Even Frank Sinatra, whom Bennett called a close friend, famously said, “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.” After getting his start as a singing waiter in Italian restaurants, Bennett climbed the charts with early crooning hits like “Because of You” and “Rags to Riches.” He recorded his signature “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in 1962.

Fordham was proud to present Bennett with an honorary degree in 2012—not only for his unmatched talent but also for his commitment to justice and arts education.

Together with his wife, Susan Benedetto, FCLC ’90, GSE ’05, Bennett founded the Frank Sinatra School for the Arts in his hometown of Astoria, Queens. The couple also created a nonprofit called Exploring the Arts, dedicated to strengthening arts education in public schools in New York City and Los Angeles.

Bennett was also a civil rights activist, marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and refusing to perform in apartheid South Africa.

But he will be best remembered for championing America’s songbook—not only in the early part of his career but also into the 2000s. The MTV generation loved his recordings of the old standards, including his wildly successful Duets albums, which feature collaborations with Bono, Amy Winehouse, and Lady Gaga, to name a few. The 2011 release of Duets II, in conjunction with his 85th birthday, made him the oldest living artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200.

“If something is good, it’s always good,” Bennett said in a 2011 interview. “You don’t have to change it.”

Fordham University will present honorary degrees to eight leaders in national security, religion, the arts, medicine, business and government service during its 2012 commencement exercises.

John Brennan, FCRH ’77, the Obama administration’s deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, and this year’s commencement speaker, will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, at the 167th commencement on Saturday, May 19, at the Rose Hill campus.

Also being awarded honorary degrees on May 19 are singer Tony Bennett, pediatrician Eugenie Doyle, MC ’43, and actress Phylicia Rashad.

Newly elevated Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York, was the principal celebrant and homilist at the Fordham College at Rose Hill Class of 2012’s Baccalaureate Mass, held on May 18 in the Rose Hill Gymnasium. He received a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, that evening.

The Fordham School of Law, the Graduate School of Business Administration (GBA), and the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) will present additional honorary degrees at their diploma ceremonies.

Michelle DePass, LAW ‘92, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, on May 20, where she will also address the law school’s graduating class.

Brooklyn congressman Edolphus Towns will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, at the May 20 GSS diploma ceremony, where he will give the address.

Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund, will give the address and receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, at the May 22 GBA diploma ceremony.

John Brennan received his current appointment in 2009, following a career that included 25 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, with a four-year stint as Middle East station chief in Saudi Arabia. He works with the federal government’s intelligence agencies and the military on counterterrorism efforts around the globe, and on issues of homeland security.

In 2004, he was named director of the federal government’s National Counterterrorism Center, which was established that year to coordinate intelligence from agencies collecting data around the world. He left government service briefly in 2005 to become CEO of Analysis Corp., a private firm that contracts with government agencies on security and intelligence issues.

The son of Irish immigrants, Brennan was raised in North Bergen, N.J., and graduated from St. Joseph’s High School in West New York. He enrolled at Fordham as a commuter student, soon becoming enthralled with the Middle East through the lectures of John Entelis, Ph.D., professor of political science and director of Fordham’s Middle East Studies Program.

While a Fordham student, Brennan traveled to Indonesia to work at the U.S. Embassy and to research the politics of oil. He studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo.

Tony Bennett, legendary vocalist, accomplished painter and ardent supporter of arts education, got his start as a singing waiter in Astoria, N.Y.’s Italian restaurants. During World War II, he faced bitter combat in Germany, an experience that made him a pacifist.

Bennett climbed the charts with early crooning hits like “Because of You” and “Rags to Riches” before recording his signature “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in 1962. Late 1950s albums The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings established him as one of today’s great jazz singers. His close friend Frank Sinatra famously said, “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.”

In 2001 he founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in his hometown of Astoria with his wife Susan Benedetto, FCLC ’90, GSE ’05.

True to his generosity in nurturing young talent, ticket sales from his 85th birthday bash at the Metropolitan Opera benefited Exploring the Arts, a nonprofit committed to strengthening arts education in the city’s public schools.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan was appointed to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in January 2012. The Cardinal was elevated in the Consistory on Feb. 18, 2012 in Rome.

Cardinal Dolan was named Archbishop of New York by the Pope in February 2009, and was installed as archbishop in April of that year. In November 2010, Cardinal Dolan was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He succeeded Cardinal Francis George of Chicago in the position.

A native of St. Louis, Mo., Cardinal Dolan was ordained to the priesthood in 1976. He served as Archbishop of Milwaukee from June 2002 until his 2009 New York appointment. He has served as a faculty member in the Department of Ecumenical Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Michelle DePass, LAW ’92, was appointed by President Obama and currently serves as assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the Environmental Protection Agency. Throughout her distinguished career she has worked as a lawyer, public administrator, and policy analyst with environmental and human and civil rights organizations, academic institutions, labor, and all levels of government.

She has served as executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, senior policy advisor at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, environmental manager of the City of San Jose, and William Kunstler Racial Justice Fellow with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

In addition to her Fordham law degree, DePass has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tufts University, and a master of public administration from Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs.

Eugenie Doyle, MC ’43, M.D., professor emeritus of pediatric cardiology, enjoyed an impressive 47-year career in medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, where she was an early practitioner in her field.

“It was a great field to get into,” said Doyle, who graduated from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1946, when just 12 percent of the medical students were women. Surgeons were performing the very first operations on infants with “blue baby syndrome.” The advent of open-heart surgery soon followed. Devastated parents became very grateful, she said, upon learning that their children could be saved.

In addition to patient care and teaching duties at NYU, Doyle wrote and published several papers on children with rheumatic heart disease. She directed the hospital’s pediatric cardiology department from 1958 until her retirement in 1993.

Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a nonprofit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to the problems of poverty.

Acumen Fund aims to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas. Under Novogratz’s leadership, the fund has invested more than $72 million in 65 companies in South Asia and Africa, all focused on delivering affordable healthcare, water, housing and energy to the poor.

Prior to Acumen Fund, Novogratz founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was recently named to The Daily Beast’s 25 Smartest People of the Decade. She is the author of a memoir, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (Rodale, 2009).

She holds an M.B.A. from Stanford and a bachelor’s degree in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia.

Phylicia Rashad is best known to TV audiences as Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Successful, elegant, wise and loving, the character Rashad created remains a role model for working mothers everywhere. This fall, thanks to a generous gift from Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, she took on a new role in which she brought those same qualities to students at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

As the University’s first Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre, Rashad taught a semester-long course called “Creating a Character.” In helping choose Rashad, Washington said she “will provide the care, compassion and that extra push to help take students where they’re meant to go.”

Rashad, who earned a B.F.A. in theater magna cum laude from Howard University, recently made her directorial debut at the helm of the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. Her Broadway credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Wiz, and A Raisin in the Sun, for which she won a 2004 Tony Award for best actress in a play.

On November 2, 2010, voters in Brooklyn’s 10th Congressional District elected Edolphus “Ed” Towns to his 15th term in the United States House of Representatives, signaling their continued confidence in his leadership and ability to deliver for his constituents.  Over the course of a career in Congress that began in 1982, Congressman Towns has brought millions of dollars to a wide range of projects in the 10th District, the Borough of Brooklyn, and the City of New York.

As leader of the Congressional Social Work Caucus that he inaugurated during the 111th Congress, Towns has emerged as a champion for children and youth. He has spearheaded numerous forums on issues pertaining to children and youth and has introduced and co-sponsored legislation designed to support them.

He views his work in Congress through the lens of his commitment to improving the lives of others as a professional social worker and ordained minister. He is the author of Harvesting the Fruits of Power (Morton Books, 2010).
Towns holds an M.S.W. from Adelphi University, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

The couple founded the Sinatra School in 2001 based on a mutually held principle: “We believe that every child deserves an arts education,” said Benedetto, who took Bennett’s real last name. “They might not be a star, but they might be interested in set design, or they might be a curator. It broadens their horizons.”

Indeed, with state-of-the-art dance, music, fine arts and theater facilities, including the 800-seat Tony Bennett Concert Hall, students can explore several artistic disciplines. The school also boasts some of the highest graduation and college-admission rates in New York City.

“Tony always likes to talk about how art eliminates prejudice,” Benedetto said, adding that students of vastly different backgrounds tend to bond over their work. “When you learn about those who are different than you, you learn about yourself. And the arts facilitate that.”

It’s only natural that Benedetto quote her husband when talking about the school. They were in on it together from the start. Ask the Astoria native if the school would have been built without his wife, and he answers, “No way!”

“It was an idea that we both shared,” Bennett said, “and we were determined to see it through to completion.”
The couple called on friends in the community to help, including George Kaufman, who gave them the plot of land across the street from Kaufman-Astoria Studios, and former New York City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., FCRH ’56 and LAW ’59, who was instrumental in securing the $70 million needed to build the school from the city’s education coffers. “Susan was the prime mover on the project,” said Vallone. “If not for her persistence with both Tony and me, it might never have happened.”

Despite the large sum of money from the city, Benedetto knew they needed more to create a top-notch performing arts school. So she and Bennett founded Exploring the Arts (ETA), a nonprofit whose mission is to strengthen arts education in the city’s public high schools. The Frank Sinatra School was their first project, “the model,” she calls it, for which they raised $4.5 million.

The extra funding ensured ample space for the spreading of young wings at the school’s permanent site, which opened in 2009. The school’s facilities—including two black box theaters, a roof garden and a film studio—are “huge,” Benedetto said, in bolstering students’ self-esteem. “They walk in, the shoulders go back. They feel proud to be here,” she said. “When you feel bad is when you think of kids who don’t have schools like this.”

To help change that, in 2008 Exploring the Arts began supporting arts programs in other New York City public high schools. As of the summer, ETA was serving seven schools, with plans to be in seven more by the fall.

Bianca Feliciano recently graduated from Talent Unlimited High School in Manhattan, one of ETA’s partner schools. She’s now studying violin performance and music business at Hofstra University, for which Exploring the Arts awarded her a $10,000 Tony Bennett Scholarship. Through ETA, she also completed a yearlong apprenticeship with Sweet Plantain, a professional string quartet.

“I helped them record tracks for their CD, which got me interested in the business side of music,” said the Harlem-raised teen. “The whole experience helped build my confidence.”

Benedetto loves to give young people an early start on their professional paths, but for her, that focus did not come till later. One thing the San Francisco Bay Area native always knew, though, was that she adored the Big Apple. “I loved New York primarily because I loved the entertainment world,” she said. For her 16th birthday, her parents took her to the city for the first time. “We stayed at the Plaza and we saw shows: My One and Only, Annie, Sweeney Todd.” Back home, her parents brought her to see Tony Bennett perform at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where she got to meet the singer several times.

Bennett was performing one night at a private event in Nob Hill while Susan was in college. “I called him and asked if I could go to the show,” she said. “He said, ‘Sure, come on up and be my date.’ I didn’t realize he meant that quite literally.” They married in 2007 and have been together for 26 years.

During a break from college, Benedetto secured an internship at the White House, but she couldn’t resist New York, where she eventually finished her undergraduate degree in history at Fordham.

Teaching began to appeal to her. “With a little maturity,” she laughed, “I decided I should really love what I do.” She earned her teaching credentials at Columbia University’s Teachers College and taught history at the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, incorporating the arts in her lessons.

“When we were studying the civil rights movement, I would have the acting kids do a mock sit-in,” she said, “or for the Jazz Age, the musicians would learn some great jazz number. The most important thing for the kids is that they can just learn about something more deeply.”

Benedetto left LaGuardia to teach at the Sinatra School in 2001. She also wanted a formal leadership role at the school, so she enrolled at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education, where she earned a master’s degree in teaching administration and supervision. Donna Finn, principal of the Sinatra School, described Benedetto as an “inspiring” teacher and an able administrator. “The kids would say she was the best teacher they ever had.” And as an assistant principal, Finn said, Benedetto “gave the teachers really good feedback.” She retired from the school in 2007 to focus on Exploring the Arts, her second greatest priority.

“My most important job is being with Tony and taking care of him,” said Benedetto. This fall, the singer is releasing his second Duets album in conjunction with his 85th birthday. And true to the mission he shares with his wife, he plans to celebrate with a concert at the Metropolitan Opera that will benefit Exploring the Arts.