Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, said she plans to read Crafting Enlightenment: Artisanal Histories and Transnational Networks, (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2021) alongside The Other Black Girl (Simon & Schuster, 2021), a thriller by Zakiya Dalila Harris. She said she heard Dalila Harris speak on WNYC’s Get Lit program, which she highly recommends for summer reading ideas.

Auricchio’s summary of the plot: “The narrator’s a Black woman who has been working at this publishing firm for a long time—which is unfortunately still pretty rare. They hire another Black woman and then bad things start happening to the narrator, who suspects it could be the new hire,” she said. “I saw the book described as Get Out meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and I was so intrigued by the author in the interview on WNYC, I thought the book would be compelling.”

Gregory Acevedo, Ph.D., associate professor of social work, plans to spend some time this summer finishing Redistributing the Poor: Jails, Hospitals, and the Crisis of Law and Fiscal Austerity, (Oxford University Press, 2021).

“This book adopts a counter-intuitive argument that recontextualizes government and bureaucratic decision-making and their effects on persons living in poverty,” he said.

He also plans to read Dear Committee Members (Anchor, 2015), a satiric academic novel written by Julie Schumacher. The book presents itself as a series of recommendation letters written by an irritable English professor.

“The story is a fun way to laugh at ourselves as academics,” said Acevedo.

Here are a few more suggestions, both light and not so light, from Fordham faculty and staff:

Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., Dean of the Gabelli School of Business

•  A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman (Washington Square Press, 2015)
• The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Celadon Books, 2021)
• Love As A Business Strategy, by Mohammad F. Anwar, Frank E. Danna, Jeffrey Ma F. Chris Pitre (Mohammad Anwar, 2021)
• Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, by Adam Grant (Penguin, 2021)
• Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, 2019)
• Wolf, by Becky Bloom (Scholastic, 1999)

“There are so many nuggets of wisdom in Think Again that I find myself reading it again and again. For example, think like a scientist and treat your ideas as if they are hypotheses—you’ll be much more open to change. The Plot is a quick read filled with unexpected twists and turns. Korelitz also has some fun with her portrayal of writers. Wolf, a children’s book, is a beautiful depiction of the power of reading and knowledge to empower and transform behavior. I read it every summer. A Man Called Ove is a beautiful story of love, friendship, and acceptance. There are many takeaways but It demonstrates the power of kindness to overcome prejudice.” (Read more about Dean Rapaccioli’s summer reading suggestions in her Monthly Mindfulness blog post.)

Maura Mast, Ph.D., Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill

• Lonely Planet Iceland by Alexis Averbuck, Carolyn Bain, Jade Bremner, Belinda Dixon (Lonely Plant Global, Ltd., 2019)
• Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2019)
• Microaggressions in Everyday Life, Derald Wing Sue and Lisa Spanierman (Wiley, 2020)
• Mathematics of Social Choice: Voting, Compensation, and Division, by C. Börgers (SIAM, 2010)
• Mathematics for Social Justice: Resources for the College Classroom, by Gizem Karaali and Lily Khadjavi (eds) (American Mathematical Society, 2019)
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Harper Collins, 2017) 

“I’m taking a real vacation this summer and heading to Iceland with my family.  It’s a new country for me and there’s so much to experience there, so I’ll be reading Lonely Planet Iceland. I’m also a big fan of mystery novels from the UK.  My sister recommended the Inspector Gamache series and I absolutely love the books. Kingdom of the Blind is one of the newest ones and I’ve been saving it to read on my vacation,” she said.

“One of the associate deans took part in a workshop with Dr. Sue and recommended Microaggressions in Everyday Life. It’s a riveting, eye-opening read and is aligning well with the anti-racism efforts that the Arts and Sciences deans have been leading. The Hate U Give is the common read for incoming students.  I’m looking forward to reading it and participating in discussions with our students about the book and its relevance to our times.”

David Gibson, Director, Center on Religion and Culture

• Kierkegaard: A Single Life by Stephen Backhouse (Zondervan, 2016)
• By the Lake by John McGabern (Vintage, 2002)

“Summer vacation, for me, means time spent at a lake in a cool Northern climate. It’s a locale that in my warmest memories recalls an episode of Schitt’s Creek, but in reality, like any other place, it has darker shades to life—just like By the Lake, a tale of a rural Irish village by the late novelist John McGahern. That’s my fiction selection for this summer, and it is proving as worthy as the reviews promised when it was published nearly 20 years ago. McGahern does what a novel, and a summertime book in particular, needs to do, which is to create an entire world that I can slip into, leaving behind news cycles and social media feeds. Ordinary miseries, and joys, have never felt so real, or so welcome.”

Marco Valera, Vice President for Administration

• In the Kingdom of Ice, by Hampton Sides (Knopf, 2014)
• American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution, by Nina Sankovich (St. Martin’s Press, 2020)
• How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi (One World, 2019)
• Sailing True North, Admiral James Stavridis (Penguin, 2019)
• The Little Ice Age, Updated Edition, by Brian Fagan(Basic Books, 2019)
• Dune, by Frank Herbert (Herbert Properties, 1965; 2020)

“This summer I am going back to a book I last read more than 40 years ago, Dune by Frank Herbert, a science fiction classic. I am interested to see how this 412-pager has held up over the years and if I still enjoyed it as much as the first time.”

Vincent DeCola, S.J., assistant dean, Gabelli School of Business

• The Person You Mean to Be, by Dolly Chugh (Harper Business, 2019)

“This is the book what we have the incoming first-year students reading, and I just finished it and thought it was a terrific framing of the key issues and categories to help one navigate conversations around racial justice and other structural power dynamics involving gender and ethnicity,” said Father DeCola. “Through every chapter, she tells stories about real people she knows who have grown and learned important lessons—and these reveal the wisdom contained within.”

Innita Jones, Fire and Life Safety Director, Martino Hall

• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Doubleday, 2019)
  Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim (Lake Union, 2014)
  Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson (Little, Brown, and Company, 2013)
  The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, 1994)
• Conception: Birth of ‘The Phoenix’ (Harmsworth House, 2019)

“Birth of ‘The Phoenix’ is about a young man who had a really rough upbringing. After his daughter is killed he becomes a psychopath who believes everyone has done him wrong. Over the course of 20 years he becomes a serial killer seeking revenge. He lives in an impoverished part of London. I feel that basically everyone says that London is so great, but in the book, you see that it’s just like any other city. It has its ups and downs, its impoverished and its rich. I also liked the detective; the chase was thrilling.”

John Cunningham, S.J., Associate Professor of Physics

• Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth by Adam Frank (Norton, 2019)
• The Fallen by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, 2018)
• They Called Us River Rats by Macon Fry (University Press of Mississippi, 2021)
• Montalbano’s First Case by Andrea Camilleri (Penguin, 2016)
• Dorothy Day Selected Writings edited by Robert Ellsberg (Orbis, 2005)

“I make a hobby of reading books on science directed to the public. Science textbooks and journals are so technical, and I am curious how complicated scientific topics are explained to non-scientists. Light of the Stars begins with the premise of finding ‘alien worlds’—places in the universe where intelligent life may reside—but then goes on to speak of what makes Earth so conducive for the flourishing of life. The book steps into areas of climate change and how we humans may destroy this paradise. It’s paradoxical: The planet that allowed us to emerge may be left inhabitable, for humans, by us.”

Geoff Snell, Ph.D., Lecturer on Art and Architecture, Fordham in London

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Penguin, 2019)
• A Right Royal Face-Off by Simon Edge (Lightning Books, 2019)
• Stoner by John Williams (New York Review Books Classics, 2006)
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme (Penguin, 1986)
• Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Penguin, 2002)

“A Right Royal Face-Off delves into the fierce artistic rivalry between 18th-century portrait painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds as well as present-day art-world shenanigans centered around a supposedly ‘lost’ portrait. It’s like the most fun art history class ever—I couldn’t put it down.”

The four-week session in international and comparative law is the only program of its kind in West Africa.

The students, 10 of whom attend Fordham Law School, got a firsthand look at an emerging, stable democracy while simultaneously studying global legal issues, according to program coordinator Alena Herklotz (LAW ’06), the Levinson Fellow in International Law of Sustainable Development at Fordham’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice.

A June 5 opening ceremony attracted the chief justice of Ghana’s Supreme Court, Georgina Wood, who is Africa’s first female chief justice, and other prominent government and University representatives.

“The response here as been very encouraging, with positive news coverage and support [for the program],” Herklotz said. “With enough student interest, we would certainly like to return next summer.”

The ABA-accredited program allows students to earn up to four classroom credits and to work at legal internships in Ghana after the academic session. The Ghanian law students were able to attend with the aid of Fordham Law scholarships.

Courses ran through July 3 at Ghana’s Institute of Management and Public Administration, and were taught by both Ghanian and United States professors. Faculty from Fordham include Paolo Galizzi, clinical associate professor of law and director of the Ghana program; Victor Essien, adjunct professor of law; and Gemma Solimene, clinical associate professor of law.

Hon. Theodore A. McKee, U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the third circuit, was also a member of the faculty.

The summer program came about through the Leitner Center, which has developed a long-term judicial-capacity building project with the African nation to improve the delivery of judicial services.

The Summer Session, which runs from May 30 to Aug. 5, offers day and evening classes in undergraduate business as well as the arts and sciences on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The 2008 program has enrolled more than 1,800 students at the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses.

Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., dean of the Office of Summer Session, attributes the program’s increase in popularity to an effective mix of required and innovative courses. The program also has employed a strategic marketing plan to target potential visiting students, he said.

“The word is getting around that Fordham provides some excellent summer education opportunities,” Jacobson said. “Our marketing efforts are supported by an increasing awareness of the University as a top-tier regional and national institution.”

Jacobson added that the University’s reputation makes it easy to transfer credits to home institutions.

Among the Session’s unique programs are:

–    a 10-week Summer in the City internship allowing students to earn credit by interning at companies and organizations such as the New York Stock Exchange, United Nations and VH1.

–    the Sports Communication Institute, a survey course of sports journalism, broadcasting, advertising, and effective public relations. The institute, in its ninth year, is co-taught by Jacobson and John Cirillo (FCRH ’78), former vice president of public relations for the New York Knicks, and features field trips and visits from several sports media professionals.

–    The New York City Summer Certificate Program in Emerging Markets and Country Risk Analysis, an intensive 10-week program for international business professionals sponsored through Fordham’s International Political and Economic Development (IPED) program.

–    Sustainable New York, a course in urban green design that offers fieldwork at Solar 1, New York City’s first carbon-neutral building.

–    The Pre-College Program, which offers gifted high school seniors a chance to take courses while exploring Fordham as their college choice. The program has doubled its enrollment in one year.

Jacobson noted that the Session tries to tailor some courses to the particular research interests of Fordham faculty. For example, Colin Cathcart, associate professor of theatre and visual arts and teacher of Sustainable New York, specializes in green architectural design. Anne Fernald, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, is a Virginia Woolf scholar and author of Virginia Woolf: Feminism and the Reader(Palgrave, 2006). Fernald teaches a four-week graduate-level course on the significant feminist writer.

The summer program draws most visiting students from the tri-state area, but recently has seen an upturn in student enrollment from Florida, California and the Midwest.

“The chance to spend part of your summer in New York City is a major draw,” Jacobson said.

During the Summer Math and Science Workshop at Marymount College of Fordham University, held June 22 to July 5, girls come to the college for a program designed to foster excitement in math, science and technology — fields where the dearth of women remains noticeable. “Studies show that men and women are equally talented in the areas of math and science,” said Maryam Hastings, Ph.D., director of the program. “It’s attitude that makes the difference in their achievement.”

Since 1992, the Summer Math and Science Workshop has strived to change the attitude of young girls toward the sciences. That same year, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) published the study “How Schools Shortchange Girls.” The report showed that girls were less likely than boys to take the most advanced courses in math and science and that even girls who did well in math and science were less likely to pursue careers in that area. The AAUW’s 1998 follow up, “Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children,” indicated that while girls’ test scores and enrollments had risen in math and science, a gap persisted. The gender disparity remained especially wide in the areas of physics and computer science. Schools, according to the AAUW, are generally failing to fully prepare girls for the 21st century.

Many believe the gap begins in high school, and follows young women to college and careers. Today, studies show that women make up only 23 percent of physical scientists and 10 percent of engineers.

“We get the sense from the young women who have participated in the program that they have a change in attitude after the workshop, a gain in confidence,” said Hastings. “For many of them, it’s the first time that  they’ve had an opportunity to achieve in science and math and enjoy it.”

The workshop complements the mission of the women’s Catholic college, which for 95 years has provided a place of learning where women can grow and discover their voices. Administrators at Fordham Univer-sity are also working to encourage women in the sciences and math. At Fordham College at Rose Hill and at Lincoln Center, young women identified as having a great potential for professional achievements in these areas are eligible for scholarships during their undergraduate years though the Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in Science and Math.

Hastings said she hopes the program meets the long-term needs not only of the young women who participate but, ultimately, all women. “It is important to encourage young girls to study math and science not only to enhance their career options,” she said, “but also because when women are included in the development of math and science, the majority view will finally be heard.”