They step in unison, arms pumping down in front of them like pistons. They kick a leg out and, exactly on the six-count, spin 90 degrees to repeat their march. Then again, another 90 degrees, before launching off the ground for a spin. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame their movements with views of West 55th Street and Ninth Avenue, where cars, buses, and pedestrians are engaged in their own choreography, sometimes slowing to take in the studio scene. There’s no music inside—only footsteps, hard breathing, and shouted notes of correction and encouragement.

The dancers are seniors in the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, which is celebrating its 25th year. They’re in the Joan Weill Center for Dance in Manhattan—home of the Ailey School, five blocks from Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus—rehearsing teacher and choreographer Earl Mosley’s Running Spirits (Revival and Restaging) for the program’s annual benefit concert in mid-April.

In another ground-floor studio about a month before the concert, first-year students take West African Dance with Imani Faye. As a drummer slaps out a beat on a djembe, Faye guides the students through their own performance piece, Den-Kouly (Celebration), with its traditional Tiriba and Mané dance styles from Guinea.

As the students work to nail the choreography, they’re also grappling with bigger, more complex movements. For the first-years, it’s the culmination of nine months spent testing themselves, body and mind. Are they able to balance a rigorous dance training program and a rigorous academic curriculum? And for the seniors, it’s a time of final exams and frequent auditions. Are they ready to secure their place in the professional dance world?

Carrying on the Legacy of an American Dance Pioneer

The idea for a best-of-both worlds BFA program—top dance training and top academics in New York City—came several years before the first class arrived in the fall of 1998. Edward Bristow, then dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, struck up a conversation with Ailey School director Denise Jefferson in line at the West 60th Street post office. He believed Fordham could do more to make its presence felt “at the center of the arts world,” and Jefferson was interested in building a college degree program for Ailey dancers. “We knew that given our strengths, we could pull off something special,” he recalled.

Today, the program is led by Melanie Person, co-director of the Ailey School, and Andrew Clark, a Fordham professor of French and comparative literature who had served as an advisor to many BFA students before succeeding Bristow as co-director in 2023. Through their leadership, the Ailey/Fordham students are staying true to the vision set forth by Bristow and Jefferson, who died in 2010. They’re also upholding the legacy of Alvin Ailey himself, a towering figure in modern dance.

Ailey founded his namesake dance company in 1958, when he was 27 years old. His story and the story of the company he founded are inextricable from the histories of Black art in America and the Civil Rights Movement. At a time when Black dancers found it next to impossible to make a career through their craft, Ailey created a home for them. Since its inception, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has become not only one of the most successful Black-founded arts institutions in the United States but also one of the premier modern dance companies in the world, described in a 2008 congressional resolution as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world.”

Texas native Antuan Byers, FCLC ’17, is one of many BFA students and alumni who say they were drawn to the program after seeing the company perform during their formative years. “I attended my first Alvin Ailey performance my senior year of high school, in that moment of still being on the fence about where I wanted to go to school,” said Byers, who was a member of Ailey II, the company’s junior ensemble, and now dances most frequently with the Metropolitan Opera. “After seeing the Ailey company, it all became clear.”

For many Black students in the BFA program, Alvin Ailey’s legacy serves both as an inspiration and a reminder of the challenges that dancers of color have faced. It’s hard to miss that legacy when you’re inside the Weill Center, with its walls lined with photos and ephemera spanning seven decades.

“Every day I try to use the weight of his legacy to further encourage me and push me in my craft,” said Naia Neal, a rising senior from Santa Cruz, California, who earned the program’s Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship and is pursuing a minor in math. “Alvin Ailey loved to dance, but he also understood that dance should be for everyone. He made it known that everybody deserved to be there.”

The dance landscape looks a good deal different today than it did in 1958. Black choreographers like Kyle Abraham and Camille Brown have had their work performed by New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera; Black dancers are members of most major companies in the United States; and Black administrators are artistic directors at places like Pacific Northwest Ballet and Philadanco. But on many stages, Black dancers are still underrepresented, and for many students of color, a place like the Ailey School still functions as a home where they can chart a professional path.

“Something about being here has opened up a completely different relationship with me and what I add to different spaces and what it means to be a Black dancer,” said Carley Brooks, a rising Ailey/Fordham senior from Chicago pursuing a minor in communication and media studies. “The [Ailey] building allows me to feel so comfortable and confident in my body and what I have to present.”

Developing the Whole Dancer

If one thing defines the Ailey/Fordham experience, it’s the need to find balance within a hectic schedule. All students take ballet every semester, a way to keep them grounded in classical technique, and in their first year, they also take West African Dance and begin training in either the Horton technique or Graham-based modern dance. They also have foundational classes like Improvisation, Body Conditioning, and Anatomy and Kinesiology. And they take two Fordham core curriculum classes each semester, including first-year staples like English Composition and Rhetoric and Faith and Critical Reasoning.

In their sophomore year, students decide if they want to pursue a second major or a minor. It’s a decision they don’t make lightly, as it comes with extra coursework, but for many students, it’s a way to help them plan for careers beyond performing—and to infuse their dance practice with outside influences. That year, they also take Composition, and for many of them, it’s the first time they formally work on their own choreography—a complex process, with varying notation systems and a good deal of trial and error.

As juniors, the students continue to branch out intellectually. In the Ailey academic class Black Traditions in Modern Dance, they engage with history while also thinking about the artistic choices involved in a performance. Meanwhile, in Fordham classrooms, many begin fulfilling the requirements for a second major.

They also have a chance to become mentors to their first-year counterparts. Jaron Givens, a rising senior originally from Prince George’s County, Maryland, who is majoring in both dance and environmental studies, has relished the opportunity to pay forward the mentorship he received during his first year. He took part in the Ailey Students Ailey Professionals mentorship program, which pairs students with Ailey company members. Givens met with Courtney Celeste Spears, FCLC ’16, who he said “facilitated a space where I was able to be vulnerable … and showed me how much Ailey cared.”

The Ailey School has been working with Minding the Gap, an organization that offers mental health services to dancers. The hope is to give students as much access to mental health support as they have to things like on-site physical therapists at the Weill Center. On the Fordham side, faculty describe a similar focus on students’ well-being. “I try to … get a sense of what their concerns are, what they’re enjoying, and what they’re struggling with,” Clark said. “That’s where you really get a sense of the whole person and you have the ability to help out.”

There’s also a natural level of camaraderie that comes from spending so much time with fellow BFA students, both in dance classes and often in academic ones. “For us, it’s not a competition,” said Sarah Hladky, a rising junior who is majoring in English as well as dance. “Ailey very much emphasizes the fact that there is a space for everyone. And so even if people come in feeling like they need to prove themselves, at the end of the day you leave being like, ‘No, I am the dancer that I am, and you are the dancer that you are. And we can coexist and really make a great environment for each other.’”

While a sense of community is integral to the Ailey/Fordham experience, students are well aware that they’re training for a highly competitive profession. The postgrad goal for many of them is to join a dance company full time—with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ailey II often at the top of the list. Many alumni earn a spot in those companies and others such as Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and the Radio City Rockettes. Others regularly appear on Broadway stages and in film and TV productions. But a benefit of their Fordham studies is that they graduate prepared for any number of career paths.

“My education at Fordham was instrumental in my formation as an artist and businesswoman, providing me with a depth of knowledge, curiosity, and appreciation for many subjects that gave me a foundation to build on,” said Katherine Horrigan, a 2002 graduate who went on to dance with Ailey II, Elisa Monte Dance Company, and a number of other companies around the world before launching a dance academy in Virginia.

Spears encourages Ailey/Fordham students to “build your academic resume as much as you build your dance resume.” She said the program expanded her ideas of what she could do as an artist and a leader. She began dancing with Ailey II in 2015, her senior year, and moved up to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before deciding in 2023 to focus full time on ArtSea, her arts organization in the Bahamas. “I think if you focus on having viable options and stretching how many different places you are able to impact, you then have the mountaintop,” she said.

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For Samar Haddad King, a 2005 Ailey/Fordham graduate, a composition class with Kazuko Hirabayashi was so transformative that she decided to focus on choreography. For her class’s senior concert, she premiered an original piece, and the following year, with her BFA classmate Zoe Rabinowitz, she co-founded the company Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, based in both New York City and the West Bank. Nearly 20 years later, they have brought their work to 17 countries around the world.

Rabinowitz has carved out her own unique path since graduating in 2005. While she still dances in Yaa Samar! and elsewhere, her role as the company’s executive director builds upon several post-college jobs in arts administration, and she has also taught yoga and Pilates throughout her career. Acknowledging the finite amount of time most people can dance professionally, she said it’s important for young dancers not only to develop academic interests but also to take an expansive view of the dance world.

“Finding the things that you enjoy doing—the passions and the strengths that you have cultivated inside and outside of your dance training—and finding ways that you can do those things to implement jobs and create sources of income is going to be critical for most people,” Rabinowitz said, adding that dancers are known as great team members across industries. “Recognize that you come with a really strong skill set and work ethic, and that you have the capacity to do a lot of things.”

Person, the Ailey School co-director, echoed that sentiment. “The skills that they acquire as dancers are going to be transferable in any aspect of their lives. With the Fordham degree and their strong academics, they’re well situated to exist in the world.”

Whatever part of the dance or professional world they end up in, Ailey/Fordham alumni often maintain the close bonds they shared as undergraduates, and now there’s an additional way for them to stay connected. Ahead of the program’s 25th anniversary, Byers and Maya Addie, a 2021 graduate who is a member of the Radio City Rockettes, learned about Fordham’s affinity chapters—alumni communities formed around shared interests, past student involvement, or professional goals. They decided to start one for Ailey/Fordham BFA graduates.

“It’s a personal goal of ours to bring together our alumni because we have such a wealth of knowledge in that group,” Byers said. “In dance but also in our incredible business owners, or folks working in politics, folks working in finance, people teaching, people with kids. We see this 25th anniversary as an opportunity for us to really build an alumni program with all that excitement and energy.”

A Performance to Mark Endings and New Beginnings

On the evening of the spring benefit concert, after a cocktail reception on the sixth floor of the Weill Center, family, friends, and fans of the BFA program made their way to the Ailey Citigroup Theater on the building’s lower level. Following a brief video highlighting the history and mission of the program, Neal kicked off the evening’s performances with The Serpent, a solo piece choreographed by Jonathan Lee. To the pulsing beat of Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been,” she gave a high-energy performance that incorporated styles ranging from modern and hip-hop to voguing. Unlike the more restrained audience traditions one might see up the street at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the audience cheered throughout the piece.

That energy level, both onstage and in the crowd, continued with the first-year students’ West African piece, Den-Kouly (Celebration), featuring vibrant costumes and jubilant movement. The sophomores performed an excerpt from the more ballet-centric For They Are Rivers, choreographed by Becky Brown, and the juniors danced an excerpt from Darshan Singh Bhuller’s athletic, abstract Mapping. Three Ailey/Fordham alumni—Mikaela Brandon, FCLC ’19; Naya Hutchinson, FCLC ’21; and Shaina McGregor, FCLC ’18—came back to dance alongside Neal in Four Women, choreographed by senior student Baili Goer.

The final performance of the night, appropriately, belonged to the seniors. Since that March rehearsal of Running Spirits, Mosley had revealed to the students the meaning behind the piece, which he first choreographed for a group of preteen boys at a summer program in Connecticut in the late 1990s. At the time, he explained, he was dealing with a group of rambunctious kids who loved to run around—and whose parents thought of them as “little angels.” It made him imagine a scene in which a group of angels, who get around via running instead of flying, are all gathering in the morning to plan out their work agenda for the day.

“When I tell dancers that’s what it’s about,” Mosley said, “they always laugh because they’re like, ‘Really? That’s all? So we’re just literally getting ready to go to work?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re just getting ready to go to work.’”

It’s a playful piece, but the version Mosley created for these graduating dancers is one that requires strong technique and collaboration, and features impressive jumps, lifts, and, as the title suggests, speed. There was a sense of mischief onstage, an almost conspiratorial glee to the movements. That tone felt appropriate considering all the students had been through in their nearly four years together, from beginning the program at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to trying to wrap up their final semesters while planning for the future.

“This past year has probably been the most challenging in terms of juggling my schedule,” said Meredith Brown, a dance and economics double major from Asheville, North Carolina. “Because I’m also auditioning and making sure that I’m taking care of myself and enjoying the city and taking advantage of all these wonderful things.”

Brown and her fellow 2024 graduates are in a better place to manage those competing demands than they were four years ago—not only more experienced but also more confident.

“When I think about my first year, there was a lot of imposter syndrome,” said Abby Nguyen, a 2024 grad from the Bay Area who double majored in dance and psychology. “There was this constant feeling like I needed to prove myself, that I needed to prove that I was good enough to be here. But ultimately, you are here, and you are good enough to be here—or else you wouldn’t be in the building.”

The dancers’ growth has also been visible to Person, who recalled the challenges the Class of 2024 faced starting college during the pandemic. “I was watching them rehearse the other day, and I think they really came together as a class,” she said. “I think they relied on each other to push through this, honestly. … I think it gave them this inner strength that they might not have even recognized that they have.”

And while challenges certainly lie ahead—auditions, demanding dance jobs, the threat of injuries, and more—Mosley believes this group of graduates is ready to face them.

“They give me the energy like, ‘Oh, I know I’m going to do something,’” he said. “‘There’s
no doubt, I’m going to do something.’ This group as a whole is all about it.”

Fast forward to April of this year, when the band announced a massive tour to go along with a new record deal with XL and a brand-new song called “Starburster.” The band’s rise in such a short time has been incredible to witness, and the latest single—from the forthcoming album Romance—takes the group to an entirely new plane. Singer Grian Chatten took inspiration from a real-life panic attack and included gasps in the song’s chorus, creating a most unexpected hook for the track. Chatten displays a confident swagger, and his phrasing is nothing short of hypnotic as he weaves his way through the song like a frontman 20 years his senior.

It’s an exhilarating direction for a band poised to make good on the promise to become the “next big thing.”

WFUV Discovery is a new music recommendation from Russ Borris, music director at WFUV (90.7 FM, wfuv.org), Fordham’s public media station.

“Artists are entrepreneurs. We are our own business.” That’s what Fordham Theatre grad Marjuan Canady, FCLC ’08, says when she teaches creative entrepreneurship at places like Georgetown University and NYU. Her words ring true for many Fordham alumni who have cut a professional path with their arts and business acumen.

“There’s creativity in everything that is going on in the room, whether it’s the business side or the actual creative side,” said Canady, who founded Sepia Works, a multimedia production company, and Canady Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit that creates educational and career opportunities for youth of color by connecting them with professional artists. “That’s what makes it fun.”

SaVonne Anderson, FCLC ’17

Founder and Creative Director, Aya Paper Co.

After graduating from Fordham in 2017 with a degree in new media and digital design, SaVonne Anderson worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she had interned as a student. Being around inspiring art got her gears turning, and she decided to start her own greeting card and stationery business, Aya Paper Co., in 2019. The following year, she decided to focus on Aya full time. Since then, her work has been featured in Time, Allure, and Forbes magazines, and carried in stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Whole Foods. And while it can be difficult to balance her design and illustration work with the demands of running a business and the challenges of parenting a toddler, Anderson feels it’s all worth it.

Martha Clippinger, FCRH ’05

Artist and Designer

Like many textile artists, Martha Clippinger, FCRH ’05, was greatly influenced by the Gee’s Bend collective, a group of African American quilters whose work she first saw at the Whitney Museum as a Fordham student. “It ignited a desire to explore color and shape and rhythm,” she says. More than 20 years later, Clippinger has made a career out of that artistic exploration, displaying her work in museums, galleries, and corporate collections, and selling bags, rugs, and tablet covers on her website. Some of those items are woven by her professional partners in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she spent time on a Fulbright-Garcia Robles grant in 2013.

Katte Geneta, FCLC ’06

Founder, Narra Studio

Katte Geneta grew up thinking she was going to become a doctor. But when she arrived at Fordham and took a fine arts class, she discovered a talent for drawing. After graduating in 2006, she exhibited her paintings and later pursued a master’s degree in museum studies at Harvard. Soon, she took up weaving—the smell of oil paint made her nauseous while she was pregnant. Motivated by a conversation with a weaver in the Philippines who was hoping to find broader exposure, she started Narra Studio. The studio sometimes designs goods and sometimes just works on distribution. It partners with upward of 15 weaving communities in the Philippines and sells the pieces—from jewelry and blankets to jackets and traditional barong tops—through its website and at markets.

Bryan Master, FCRH ’99

Composer; Founder and Executive Producer, Sound + Fission and Partner in Crime Entertainment

Bryan Master has been writing and playing music for as long as he can remember—he apologizes to any Fordham neighbors who may have heard his frequent drumming at Rose Hill. But when he graduated in 1999 with a degree in communications, his passion took a backseat to his job in advertising—until 2022. That’s when his side hustle—a music, production, and creative services company called Sound + Fission—became a sustainable, full-time endeavor, thanks, he says, to a boom in audio storytelling listenership. Along with his other company, Partner in Crime, which focuses on creating and developing series, Sound + Fission was behind Can You Dig It?, an original Audible series about the birth of hip-hop that featured narration from Public Enemy’s Chuck D.

Courtney Celeste Spears, FCLC ’16

Co-Founder and Director, ArtSea

Courtney Celeste Spears had achieved many of her dreams as a dancer: She began dancing with Ailey II—Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s second company—while she was still a student in the Ailey/Fordham BFA in Dance program, and she joined the main company in 2018, two years after graduating. Last summer, though, she made the leap to devote herself full time to ArtSea, a Bahamas-based arts organization she founded with her brother, Asa Carey, in 2017. Now living on the island, where she spent time visiting family as a child, Spears works to bring high-level dance education and entertainment to the Caribbean and expose young artists to the wider dance world.

Reopening: The Broadway Revival debuted in early 2022 as part of PBS’ Great Performances series, with DiLella as host and executive producer.

It was another high point in his nearly two-decade career as an entertainment journalist, one that began with an internship at Spectrum News NY1 when he was a Fordham student. Today, he’s best known as the host of On Stage, NY1’s acclaimed weekly theater show. His numerous celebrity interviews and in-depth reporting have endeared him to artists and fans alike, and earned him 11 New York Emmy Awards.

Since 2013, he’s also been sharing his knowledge and experience with students. He teaches a course, Theater Journalism, at the University’s Lincoln Center campus, and has been mentoring a new generation of Fordham-educated Broadway professionals.

He sat down with Fordham Magazine just before the Tony Awards to reflect on his career path and share one of his most memorable celebrity stories.

You are a huge cheerleader for all things Fordham. What initially drew you here?
Fordham was my first choice. I grew up in Philadelphia, and both my parents went to Saint Joseph’s University, which is the Jesuit university there. So we were very familiar with Jesuit, liberal arts education—the idea of coming to college and exploring, and truly having this university journey of figuring out what you want to be and what you want to do.

And at Fordham, you marry that with the greatest city in the world, New York City, which has always felt like my home away from home—and has now been my home for 20-plus years. It doesn’t get better than Fordham.

You achieved great success by blending your passion for theater with a new one that you found here. What kind of mentorship did you receive?
I came into Fordham thinking that I was going to pursue acting, but I took an intro to communications course, and my professor, Lewis Freeman, polled the class: “How many of you have thought about being a reporter?” I remember raising my hand. I grew up loving shows like Dateline NBC and 20/20.

He said, “If you are lucky enough, get yourself an internship at Spectrum News New York 1—you can explore and learn what it takes to be in the business and they have an amazing internship program.” That summer, I applied. I was also up for a role in a professional production of Hair in Brooklyn. And I kind of told myself, “Whatever is meant to be is meant to be.” I got NY1 and never looked back.

Photo courtesy of Frank DiLella

You came here with dreams of breaking into the theater world, and now you’re such an integral part of it. What is it like to be part of the Fordham community on Broadway?
We’re called the “Fordham Posse.” When it’s revealed to someone that you went to Fordham, it’s like, “Oh, we’re part of the same family.”

I think of John Johnson, who is a celebrated theater producer who graduated in 2002, the year I started, but would always come back—again, this family mentality. He’s someone I definitely looked up to. Van Hughes, who has gone on to be in various Broadway shows, was part of my crew. Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black. Kelley Curran was my close friend. Paul Wontorek too—he’s the editor-in-chief for Broadway.com, and we are very much working colleagues. There is definitely a lot of Fordham love to go around.

You’ve interviewed just about every famous actor that has come through Broadway over your time at NY1. Do you have a favorite story?
I got to know Elaine Stritch very well. She had a residency at the Café Carlyle for years, and like clockwork, every spring I would sit down with her. Towards the end of her life, I got a call saying, “Elaine would like to speak to you to do a story.” I went to her residence, and she couldn’t sit up, so she said to me, “Frank, get in bed with me. Just talk to me about my life.”

Now, this is a woman who was very close to Judy Garland. She went on a date with JFK. She was close friends with Ethel Merman. To me, she is what we think of when we think of legends of Broadway, absolute legends of entertainment. I mean, the stories that she had, I’ll never forget that. We had so much fun. We had so many laughs.

There’s a clip of Hugh Jackman ending an interview with you saying, “Thanks Frank, you’re the best.” How does it feel to be such a trusted figure among these incredible artists?
Having access and trust with these artists—for them to open up to me and feel comfortable opening up for me—that is a true gift. And that’s one of my favorite things about this job. I’m so grateful to get to be with these people to tell the stories.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Franco Giacomarra, FCLC ’19.

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Frank DiLella shares his recommendations—from the latest Tony winners to the next big hits.

Brian Lyman, who has been immersed in Alabama state politics as a reporter for nearly two decades, was named a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his “brave, clear, and pointed columns that challenge ever-more-repressive state policies flouting democratic norms and targeting vulnerable populations.”

For Lyman, a 1999 Fordham graduate, it was the latest milestone in a journey that began at the University’s Rose Hill campus a quarter century ago, when he was the opinion editor of The Fordham Ram. 

He previously worked at the Montgomery Advertiser, the Press-Register, and the Anniston Star—and last year, he became the founding editor of the Alabama Reflector, a nonprofit outlet that’s part of States Newsroom, a group that aims to bolster state-level reporting across the country.

What was it like finding out you were a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize?

We have this huge story running, and I’ve been deep in editing it, so I was not actually listening to the Pulitzer announcements. A friend who’s working in Nashville texted me, “Congratulations on the Pulitzer!” And I texted her back, “Wait, what?” Then my colleagues ran in telling me, so I may have been the last person to find out.

In your commentary you focus a lot on major issues—crime, the death penalty, transgender youth. How do you pick the topics you want to dive into?

The transgender issue has been going on for almost three years now in Alabama, but the column [cited by the Pulitzer board] was [published in April], when the latest [transgender sports] ban was moving toward passage. It just felt like it was something we needed to let people know. “Oh, by the way, this extremely small, extremely vulnerable group is being targeted by your lawmakers, and we need to pay attention to this.” 

Some issues, like the column I did about prisons, legislators aren’t really talking about, because it’s not an issue that wins votes, and it’s something they would rather not deal with. But I’ve been inside those prisons. You don’t need to read the Department of Justice reports on the violence within those prisons to be horrified. So, it was just a way of trying to remind people there’s a huge humanitarian crisis that the state government is not dealing with. 

And sometimes it’s both an issue in the news and something that happened in real life. My column about the libraries (“The most dangerous idea in a library? Empathy”) was provoked by my daughter just asking me about the value of reading.

Those issues are at the center of a lot of national conversations too. How do you see your role in covering them in Alabama as they go beyond your state? 

I said in the opening column when we launched the Reflector, Alabama is the place where America confronts itself. This is where we see the very best and the very worst of the American character. 

Let’s talk about the negative side: We still work under a state constitution passed in 1901 that was framed deliberately to disenfranchise Black Alabamians and poor white [people]. You have a government that’s habitually uninterested in really helping address issues of poverty, which are rampant in Alabama. It’s a government that constantly jumps at moral crises that really don’t have any impact on the day-to-day lives of people. 

On the positive side of things, almost every major Civil Rights event that took place between 1955 and 1968 came from Alabama. It’s not just Rosa Parks. It’s not just Martin Luther King. It’s school funding issues, it’s voting issues. New York Times versus Sullivan came out of Montgomery. There are brave men and women in this state who constantly demand better. When they demand more, they lead to these great decisions that have, sometimes slowly, pulled Alabama forward. I feel like our role is just to make sure that all these good people in Alabama know what their state government is doing so they can take the appropriate action to support it or, more often, oppose it.

Thinking back to your time at Fordham, do you have things you learned here that you still use today?

It’s been 25 years since I graduated from Fordham, but I feel like everything I do is basically what I did at The Ram, just more—short ledes, hitting deadlines, making as many phone calls as possible. We learned from our older colleagues, and then we passed it on to our younger colleagues. And we did some great things. One editorial sticks out. An LGBTQ group applied for club status and was denied for whatever reason—this is 1997, I think—and we wrote a very lengthy editorial blasting that decision. I was always very proud that we did that. 

Now, on the other hand, it’s obviously a student newspaper, so we had some mistakes. It was fall of 1998, and I think it was Daniel Berrigan who taught a class called Poems by Poets in Torment. It’s the end of the semester, and this ends up on our front page. And this story, I swear goes through six pairs of eyes, including my own, and none of us notice that we have named the class Poems by Pets in Torment. I did not hear the end of that for months.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Kelly Prinz, FCRH ’15.

Dede Ayite, an adjunct professor in the Fordham Theatre program, became the first Black woman to win Best Costume Design of a Play for her work on Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. It was her first Tony award.

“Thank you to all of the costume shops and makers who truly move the needle in terms of getting the glitz and the glam onstage,” she said in an acceptance speech that also credited family and friends from her native Ghana.

“Without them, I would not be here. The show would not look as amazing as it does.”

Ayite, who teaches the Costume Design course at Fordham, was nominated in two Tony categories for her work on three productions—Best Costume Design of a Play for both Appropriate and Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and Best Costume Design of a Musical for Hell’s Kitchen. 

Johnson, an adjunct professor who teaches the Creative Producing course for Fordham Theatre, also took home a Tony for his role as producer for Stereophonic, which won for best play.

It was Johnson’s ninth win since 2013, when he won his first Tony as a producer for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. 

Stereophonic, which follows a fictional 1970s rock band on the cusp of superstardom as they struggle through recording their new album, won four other Tony Awards. 

Fellow Fordham graduate Tom Pecinka, FCLC ’10, who made his Broadway acting debut in Stereophonic and was nominated for a Tony for his performance, joined Johnson on stage at the Lincoln Center’s Koch Theater with the cast and crew.

Including Ayite and Johnson, eight members of the Fordham community were nominated for Tony Awards this year.

Watch below as Frank DiLella, FCLC ’06, host of the Spectrum News NY 1 show On Stage, interviews Pecinka on the red carpet before the show.

Beyond her own projects—including Callaloo, a children’s book and media brand that got the attention of PBS Kids—she’s been making her mark on Broadway as a co-producer of shows such as The Wiz and the Alicia Keys musical Hell’s Kitchen, for which she and her fellow producers were nominated for a 2024 Tony Award.

Tell me about how you got into acting and how you found your way to Fordham.
I grew up in D.C. My mom is from Trinidad, and my dad is African American. At home, the arts and storytelling were celebrated. I studied musical theater in high school at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and the dream was to come to New York and be on Broadway.

What intrigued me about Fordham was the fact that you could double major. I was interested in so many different things that I didn’t want to just go to an acting conservatory. I was very invested in the Fordham Theatre program itself and how the University could help me grow.

Did your thinking about your career change during college?
I wasn’t coming out of Fordham saying, “I want to own my own business.” I wanted to be an actor. For about a year after graduating, I auditioned and hustled, and I found that I wanted to do other things. Fordham taught me a lot with my extracurricular involvement. I was part of the Black student club, and a lot of the skills that I was learning—building out events, budgeting, marketing events, bringing an audience together, cross-collaboration with other student clubs—those were all skills that taught me how to produce.

Tell me about your production company, Sepia Works. What has the trajectory been like?
The growth has been incredible. The company started with my one-woman play Girls! Girls? Girls., which took me out to LA and I started doing more film and TV work. My second piece, Callaloo, started off as a play but then turned into a book series and a show with puppetry. Then these bigger companies—Sesame Street, PBS Kids—started calling. And because I was creating my own stories and my own narratives, I had more power in the room.

Why did you decide to start the Canady Foundation for the Arts?
I realized that Callaloo was impacting young people, and we needed more support in the nonprofit space to serve children with literacy and early child development work. The foundation has also grown exponentially since 2015. We now have a staff, we have ongoing programming. We serve young people from 3 all the way to 18. Partnership and collaboration have been such a huge part of the growth.

What does your average day look like?
Every day is different, and I love that. But my days are made up of routine: I get up, I get my daughter to school, I work out in the morning, and then I try to schedule something. I have to have some type of structure. Being a mom also has forced me to prioritize and to know that at a certain time, I have to stop working. I can’t work the way that I worked in my 20s.

How do you balance not only the work but those parts of your identity—thinking like both an artist and an entrepreneur?
Honestly, it’s very hard. And it took me a long time to figure out my workflow and my balance. I would say at this point in my life, I have an amazing team that can manage a lot of the business stuff for me, but in the early stages, I did everything. And I think that makes the best leaders. You have to be able to have a grasp of every role, and be able to roll your sleeves up and do the work. And I think you also just have to carve out time to rest and to focus on your craft.

At times when I get overwhelmed, I like to step back and take time for gratitude and acknowledge that there’s creativity in everything that is going on in the room, whether it’s the business side or the actual creative side. That’s what makes it fun.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

The annual Block Party reunion, held June 7, kicked off with a late afternoon guided campus tour and a jazz performance by a group of student and faculty musicians. Alumni from five schools—Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Gabelli School of Business, the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Service, and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies—gathered for receptions throughout campus that honored distinguished alumni and celebrated retiring faculty. After the school-specific receptions, alumni and guests gathered on the Plaza, where they spent the night enjoying refreshments and a DJ. 

Take a look at the full set of photos from the evening!

Save the date for next year’s Block Party: Friday, June 20!

Photos by Bruce Gilbert, Dana Maxson, and Chris Taggart

Remarkable spring weather. Ample breezes. Familiar foliage. That’s what greeted nearly 1,800 alumni, family, and friends who returned to Fordham’s Rose Hill campus for the University’s Jubilee Weekend. In all, alumni spanning eight decades—all the way back to the Class of 1953—made it back to campus for the annual reunion weekend, held from May 31 to June 2.

Rose Hill-based alumni, mostly from class years ending in 4s and 9s, reconnected at familiar events like Friday’s Golden Rams Dinner and class parties; Saturday’s welcome address from President Tania Tetlow, followed by campus tours, the Jubilee All-Class Picnic, the Go Rams! Pub Party, and the Jubilee Gala; and Sunday’s Farewell Brunch on Edwards Parade. There were a few new offerings in the bunch, too, including a business pitch challenge with the Fordham Foundry and an early Saturday morning run—an opportunity to take in the campus amid comfortably mild temps.

And at the Loyal Donor Reception on Saturday evening, this year’s reunion classes were recognized for contributing more than $72 million to the University since their last Jubilee.

Take a look at the full set of photos from the weekend!

Save the date for next year’s Jubilee: May 30 to June 1!

But off the court, Tsimbila’s story is anything but typical.

Here are five things to know about this star Fordham Ram.

1. He’s Representing Cameroon in Olympic Qualifiers.

After graduating, Tsimbila will suit up for his country and head to training camp for the Cameroon National Basketball team this July in Latvia. Cameroon is one of six teams competing in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament ahead of the Paris games this summer.

“I’ve always dreamed about wearing my Cameroon jersey,” he said.

2. He Speaks Five Languages.

Tsimbila grew up in Cameroon speaking French, Arabic, Lingala, and Banham—but mastering English is among his proudest accomplishments.

“I learned basic English with my friends in the locker room, but in the locker room, we don’t always use proper formal language,” said Tsimbila, who attended high school in Maryland.

When a recruiter said his English wasn’t strong enough to succeed in college, Tsimbila worried—after several attempts—that he might never pass his proficiency exams.

Then he called his mom.

“She told me, ‘Son, if you believe in something, you have to go after it and do whatever it takes,’” Tsimbila said.

By summer’s end, Tsimbila not only passed his exam—he nearly doubled his score.

3. He Wants to Be an FBI or CIA Agent.

Tsimbila is graduating from the School of Professional and Continuing Studies with an individualized major in arts and computers. After graduation, he’ll pursue a master’s degree in cybersecurity at Fordham while continuing to play for the Rams. He plans to apply to work for the FBI or CIA.

4. His Bond with Coach Keith Urgo Goes Beyond Fordham.

Tsimbila forged a special connection with Fordham Head Basketball Coach Keith Urgo—before either became a Ram.

When COVID-19 and visa complications made it impossible to return home for Tsimbila—then playing for Penn State with Urgo as assistant coach—Urgo promised his star recruit he would personally make the trip to Cameroon to reassure Tsimbila’s family that their son’s future was in good hands.

“Abdou is everything a coach could ever want in a player,” Urgo said.

When Urgo came to Fordham, one of his first moves was to recruit Tsimbila from the transfer portal. Again, it was Tsimbila’s mother who swayed his decision.

“She said, ‘That man came all the way to Cameroon to tell me that he cares about you not just as a player, but as a human being,’” Tsimbila recalled. “‘I think you should follow that man—he wants the best for you.’”

5. Fordham Is ‘the Best Decision’ He’s Ever Made.

According to Tsimbila, his decision to transfer to Fordham has paid off beyond the court.

Last summer, Fordham Basketball provided financial and logistical support for Tsimbila to travel home for the first time in six years.

“There’s no other school in America that would have done something like that for me,” he said.

During his senior season, he learned that his family was affected by devastating landslides in Cameroon.

“I received a lot of support from people at Fordham that I never would have imagined,” he said.

Despite those family challenges, Tsimbila had one of his strongest seasons.

“I won’t be sad when I leave Fordham because I know I can come back here anytime,” he said. “Fordham for me means home.”

Remember, on the evening of May 18, New York’s Empire State Building will be illuminated in Fordham maroon for our graduates.

“I’ve always been fascinated by small-town America and the different pockets of our country,” said Escobar, who is originally from San Francisco, California. “It’s really exciting to get to see a new place and build out my own beat in a new environment.” 

The diversity beat is brand new for these newsrooms, said Escobar, one of approximately 60 journalists who were awarded the competitive fellowship. He will work on stories that explore how demographics in the Adirondacks have shifted over time, as well as efforts to diversify the area. 

‘There’s This Switch That Goes Off In Me’ 

What draws him to journalism is the interesting people he meets along the way, as well as getting to understand them better, said Escobar. 

“I don’t really see myself as a very extroverted person. But there’s this switch that goes off in me when I get behind a mic or talk to people in the field,” said Escobar, an on-air news reporter and producer at Fordham’s WFUV. “It allows me to be somebody who I never thought I could be … and helps me bring meaning to other people’s lives through the stories that I present.” 

Escobar, who double majored in journalism and digital technology and emerging media as an undergraduate, credited much of his success to his Fordham mentors, especially Beth Knobel, Ph.D., associate professor of communication and media studies, and Robin Shannon, WFUV’s news and public affairs director and morning news anchor.   

“They are the two biggest people in my life here. I owe a lot of my success to them teaching me and helping me find the right people to network with,” said Escobar, who will finish his master’s program this August. “Fordham [also]does a great job through its curriculum and programs like WFUV.” 

Becoming a Compassionate Storyteller

The University emphasizes cura personalis—and sometimes, that’s exactly what journalism is, said Escobar.

“You’re hearing people out. There needs to be more of that, in general. … That’s become a big problem in the industry: whose stories are we really hearing, and a lot of other editorial decisions like that,” said Escobar, who aspires to host a flagship public media show for a local station someday. “But when you just sit down with somebody and hear them out, they’re going to tell you amazing things.” 

“More people can benefit from quality journalism, and Fordham does a great job … training people to become compassionate storytellers.”