A history teacher helps middle schoolers chart their own course

In her first year at Fordham, Chantal Chevalier took a job in the admission office that showed her the kind of career she didn’t want to pursue.

“I realized that I did not like working in an office,” the Bronx native admits. “I talk too much, and I can’t look at a wall all day.”

When an opportunity arose for her to become a volunteer teacher with Generation Citizen, a group that partners with schools to provide civics lessons, she gave it a shot—and there was no turning back.

“I learned that I have a different connection with kids,” Chevalier says.

In her sophomore year, she began working as a college transition coach for the Student Leadership Network, helping juniors and seniors at In-Tech Academy in the Bronx apply to colleges, find financial aid opportunities, and plan for a big transition, potentially away from home.

Jump-Starting a Career in Education

Meanwhile, she switched her major from psychology to history and began looking into the Graduate School of Education’s accelerated Master of Science in Teaching program. That program, one of more than 30 dual-degree programs at Fordham, allowed her to take graduate-level courses as a senior and earn a master’s degree with only one additional year of study.

Now, after earning a bachelor’s degree in history at Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2020 and her master’s in teaching the following year, she’s a seventh grade history teacher at the City College Academy of the Arts in upper Manhattan. She encourages her middle schoolers to start thinking about college as an option.

“That’s something that I’m really passionate about,” she says. “It’s very overwhelming for a lot of kids, especially if your parents didn’t go to college, or they went 40 years ago. It’s a completely different process now.”

Chevalier is just as passionate about teaching history, and she says that highlighting the human elements of past events is a key to keeping students engaged.

“I try to bring them together through the stories of people,” she explains. “I think that’s where you can learn a lot about human interaction and society, and what makes a society successful and what makes a society fail.”

She is also cognizant, she says, of how histories are told from specific perspectives.

“I think my approach is always to be as honest but as careful as possible, because I never want to put my own opinion into a student’s mind,” Chevalier says. “My job as an educator is to go in and to teach certain skills, to teach certain content, while also acknowledging who I am in this world.”

As a first-generation college graduate who was raised by a single mom, Chevalier is well aware of the challenges many middle school students and families face making ends meet.

“I want to be able to put my kids on to new opportunities, to tell them about the different things that they can do with their lives,” she says. “Where you are and where you were born is not the end-all be-all. You can create your own path, your own opportunity.”

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

“I found all these histories that I had never read in high school,” Kiernan said of the classes, which were taught by Mark L. Chapman, Ph.D., associate professor and associate chair of Fordham’s Department of African and African American Studies.

Kiernan reached out to Chapman and invited him, along with two other Fordham professors, Mark Naison, Ph.D., and Claude Mangum, Ph.D., to visit the Long Island brewery he co-owns. The group got together at Sand City Brewing Co. last June.

“I hadn’t seen these professors in [almost]  20 years,” Kiernan said. “It was such a positive reunion. That whole notion of caring about the individual, caring about society, trying to promote justice in a pragmatic way, those were things that the professors really inspired in me.”

In a Facebook post, Naison said visiting the brewery and hearing about Kiernan’s work as a teacher made him proud of Fordham.

“Spending time with [this]  remarkable grad … gave me a deep appreciation of my faculty colleagues and everyone else on campus who inspired [his]  commitment to making the world a better place,” Naison wrote.

Dual Career Paths, Both Cultivated at Fordham

After graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religious studies, Kiernan worked in the contracts department at Random House. He often talked about books the company was publishing with one his former teachers, the chair of the English department at his high school alma mater, St. Anthony’s in South Huntington, New York. When a half-year teaching job opened up at the school in 2005, the chair encouraged Kiernan to apply. He got the job, went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Molloy College and a master’s in educational leadership from Long Island University, and now he’s an Advanced Placement literature and composition teacher at St. Anthony’s.

Meanwhile, in the early 2010s, a friend named Kevin Sihler approached Kiernan with the idea of opening up a brewery in Northport. After several years of planning, they opened Sand City in 2015, and this year, they launched a location in Lindenhurst, on Long Island’s South Shore, with Kiernan focusing on the day-to-day business operations of the company.

While committing to two careers can require long hours, Kiernan said that his love for teaching made it an easy decision for him to keep working at St. Anthony’s as the brewery grew. He also said that his Fordham education, aside from influencing his teaching, has had a big impact on his approach as a business owner.

“The Fordham education really significantly impacted me in a couple of different dimensions, one being the spiritual, [inspiring a]  concern for the dignity of the individual,” he said. “As a teacher, that goes without saying. But as an employer, when I think about my employees and their health and well-being and the goal of developing them as individuals, I think so much of that goes back to the way we were cultivated at Fordham.”

He also said that the critical thinking skills he developed as a philosophy major have helped him run the brewery.

“The types of conversations you have, the types of logic problems you solve, all these things prepared me unknowingly to confront problems in the world and try and figure out solutions to them in my business,” Kiernan said.

That combination of a pragmatic liberal arts education and the spiritual and political value of classes like the ones he took with Chapman had such a positive impact on Kiernan that when his high school students are looking at colleges, he heartily encourages them to apply to his alma mater. He also said that living in a vibrant Bronx community as an undergraduate provided him with an “unspoken curriculum of how to actually function in society.”

“When I hear students want to go to Fordham, I’m like, ‘There’s no question in my mind that you should.’”

On a hot May afternoon, about 160 candidates walked in person, with their families and loved ones cheering from Edwards Parade. Following the graduates’ procession, Jane Bolgatz, Ph.D., associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of curriculum and teaching at GSE, introduced Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, for an invocation, and GSE Interim Dean Akane Zusho, Ph.D., who addressed the graduates. Present in the crowd were Virginia Roach, Ed.D., former dean of GSE, and José Luis Alvarado, Ph.D., who will lead the school as dean beginning July 1.

“How we emerge from challenges helps to define who we are as human beings,” Zusho told the crowd, citing not only the COVID-19 pandemic but ongoing conversations around racial justice and education reform. “We need teachers, leaders, counselors, and psychologists who share in the fundamental belief that we can all learn and grow, and who can help their students, teachers, and clients live up to their fullest potential.

“Every student deserves to learn in an environment that encourages them to take risks, ask big questions, and make mistakes. Every student also deserves to know they are in a safe space where there is always a path to redemption through education, free of judgement. And that path begins with you.”

Students graduating across GSE’s degree and certificate programs echoed Zusho’s call for the need to change the world through education.

Brandon LaBella, who received a master’s degree in childhood education and is currently teaching fourth grade at Hillcrest Elementary School in Peekskill, New York, said that the M.S.T. program “made me feel so much more confident as a teacher. It’s incredible to be here surrounded by so many brilliant people, and I think everyone here is going to help make the world a better place.”

Speaking about what it’s been like to teach throughout the pandemic, LaBella added, “It’s been incredible to see the resilience of the students and all the teachers. It just gives me hope for the future that if we can take care of this, we can do anything.”

Darlyn Smith received her master’s in childhood special education through GSE’s online program and is currently teaching first grade at the Pingry School in Short Hills, New Jersey.

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, since I was very young,” said Smith. “It’s a great feeling to be here and get to see all the friends that I had online and get to interact and celebrate this wonderful occasion.”

Others reflected on the personal journeys of their years in graduate school. Teddy Reeves received his administration and supervision Ph.D. in GSE’s church and non-public school leadership program, and he said that the research process, while challenging at times, was an essential complement to his work as the curator and co-lead of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

“It has been an amazing, difficult season of writing and researching and finding self,” Reeves reflected. “It’s labor intensive, but it’s a labor of love. It’s been great to mirror the work that I do professionally with the work I got to do at Fordham.”

Magalie Exavier-Alexis, who completed her Ed.D. in educational leadership, administration, and policy while working as a school principal in Brooklyn’s District 13, also noted the challenges of balancing classwork and research with full-time work and a family, but she had no doubt that it was worth the effort.

“I’ve always known that my goal is to cross this finish line,” she said of receiving her doctorate. “I am elated! There are no words to describe my elation and my jubilation.” ­

Many graduates opted to attend GSE’s virtual ceremony, held on Monday, May 24. View the ceremony below and on YouTube.

Known by colleagues as a “master teacher,” Fox taught a course at the Graduate School of Social Service titled Teaching for the Profession, intended for doctoral candidates who would go on to instruct Master of Social Work students. He later highlighted key concepts from the course for lectures and seminars that he delivered to colleagues from other Fordham schools and beyond. In 2009 the New York State Social Work Educator’s Association named him Teacher of the Year. He retired from Fordham in 2012 after 35 years of teaching, and one year later parlayed his philosophy into a book titled Call to Teach: Philosophy, Process, and Pragmatics of Social Work Education (Council on Social Work Education, 2013).

Molloy College Professor Maureen Carey, Ph.D., GSS ’95, said Fox integrated social work theory with a personable delivery. He developed a technique he referred to as “split-screen,” which encouraged professors to view themselves from the student’s perspective, she said, recalling that he taught the technique in a rather surreptitious manner. He would animatedly draw students into his lecture and wait until he had their rapt attention before abruptly interrupting his talk with a simple question.

“What just happened there?” he’d ask the students.

Fox would then prompt students to think about what grabbed their attention, what worked, and, in the rare case, what didn’t work.

“He was very interpersonal, interactive, and engaged with the students. It was never simply a lecture conveying content, he always framed it in a way that was about active learning,” said Carey.

Linda White-Ryan, Ph.D., assistant dean at GSS and former Fox student, said Fox “helped us stretch, to look at things, and really transformed the way we view things.”

“I’ve had a lot of education, from kindergarten and all through my doctoral work; he’s the best teacher I ever had, by far,” she said. She noted that he tempered his keen intellect by allowing his vulnerabilities to show through, which in turn made him approachable to his students, a rare quality at the doctoral level, she said.

“In master’s programs there’s a lot of nurturing, not so much in the doctoral programs. But he could always bring humor into the interactions he had with students so that we wouldn’t take ourselves so seriously,” she said.

Yet his jovial demeanor remained anchored by academic rigor.

“In social work, you usually get a good researcher, a good clinician, or a good professor, but he was all three,” she said.

Even though the purpose of a doctoral degree was to conduct research, the clinician in Fox understood that the research should not be so hifalutin that it couldn’t be translated into the everyday practice for social workers on the front lines.

“His view was that research would inform social workers practice in a practical way and that it wasn’t just ‘ivory tower,’” White-Ryan said. “He’d say, ‘Let’s keep it real and let’s make it meaningful for the practitioners so they can use what we’re doing in a way that serves the communities that we’re trying to reach out to.”

Fox’s multifaceted interest within his professional discipline was matched by varied interests off-campus. Carey, who is also a practicing artist, said that Fox was an artist in his own right. The two took life drawing classes together in the Hamptons near their homes on Long Island’s North Fork. He also dropped by her studio to attend her workshops on watercolor and acrylic.

“He loved the abstract, design, and figurative. He was very multidimensional and had creativity in every part of his life. He and his wife Jeri spent the summer in Mattituck and they shared the cooking duties. They loved food and wine and those little martinis,” Carey said.

His creative outlets provided fodder for yet another book, this time co-authored with Carey and artist Jacqueline Penny, titled The Artful Journal: A Spiritual Quest (Watson Guptill, 2002).

Fox is survived by his wife, Jeri (Geraldine); his children Tracy Galluppi and Thomas Fox; and his four grandchildren. Carey said his family was always his center, particularly his grandchildren—and the love was returned in kind.

“When pop-pop came in the place would light up; they loved pop-pop.”

Teaching While Black: A New Voice on Race and Education in New York City

Originally published in 2016, this memoir by Bronx-born writer, educator, and activist Pamela Lewis, FCRH ’03, has been getting renewed attention amid the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s a deeply personal account of her experiences teaching in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country. Lewis details her frustrations working within a system she feels does not value her own understanding, as a Black woman, of what children of color need to succeed. She writes about the effects of “double consciousness” on her and her students, using the term, coined by W.E.B. Du Bois, that refers to the challenge African Americans face when forced to view themselves through the eyes of those around them. Ultimately, Lewis challenges educators to acknowledge the role race plays in their classrooms and, above all, “to not be color blind.” —Nicole LaRosa

Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor

As a fiction writer whose Catholic faith was a driving force in her work, Flannery O’Connor created “powerful anti racist parables,” writes Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Ph.D., associate director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. And yet, in her personal correspondence, she expressed “attitudes that are hard to describe as anything but patently racist.” In Radical Ambivalence, O’Donnell sets out to explore these contradictions “rather than try to deny, defend, or resolve” them. She helps readers see portrayals of race in O’Connor’s fiction from contemporary, historical, political, and theological perspectives. Although the opportunity for O’Connor’s thinking on race to evolve was cut short—she died from lupus at age 39, just one month after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—O’Donnell ultimately hopes to “focus attention where O’Connor clearly wanted it to be, as evidenced in many of her stories: on the ways in which racism and a racist caste system shape (and misshape) white people, its inventors and perpetrators.” —Ryan Stellabotte

Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side

Jim Mackin, FCLC ’76, is a retired financial executive turned New York City historian. As the founder of WeekdayWalks, he often guides people on strolls through offbeat areas of the city. In this richly detailed, photo-filled book, he focuses on his own neighborhood, writing about nearly 600 notable former residents of the Upper West Side. He highlights the famous (Humphrey Bogart, Barack Obama, and others), but he also celebrates the uncommon lives of scientists, explorers, journalists, and judges whose stories should be better known. He calls attention to women whose feats have been unsung, such as pilot Elinor Smith and nuclear physicist Harriet Brooks, and writes about the “Old Community,” a tight-knit African American enclave that counted Marcus Garvey and Billie Holiday among its residents. —Ryan Stellabotte

Halsey Street touches on a lot of themes, like mothers and daughters, racial and cultural identity, and gentrification. How did you decide to write this story?
While I was at Fordham, I got a short memoir published in The New York Times. It was called “Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine,” about a fading Brooklyn and one that was being remade. That made me want to spend more time figuring out what it’s like to feel stuck between two Brooklyns. I invented Penelope [Halsey Street’s protagonist] and knew the story would be about her resistance to her homecoming, and about her finding her place—in her old Brooklyn neighborhood and within herself. Then I started writing her mother’s point of view, and it also became about these two women trying to find their way back to each other.

Did you always see yourself as a writer?
I did, but in college at Yale I was premed. Because I was a smart girl of color, I wanted to be helpful to society, and being a doctor would be something my family understood as having made it. I got into med school, but I deferred. And I deferred again. Then I went to Fordham for my master’s in English. So it’s been nice to have the book come out and reassure my family that I’d be OK, even if there’s still uncertainty. And of course it feels like a huge victory for me too.

What’s been the reaction to Halsey Street?
The reception I’ve experienced overall has been really positive. But I have also been made really aware of how some basic facts of my characters’ lives can be seen as controversial or troubling. Like my use of Spanish when it would be natural for the characters, or to show the trouble with communicating across generations and languages. Or the fact that Penelope is someone who is attentive to color and race. I get frustrated when I read literature and there’s no mention of race or ethnicity until a black character comes out. So for me as a writer, if we live with the powerful fiction of race, I want to be honest about rendering that for various people, not just people of color.

Do you identify with Penelope?
I identify as both black and Latina, like Penelope. And as a scholarship kid since middle school, I also feel like I’m in this bubble, stuck between two worlds. But I don’t always agree with Penelope. The points of view [around gentrification]in the book are deeply flawed. I don’t like the terms gentrifier or gentrified; they’re flattening and not true to nuances. And they don’t acknowledge how gentrification is driven by structural forces and not just individual agency. But when people talk about gentrification, partially what they’re talking about is a sense of erasure, or theft, or appropriation. It’s a complicated position, which is why I wanted to have people on different sides of it and not have the narrative comment directly.

Is that idea of leaving open questions something you teach your students at Wake Forest?
Yes. I think some people teach writing like it’s this mysterious thing, or you’re just kind of born with it or not, which I don’t believe. I teach a first-year writing class and one about American identity, race, and belonging. I think that one really challenges students because it’s one of the first times they’ve been instructed to ask questions about what it means to be American. By the end of the semester, they’ve deepened their thinking and have more questions. I think it’s unsettling for some of them, in a good way.

Do you want to continue teaching?
I definitely want to continue working to cultivate young writers. Teaching is a way for me to remain connected to the value that fiction has for readers, and the value the practice of writing has for writers.

What are you working on right now?
I’ve got two book projects that are cooking right now; they’re both novels. One is a quest story, and the other is about a community in North Carolina, which is inspired by a short story I published about my time in Durham. I think they both build on the work of Halsey Street, but I don’t know which one I’ll finish next.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Alexandra Loizzo-Desai.

This year, Fordham University Press published Lewis’ memoir, Teaching While Black: A New Voice on Race and Education in New York City. The book is a deeply personal account of her 11 years of teaching in New York City, one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country. Lewis details her frustrations in trying to reach her students while working within a system that did not value her own understanding—as a black woman—of what children of color need to succeed.

In the introduction, she writes about the effects of “double consciousness” on her and her students. The term, coined by civil rights activist and educator W.E.B. Du Bois, refers to the challenge African Americans face when they are forced to view themselves not only through their own eyes but also through the eyes of others around them. It’s something she’s felt both as a Fordham undergraduate and in her teaching career. She urges educators who are not of color to be mindful of the theory of double consciousness, and she challenges all educators to acknowledge the role race plays in their classrooms and, above all, “to not be color blind.”

Teaching While Black is filled with anecdotes of Lewis’ students—how they struggled, how they bonded with her over music, how she could relate to them and their families. It is Lewis’ hope that curricula in communities of color will continue to grow to better reflect their diverse student body, and that the city will attract more black and Latino teachers. A dearth of knowledge and education about one’s own culture, she said, contributes to low self-esteem and can lead students to struggle in and out of school.

“The lack of motivation and work ethic has a lot to do with how students feel about themselves and their self-worth. I feel like if they loved themselves and felt they were worthy of a better education, they would try harder,” said Lewis, who’s now working as a literacy coach in the Bronx. She added that “just having that presence of black leadership” in the classroom “makes you realize what your potential is a little more.”

FORDHAM magazine checked in with some alumni of the University’s Graduate School of Education—professionals who work with students ranging in age from preschool to high school—to ask them for some guidance. Here’s what they had to say.

Be involved. In order to help your child thrive in the classroom, it’s important to be involved from the get-go. Angela Kang, Ph.D., GSE ’09, runs the mental health clinic at P.S. 8 in the Bronx—part of Montefiore’s School Health Program. Clinic staff evaluate students and see them for behavioral issues, mood disorders, and other concerns.

“We do a lot of family work. The parents have to be involved,” she says. “The more information a parent can give me, even anecdotally, that’s really helpful in terms of formulating what’s going on.” Kang likes to see prior report cards and any other evaluations a child may have received.

Talking to your child, Kang says, is crucial. “Sometimes parents assume that a child will tell them when something is wrong,” but this is not always the case. “And things that go undetected for a while show up as other problematic behaviors.”

Develop trust in your school. A critical component of parental involvement, says Shirly Ulfan, GSE ’14, is getting to know and appreciate the learning environment at your child’s school. Ulfan is the founder of Aleph Bet Academy, a small preschool in Briarwood, Queens, that opened last year.

“It’s always astonishing to me how different parents are in their concerns,” she says. “Some parents want to be sure their child is really clean all the time. Some are obsessed with what their child eats.” Parents, especially those with little ones, need to know that everything will not be “the way it is at your house.”

“I always tell parents that everything that happens in our school happens with forethought.” While she welcomes parents’ involvement, she says it’s crucial that they “begin with the basic idea that I trust the teacher and the school, and that whatever comes up will be handled correctly.”

This applies to discipline as well. “Every parent should ask ahead of time how a school deals with conflict and discipline,” says Ulfan, and be sure that they are comfortable with the school’s approach.

Be collaborative. Parents and teachers share the same goal—you both want what’s best for your child. Approaching discussions in a collaborative fashion will likely yield the best results for everyone.

Noelle Beale, Ph.D., FCRH ’97, GSE ’12, is regional superintendent for Catholic Schools of Central Westchester, responsible for 25 schools. She’s also served as a principal and a classroom teacher. “It’s important for the parent to go into the conversation as a partner, and to really work with the teacher on strengths and weaknesses.”

Collaboration should also involve the student, says Beale, who is an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Education. When schedules permit, she suggests having the student present with the teacher during discussions, to “really walk through what the challenges were.” Or, if the situation is more serious, such as a significant behavioral issue or possible academic failure, parents and teachers can talk alone “to come with strategies ahead of time,” she says, “then sit down with the student and talk about expectations.”

Madison Payton, GSE ’13, teaches English at the Eagle Academy for Young Men II in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he founded a writing center. He says in order for collaboration to happen comfortably, parents should take the time to “understand who we are as educators.”

As a writing teacher, he puts less of an emphasis on grades than some teachers do. This can be confusing to parents of his students, many of whom are Caribbean and come from a more rigid education system. They’ll say, “How did this essay change three times?” But for him, the revision process is more important. He says he tells students, “This is your place to make lots of mistakes. You can do that here because I love you.” So it’s key, he says, that parents ask teachers about their teaching philosophy in the beginning of the year.

Be realistic. What parent doesn’t think their child is brilliant? But Beale cautions that your child may not have all the strengths you want them to have. “As a parent myself, I really try to go in realistically and say, ‘My child may have challenges. How can I best support them at home, and what can I do to best support the teacher?’”

By the same token, she says, teachers are not perfect either. “Education is changing. Look at the Common Core. Teachers themselves are evolving with their knowledge, because there are new things that they’re teaching.”

In his school in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood, Payton sees parents—often single moms—comparing their kids to themselves at that age. They might say, “Well, I had less, and I was able to do it.” But times have changed, he says, and every child develops differently. “Remove yourself from the equation and try to figure out why the child is making certain decisions.”

Trust your instincts. As much as it’s critical to develop trust in your child’s school and teachers, Ulfan says, it’s also important to remember that you know your child better than anyone else in the world.

“Parents have very strong instincts,” she says. “Often professionals will fail a child in a way where a parent would not.” Ulfan works with parents who are learning their children have special needs, and says it will be critical that they fight to receive all the evaluations and services their child requires. “If you have concerns and they’re not going away—in whatever setting—you really have to fight. Stomp your foot on the floor and pound your fist on the table and be the loudest, squeakiest wheel you can be.”

Courtney Celeste Spears stepped out of the Fordham classroom this fall and onto a world stage as a member of Ailey II, the highly selective junior company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Spears, a senior in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in dance at Lincoln Center, recently completed her final Fordham class toward a minor in communications and media studies. She did it remotely while on a six-week tour that took her to Italy and across the United States. Through her professional work with Ailey II, she will also earn the last of the dance credits she needs to complete her BFA before May.

“I am excited to travel and keep feeding myself artistically so I can keep giving to others,” she said shortly before officially joining Ailey II. “I see dance as a vessel to put good back into the world.”

Ailey II’s first stop was Towson University, in her native city of Baltimore, Maryland.

“That was a homecoming for me, and to start off the tour like that was wonderful,” she said. “Between my family, my friends, my family’s friends, my entire old dance studio, and even my first dance teacher, there must have been about 60 people at the two performances.”

As if turning pro and kicking off the tour in her hometown weren’t enough, Spears also learned earlier this year that she had been selected to receive a Princess Grace Award for Dance. The award includes a full-tuition scholarship for her senior year.

Spears is not the only Fordham senior on tour with Ailey II this season. Her friend Gabriel Hyman, a Gates Millennium Scholar and fellow Ailey/Fordham senior, is also in the company. In fact, if you include Spears and Hyman, “more than half of the company [members] this year are Ailey/Fordham BFA grads,” said Spears.

As part of Ailey II’s tour, company members teach master classes to elementary and middle school students in different cities. For Spears, who has taught dance classes in the Bahamas, the classes were the best part of the touring experience.

“I’ve always felt that, as important as dance is as a performing art, it’s also meant to reach people, to communicate something meaningful,” she said.

In particular, Spears was struck by the class she taught in Italy with Troy Powell, Ailey II’s artistic director.

“The students didn’t speak English, so there was a language barrier. But it melted once we started dancing. We forgot we were from different countries and different parts of the world, and somehow they just understood our corrections and our instructions, and we understood them.”

Before she officially started with Ailey, Spears said she felt that much of what was happening was a bit “surreal.” Now that “it’s go time,” she said, “it does feel more real to me. But there are still those moments when I think, ‘Wow, I really get to do this.’”

A Baltimore native, Spears is a senior in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program in dance at Lincoln Center. She is also pursuing a minor in communication and media studies.

“I’ve always felt that, as important as dance is as a performing art, it’s also meant to reach people, to communicate something meaningful. I’ve always wanted to be able to share that,” she says.

The ability to combine academics and dance is part of what first attracted Spears to Fordham. She was set on being able to “dance rigorously and also have a rigorous academic schedule,” and felt that most other universities would force her to compromise one or the other. At Fordham, “it’s like they both got amplified.”

“I was also drawn to the Jesuit mentality of outreach and helping others,” she says, “of continuing to love what you do and excel at it while bringing others up with you.”

Spears has taught dance classes in the Bahamas, her mother’s homeland; completed an internship in Alvin Ailey’s public relations department; and auditioned for professional dance companies. At the end of her junior year, she was invited to become a member of Ailey II, the highly selective junior company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Her dedication, passion, and desire to help others have earned her recognition. At Fordham, she is the recipient of the Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship. And, this past summer, with the help of the Office for Prestigious Fellowships, she earned a Princess Grace Award for Dance. The award includes a full-tuition scholarship for her senior year.

“It’s still surreal to me,” says Spears. “Financial aid certainly played a huge part when I came to Fordham. I felt a personal responsibility to learn all I could about Denise Jefferson [one of the founders of the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program] when I received the scholarship [named in memory of her]. And I know the Princess Grace Award will not just help me but give me a platform and the connections to reach people, raise awareness, and spread love of and resources for the arts.”

However surreal it may seem to Spears, those who know her are not. “Courtney completely immerses herself into anything she takes on. She understands that being a dancer is greater than the individual. And she brings goodness wherever she goes. I think the Princess Grace Award will allow her to meet artists in other fields and open even more doors for her,” says Tracy Miller, Ailey/Fordham BFA program administrator.

In the fall, Spears will begin her professional dance career as she travels across the country and abroad to Italy with Ailey II.

“I am excited to travel and keep feeding myself artistically so I can keep giving to others. I see dance as a vessel to put good back into the world,” she says.

While working as an artist-in-residence in Brooklyn, Rhonda Bondie, Ph.D., then a student of educational theater, decided to tackle the subject of immigration by performing an original play with her fifth-grade students.

A thorny, though classic, problem arose.

Students who were hard of hearing or deaf were not included because there was no teacher trained to assist them. Fearing that the other children would tease them, the school’s principal decided it was best to let them forgo participation.

For Bondie, now a clinical associate professor of childhood special education in the Graduate School of Education (GSE), the incident sparked her desire to find ways for all children—regardless of ability—to achieve at their highest levels in diverse classroom settings.

Her solution: Empower students to self-educate by offering them choices in their learning.

“To help the learners have the disposition to learn for themselves: That’s what I’m really after, whether they’re my graduate students or children,” said Bondie, a 24-year public school veteran.

According to Bondie, today’s classrooms portray a tension between what students are required to learn and how they ought to learn it.

“Teachers have common goals that all students must reach, and the teacher’s pay and professional respect is contingent upon all students achieving these standards,” Bondie said, referring to trends that rely heavily on national data and test scores. “Yet students come to them with very diverse experiences and strengths and needs, so how can instruction invite and capitalize on that diversity, to make sure everyone achieves the standards and far beyond?

“It’s so much more,” she added. “We’re developing humans, not just people who need to reach a certain score … I’m interested in the teaching methods that are particularly efficient and effective at moving students at a wide range of levels.”

That method is called differentiated instruction (DI), a type of teaching that tailors educational activities to individual learners.

DI stems from the idea that students have different abilities and experiences and, therefore, learn in diverse ways. Still, students must master a core curriculum at each grade level—a challenge for students who are behind in their grade level and an impediment to those who are beyond it.

But by varying instruction methods—through group learning or using digital media, for instance—a teacher can design activities that complement individual learning styles while ensuring that the class as a whole learns the required material.

“It’s not effective and it’s not efficient if you lose the what [the content],” Bondie said. “Just because you can do [a lesson]eight different ways, doesn’t mean the kids actually need that. The kids might need just one way. So you have to know when to differentiate instruction.”

Her qualification yields the first rule of DI: Know your learners.

“We teach our teachers to learn from the learner first: What can I learn from the student about what they know and how they came to understand what they know?” Bondie said. “Then, when I understand the learner as an individual, I’m ready to help them stretch themselves and grow in different ways.”

Over the years, DI has proved successful. But despite achieving results in her own classroom, Bondie continued to observe the problem that she encountered while teaching in Brooklyn—too few teachers prepared to help students with special needs, the students who would especially benefit from DI.

“The greatest need for teachers is in grades seven through 12 special education or dually certified teachers,” she said. “There’s a huge shortage in New York City public schools.”

So last year, armed with her tried-and-true teaching method, Bondie left primary classrooms to take her message to a wider audience. In January 2011, she joined GSE’s Division of Curriculum and Teaching after teaching for many years in New York City and Arlington, Va. Now, she works to prepare future teachers for the diverse students who will populate their classrooms.

“All [special education]students at one point or another are in general education,” she said. “So we want to prepare teachers to be as effective as possible and to build their confidence in helping learners with dramatically diverse learning needs.”

Even though she arrived at Fordham only last year, her plan already is underway. A program that she launched, Education with Equity for Adolescents, prepares GSE students for dual certification in general and special education up to grade 12. Previously, Fordham’s special education certification ended at grade six.

In addition, she and Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., associate professor of childhood special education, won a $1.5 million grant to develop Project REACH (Rigor, Equity, Access and Collaboration in Higher Education), which assists GSE faculty members in improving the dual and special education programs.

What she communicates through these efforts—a message that she not only hopes to deliver to future learners through her graduate students, but also to her graduate students themselves—is that with the right tools, every person has the capacity to achieve at his or her highest levels.

“It’s based on this notion that everyone can learn in more ways than one could ever imagine,” she said. “I put a lot of responsibility for learning on the learners, so that they uncover things I couldn’t imagine them being able to do.”