincoln Center Environmental Club held a clean makeup tabling event on Nov. 30 to showcase the benefits of cruelty-free and clean makeup.

Community Engagement

As part of the Reimagine the Cross Bronx campaign, Fordham staff conducted weekend “walkshops” in the neighborhoods surrounding the highway. Funding came from a $25,000 grant from the New York City Department (DOT) that the Center for Community Engaged Learning received in October.

Fordham staff and students also held special Halloween and Thanksgiving-themed events at the Highbridge Farmers Market and community space, which was recently expanded thanks to an AARP grant.

Faculty News

Marc Conte, Ph.D., professor of economics, published “Unequal Climate Impacts on Global Values of Natural Capital” in the journal Nature.

Stephen Holler, Ph.D., associate professor of physics, published “Education for Environmental Justice: The Fordham Regional Environmental Sensor for Healthy Air,” in the journal Social Sciences.

David Gibson, director of the Center for Religion and Culture (CRC), received $84,840 from the Porticus Foundation for the annual conference The Way Forward: Laudato Si’, Protecting Our Common Home, Building Our Common Church. The conference will take place in February at the University of San Diego.

Isaie Dougnon, Ph.D., associate professor of French and Francophone Studies and International Humanitarian Affairs, received $24,790 from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for research based on a local perspective on water and migration in West Africa.

Alumni

Giselle Schmitz, GSAS ’22, spent this fall working with the Coral Triangle Center in Bali, Indonesia—a nonprofit that connects governments, corporations, and local groups to help strengthen marine resources in the region.

In Case You Missed It

It was a busy fall in terms of sustainability efforts! Here are some stories Fordham News covered that you may have missed: In October, the annual Fordham Women’s Summit focused on sustainability.  In our theology department, a lecture for first-year students featuring Union Theological Seminary professor John J. Thatamanil connected religious supremacy to the destruction of the natural world. Four students have joined the Office of Facilities Management’s newly created internship program, while alumni are helping protect New York City’s birds and helping farmers adapt to climate change. The Gabelli School of Business hosted two Nobel Laureates at a conference on ESG.  At the Law School, more than 20 students gathered in Central Park for a clean-up event for the annual Public Service Day, while alumna Melinda Baglio was honored for being a changemaker in the clean energy field.

Upcoming Events

Faculty Happy Hour: Sustainability and Environmental Justice
Open to all faculty interested in sharing ideas about sustainability.
Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. RSVP: Julie Gafney, [email protected]

STEM Career Fair, Thursday, Feb. 15, Great Hall, Rose Hill Campus. Visit the Fordham Career Center next month for details.

Women of Color in STEM Career Panel, Wednesday, Feb. 28, Virtual. Visit the Fordham Career Center next month for details.

Social Impact and Non-Profit Micro-Fair, Thursday, March 14, 12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein Center, Lincoln Center campus. Visit the Fordham Career Center next month for details.

Save the Date:
Climate Action Summit with President Tetlow: April 8, Rose Hill Campus

We’d Love to Hear From You!

Do you have a sustainability-related event, development, or news item you’d like to share? Contact Patrick Verel at [email protected].

We connected with some of the countless Rams bringing people together to repair and lift up their communities.

A Pro Runner Blows the Whistle on Abusive Training Culture

In 2013, at age 17, Mary Cain was one of the top runners in the world, the youngest U.S. athlete ever to compete on a World Championships team. But soon after joining Nike’s elite Oregon Project to train with head coach Alberto Salazar, her health and her promising pro career deteriorated.

Her coaches forced her to lose weight, which led to the loss of her period for three years and stress-related injuries, including five broken bones, Cain said.

“You don’t go from losing weight to breaking bones in two days, right? There’s usually this long period of time where there’s this physical deterioration,” Cain said at Fordham’s ninth annual Sports Business Symposium, held virtually on March 25. “Throughout the day, I just was more prone to having silly things, like headaches, to just being more hungry, to being a little bit more irritated as a result, and to just being visibly fatigued.”

She began to dread the sport she had loved since fifth grade. Her physical, emotional, and mental health began to spiral downward. She developed an eating disorder and began to cut herself and have suicidal thoughts.

“What once had been something that came naturally to me, this beautiful experience … suddenly became a slog,” Cain said. “The longer that I was in this really circular system, the more my body broke down.”

Cain completed one year at the University of Portland while training with the Oregon Project before transferring to Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 2019. After moving to New York, she kept training with the Nike project until 2016.

In a November 2019 video piece for The New York Times, Cain said the all-male coaching staff, led by Salazar, did not include a certified sports psychologist or certified nutritionist, and that Salazar had tried to put her on birth control pills to lose weight and harmed her mental health by berating her and humiliating her in front of her fellow athletes.

“Women in sports are treated harsher when it comes to body image,” she said during the Fordham symposium in March. “And I believe the reason is mostly societal—the expectation to be a lighter weight is more attached to [women’s] looks and their meaning. And it’s this really toxic culture that I think permeates professional sports.”

After Cain’s story came out, many other women supported her claims, including Kara Goucher, an Olympic distance runner who had trained under the same Nike program. Salazar denied the allegations of abuse, but several weeks before Cain’s story was published, he received a four-year ban from the sport for doping violations, and Nike had already shut down the Oregon Project.

In January 2020, Nike completed an internal investigation of Cain’s allegations of abuse, and her story helped Nike identify initiatives to “do better in supporting female athletes,” including increasing the number of women coaches in sports and investing in scientific research into the impact of elite training on women and girls.

Today, Cain is the New York City community manager for Tracksmith, a running apparel company. She runs professionally as a member of USA Track & Field and continues to call for reforms, including having teams provide mental health counselors and sports psychologists who are separate from the coaching staff.

She said her goal in sharing her story is to make sure that no other athletes, particularly female athletes, have to go through the suffering she did.

“I hadn’t known that the situation was bad until somebody [told me], ‘That is bad. That shouldn’t happen to you.’ It’s normalized,” she said.

“I realized I didn’t want any other person out there to … be self-loathing, beat themselves up, and have this incredibly negative experience because they were under an emotionally abusive coach and almost didn’t know it.”

—Kelly Kultys, FCRH ’15

A Gun Violence Survivor Works to Heal Social Divisions

Lamont Young knows something about forgiveness and bridging interpersonal divides.

In 1993, he almost died after being shot seven times in the chest—point blank—by an acquaintance who was high on PCP. But he later found the strength to forgive his assailant, and in doing so, he was inspired to pursue a lifelong path of helping others.

That path eventually led him to the Graduate School of Education, where he earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling in 2018.

Then he made a career move that led to a personal transformation. He went to work with UNITE, a national initiative co-founded by Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver that seeks to help Americans overcome divisions, and he gained a new perspective.

“I went in with this psychological approach to addressing the human condition and suffering caused by racism and discrimination. I had a burning desire to promote human dignity and shed light on segregation and dehumanization, but I was so caught up in my head trying to find ways to address this,” he said.

“Once I met with the UNITE team, I had a spiritual awakening. I started to address them not from my mind or from my heart, but from my spiritual background. It was transformative to understand that in spite of it all, we have to love, we still have to forgive.”

Young and his mother, Glenda, are featured in The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening (Penguin Life/The Open Field), published in March. The book contains an interview with them conducted by Shriver, who knew Young from a young men’s group he once led in New Haven, Connecticut.

“A mother who raises a son who can take on the hardscrabble and often fatal streets of New Haven and not only come through it but come through it with forgiveness and an open heart—that’s a mother I want to learn from,” said Shriver, who spoke about the power of personal transformation at Fordham’s 2019 commencement ceremony, where he received an honorary doctorate.

Shriver said the book’s common thread is that when we treat ourselves and others with dignity, we unlock potential, even during disagreements.

“This is hard emotional, spiritual, political work,” he said. “If you want a quick solution, this is the wrong place. But if you want the best solution, there’s only one way, and that’s to unite.”

In addition to conducting research on dignity and respect for UNITE, Young works with people experiencing homelessness in New Haven at Columbus House and provides psychotherapy at Reliant Behavioral Health Community Service.

And he has learned about some new dimensions of forgiveness. “You can transgress against yourself by not forgiving yourself for some of the things that you haven’t done or some of the time you haven’t spent with your loved ones before they left this Earth,” he said. “I found that very powerful, to understand how to love and forgive yourself in the midst of turmoil and grief in order to free yourself.”

—Patrick Verel, GSAS ’15

A Nonprofit Leader Rescues Food Waste to Relieve Hunger, Promote Community

As the president and CEO of Community Solidarity, Jon Stepanian runs the largest vegetarian hunger relief program in the country. It’s a nonprofit he hopes doesn’t exist in a generation or two.

“When we started, we wanted to build a structure where we could theoretically put ourselves out of business in the communities where we operate,” Stepanian said. “We want to make sure that there’s going to be no need for us in 30 to 40 years if the community itself can take care of these needs.”

Based on Long Island, Community Solidarity rescues food from being wasted at supermarkets and farms and distributes it to people at food shares across four locations on Long Island and one in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Each area, he says, is at risk of being a “food desert,” where fresh, nutritious, affordable food is hard to find.

“We rescue food waste because it’s common sense—it’s cheap to do it. But on a more philosophical level, on a more economic level, this is why people in our communities are struggling. We see it as a fundamental problem in our system that’s making people in our community poor and hurting people overseas and also destroying our environment by producing large quantities of stuff that we don’t need,” he said.

“We’re trying to rescue a small portion of that waste and repurpose it for something good, like feeding our neighbors, but we’re also trying to expose the problem.”

Stepanian knew he wanted to focus on helping local communities after graduating from Fordham. As an undergraduate, he studied history and political science—and an internship at the United Nations and a stint working at the American Civil Liberties Union gave him perspective on working within the intergovernmental and nonprofit sectors. Shortly after college, he and his friends started a Food Not Bombs chapter on Long Island, occasionally setting up a food distribution table on weekends.

Before long, he realized he needed to create a more sustainable structure to keep the food distribution going. Community Solidarity, with its 501(c)3 nonprofit status, was born out of this realization, although Stepanian said that a nonhierarchical structure was important from the outset.

“When we decided to become a nonprofit, we said we wanted no lines of demarcation between who can volunteer and who can get food,” he said. “We wanted to make it so you wouldn’t be able to tell if someone’s volunteering or in need or both.”

In a 2018 TEDxNYU talk, Stepanian talked about what he called “the myth of scarcity,” and how a communal response can not only address hunger but also help to create a deeper sense of belonging among neighbors.

“We’re also trying to raise awareness by saying that we will, in 10 years, be the largest hunger relief organization in the country, and we’re doing it for a thousandth of the price that the food banks are doing it, all because of this waste,” Stepanian said.

“This is how abundant that system of waste is. We want to make it eye-opening for people.”

—Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08

A Familiar Face Offers Financial Literacy Training to Fellow Women of Color

As a young woman growing up in Brooklyn, Felicia Gomes-Gregory knew she wanted two things: to attend Fordham University and to work as a computer scientist. She achieved both.

But now, more than 30 years later, Gomes-Gregory is focused on something new, which she calls her passion project: Heels and Higher Achievement, a nonprofit that empowers women and people of color by helping them learn about finance.

Her path to forming the nonprofit started in 2016, when she received what she calls a blessing in disguise. After a decades-long career at various financial firms in New York City, she was laid off from Neuberger Berman, an employee-owned investment management firm.

She asked herself what she would do next. “In my heart, I’ve always wanted to … get more women involved in technology or finance, and especially women of color, because I never saw anybody that looked like me—or not enough of it,” Gomes-Gregory said.

She kicked off Heels and Higher Achievement (HHA) in 2018, determined to make financial literacy fun while giving a voice to those in her community who are empowering young women in tech, finance, STEM, media, or “whatever it is that they want to do,” she said. “I wanted to create a forum so that people can speak, but mainly speak about financial education.”

That first year, she conducted in-person workshops at schools, churches, and “anywhere anyone would hear me,” Gomes-Gregory said. She’d speak about basic financial literacy concepts and invite people to schedule a complimentary financial review—a kind of “GPS of your money,” she said, “to make sure you can stop working for money at some point and [let]money work for you.”

She also launched an ambassador program to give young girls opportunities to network with professionals and serve their communities through volunteer work. But COVID-19 meant pivoting to online events and workshops in 2020.

In April, HHA sponsored its second annual series of online workshops for Financial Literacy Month, including, for the first time, programming for men. “[Because] of all of the things that were happening in the Black community— between George Floyd, the social issues, COVID—men need to talk, too,” she said.

The digital programming has gone well, she said. She’s hoping to launch a YouTube channel and resume in-person events soon.

“I’m learning that self-care and self-preservation—from a financial, physical, mental, and spiritual [standpoint]—are so very important,” she said. “And I didn’t learn this until I was 50. So, now I’m teaching all of the young ’uns. ‘Take care of yourself first. You’re important.’”

—Sierra McCleary-Harris

Students Share Their Expertise with Bronx Businesses

When the pandemic upended everything in March 2020, Rich Shrestha was working on a research project about consumer behavior in the Bronx. As the economy went into a tailspin, his mind went back to his childhood in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father ran a Subway franchise for a decade.

“I saw him always grinding away every day, putting in 12-hour days. So, I can sympathize with the small business owners who are trying to survive in the age of COVID,” he said.

Shrestha, a rising senior majoring in economics at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a member of the University’s Social Innovation Collaboratory, reached out to friends he thought might be interested in helping small businesses.

Diontay Santiago, then a senior majoring in marketing at the Gabelli School of Business, was one of those who answered the call. In June 2020, they launched the Fordham Business Development Collaboratory. The student-run group, comprising more than 70 members, is split into teams that assist clients with finance, marketing, compliance, technology, and communications. Students offer their advice free of charge, relying on lessons they’ve learned in classes. They also conduct research, develop industry reports, and create case studies and videos for Bronx businesses.

For Santiago, who graduated from Fordham in May and had served as president of ASILI, the Black Student Alliance, the group has been a way to lift up the borough he has called home his whole life. “Doing this sort of thing weds the school to its actual geographic location and allows it to give back to the community it’s inhabited for the last two centuries or so. So when Rich presented me with the opportunity to work with him, I jumped at it.”

The group’s clients have included restaurants, nonprofits, a software company, and an insurance firm. In addition to word-of mouth and its website (fordhambdc.org), the group has connected with clients through the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.

Sadibou Sylla, the interim director of Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory and an adjunct professor at the Gabelli School, said that all who contribute to the group personify what it means to be a “changemaker.”

“They understand that it is only in serving all that we serve ourselves,” he said, “and that business is nothing but an instrument for helping society.”

Shrestha is optimistic that the group will live on long after he and his classmates graduate.

“This is an opportunity to gain an understanding of the community you’re in, and how we can be a better part of it and better neighbors,” he said. “I think a lot of students are starting to realize how important that is.”

—Patrick Verel, GSAS ’15

Do you know a Fordham “Changemaker”?
Who are the unsung Rams working to foster collaboration and change in your community? Tell us about the people whose stories you’d like us to share. Write to us at [email protected].

Each alumnus will be honored during the annual Fordham University Alumni Association Recognition (FUAA) Reception, to be held virtually on Thursday, January 21. The two award winners were nominated by their peers and selected by FUAA Advisory Board members.

Di Giorgio, so surprised he would be receiving the Ram of the Year Award—given to a graduate who has enhanced the reputation of the University through their professional achievements, personal accomplishments, and loyal service to Fordham—was convinced he’d been notified accidentally. He said he read the email three times, initially assuming he was cc’d as an alumni chapter leader and that another Mark was the winner. It wasn’t until he checked the list of email recipients that it started to sink in.

“I don’t know if I’ve been in the running before or been considered. So, it was a complete shock,” he said. Di Giorgio added that for him it was one of few “shining stars of 2020.”

Sarwar said he felt that same shock and was “extremely humbled” when he learned he’d won the Trailblazer Award, which is presented to a graduate from the past 10 years who has demonstrated outstanding dedication to Fordham and whose leadership has inspired fellow alumni.

“There are a lot of young alumni who are doing a lot of great stuff, so I definitely feel very thankful to the University for this recognition,” he said.

Building New Ties, Finding Camaraderie

Di Giorgio and Sarwar both have years of supporting Fordham under their belts, albeit in different ways.

Now a financial analyst at Bank of America, Di Giorgio initially found it hard to maintain a connection to the Fordham community after he moved from New Jersey to California in 1996, a professional move he thought would be relatively short-term—and then he found the Alumni Chapter of Northern California.

He joined the chapter’s leadership board and in just a year was nominated to serve as president, a role he’s held for almost 15 years. During that time, he has helped revamp events to engage a wider group of people, especially younger alumni. In the spirit of engaging alumni who are physically distant from Fordham but still identify as New Yorkers, he’s even created a bocce team, the Bronx Ballers, that competes in San Francisco’s Ferry Bocce league. “It turns out we get enough people to participate in the league three times a year. … People ask, ‘Are we playing again? Are we doing this again?’”

“A lot of people, they don’t get back to New York, and this was one way that they still connect with Fordham,” he said. “So, it’s the satisfaction of the alumni engaging, not necessarily [with]Fordham but [with each other]for the camaraderie.”

In a normal year, the chapter would hold a number of in-person events, from an end-of-the-year Christmas dinner to attending sports games and more. But “COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into everything,” Di Giorgio said.

“I’m optimistic that one day soon—within three months, six months—that I’ll be able to shake the hands, hug the people that I haven’t been able to in a year,” he said.

Education as ‘Silver Bullet’ for Socioeconomic Mobility

Sarwar, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan when he was in eighth grade, believes in the power of education and the opportunities it affords people. He attended Fordham thanks to the Thomas G. Labrecque Smart Start Program, which included a full four-year scholarship to the University and an internship with JPMorgan Chase while he was a student.

“My father spent most of his adult life getting the rest of his family to this country because he believed in the educational opportunities that America had to offer,” Sarwar said, adding that his own goal is to try to help provide educational opportunities to others. He sees higher education as “the silver bullet to help people transcend socioeconomic backgrounds and ensure mobility in our very fast-changing world.”

Now six years into his tenure at JPMorgan Chase as a risk associate in asset management, Sarwar is passionate about paying it forward. He’s been a member of Fordham’s Young Alumni Committee since graduating, and he’s also chaired its philanthropy subcommittee twice. He said the committee is a great way to stay in touch with recent alumni and identify ways they can give back to Fordham.

“Their time, their thoughts, their ideas, their feedback to the University [are]extremely critical, especially because it’s the most fresh batch of feedback we can get,” he said. “Relaying [that feedback]to the appropriate administrators and making sure that it’s part of what the Fordham administration considers to make changes has been very rewarding.”

Through Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory, Sarwar uses his specific career experience as a risk associate to mentor current Fordham students interested in entrepreneurship. “Trying to implement that kind of thinking to entrepreneurship, I feel, is a good way I can give back.”

Mission-Motivated

Fordham’s spirit, values, and mission sit at the center of both Di Giorgio’s and Sarwar’s efforts. “Being a mission-oriented university, I think, really helps us continue to make those bonds stronger,” Sarwar said. “I got to go to the University with a scholarship. I got to meet some of the best people ever, and if I can help other people do that, that’s what [I’m] inclined to do.”

For Di Giorgio, who lives across the country from many of his family and friends, maintaining a sense of connection to his alma mater and the “Go Rams” Fordham spirit is crucial.

“What I can think of and touch and feel, it’s the friendships I have,” Di Giorgio said. “They’re lifelong friendships, and I think it’s because Fordham draws the same types of person at its core. So I’ve had friends for 50 years, but the ones I call and stay in touch with—send Christmas cards to—are my Fordham roommates.”

Typically held in person, this year’s FUAA Recognition Reception will be held virtually due to COVID-19. Sarwar and Di Giorgio will receive engraved awards ahead of the virtual reception, which will also feature a sweepstakes open to all attendees.

Visit Forever Fordham to learn more and register to attend the January 21 event.

“I was 8 years old when he first bought it, so I saw him always grinding away every day, putting in 12-hour days. So, I can sympathize with the small business owners who are trying to survive in the age of COVID,” he said.

“I saw on my social media channels that friends of mine had parents who were suffering, and they were doing things like advertising for them on Instagram.”

Shrestha, a junior economics major at Fordham College at Rose Hill who’d been working with Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory, reached out to friends he thought might be interested in helping small businesses. Diontay Santiago, a senior majoring in marketing at the Gabelli School of Business, was one of those who answered the call.

A Student-Led Initiative

In June, they launched the Fordham Business Development Collaboratory. The new initiative, which has a core group of 10 or so students, is split into teams responsible for assisting clients in the areas of finance, marketing, compliance, technology, and most recently, communications. Students offer their advice free of charge, relying on lessons they’ve learned in classes.

For Santiago, who is also the president of ASILI, the Black Student Alliance, the business collaboratory is more than a way to burnish his resume. It’s also way to lift up the borough he has called home his whole life.

“When you’re living in the community, you can see firsthand the debilitating effects of certain things, and you want to do everything you can to alleviate it and use all the resources that are at your disposal,” said the native Bronxite.

“Doing this sort of thing weds the school to its actual geographic location and allows it to give back to the community it’s inhabited for the last two centuries or so. So when Rich presented me with the opportunity to work with him, I jumped at it. This is something that not only looks good on a resume and is a good experience; it’s relevant to my home and my people.”

The collaboratory currently has eight clients, ranging from restaurants to small independent merchants to nonprofit groups. In addition to word-of-mouth referrals and an intake form on its website, the group has also connected to clients through the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.

Helping a Restauranter Increase Brand Awareness

One of their first clients was Seis Vecinos, a Central American restaurant in the South Bronx. Omar Canales, who opened the restaurant eight years ago with his cousin and expanded into a larger location four years ago, said the pandemic had forced him to “kick into overdrive” efforts to increase brand awareness and promote popular dishes such as its papusas. They met with the Fordham students three times over Zoom this past summer.

“I was able to get a different angle how we can better present ourselves online, through search engine optimization and our social media. I also got some extremely helpful pointers when it comes to the main splash page on our webpage,” he said.

He said he appreciated technical advice such as slowing down the transition between photos on the main page of the restaurant’s website.

“They also did their own analysis comparing us to our neighboring restaurants, in terms of how and where we can improve our search. Using more Latin American keywords, or using Latin food keywords, or emphasizing more of our menu items, so we appear even higher up, or just as high as other establishments that are offering the same dishes that we are,” he said.

Canales said it’s hard to point to any one suggestion that has driven growth, given how chaotic times are for restaurants these days. But he said the FBDC team’s suggestions have improved the experience of customers, which is ultimately what matters most.

What It Means to Be an Agent of Change

Sadibou Sylla, adjunct professor at the Gabelli School and interim director of Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory, said that Shrestha, Santiago, and all the students who contribute to the FBDC personify what it means to be a “changemaker.” The idea, which Fordham embraced when it joined the Ashoka network of schools, is to tackle societal problems through an interdisciplinary approach.

When the pandemic hit, Sylla convened the students he’d been advising into a COVID-19 taskforce. One of the ideas that came out that group’s meetings was the FBDC. The idea resonated in a special way, he said, because Fordham was founded to educate immigrants in the Bronx community, and today, the majority of businesses in the Bronx are owned by immigrants.

It’s also win-win because students gain real-life experience that they wouldn’t get in a classroom.

“I tell students, when you graduate, the most important question you’re going to answer in your job interview is, ‘What is so unique about you? What’s your story?’” he said.

“And the story is not that you went to Fordham and had this major and had this GPA. The story is you created a structure that helps small businesses to overcome the challenges of the pandemic.”

Working with Shrestha and Santiago was very easy, he said.

“They understand that it is only in serving all that we serve ourselves They understand that business is nothing but an instrument for helping society.”

Shrestha said that after a burst of activity over the summer, the group slowed down when classes resumed in the fall and everyone had less free time. Now though, he feels they’ve reached an equilibrium both in membership and clientele, and he’s optimistic that it will live on after he and Santiago graduate.

“This is an opportunity to gain an understanding of the community you’re in [as a Fordham student], and how we can be a better part of it and better neighbors,” he said.

“I think a lot of students are starting to realize how important that is, especially after all the things that happened this summer.”

Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business, said the renewal, which takes place every five years, is a testament to Fordham’s dedication to coordinate resources from across the institution and focus them toward improving the lives of others.

“It’s external validation that we’re living our mission. When you look at what AshokaU is doing, it’s really holding us accountable to educate change leaders. That’s what Fordham is really about—educating students who will make positive change,” she said, noting that being a member of the network also allows Fordham to tap into resources of universities around the world that have similar missions, visions, and goals.

One of the highest-profile changes to take place at Fordham as a result of the partnership with AshokaU was the creation of the Social Innovation Collaboratory. Housed within the Gabelli School of Business but open to the entire university community, it hosted 10 social innovation applied learning and action research groups last year. The groups, which comprised 131 undergraduate and graduate students, focused on topics such as financial inclusion, sustainable fashion, climate impact initiatives, diversity, equity and inclusion, and social-impact storytelling.

AshokaU noted in its renewal letter that Fordham has shown its commitment to social innovation in multiple ways. Last fall, the collaboratory’s steering committee, which is co-chaired by Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, and Dean Rapaccioli, was reformulated to include more senior leadership. In March, a new assistant director position was filled at the collaboratory, and a part-time communications position will also be filled in the near future.

Fordham has also begun using a Kumu visual map to match students with opportunities for social innovation throughout the University’s schools, departments, and centers.

“It shows you the network of different things that are going on. It will help us identify the various entry points that students can take, whether it’s curricular or co-curricular, to engage in social innovation efforts,” said Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D., associate dean of undergraduate studies and strategic initiatives and professor of marketing at the Gabelli School.

“It’s a kind of GPS for the students.”

The Ground Floor, a course that is offered to every first-year student at the Gabelli School of Business, was also retooled last fall to have a greater emphasis on social innovation. Working with mentors from the Fordham Foundry, students in the class are now tasked with forming a plan to address one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the end of the semester, the plans are entered in a contest co-sponsored with PVH Corp., and the team with the best plan is awarded a $2,000 prize.

Aksoy said a good example of the direction Fordham is heading is the Ignite Scholars program, which the Gabelli School launched last year. To be admitted to the program, students must demonstrate leadership skills as well as academic success. Starting a business is one example of leadership; taking action to improving their community is another.

Resilience is a big part of the Ignite program. Associate professor Yuliya A. Komarova, Ph.D., has been organizing workshops on resilience with students, and on Sept. 26, Gabelli Social Innovation fellow and Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient Jerry White will conduct a workshop on personal transformation.

“His story is really inspiring; he worked with Princess Diana on eliminating landmines, and was himself the victim of a landmine,” Aksoy said.

“It’s not just about academics,” she said, “but also about building these really important skills and mindsets in our students.”

And these days, Martini, the Gabelli School of Business’ executive-in-residence, shares them every five weeks with students at the Social Innovation Collaboratory’s Lincoln Center and Rose Hill offices.

The meetings aren’t always easy to arrange, as he flies in from California for them. But Martini, who made a $1 million gift last year to the Collaboratory, said the trek is well worth the time.

“Students here are great listeners. They want to hear from people who’ve run big companies and done startups,” he said during a visit in December.

“I love to share knowledge because really, that’s how I did what I did. I asked a lot of questions, and I had a lot of great mentors.”

Martini has a deep well of experience to tap into, as his business career has been long and varied. In 1998, he succeeded his father as president of Bergen Brunswig Corporation, a pharmaceutical distribution company that his grandfather Emil Martini founded in 1947.

Learning From Mistakes

When Bergen Brunswig merged with Amerisource Health Corporation in 2001, the company was worth $2.5 billion. Martini said he was proud to have overseen a successful merger (last year AmerisourceBergen, as the new company is known, employed 20,000 people), even though he only stayed on with the new company for about a year.

“We ran the business from the bottom up. We really believed that empowering associates closest to the work was the smartest thing we could do as leaders.,” he said.

After he left AmerisourceBergen in 2003, Martini raced cars for a few years. But the 2008 housing crisis inspired him to throw his hat back into the ring with TAAC, LLC (Troubled Asset Acquisitions Company), which he co-founded in 2009, and COVE Financial Group, which he founded in 2011. The firms acquired foreclosed homes in California and helped homeowners secure credit to buy them. Neither ultimately survived, but Martini said students can learn from their demise.

“I love to talk about the mistakes we made that we thought were great ideas at the time,” said Martini, who is now a private investor and the president of Martini Vintage, LLC, which restores vintage cars.

Social Innovation: A Reset Button

“I also get to see what students are up to, and that gives me some insight as an angel investor. I don’t need to run these companies, and I don’t need to make a zillion dollars. I want these students to be empowered to do things because I’m pretty sure they’re on the right track for pushing the reset button for business.”

Martini credits his interest in hitting the “reset button” for social innovation in business to his Fordham mentor, Gabelli School professor James A.F. Stoner, Ph.D., who introduced him to the concept of an Ashoka Changemaker Campus.  When Fordham earned the designation in 2014, it joined 25 other universities and colleges around the nation dedicated to change through social innovation.

It’s led Martini to support student efforts like those of Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Olivia Greenspan, the co-founder of TILL, a community-based real estate development company that aims to transform the old brownfield sites into viable properties.

During Martini’s visit in December, a team of students working under the auspices of the collaboratory was discussing ideas on how to promote financial literacy to Bronx residents. Max Lynch, a senior majoring in finance at the Gabelli School, said he had a savings account opened for him when he was in the first grade, so it was something he took for granted.

“In my junior year, I learned that there were people who didn’t even have access to bank accounts. Building savings since I was so young has helped me, and I’d like that for other people as well,” Lynch said.

Empowering Students

Lynch credits the Social Innovation Collaboratory with convincing him that upon graduation, he will eschew a traditional Wall Street career.   

“I want to do something that will have an impact on the world… I think I’m going to find my way into my own thing,” he said.

“Brent has allowed me to realize that that’s feasible.”

For Arlinda Berdynaj, GABELLI ’18, who was recently hired as the collaboratory’s innovation project manager, financial literacy resonates deeply. Her parents sometimes relied on pawn shops to get by when she was growing up in the Bronx neighborhood of Norwood; she said she wants to help others avoid that kind of situation.

Martini’s contributions have made it possible for the collaboratory to send Berdynaj to two conferences: Opportunity Collaboration Global, a summit focused on global poverty and injustice, and Social Capital Markets, which brings together impact investors, social entrepreneurs, and organizations aiming to create global change.

“Those were incredible opportunities, given that I just graduated and I’m looking to get into the field. I got to meet tons of people, I felt really inspired, and I still keep those connections,” she said.

Martini sees himself as the Social Innovation Collaboratory’s biggest cheerleader. In addition to meeting with students, he meets with the deans of Fordham’s other colleges to see how the collaboratory can support them. He’s also in regular contact with Z. George Hong, Ph.D., who, as Fordham’s chief research officer, is supervising the collaboratory’s dispersal of $100,000 for faculty-driven research.

Listening and Changing Together

But it’s the students who fire Martini up most, and he said he’s learned as much from them as he thinks they’ve learned from him. In fact, a conversation with three female students last spring led Martini to experience a profound change of opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“My natural reaction was, they all matter. Why is it that black lives matter? I resisted,” he said.

To get him to understand, the young women told him a story about a man and a woman who worked for the same company, were the same age, and lived in similar neighborhoods. One had a white daughter, the other had a black daughter. When the black woman asked the white man whether he ever thought about his daughter when she left for school, he said he thought about what she might be learning, but otherwise he didn’t give her much thought. But the black woman experienced things differently.

“She said, ‘I don’t rest easy in my mind again, all day long, until my daughter comes back in the door, because I just don’t know that she’s coming back in the door,’” Martini recalled.

“And in that moment here, I had tears in my eyes. These kids changed how I related to that world.

“I said to them, ‘Thank you, I get it. I’ll never be the same.’ Those kids wrote me the next day, and they said, ‘You know what inspires us? When we see a 50-plus-year-old successful man listen to us and change.’”

The competition is the third pitch contest that the Foundry, a business incubator housed at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business and run in collaboration with the New York City Department of Small Business Services, has held since it debuted one in April 2017.

VentureUp! organizer Albert Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, entrepreneur-in-residence at the Foundry, said this year’s contest, which comes with $40,000 in prize money, is notable because all the companies competing are already operational. That’s partially due to the Foundry’s concerted effort to involve alumni this year.

“How can we build on the strengths that differentiate Fordham and the New York City startup scene,” he said, “and try to attract people who might have the alumni connection to say, I’d like to come back?”

“We want to identify who the entrepreneurs are who are lurking in the bushes that we don’t know about.”

One of them is Busayo Ogunsanya, GABELLI ’08, ’12, who founded Ask My Uncle Sam, a website which answers basic tax question and helps accounting professionals free up time to serve more clients.

It’s Ogunsanya’s third company since he graduated with degrees in accounting. The site is an outgrowth of his first business, Big Apple Tax Return, which he started after a stint at Ernst & Young.

“What I realized during this period was a lot of clients have tax questions. For me, it was very time consuming to answer very basic questions,” he said.

“A couple of days ago for instance, a client of mine said to me, I’m thinking of buying a house; should I use my Roth IRA? The issue is, you can’t bill a client for asking a question, and your clients are not going to use Google.”

The idea was to create a database of thousands of answers to common questions and then harness artificial intelligence to create a chatbot that can be accessed on a phone or tablet. Initially, it will only be marketed as a business-to-business product, for use by practitioners such as H&R Block, not for the general public.

“I want to come back as a double Fordham alumnus to show that its possible for an alum to take chances and also be successful,” he said.

If Ogunsanya’s goal is to help people save money, Joseph Zoyhofski, a native of Buffalo and a second-year undergraduate student at Gabelli, wants to help people use that cash to bond with each other.

What’s Cooking, a meal-sharing platform that connects users through home-cooked meals, is a joint entry from Zoyhofski and classmates Liam Scott and Alex TenBarge. Users advertise on the site a meal they’d like to make at home, as well as how much they plan to charge for it. Those interested can sign on, and the site charges a small processing fee on top of the price of the meal. The group’s plan won the People’s Choice Award at the Foundry’s second pitch contest, and Zoyhofski said he feels the company’s success so far shows potential for expansion.

“There’s nothing I miss more about Buffalo than home-cooked meals,” he said.

“We have the cafeteria here, but there’s nothing like sitting in someone’s home to have a home cooked meal with them.”

What’s Cooking has coordinated 40 meals with eight to ten Fordham students since it went live. The goal is to expand it beyond Fordham to the general public. Zoyhofski, who has been working with both Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory and the Law School’s Entrepreneurial Law clinic, said there’s a need for a platform to meet new people over a home-cooked meal.

“Some of the students who’ve used What’s Cooking have made really close connections with people they’ve never met before from going to these meals,” he said.

“As we scale up, this is definitely something where I can see people who live only a couple of blocks away, but never knew each other, meeting and making a connection over a meal.”

The competition will be judged by Dave Yonamine, founder of MobilityWare, John Abplanalp, former CEO and president of Precision Valve Corporation, Jim Dugan, CEO and co-founder and managing partner of OCA Ventures, Josh Futterman, founder of ParkYou! and Alicia Syrett, founder and CEO of Pantegrion Capital.

Teams will be judged on the company’s ability to scale up, the look of its team, and the look of its business model. Bartosic said judges will also be on the lookout for any intangible, “wow factor” that might make a company really stand out.

The other contestants include bizdevIQ, an on-demand marketplace for tech and business experts to meet in-person with business owners and emerging entrepreneurs, R3 Printing, an industrial 3D printing firm, Brevitē, a manufacturer of gear for the modern explorer, Bound, an app that holds people accountable to meetings and events, and Make Muse, a newspaper-meets-literary-magazine for women.

He said one measure of event’s success will be new connections between fellow entrepreneurs, as well as the future entrepreneurs it inspires.

“If you want to make a pitch, but you’re nervous and you don’t know how to do it, you can sit in the audience and watch seven people do it,” he said.

“How did they get grilled by the judges? What was the feedback that they got? What were the criteria? How do the winners come across? You can really get a sense of how you might do it if you’re planning to do it in the future.”

Additional support for the competition has been provided by the NASDAQ Educational Foundation.

The forum was the Social Innovation Collaboratory’s third Our Story event, where, in addition to letting people in on their own lives, students aimed to confront biases and build community in a safe environment.

“This is a chance for students to share uninterrupted stories, share authentically, and share truthful stories from their life,” said Julia Gagliardi, a storytelling mentor and one of the founding members of Our Story at Fordham.

Before the student storytellers spoke, the audience was urged to leave their expectations at the door, suspend judgment, and, most importantly, observe deep confidentiality. The evening event was designed to provide a safe space, with story “details lingering only in our hearts and minds—not be shared after the event,” explained Carey Weiss, director of sustainability initiatives and social innovation.

The theme of the evening was “Caught off Guard.” Students told stories about when they had felt surprised, uncertain, terrified, and/or transformed. The storytellers candidly reflected on their personal struggles, past relationships, and the lessons they learned.

One of them mentioned that last summer, she watched the Pixar movie Inside Out five times. It taught her something special:

“It’s okay to be sad. These feelings—the hard feelings that no one wants to confront, of sadness, fear, anger, disgust—no one talks about those, but those are very, very real parts of life that you need to make you who you are,” said Shelby Daniel, FCRH ’20, a journalism major.

At the end of the night, students were asked to reflect on what they had just heard, summarize their feelings in one or two words on a Post-it, and stick the notes on a wall in the back of the room. By 8 p.m., more than 100 colorful squares covered the wall. Students had scribbled dozens of words: uplifting, touched, humbling, self-aware, affirmed, emotionally spent. One person wrote the word “catharsis,” surrounded by a heart. “Everyone has the strength, even if they don’t say it,” said another.  

“Them making themselves vulnerable in front of so many people, and sharing those personal parts about themselves—things you would never really know about them from a normal conversation or a normal pass by—definitely hits a nerve,” said Max Lynch, GABELLI ’19, who has worked with the Social Innovation Collaboratory since his first year at Fordham.

Abby Monaco, FCRH ’21, said she teared up throughout the evening.

“In some form, in some way, all of the speakers connected to each of us,” said Monaco. “Every one of their stories—I felt something similar had occurred in my life, or something I knew happened in somebody else’s.”

This spring semester, the Social Innovation Collaboratory plans on hosting another storytelling session.

“Storytelling is a critical piece of changemaking,” concluded Rosemary McCormack, a storytelling mentor and founding member of the Our Story team, in her closing speech. “It’s not just something that we should do once a semester. Stories can create much larger impact on our society as a whole.”

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With a recent $1 million gift, Brent Martini, GABELLI ’86, has ensured that those efforts will grow exponentially.

“This will be, and can be, core to who Fordham is, in my humble opinion,” said Martini, a former president of the pharmaceutical firm AmerisourceBergen and current owner of vintage car dealer Martini Vintage LLC.

“I’m driven to make Fordham as great as it can be. I’m not sure why I take it so personally, I just believe there’s lots of good people doing good things, and I have the privilege of participating in it fully.”

Carey Weiss, director of the collaboratory, a university-wide initiative managed by the Gabelli School of Business, said Martini’s gift is the largest it has received to date, and is a bona fide game changer.

“It puts us in league with peer Changemaker Campus institutions around the world that have also been suitably resourced in ways that we have been emulating, and we can now express in our unique way.”

A Network of Changemakers

Weiss said the collaboratory was conceived by Fordham’s late provost Stephen Freedman in 2014 as part of the process for designation as an Ashoka U Changemaker Campus. In receiving that designation, Fordham joined a network of 25 other universities and colleges around the nation that are helping change the world through social innovation.

At the time, Ashoka’s review team expressed concern that Fordham had social impact projects happening everywhere, but lacked connectivity between initiatives. Weiss said the collaboratory takes all of that faculty and student thought leadership and turns it into practice, with measurable impact and outcomes for society.

The collaboratory’s programming, which was at the outset offered only to Gabelli School students, has in the last three years expanded to include students at Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Fordham College at Rose Hill students as well. And since 2015, faculty from five of the University’s colleges have participated.

Now, thanks to Martini’s generosity, the collaboratory is poised to expand to make an even greater impact.

Thinking about the Next Generation

Martini previously funded the chair in global sustainability occupied by Gabelli School of Business professor James M. Stoner, Ph.D., and has served as executive in residence at the Gabelli School since 2015. He became interested in environmentally sustainable and inclusive business practices in 2011, when he decided to reenter the job market with COVE Financial Group, a lease-to-buy real estate business that he ran for four years. He credited Stoner, with whom he’d stayed in touch over the years, with bending his ear to talk about sustainability and social innovation.

“That’s kind of the way Jim’s always been with me. Give me something to think about, and then wait for me to think about it. This time around, he also had a hook, which was, ‘You have a young daughter, right? So while you’re building a new business, it would be appropriate to really think about the world that you’re creating, the business you’re creating, and the environment you’re impacting,’” he said.

“So, he really planted the seed around me to learn more about these topics.”

An example of an initiative the collaboratory has spearheaded is Sustainable Business Foundations, a course at the Gabelli School where students could, for their midterm, work in teams to identify a real-life problem for either BMW’s new fleet of electric vehicles or the city of New Rochelle, and design a sustainable solution. Social innovation has also been embedded in the Ground Floor, an introductory course that every first-year undergraduate student at the Gabelli School takes. And a new course, Impact Investing, was recently unveiled for junior and senior finance majors.

Weiss said Martini’s gift will allow the collaboratory to build out its infrastructure so it can serve other colleges and centers in the University. That includes more physical space that can accommodate students who want to plan events such as its Our Story gatherings, the second of which will be held Nov. 12. It will also increase opportunities for research and new coursework.

“With a better understanding of our own university, who the players are, and what the needs are, we can build this out to serve a much broader section of community,” she said.

“What we’ve needed is more funding for professional staff, for faculty involvement—particularly research and curriculum development—and also for student leadership.”

Eliminating Barriers

Weiss said part of the beauty of focusing on social innovation is that it provides a common theme on which seemingly disparate disciplines around the University can find common ground, allowing faculty and students to break out of the “silos” that are common in many large organizations. One initiative that the University will be launching soon is a GiveCampus Campaign, which will be spearheaded by the Fordham Fund, and will be dedicated to raising awareness and funds across all units of the university, including the collaboratory, for social innovation activities.

Martini said he’s excited to not only be a part of building out the collaboratory, but also to have a front row seat to the action. Although he lives in Laguna Beach, California, he visits New York City every five to six weeks, and says spending time with the students is the richest experience he has these days. Helping to provide them with innovative spaces to work in is his way of thanking them.

“I believe spaces are critically important, not just as symbols, but as places where people come together and do work. At any given student leader meeting today, you would see 25 kids jammed into a room,” he said.

“But you’d see a couple hundred kids if you could actually ask everyone involved in the social innovation collaboratory, in one shape or form, to all come to one space at one time. That, to me, is incredibly exciting. It’s just begun.”

Leading Toward a Finer Future, a four-day intensive master class that runs from Jan. 18 to Jan. 21, aims to prepare graduate and undergraduate students for leadership in the sustainable business field. The new course is led by sustainable development pioneer L. Hunter Lovins, president and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions.

Lovins has served as a consultant in economic development, sustainable agriculture, and policies related to climate, energy, water, and security for over 40 years. A co-author of more than a dozen books in the field of sustainable business, she has advised senior-level professionals, companies, and state and local agencies about regenerative practices that help to maximize profits—without exploiting or depleting resources.

Among the biggest challenges facing businesses and investors around the world are climate change, food injustice, environmental damages, global inequality, poverty, and international migration. Throughout her career, Lovins has emphasized that reactive leadership is not merely a proposition: It is indispensable.

“Solving today’s challenges will require leaders who are equipped to design and foster innovative, lasting, and transformational change within their organizations,” wrote Lovins in a blog post on the Huffington Post.

Having advised companies, agencies, and organizations such as the United Nations, the Department of Energy, the Royal Dutch Shell, Walmart, Unilever, and Patagonia, Lovins will share how she helps clients make sustainability an integral part of their business strategies. She will also provide pointers on how to overcome crises and shocks to the system.

Michael Pirson, Ph.D., associate professor and a scholar of humanistic management at the Gabelli School who helped to launch an undergraduate sustainable-business concentration at Fordham, said while sustainable or “green” business isn’t a new phenomenon, today’s leaders aren’t offering many solutions in the field that create long-term impact.

“Companies have the technology to solve these problems, but they often lack the leadership,” he said.

“They have done what organizations typically do, such as lobbying. Many companies in the coal and oil industries have also kept or removed regulations, but that isn’t an answer to the challenges. The problems are so big and the solutions are so few at this point.”

He said Lovins’ class will take a different approach by training aspiring leaders how to implement innovative management practices.

“It’s a great opportunity for Fordham students to hear from someone of this caliber,” he said.