Student Achievers – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Wed, 05 Jun 2024 20:38:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png Student Achievers – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 Gabelli Grad Has a Serious Headstart on Business https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/gabelli-grad-has-a-serious-headstart-on-business/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:46:52 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4482 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Andrew Kang has had a knack for business since middle school.  Photo by Patrick Verel VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Andrew Kang at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies5.
Andrew Kang has had a knack for business since middle school.
Photo by Patrick Verel
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Andrew Kang at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies5.

When a representative of Tesla Motors visited the Rose Hill campus last October to speak to a business class and offer free trips around campus in a model car, Andrew Kang knew what he had to do.

While his classmates were riding around campus in a black Tesla S60kw sedan, Kang ran back to his off-campus apartment and retrieved a copy of his résumé, making it back before the demonstration was over.

A month later, he was hired as a part-time product specialist. With a foot in the door, he has already lined up an interview next month for a position at the Tesla corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

“It’s rewarding to know that that a little initiative taken in the spur of the moment can actually prove to be successful,” he said.

Kang is graduating from the Gabelli School of Business after having spent five years as an undergraduate at Fordham; in his junior year, he took a hiatus to move to Charleston, South Carolina, and help launch the website electronicdancemusic.com. He sold his share of the company to his co-founder after returning to Fordham a year later. He remains very proud of the site, which in a single year went from attracting 2,000 unique visitors a month to drawing a monthly average of 150,000 to 200,000.

“Something we started from scratch grew into something that was respected as one of the leaders of media coverage in the dance music industry,” he said.

Business has always come naturally to Kang. In middle school, he swapped out the standard cases of Nextel phones with custom cases and sold them in school, in what he figures was his first foray into business.

Growing up in the suburbs of Eastchester, New York, and Old Tappan, New Jersey, Kang, a child of first-generation South Korean immigrants, said he always felt drawn to New York City. Coming to Fordham enabled him to immerse himself completely in the Big Apple. He majored in marketing because he likes the creative aspect of business.

“The beautiful thing about marketing is you’re able to understand why people act a certain way,” he said. “There’s a psychology factor. Marketing lets you tap into the behaviors of people instead of just working numbers.”

After taking a few months after graduation to travel, Kang hopes to start his post-Fordham career at Tesla. But he still loves being in the heart of it all. Recently, he interned at MTV in Times Square, where he’d visited as a tourist many times during his formative years.

“To this day, when I leave my internship, I walk out of Viacom’s headquarters and think ‘Wow, this is a touristy area. Everyone is here to see this, and will probably not see it again for a long time, but I get to see this every day,’” he said.

“Even when you have to weave your way thorugh tourists while trying to get to work, it’s exhilarating to be here. It’s hard to describe that feeling.”

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West Point-Schooled Vet Transitions to Wall Street https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/west-point-schooled-vet-transitions-to-wall-street/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:42:24 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4478 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
 Adam King wants to bring military values to Wall Street culture.  Photo by Tom Stoelker VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Adam King at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies8.

Adam King wants to bring military values to Wall Street culture.
Photo by Tom Stoelker
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Adam King here.

When Adam King returned home in 2009 after five years on the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Germany and Afghanistan, Wall Street had hit a new low.

He told friends he wanted to go into business and they expressed consternation—why, after all the work he’d done to advance to an army captain, would he want to work on Wall Street?

King, a 2004 graduate of U.S. Military Academy at West Point, grew up in a military family that eventually settled in Long Island’s Oyster Bay. As the financial sector had just dragged the country to the brink of collapse, King said his family and friends were miffed at why he’d want to leave a “noble career” for one “where there’s a perception that you’re part of the problem with this country.”

But that was precisely the point.

“Wall Street needs people who have the values and integrity that I feel I received in the military and at West Point,” he said. “In the Army, when you see something going wrong, you stand up.”

King began his quest to enter the financial world by working in operations for a healthcare company in Western Massachusetts. He decided he wanted to come back home and return to school, and he chose Fordham because of its “incredible network in New York City.”

The University also reached out to him with a scholarship toward his M.B.A. in finance, which has led him to become a passionate advocate for scholarships.

“When you pay it forward, it really changes the mindset of students because you’ve invested in them,” he said. “Then the students also want to give back.”

King has certainly given back already. He serves as the Graduate School of Business Administration’s student advisory council president and said he’s learned the difference between leadership in the Army and leadership in civilian life.

“You have to earn people’s respect and trust before you can galvanize them in one direction or another,” he said, adding that the 2008 financial market meltdown demonstrated how leadership in American business can have global repercussions. “Coming out of business school today, we really have to set a better example for the rest of the world in terms of business practices.”

Following graduation, King will take up a new role in corporate strategy for Wolters Kluwer, the Dutch global information services company. He said that the area of long-term planning in corporate finance attracted him because it allows him to figure out how a company can grow over time. He said he is also attracted to working for a company that understands the value of information as a commodity.

“Information levels the playing field,” he said. “Conflicts can be avoided because information is so apparent [that]you can’t cover things up that easily. And that makes nations become more democratic.”

King said he’s also aware that a constant stream of available information creates additional challenges—with each minute presenting a new spin that often requires damage control.

But good business leaders know how to use information to advance more than just themselves, he said. ““It’s not about the short term gain you can make for yourself,” he said. “You’re looking at the long-term health and growth of the nation and how you can contribute to it.”

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From Ballet to Biomedical Engineering https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/from-ballet-to-biomedical-engineering/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:38:29 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4475 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Former dancer Rachel Sattler will pursue her doctorate at Columbia University in biomedical engineering.  Photo by Tom Stoelker VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Rachel Sattler at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies4.
Former dancer Rachel Sattler will pursue her doctorate at Columbia University in biomedical engineering.
Photo by Tom Stoelker
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Rachel Sattler at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies4.

When Rachel Sattler moved to New York as a 21-year-old dancer, she landed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, well before the cappuccino machines had arrived. She shared a four-bedroom apartment with four roommates that were officially on the lease, though that number sometimes ballooned to 10 people “paying various forms of rent.”

“I was living the dream,” she said.

Fresh from a two-year stint with the Sacramento Ballet and a year training and performing in Cannes, France, the young ballerina was indeed doing what countless generations of New York artists had done before her: roughing it. At night she worked as a cocktail waitress and during the day she auditioned and rehearsed.

When she returned from France, Sattler made the move to New York City in part upon the suggestion of her mother, who told her that her childhood home of Carson City, Nevada was too small for her after the eye-opening experiences in California and France. Both of her parents, Sattler said, trusted that she would eventually return to college to develop her substantial skills in math.

“I graduated the salutatorian of my high school, and then joined a dance company. Many relatives and friends said things to my parents like, ‘Agh, but she’s such a gifted student,’” Sattler recalled. “But my parents really supported me and told everyone that I’d get back to school when the time was right—and I did!”

Sattler is graduating with honors from Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS), and has been accepted at Columbia University to pursue a joint master’s/doctoral degree in biomedical engineering.

Four years ago, Sattler said that she found the Fordham PCS program through a Google search.

“When I first walked into Fordham and spoke to (Assistant Dean of Admissions) Glen Redpath, I could see that he understood dancers,” she said, adding that Redpath didn’t flinch when she expressed an interest in math and science.

She would, however, be required to take the common core—just like all undergraduates.

“At first I thought, ‘I’m an adult and I already know how to write,’” she said. “But I actually found the core classes very enriching and appealing to my artistic side. I know that if I had applied to a more technical school, I would’ve missed that the chances to further develop my analytical verbal and writing skills. Now, when I hear something on the news, for example, I am much better able to read between the lines and put the information in context.”

Sattler said that the field of biomedical engineering is still relatively new–one that was in its infancy when she was graduating from high school. So her timing of attending school later on, she said, turned out to be perfect. When she was younger, she assumed her dance experience would eventually segue into a career in physical therapy, but her future studies will now allow her to help people who need therapies in exciting ways—through prosthetic design, joint replacements, and tissue engineering.

“There are a lot applications for chronic diseases in biomedical research,“ she said. “For example, research into the natural ability for bones to remodel and adapt may lead to better treatments for osteoporosis.”

Sattler said that adapting is something that every dancer understands.

“As I approached 30 and my body was starting to change, I thought, ‘When I’m 40 or 50 will I be able to get up in the morning and still do this for my living?’” she said. “All dancers go through this transition. You put your whole life into something, but you’re still very young and you change.

Now, I can help do that for other people.”

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FCLC Student’s Future Tied to Helping Victims of Domestic Abuse https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/fclc-students-future-tied-to-helping-victims-of-domestic-abuse/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:32:59 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4471 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Naadia Chowdrury has researched Muslim mothers. Photo by Patrick Verel VIDEO: Fordham Selfies Watch a short video selfie by Naadia Chowdhury at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies6.
Naadia Chowdrury has researched Muslim mothers.
Photo by Patrick Verel
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Naadia Chowdhury at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies6.

Naadia Chowdrury was no stranger to big city ways when she first committed to staying in New York City for college, having grown up in Richmond Hill, Queens.

But after four years at New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School, Chowdrury was looking for an environment that was less competitive and more collaborative.

At Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where she was accepted into the honors program, she found a home, majoring in psychology and minoring in sociology.

“There is competition here, but it’s healthy competition. People support you. In high school, I once asked someone for notes for a class I’d missed and I got partial notes. It was just sort of doing your own thing, because you’re trying to beat out other people for seats for schools,” she said.

“Coming to Fordham, I wasn’t thinking ‘What grade did you get?’ I have my own standards and I’m going to go according to them and go forward.”

As part of her honors program, Chowdrury wrote a senior thesis, under the direction of David S. Glenwick, Ph.D., professor of psychology, on Muslim mothers and their perceptions of child behavior issues. Her hypothesis, which was born out of a survey she conducted, was that many of them conceptualize psychological issues their children may be experiencing as simple development issues.

For the survey, Chowdrury and her team presented a group of Muslim mothers with four fictional vignettes featuring children exhibiting different degrees of shyness and acting out. The team then asked the mothers how serious they thought the problem was and what they would do to respond.

“These women were certainly concerned, but in terms of what they said they would do about it, it was just talk to family and friends, talk to the other parent,” she said, “but not to really go any further.”

Chowdrury has submitted her paper to the Journal of Muslim Mental Health and for admission at psychology conferences on the East Coast.

Commuting from Richmond Hill was a challenge, said Chowdrury, but she was still able to join Desi Chi, a cultural club for South Asian studies, and work as the treasurer for the Jesuit honor society, Alpha Sigma Nu.

Now she’s ready to leave New York City for the first time and pursue a law degree at Duke University, where her goal is to ultimately work on behalf of domestic abuse victims. A class at Fordham on trauma taught her the value of counseling, but she wants to help victims of domestic abuse first get out of the bad situations they’re in—which is what the law can do best.

The prospect of leaving her home and the Northeast is both exhilarating and terrifying, she says. But she’s up for the challenge: Fordham was a challenge when she came here, too.

“The honors program started out very rigorous, and I thought, ‘What is going on, where is my time, maybe this is not the school for me,’” she said.

“But I’m glad I stuck it out.”

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From Sierra Leone to New York: GSS Graduate’s Challenging Journey https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/from-sierra-leone-to-new-york-gss-graduates-challenging-journey/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:30:11 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4468 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
While working full time and raising a son, Hawa Jalloh earned her graduate degree in social work.  Photo by Janet Sassi VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Hawa Jalloh at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies3.
While working full time and raising a son, Hawa Jalloh earned her graduate degree in social work.
Photo by Janet Sassi
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Hawa Jalloh at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies3.

Hawa Jalloh has dreamed of pursuing an education since she was a child. As a young girl growing up in Sierra Leone in the 1970s, however, that dream seemed impossible to realize.

As she is about to complete her master’s of social work at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, Jalloh recalls that, in her home country, she was not able to start primary school until the age of 9 years.

“I remember my father saying, ‘Why would you want to have all that education, when the kitchen is your office?’” Jalloh said, recalling her father’s strong cultural adherence to a woman’s traditional role.

Her dream, however, came with a determination she developed at a young age and which has proven invaluable as she has overcome obstacles along the way.

“If you have a goal, you can use any experience, good or bad, to reach it,” she said. “I did not let [disease or disabilities]stop me. I have pursued my calling.”

Jalloh moved to New York alone in 1996 with the goal of enrolling in college. She realized, however, she needed to work first to establish herself. Since 2002, Jalloh has worked at St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, New York, where she has progressed from an addiction counselor to her current role as a clinical supervisor.

Ten years after arriving in the United States, Jalloh also began studying at Westchester Community College. Eventually she enrolled at Fordham for both her bachelor’s and master’s of social work. Although it has taken some time to complete her education, she has accomplished all of it while working full time and raising her 9-year-old son, Mohamadou, who was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome.

Jalloh works tirelessly not only as her son’s parent but also as his advocate. As a health care professional, she has a leg up in advocating for other families with children diagnosed with Down syndrome. She said her son is her primary motivator as she finishes up her degree.

“He is my number one source of strength that keeps me going. When I have a long day at work or a stressful day at school, once I get home and see his face, everything is gone,” she said.

Mohamadou is also a powerful reason for Jalloh to fight for her own health. In the spring of 2013, Jalloh was diagnosed with a sarcoma, one form of cancer. She graduated with her bachelor’s of social work in May, had surgery to treat the cancer in June, and returned to school in September of that same year to begin her graduate coursework.

“If my son can survive everything he went through, cancer is nothing for me. That’s how I look at it,” she said.

When she walks across the stage to receive her diploma this month, eight years after beginning college, Jalloh will be celebrating a significant milestone in her education. But it is by no means the end of the journey. She plans to pursue a doctorate, and she dreams of becoming a teacher at the university level.

“If I can make a positive impact on a student and teach the right way of doing something, and if that student can impact 10 or even 100 people, then I will have achieved my goal.”

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Faces in the Class of 2014: Wilson Owuor https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/4465/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:26:30 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4465 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Wilson Owuor has earned his degree while teaching in high-needs schools in the Bronx.  Photo by Janet Sassi
Wilson Owuor has earned his degree while teaching in high-needs schools in the Bronx.
Photo by Janet Sassi

Wilson Owuor never intended to become a teacher at first.

As an undergraduate physics major, he aspired to pursue a doctoral degree in physics. After graduating, however, Owuor undertook a year of teaching at a high school simply because he needed a job. The experience surprised him.

“I enjoyed the interaction and relationships with the students,” said Owuor, who is graduating with an M.S.T. in adolescence math education from Fordham’s Graduate School of Education (GSE). “There were of course some challenging moments, but each day was a new experience.”

He spent the year teaching algebra and geometry at a Bronx high school. There, he learned that students who struggled were often not deficient in academic ability; instead, they lacked motivation and external encouragement.

“I remember one student who, on my first day, came in as if she was ready to fight,” he said. “I was shocked at first because I didn’t expect such opposition.”

Over time, Owuor discovered that the student’s opposition was nothing more than a self-defense mechanism that had grown out of years of discouragement and frustration.

“I realized that most students were looking for someone to affirm a perception they’d already adopted—that they hate math, or that they aren’t good students,” Owuor said. “So I made it clear to her that I was not going to accept such a negative perception, and that I expected her to do much better because I knew she could.”

When that first year of teaching came to a close, Owuor began looking for opportunities to continue in the education field, and eventually came across GSE’s Teacher Residency Scholars Program (TRIP). The 15-month program combines academic coursework with a year of student teaching at high-needs New York City public schools.

Being a TRIP scholar has been pivotal, Owuor said, because it has allowed him to spend most of his graduate education gaining hands-on experience. In doing so, he has learned that one thing critical to being a successful teacher is knowing students well and building trust with them. The students he encounters, he said, are accustomed to having teachers who do not understand them and do not have the capacity to empathize with their situations. By nurturing relationships of trust he has helped students tap into abilities they had never cultivated.

“If you go in [to teach]as an idealist, you’re going to become frustrated. You need patience and an understanding of what you’re facing.”

He advises that teachers remain perseverant—the same quality he strives to instill in his students.

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Coming Up Next: Law Student Goes from Voiceovers to Litigations https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/coming-up-next-law-student-goes-from-voiceovers-to-litigations/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:23:24 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4459 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Sally Winters worked as a voiceover artist before pursuing law.  Photo by Joanna Klimaski VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Sally Winters at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies2.
Sally Winters worked as a voiceover artist before pursuing law.
Photo by Joanna Klimaski
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Sally Winters at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies2.

Last February, Sally Winters participated in a panel discussion at Fordham School of Law on what makes a successful evening division law student. The panelists, of which she was one, received the question: “When did you know that it was time to quit your day job?”

One by one, they discussed their transitions between careers.

“And then they got to me, and I answered, ‘I don’t know,’” said Winters, who, in addition to graduating from Fordham Law, has built a career as an actress and voiceover performer. “Because I haven’t done it yet.”

Although she had gone to college with the intent of becoming a lawyer, she had also harbored a love for the theater. Her plan to take the LSAT and apply to law school, however, gave way to a job offer doing summer stock. She thought she might take the LSAT the following February, but was again delayed when she was hired into another show after summer stock ended.

“Every time I’d say that I was going to take the LSAT in the next seating, I would be hired for something,” she said. “And it just kept going until I finally realized that I had a great career going and didn’t want to stop.”

She continued in musical theater and also started working as a voiceover performer doing television and radio commercials, network promos, and political ads—all of which she continues to do full time.

“I did my first voiceover in 1996 and haven’t stopped working since,” she said. “In 15 years, I haven’t had a vacation where I didn’t have to be near a recording studio.”

In 2000, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (now SAG-AFTRA)— of which Winters is a member—launched a six-month strike. The dire situation, she said, ultimately left many performers without work. The strike eventually resolved, but the experience disturbed Winters so deeply that she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I’m not a person who sits back and complains. If I see a problem, I get involved,” she said. “So I did. I ran for a seat on the board and won.”

As a board member, Winters worked on legal matters, including contract negotiations. The work brought her back to her undergraduate pre-law days. Again, she contemplated taking the LSAT and picking up where she had left off.

“I remember one day we were in negotiations on a big contract, and I got a call to do a last-minute audition. And I decided not to go, because I wanted to stay in the room and finish the negotiation,” she said. “That was the minute I knew my priorities had started to shift.”

Eventually, the board’s executive leadership approached her and offered to sponsor her study at Cornell University’s program in industrial and labor relations. But they were too late—by then, Winters had already decided to return to law school, and had set her heart on Fordham.

At Fordham, Winters has thrived. She joined the Dispute Resolution Society’s competitive team, participated in the school’s Federal Litigation Clinic, and spent last summer working at a large New York law firm, where she is planning to continue on, following graduation, in its commercial real estate department. In addition, she was selected by the school as one of four Evening Students of the Year.

“One of the great things about Fordham is that there is a lot of support for working students in the evening program,” she said. “It’s what makes Fordham special. I had to keep working to support my family, so it’s the only place where I could’ve gone to law school.”

Her success as a law student has taught her the difficult but important art of knowing one’s own limitations. As a result, she accepts that her longtime career as a performer may change, she said.

But accepting her limitations, she said, doesn’t mean limiting her enthusiasm.
“You have to want it,” she said. “I have the most success when I stay open to possibilities and take advantage of opportunities presented to me. See an open door? Walk through it!”

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Addressing the Coptic Crisis through Education https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/addressing-the-coptic-crisis-through-education/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:20:24 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4456 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Bishop Suriel has researched the history of religious education in Egypt. Photo by Nashat Makarious VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Bishop Anba Suriel here.
Bishop Suriel has researched the history of religious education in Egypt.
Photo by Nashat Makarious
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Bishop Anba Suriel here.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance begets more ignorance, and sometimes violence. It’s a phenomenon that His Grace Bishop Anba Suriel, Ph.D., said has led to the violence plaguing Egypt of late, in particular the persecution of the nation’s Coptic Christian minority.

As the Coptic Orthodox Bishop of Melbourne, Australia, Bishop Suriel has made religious education the focus of his life’s work. He graduates today from Fordham with his doctorate of religion from the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education.

“One of the major problems in Egypt is a lack of education,” he said. “Without people being open to understanding, we see the burning of hundreds of churches and Christians being massacred in the streets.”

Bishop Suriel said that a large influx of Coptic Christians is coming to his diocese to escape the violence in Egypt. Even though Egypt’s Muslims and Christians have lived side by side for well over a thousand years, the region’s most recent crisis has upended centuries of fitful harmony and history.

His doctoral dissertation focused on that history and on Coptic Archdeacon Habib Girgis, dean of the Coptic Theological College in Cairo, whose 60-year career as an educator brought reform and access to religious education to the Copts through the Sunday school movement in Egypt. Girgis introduced the religious reforms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in response to the Western missionaries who imported the Sunday school model to Egypt.

The missionaries were able to usurp Coptic religious authority via proselytizing and educating Egyptian believers, said the bishop, in part because the Coptic priests were woefully undereducated and weren’t equipped to defend their faith from Western challenges. Girgis also faced stiff opposition from priests who feared that their flocks would grow to learn more than they themselves did, and from lay people who thought he wasn’t doing enough.

Girgis also faced challenges of recruiting talented students, maintaining college facilities, and paying staff on a tight budget—all hurdles that Bishop Suriel faced in establishing the St. Athanasius Coptic Orthodox Theological College in 2001, Australia’s first accredited Coptic college.

Appointed as bishop in 1999, Bishop Suriel said that opening the college became a top priority for him because he envisioned the school as a hub of intellectual and communal activity. He serves as dean of the college, which operates as part of the University of Divinity—an ecumenical system that brings together 10 colleges and seminaries of Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and Orthodox faith traditions.

It soon became apparent to Bishop Suriel that he would need to complete his doctorate if he was going to be running a college.

“With all the strains of running a diocese which is geographically very wide, the past nine years of study have been an emotional roller coaster,” he said. “It was intense and stressful, but it was very important for me to be able to promote the college and assist it to move forward.”

Over the course of doing his Egyptian research, Bishop Suriel unearthed a trove of more than 7,000 documents relating to Coptic religious education stored beneath St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. But while the doctoral research certainly deepened his understanding of Coptic religious education, he said that his time at Fordham also opened his eyes to religious education of other Christian faith traditions as well.

“I have begun to understand what happens in the Catholic field and that has added a lot of value to the work I’ll be doing in Melbourne,” he said.

Like Girgis, who eventually adapted the Western missionaries Sunday school model by giving it a Coptic flavor, Bishop Suriel said he’s open to adapting ideas from other Christian faith traditions to enrich his own.

“Fordham taught me to think outside of the life within the Coptic Church,” he said, “and to have a broader understanding of religious education.”

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Rose Hill Student Finds Meaning at the Intersection of Biology and Classics https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/rose-hill-student-finds-meaning-at-the-intersection-of-biology-and-classics/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:17:32 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4453 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Stephen Gan takes inspiration from the classics, from which is derived one of his favorite words: polytropos. Photo by Tom Stoelker
Stephen Gan takes inspiration from the classics, from which is derived one of his favorite words: polytropos.
Photo by Tom Stoelker

Polytropos is a Greek word in The Odyssey that means many twists and turns, and for Stephen Gan, it is a fitting term to describe his Fordham career.

Gan, who will be receiving his bachelor’s degrees in biology and classical languages, has always found ways to combine his two greatest interests: medicine and language.

“I always knew I wanted to be a doctor and, luckily for me, every medical term is derived from Latin or Greek so I’m able to apply both skills in my day-to-day life,” he said.

While the link between biology and classics is not an obvious one, for Gan, the connection could not be clearer. Latin and Greek are verbal puzzles that require an analytical way of thinking—one that Gan is already familiar with.

“Dissecting Latin and Greek sentences hones your ability to analyze data and interpret it in a way that no other study can do,” he said. “Biology requires a similar level of logical cause-and-effect thinking, so it’s easy for me to switch gears.”

Gan was able to apply his medical studies to a real-world setting when he started working for Fordham University’s Emergency Medical Services (FUEMS).

During his sophomore year, he became certified as an EMT specialist, and operated and rode in the FUEMS ambulance for several semesters.

“It was a rush driving a three-ton hunk of metal,” Gan said of his experience in the ambulance. “Going through red lights went against every instinct in my body.”

Gan remembered a particularly difficult call that he responded to, in which he had to console a student who was in an emotionally fragile state.

“It was one of those moments you can’t really put into words no matter how many words you know in any language,” he said.

Later in the year, Gan left FUEMS to work as a pediatric residents’ assistant at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, and it was an experience that reaffirmed his passion to be a pediatric oncologist.

“It was great to be able to work directly with the patients,” Gan said. “After working there, I could not be any more certain of the fact that this is what I want to do.”

Alongside his medical training, Gan has also been able to put his language studies to practical use. This past semester, he has been helping out with the Latin curriculum at the South Bronx Classical Charter School as part of a service-learning course.

“It’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had at Fordham,” Gan said.

While Gan has often considered becoming a Latin or Greek teacher, he sees medicine as his ultimate calling and is preparing for medical school post-Fordham.

“Even though I think about how amazing it would be to become a teacher, I believe I can leave the world in a better place as a doctor.”

Another aspect of classic Greece that has trickled into his everyday life is running marathons. Currently, Gan is training for his third marathon, which will take place in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Running, he said, brings everything back to his favorite Greek word: polytropos—which also means “man of many devices.”

“When you run a marathon you are confronted with a lot of twists and turns,” he said. “I think that’s why I find such comfort in running.”

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GSAS Student Dedicated to NYC Housing Rights https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/gsas-student-dedicated-to-nyc-housing-rights/ Sat, 17 May 2014 18:11:31 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=4448 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2014
Caitlin Waickman, transplanted New Yorker, says she will stay in New York City following graduation to work for affordable housing. Photo by Patrick Verel VIDEO: Fordham Selfies  Watch a short video selfie by Caitlin Waickman at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies7.
Caitlin Waickman, transplanted New Yorker, says she will stay in New York City following graduation to work for affordable housing.
Photo by Patrick Verel
VIDEO: Fordham Selfies
Watch a short video selfie by Caitlin Waickman at http://bit.ly/FordhamSelfies7.

The empty Domino Sugar factory on Brooklyn’s waterfront is emblematic of the changing nature of New York City’s urban landscape, as community groups grapple with developers for control over the future of this prime real estate.

The tensions that arise as once-thriving industrial sites are slated for high-rise, and often high-priced, residential developments are well known to Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Caitlin Waickman, FCRH ‘12, who is receiving her master’s in urban studies.

Waickman helped to document the history of, and proposed plans for, the Domino Sugar factory and other Brooklyn sites through collaborative research with other students. The project is now part of a website titled The Sixth Borough: Redefining Brooklyn’s Waterfront (http://thesixthborough.weebly.com/).

The project, part of a course given by Roger Panetta, Ph.D., visiting professor of history, has been a key experience of Waickman’s graduate career.

“Our research was changing week by week because [development]is all happening so fast,” she said. “We still get emails about it and it will continue to be up and running long past the class. That’s something that’s really exciting—that we’re already contributing unique research to the field and that it’s lasting.”

Waickman’s insights into the dynamics of the city inform her research on housing and tenants’ rights, the subjects of her master’s thesis about housing activism.

Based on her study of a rent strike in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Waickman’s thesis examines the interactions of nonprofits, activist groups, and politicians in the housing movement, with the aim of determining how tenants can best achieve their goals.

“While everyone has the best intentions for the most part,” Waickman said, “when tenants want support … they need to be very aware of whom they partner with, and that they maintain their own voice within those movements.”

Now wrapping up her term as vice president of the Graduate Student Association, Waickman is well aware of the importance of working across group divides. To this end she helped organize Fordham’s first Graduate Student Conference on April 5, an event aimed at “making sure there is a place for graduate students to showcase their work and hear about the work across departments,” she said.

As a Trinity Financial Fellow, Waickman started her research into community group interaction as a Fordham undergraduate, studying the University Heights neighborhood of the Bronx. She chose to major in urban studies and Spanish language and literature.

Fordham has offered Waickman opportunities she couldn’t gain elsewhere, “especially starting off in the Bronx,” she said, “where so much is changing and it really is an exciting borough—especially for urban studies.”

A native of Cleveland, Waickman said she plans to stay in the city to continue working in tenants’ advocacy and affordable housing. “I’m excited to take all that I’ve learned and apply it in the city that I know a lot about,” she said.

 

 

 

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Faces in the Class of 2013 https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/faces-in-the-class-of-2013/ Sat, 18 May 2013 17:47:31 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=6306 Student Achievers: Faces in the Class of 2013

Carol Ann Concannon
GSS Foster Mom Advocates for Systemic Change

Jerry Dickinson
The Disadvantaged Have a Fierce Ally in Law Grad

Jaunita John
FCLC Grad Embraces Melody and Policy Alike

Jayson Browder
Back at Home Base, Veteran Sets Up Camp in NYC

Arnond Sakworawich
Thai Scholar Passes the New York Test

Kathleen Toth
Rose Hill Student’s Work Falls at the Junction of Math, Art, and Tire Technology

Ryan Dillon-Curran
Gabelli Grad Reboots Sports Career and Lands on Madison Avenue

Andrew Ma
Andrew Ma: From Jersey Boy to Master Marketer

The Rev. Mark Frickey
Helping Parishioners Find Strength in Time of Transition

Andrea Gervais
GSE Grad Launches New Career as Science Educator

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