Incoming student Kadidia Keita said she was so excited to learn she was admitted to Fordham—with a sizable scholarship. But her family still couldn’t afford the remaining tuition. She was about to decline.  

“Then Fordham sent me an email saying that I was eligible to apply for this emergency fund. I requested more money, and they really pulled through,” said Kadidia Keita, an incoming first-year psychology student who plans on commuting to Fordham College at Lincoln Center from her home in the Bronx. “My parents will have a much easier time affording this, we don’t have to take out loans, and now I can go to my dream school.”

Keita is among 14 incoming first-year students who were awarded “last-dollar” financial aid to help them attend Fordham this fall. The scholarship fund, which was created by University trustees earlier this year, aims to retain students who may not be able to attend Fordham otherwise and to encourage a diverse student body. 

The creation of the fund coincides with a large jump in the number of underrepresented first-year undergraduates arriving on campus this fall, compared to last year. The number of Black students increased from 77 to 211; the number of Latinx students increased from 337 to 528. 

“We were able to use this money to help meet the gap between the financial aid package we originally offered our students and what they needed to attend,” said Jaime Harkin, associate director of student financial services.

Individual award amounts range from $3,000 to $8,000, said Harkin. More than $60,000 has been distributed to students so far. The University is currently reviewing candidates to receive support from the fund for the upcoming academic year. 

Eileen FitzGerald Sudler, TMC ’71, a member of the Board of Trustees who made a gift to the fund, said the board is “really committed” to helping students with this scholarship money.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of a few thousand dollars. Even with a full scholarship, there are other costs involved. And there are families who cannot flip that bill—a couple of thousand dollars, whether those are for books, fees, or commuting,” said Sudler. “On an ethical and moral basis, it’s really the fiber of what Fordham was founded to do. And we’d like to see great strides in this.” 

In a phone conversation, Keita said she was initially attracted to Fordham’s psychology program, the University’s proximity to her high school in the Bronx, and the beauty of the Rose Hill campus. After speaking with trustee Valerie Irick Rainford, FCRH ’86, she said she felt more compelled to apply to Fordham. 

Coming from the South Bronx, she said, there’s a certain pressure in attending what she called a PWI, or a predominantly white institution. 

“I was very nervous about what the sense of community would be like for me. But Ms. Rainford made it so clear to me that Fordham had a really great sense of community, and that’s what hooked me even more to the school,” Keita said.

The following spring, when Keita received her acceptance letter along with a large scholarship from Fordham, her family was struggling. They were still recovering after a fire ravaged their home last year, and her father, the family breadwinner, had lost his job in March 2020 and was still looking for full-time work, she said. They couldn’t afford to pay the remaining $12,000 per year in Fordham tuition. But thanks to the Diversity Fund, which covers more than three-quarters of the remaining cost, she said she could afford to attend Fordham. 

“I’m so looking forward to making new friends of different races, cultures, and backgrounds and to participate in clubs, especially MSA [the Muslim Students Association], because I’m Muslim,” said Keita, who plans on becoming a child psychologist or therapist for minority children in her community.  

Kweku Andoh, an incoming first-year marketing student at the Gabelli School of Business, said the fund has helped him and his family, too. Andoh is originally from Washington, but he and his parents—a federal employee and a member of the U.S. Army for more than two decades—have been stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, over the past five years.

“This has been an incredibly stressful few months for my family moving back overseas from Germany, and the Diversity Fund has definitely helped to alleviate some of that stress,” Andoh wrote in an email. “I’m really looking forward to receiving a top-tier education that I know will immensely prepare me for my time after Fordham, and also becoming a part of an educational community that makes me feel welcome and will be another place for me to call home.”

Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86, is the driving force behind the new Diversity Fund, which will provide financial aid to economically disadvantaged undergraduates and those from underrepresented groups who are living on campus. 

“The difficulty of getting into college if you don’t have the ability to pay is enormous. The ability to stay in college without the proper means is even harder. And if you’ve managed to get in, there’s also the setback of working and paying off student loans,” said Rainford, a Fordham alumna and University trustee who spent 17 years paying off her student loans. “It’s disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx students, and Fordham needs to give these students a more equitable opportunity to attend. This fund was intended to do some of that.”

The goal of the new fund is to encourage a diverse student body, Rainford said. She explained that it will provide “last-dollar” financial aid, including funding for student housing, to undergraduate students at the Rose Hill or Lincoln Center campuses. Funds can also be used for University-accredited study abroad programs. 

“It’s almost like a top-off fund,” Rainford said. “There’s a student that wants to come to Fordham, we want them to come to Fordham, and we do not want them turning down a Fordham education because they don’t have that final $2,000 or $5,000.” 

Rainford, a Bronx native who overcame many hardships as a young woman, is now the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies, a consulting firm that helps senior leaders increase diversity and inclusion within their companies. She was previously a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the company’s Advancing Black Leaders strategy, and a 21-year veteran at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she became the first Black female senior vice president. 

Two years ago, Rainford created the Valerie Irick Rainford Scholarship Fund to help students of color attend Fordham. But she said there were still many students who didn’t receive enough financial aid. Rainford said she wanted to multiply her initial effort, especially after a year marked by racial unrest. So at the end of 2020, she set the wheels in motion for the Diversity Fund. 

“There’s something to be said about diversity in the leadership positions. This is the kind of thing you can do and spark others to do when you have a seat at the table,” said Rainford, who joined the Board of Trustees in 2019. 

Several other trustees have already donated to the fund, including Thomas J. Regan, S.J., co-chair of the board’s Mission and Social Justice Committee and rector of Fordham’s Jesuit community. 

“The Jesuits at Spellman are happy to contribute to the Diversity Fund in the hope of advancing the University’s goal to make Fordham the most diverse and welcoming community it can be,” Father Regan said. 

Rainford said anyone can contribute to the fund, and she challenges more members of the Fordham community—alumni, parents, families, friends, corporate sponsors—to help her meet this new commitment. 

“The goal is to have others match what I’m trying to do: to create more opportunities for students of color to attend an elite school when they may not have the funding to,” Rainford said. “Funding should not be the thing that keeps them from going to college. This is intended to close that gap.”  

Make a gift to the Diversity Fund here. Visit the 2021 Fordham Giving Day website for more information.

“The heartfelt testimony given by members of our community in the course of the summer has made it searingly clear that racism is also present here at Fordham,” Father McShane said in his September 12 State of the University address, referring to stories of discrimination students and alumni of color shared, largely on social media.

“As painful as that admission may be, we must face up to it. Therefore, let me be clear: anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion are institutional and mission priorities at Fordham.”

Case in point: The trustees have mandated annual anti-racism training for all faculty, students, staff, and administrators—including the president’s cabinet and the board itself. And they have charged the newly renamed Mission and Social Justice Committee with ensuring that diversity and anti-racism are central to the University’s efforts.

In late October, Fordham Magazine brought together six members of the board for a candid discussion of bias, inclusion, and what it will take to bring about meaningful, lasting change at the University and beyond.

The Participants

VALERIE RAINFORD, FCRH ’86
Moderator
Valerie Rainford is the CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies. Previously, she was a managing director at JPMorgan Chase, where she led the company’s Advancing Black Leaders strategy. She also had a 21-year career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where she was the first Black woman to rise to senior vice president. She is the author of Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium (Elloree Press, 2014). A Fordham trustee since 2019, she is currently spearheading anti-racism trainings among the trustees and within the University as part of Fordham’s action plan for addressing racism.

ROBERT D. DALEO, GABELLI ’72
Chair, Fordham University Board of Trustees
Bob Daleo is a former vice chairman of Thomson Reuters, where he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer before retiring in 2012. He joined the Fordham Board of Trustees in 2008 and was elected chair in 2012.

MARY ANNE SULLIVAN, TMC ’73
Vice Chair, Fordham University Board of Trustees
Mary Anne Sullivan is senior counsel at Hogan Lovells. Previously, she served as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Energy. She became a Fordham trustee in 2016 and has been vice chair of the board since 2018.

ANTHONY P. CARTER, FCRH ’76
Anthony Carter retired in 2015 as vice president and chief diversity officer at Johnson & Johnson. At Fordham, he has served as a member of the Diversity Task Force, and in 2017 he led the search committee for a chief diversity officer. He joined the board in 2018 and is now co-chair of its Mission and Social Justice Committee.

THOMAS J. REGAN, S.J., GSAS ’82, ’84
Father Regan was named superior of the Jesuit community at Fordham in July 2020. He previously served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School at Loyola University Chicago, and as a Fordham trustee. He rejoined the board this year and is now co-chair of its Mission and Social Justice Committee.

GUALBERTO RODRIGUEZ, FCRH ’95
Gualberto Rodriguez has been the chairman of Grupo Navis since 2017 and managing partner of Semillero Ventures since 2016. From 2005 to 2017, he served as president of Grupo Navis, the San Juan, Puerto Rico-based firm that was founded by his grandfather in 1960 as Caribbean Produce Exchange. He joined the Fordham Board of Trustees in 2019.

The Discussion

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and space.

VALERIE RAINFORD: So, the world has this problem, and many feel it’s pretty overwhelming and don’t know where to start. What gives you hope that we can make progress at Fordham?

BOB DALEO: One of the intentional actions we are taking is refining the focus of the trustees’ Mission and Social Justice Committee, which has oversight responsibility for our antiracism strategy. If we’re going to cure this, you have to start at the board level to make sure that the institution has in its process what the Jesuits have in their heart. And that’s a hard transition, to go from head and heart to how we behave as an institution.

We are an organization whose mission has always been about social justice. We’ve always talked about educating young men and women for others. What does that mean if it’s not for all others?

Calling out “social justice” in the title of this committee is our way of deliberately emphasizing our intent and ensuring that we stay focused.

We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to combating racism, overt and covert, and doing our part to ensure the opportunity and ability for all to generate real wealth, to share in the American dream.

Understanding the Pain

In conversation, the trustees discussed some pernicious examples of bias and racism that students have experienced on campus in recent years—and they related those instances to their own experiences as undergraduates. Allowing these intensely personal stories to surface, they said, is part of the process of spurring the entire Fordham community to reflection and action.

RAINFORD: Are there specific experiences with racism that drive how you think about the work we are undertaking?

ANTHONY CARTER: We had an issue on campus several years ago when I was on the President’s Council. It was explained to me that a Black student, on move-in day—one of the most enthusiastic days for students—went downstairs to bring more stuff up to his dorm room, and when he got back, the N-word was carved into his door.

I wasn’t a trustee at the time, but my son had just graduated a year or so before that happened. I didn’t ask what is wrong with the school. I asked, what’s wrong with our students and families? Our focus was on making sure that the student did not feel the incident was systemic; it was not the baseline of what happens at Fordham.

That example brought back memories that I had of the white student union as a Fordham undergraduate during the 1970s, and my feeling, as a grown man still experiencing these things, is, how do we console? How do we make someone feel whole again? How do we make folks who are constantly subjected to this feel that we are better than this, and that your very being here, and that very experience here, indicates we have a lot of work to do?

I am emboldened, I am hopeful, because the leaders on this team believe as I do, that there’s zero tolerance for racism at Fordham University. And I think our students need to know that.

MARY ANNE SULLIVAN: Hearing Anthony’s examples makes me think of the Instagram posts by Fordham students and alumni after George Floyd was killed, and how shocked and hurt I was at how some Black students had been made to feel unwelcome. There was a story of a student who brought his little brother to see Fordham, and while he was giving his little brother a tour of the campus, he got challenged that he “didn’t belong” there. Having brought my little sister to campus when I was an undergraduate, and having her be so welcomed—it just crushed me to see that Black students were having such a different experience.

RAINFORD: Mary Anne, were you surprised, or was it the contrast that made you feel crushed?

SULLIVAN: It was the contrast, that I had done something so similar and had such an absolutely opposite experience.

GUALBERTO RODRIGUEZ: What it brought up for me is an experience I had in the first month of sophomore year at Fordham. I was in a U.S. history class, and the professor called on me to finish a very common American nursery rhyme parents use to put their kids to sleep. I didn’t know it, and he put me on the spot in front of the entire class by asking, “How come?” “Well, I’m from Puerto Rico,” I responded. And he’s like, “Isn’t that part of the U.S.?”

I felt so ashamed, that I really didn’t belong. I ran to my new theology professor, a Jesuit, and, like Anthony said, he consoled me. He made me realize, “You do belong. I know this professor. He’s a very kind man. He just doesn’t know about your background.”

I had written a letter, in my fear that I somehow found myself in the wrong place. He read my letter—I was trembling—and he said, “I think you should send this to him, and you should have a conversation.” So, my Jesuit professor, through the wisdom of his loving advice, empowered me to take on this issue by myself. And it was a beautiful conversation with a very kind man who simply had never thought about why a student from Puerto Rico would not know a common nursery rhyme in the States.

So my hopes are, in this whole process of tackling racism, that we dig deep for the Jesuit approach, a very loving, consoling, compassionate one, focused on justice with compassion, without anger.

THOMAS REGAN, S.J.: I taught for 19 years at Fairfield University in Connecticut. And Connecticut prides itself on planting dogwood trees. Every spring they have this magnificent dogwood festival, and the colors are just breathtaking. I was living in a residence hall, and I said to the student who lived next door to me, “I know it’s finals, but you need a little break from studying. You have a car. Go up to Greenfield Hill, and just allow yourself to see the beauty of Fairfield.” And so after dinner that night, I walked by his room. I said, “How was the dogwood festival?”

And he says, “Well, it was really pretty, but I got stopped three times by the police in Fairfield.” And your heart just goes out to him. Why can’t he go up to Greenfield Hill, like any other student, and have an enjoyable experience? Why is he deprived of that?

RAINFORD: So, the unfortunate reality is that racism is not new and is as prevalent today as ever. Each of us has seen it before, but have we taken it on to end it? To make it clear that as an organization, we will not tolerate racism? Now is the time to openly and proactively take it on as trustees of this great institution that we all love.

Making Anti-Racism Part of the Fordham DNA

The trustees spoke about the need to root out racism at the University in a systemic way, and why, despite a host of challenges related to remote learning and the ongoing economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are committed to using the board’s authority to unite the community in combating racism and educating for justice.

RAINFORD: What are your thoughts for how we will embed anti-racism policies and practices in how we lead as a board?

CARTER: What I want us to be conscious of is that while we don’t have all the answers, the questions that we’re asking as a governance body can lead us to look for solutions. And not only look for solutions but to hold leaders in the Fordham community and beyond accountable for those solutions.

But there are two things, I call them syndromes. One is the fatigue syndrome. And one is the obvious racism syndrome. The fatigue syndrome allows us to believe, “Oh man, this has been going on for so long.” And I hear this from a lot of my white friends. “It’s not the time to talk about this. Since George Floyd and all the things happening before that, we’re just so fatigued.”

The racism syndrome says to me that we at Fordham have all made ourselves accountable. Whether we experienced racism or not, with our action plans, we embrace the fact that racism affects us all. This is not the time to be fatigued.

There are some things embedded in our strategic plan around this topic. But now we have embraced anti-racism policies and behaviors and mechanisms to solve this thing in a way in which we own it. And our Fordham community must know that, because we put people on notice. We put our own board on notice.

SULLIVAN: If we’re going to be relevant going forward, we have to make rooting out racism part of our DNA. This can’t just be a nice-to-have that we do on the side. It has to be a systemic change that comes about by a thousand different actions we take. It has to be part of our course offerings, part of our student body, part of our faculty, part of our public safety force.

It’s got to be everybody’s job to make Fordham relevant for the future. And the reality is, the future has many more students of color who are going to be looking for places in college, and a society that demands that we be representative of the communities we live in.

At my law firm, we cannot put forward a team for a client on a project if we don’t show that we are including members of color. And Fordham’s role is to fill the pipeline so that those people are there.

And Anthony, we do have a lot in the strategic plan that was already focused towards educating for justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, but we’re now saying with everything we look at, how is it responding to the issue of racism in our society? How are we fixing the problem at Fordham in this one area, in this one area, in this one area?

We have four broad goals in the strategic plan, and I would say three of the four pretty explicitly lend themselves to anti-racism objectives. Holistic student development—addressing the needs of students to feel respected, to feel consoled, when necessary. Walking with our community. We sit in New York City, a very diverse community, and we are not nearly as diverse as the community we sit in. The goal is to develop more partnerships of all kinds that will engage the broader community. We are looking for ways to strengthen what we’re doing to have a greater impact. For example, cybersecurity is an area where we are partnering with the historically Black colleges and universities on a cybersecurity initiative. The fourth broad objective is STEM-plus. I would say people of color are underrepresented in STEM.

I’m a to-do list kind of person, and so I want to see what’s on our to-do list that is going to address this problem so we’re not just having pious thoughts and writing beautiful statements.

Changing the Way Fordham Looks

The trustees spoke about the barriers between Fordham’s campuses and the surrounding areas of New York City, and of efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students.

RAINFORD: Maybe this is for you to help us with, Father, but what is Fordham’s unique opportunity given its Jesuit traditions around social justice? And what’s the thing that gives us the ability to do this differently than probably any other university in New York City?

FATHER REGAN: We have to change the way that Fordham looks. I’m just coming off six years of being dean of arts and sciences at Loyola University Chicago, and every time we hired a tenure-track faculty member, they sent three candidates up to the dean. And so I said, “If we don’t have a person of color on that list, you’re going to get it back.” It’s very competitive, but you have to be really intentional that you’re going to do this and hold people to the fire. Whoever is applying, the HR managers have to say, “Bring me a diverse slate of candidates and let’s change the way that Fordham looks.”

To speak to the Jesuits, we have this incredible Jesuit network. We could create scholarships for the students coming out of the 56 Jesuit high schools in the U.S. If you’re a person of color, you have a home at Fordham. We’re in New York; you can’t get a more diverse city than New York. And so we have to be reflective of this city.

But we also have to make people feel welcome. Because I listen, and see on Instagram—the students want to come, people who work here want to come, but they want to see people who look like them. We really have to say, this is who we are and we’re going to put up the money to make this happen.

RODRIGUEZ: It strikes me that there would be a special Fordham Jesuit way to address, on a day-today basis, the issues of inclusion and racism. That is what I would like to draw from the Jesuit tradition, this idea of comforting and consoling and reconciliation. That could make the process of having a different look to the faces—the process itself—interesting.

For example, an invitation to a prospective African American faculty or staff member would be to be part of a process of change. We have a Jesuit way to explore that experience of not yet being the end result. I think that will make us a very interesting lab as an institution for people who like to be the astronauts, the first on the moon, to experience that in a safe, consoling, socially interesting laboratory.

RAINFORD: I love that concept of a lab for anti-racism, done in a Fordham way, rooted in the Jesuit tradition. Now, how do we get that done?

Mastering the Architecture of Reform

Since the spring, deans, faculty, administrators, students, and staff have been working to advance Fordham’s anti-racism goals, but in conversation, the trustees expressed the need to establish a framework to ensure that the community’s efforts are not only unified but sustainable.

DALEO: In establishing a framework, the first thing you want to do is set the strategy; then you say, as an organization, “Okay, do we have the structure to properly implement that strategy?” And then the third thing is, “Do we have the people in that structure to run that process to implement the strategy?” I think one of the most important things we can do as a board is to be nudging the organization on these issues.

As a board, the one thing I’d like us to always come back to is, “Okay, these are great ideas. How do we get it done?”

We must also continually remind ourselves that our role is one of oversight. We are not the strategists but instead evaluators of the strategy. We have tremendous power, if you will, by shaping that, by pushing back and saying, “Nope, that isn’t quite right. Go back and think about it again.”

CARTER: This is moving. It’s motivating. We can be the masters of the architecture around designing inclusive behavior.

For example, we invite faculty to our board meetings, typically department heads; we should invite faculty of color to periodically meet with us. As the governing body, we determine how we want to engage. And from that engagement, we can become more solutions-oriented. “We’re here to hear you. What can we do?”

FATHER REGAN: Higher education has changed so dramatically, and the pandemic has just put that in floodlights. What does a university do? How is it going to look different after the pandemic? That’s exciting. That’s exactly where we need to go.

CARTER: I’m encouraged by the reports we get on what’s going on with COVID-19, how the University is proactively managing the crisis to protect the Fordham community. It is data-laden, well-researched; there is direction to it. Now we need to say, with that same sort of vigor, how do we apply that to those things that focus on social justice? How do we make that an agenda item with data, with information to measure our progress?

Once you tell somebody, “I need a report on that,” people get pretty serious. So, I think we have the energy to keep us aware of what’s going on with this backdrop we’re living in, but what are the other components that might be missing from those presentations that we need to know?

SULLIVAN: When we’re meeting in person as a board, we routinely have a lunch speaker. I would suggest that we set an expectation that whoever is presenting will address anti-racism. What is their school doing? What is their part of the University doing on this subject to advance our goals?

DALEO: I love all of your ideas, including the suggestion to increase our interaction with students and faculty of color so that we can talk about and learn how these issues affect them directly. As we move forward, the key will be to continually look for ways to institutionalize improvements for long-lasting change. Let’s continue to have these kinds of open discussions more broadly, because it’s easy to get frustrated by the problem of racism, to not know how to solve it.

I believe, and I think Fordham believes, the way you change the world is one life at a time. Our actions need to ensure that we are impacting every single life.

RAINFORD: Team, the essence of this conversation is that while we don’t have all the answers, the board is proactively engaged and owning the challenge. We’re committed to pushing each other and pushing the organization and asking all the questions that will continue to move the organization forward to create sustainable and equitable change. Thank you!

Addressing Racism, Educating for Justice

The University’s anti-racism plan features six broad goals and nearly 40 concrete action steps.

Six Goals, Six Examples of Work Underway

1. Develop robust admissions strategies for effective recruitment of students of color.

Fordham is expanding pipeline programs with local schools, such as Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, that have a high number of Black and Latinx students.

2. Recruit and retain a more diverse faculty, administration, and staff.

Of 26 arts and sciences full-time tenure/tenure-track faculty members hired this year, 50% are persons of color.

3. Develop curricular and cocurricular initiatives that support the imperative of confronting racism and educating for justice.

With support from Teaching Race Across the Curriculum grants, academic departments are integrating questions of race and justice into introductory courses.

4. Create a more welcoming and affirming campus.

A multicultural center will be part of the campus center expansion at Rose Hill, and a similar center will be established at Lincoln Center.

5. Build lasting partnerships with our neighbors.

Fordham has joined the Bronx Is Reading to co-sponsor and co-host the annual Bronx Book Festival and other events.

6. Amplify our voice in educating for justice beyond the campus.

The Center on Race, Law and Justice recently hosted a webinar on police reform that included Benjamin Tucker, LAW ’81, first deputy commissioner of the New York City Police Department.

Read the complete action plan.

Read the December 2020 update on progress the Fordham community has made so far in implementing the initiatives outlined in the action plan.

With these words, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, introduced an online discussion with Fordham’s deans of the arts of sciences on Tuesday evening, Oct. 13. The event, titled “Eradicating Racism in Arts and Sciences at Fordham University,” was moderated by Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86, a member of the University’s Board of Trustees and the founder and CEO of Elloree Talent Strategies.

“The purpose of today’s session is to open a dialogue with the Fordham community,” said Rainford, a former managing director and head of Advancing Black Leaders strategy at JPMorgan Chase. A Fordham graduate, she began working with the deans this past summer to address issues of racism and inequity, and she is spearheading anti-racism trainings within the University as part of Fordham’s action plan for addressing racism. “We see this as a series of conversations, and today is just the start.”

Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, said the four deans’ efforts unite undergraduate and graduate programs at the University. “We as a leadership team in arts and sciences have committed ourselves to the work of anti-racism,” she said.

During the event, the deans addressed several questions that had been submitted in advance, including one from someone who asked why such a discussion was necessary at Fordham.

Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, responded by noting that this past spring, after the May 25 killing of George Floyd galvanized nationwide protests against racial injustice, Fordham “started hearing an outpouring of testimonials” from students and alumni of color who described their experiences of discrimination on campus. She cited two Instagram accounts, in particular: Black at Fordham and Let’s Talk About It Fordham.

“Hundreds of stories were told on these Instagram accounts, and my fellow deans and I read every single one of them,” Auricchio said. “These social media posts were a wake-up call. They prompted us to start having conversations that we might never have had before … with an ear to learning where there might be opportunity for change.”

Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., became dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in July, and said that anti-racism work “was part of my introduction to Fordham University.”

“I was literally hired the same week that George Floyd was murdered,” Stovall said. “For me, being an African American dean at Fordham has called up both opportunities and responsibilities. It has meant that I have to think about what other members of the African American community are experiencing and the ways in which my position can be an asset to that community and, through that community, an asset to Fordham as a whole.”

Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, noted that Stovall, in the deans’ first training session together, had challenged his colleagues: “He said, ‘Why now? Why are you committed to this now? And how do I know that you’re going to carry through that commitment?’”

“It was an opportunity to be humble,” Mast said.

She told the audience that she and her fellow deans have heard from Fordham’s students that they want Fordham to commit to combating anti-Blackness and racism at the University. To that end, deans and faculty have engaged in brainstorming sessions and role-playing activities “to discern, perceive, and disrupt racism,” she said, using a phrase that Badowska coined to describe the deans’ approach to the problem.

“We’re reckoning with ourselves, with our history of being indoctrinated with racism,” Mast said. “We need to educate ourselves so we can educate others.”

As part of that reckoning, the four deans and their staffs have undertaken a joint self-education, working with two consultants, Kathy Obear, Ed.D., and Michelle Loyd-Paige, Ph.D. The deans noted that Rainford has been instrumental in pushing them to engage in this process in a way that will benefit the Fordham arts and sciences community as a whole.

Several people in the audience wanted to know how anti-racism would be reflected in the University’s curriculum, and Badowska described some of those efforts.

“There is an initiative to really review and explore the existing core curriculum,” she said, noting that while that process will take some time, departments are already exploring pilot-level curriculum initiatives with the assistance of Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s chief diversity officer, special assistant to the president for diversity, and associate vice president for academic affairs. And since faculty are central to any curricular initiatives, she also described broad efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty, stating that of 26 arts and sciences faculty members hired this year, 46% reported their race as non-white.

The deans, in recent communications to arts and sciences faculty, also highlighted initiatives like the formation of the Deans’ Anti-Racism Advisory Committee, and efforts to develop and implement anti-racism trainings for faculty and first-year students.

Throughout the conversation, the panelists made clear that while work has already started to bring anti-racism to the forefront of Fordham’s arts and sciences education, there is much more to be done, and that these must be ongoing conversations with and among all members of the Fordham community, including alumni.

“We are learning now from one another in ways that are very important, and sometimes very hard, very uncomfortable,” Father McShane said at the close of the discussion. “But they are necessary for us. This endeavor is mission-central, mission-critical, mission-essential.”

This year, six Pioneering Women in Philanthropy will be honored for the personal and financial support they have given Fordham. Leaders in their fields, each one has invested in bettering their communities and the world in their own way. Here, they share their thoughts on the importance of mentorship, empathy, self-confidence, and more on the path to success—for them and for all women.

In cosmetics, which is where I particularly grew up, we had these wonderful [women]  role models. … If you’ve been given this road map and you see that others have gone before you and achieved, you never have in your mind the notion of failure. You have the notion that you can do it too, if you’re good enough and smart enough and make the right decisions.
—Rose Marie Bravo, CBE, TMC ’71

Bravo grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of an Italian-born barber and a seamstress from Sicily. A Bronx High School of Science graduate, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English cum laude at Fordham’s Thomas More College in 1971 and later held leadership positions in several major fashion businesses—including Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. She took over Burberry in 1997 and is widely credited with transforming the classic brand and greatly expanding its markets during her nine-year tenure as CEO. In 2006, Queen Elizabeth II recognized Bravo’s achievements in promoting British fashion, naming her a Commander of the British Empire.

Bravo will deliver a keynote address, “From the Bronx to Buckingham Palace,” at this year’s Women’s Philanthropy Summit.

I entered the work world bolstered by an amazing education in liberal arts that made me feel strong and confident. Still, to rise up the corporate ladder meant more than just feeling confident. I soon learned that it meant persistence and resilience, not being afraid to ask for help, and so much more. I quickly realized the importance of communicating, listening, adaptability, and using words like “us” “we” and “with.” I learned that the best leaders hire strong people, set goals, don’t make excuses, are empathetic, and understand their own self-worth.
—Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., UGE ’62, GSAS ’65, ’71

Dursi Cunniffe grew up in a family of eight, including two brothers who also went to Fordham. Fluent in French and Italian, she studied at the Sorbonne and the University of Perugia as well as Fordham, where she earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in French literature. She had a successful career as an executive in the cosmetics industry and, later, in executive recruiting. She spent 13 years at Revlon, rising to vice president at a time when that title was a rarity for women. She was a senior vice president and the key strategist in recruiting senior talent at Cablevision Systems Corporation before retiring in 2011. Her husband, Maurice “Mo” Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, is a fellow Fordham grad.

From my parents, I was always encouraged to be kind and fair—and to always let people know they are valued and loved. I think women have that capacity to inspire people by their passion, compassion, and empathy. Women stand tall for their beliefs and by nature have the ability to listen and compromise. We know how to bring people together and we are problem solvers.
—Barbara Dane, Ph.D., GSS ’67, ’85

Dane is a retired professor of clinical social work who has maintained a private clinical practice, working with dying and grieving persons and their families, since 1971. She earned both her M.S.W. and Ph.D. in gerontology from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service. She has taught at Fordham, Columbia University, and NYU, and has a substantial publishing record in social work. Dane was awarded a summer fellowship from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on aging, and she was among the first recipients of a social work leadership grant from the Soros Foundation’s Project on Death in America. Her research on Thai women coping with HIV/AIDS and the role of meditation was presented at the Seventh International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Tromsø, Norway.

What I know is that we each have the opportunity to change a life every day, to share wisdom from experiences that can help one another, even if we don’t get to hear the triumphant follow-up story. What counts is what we give to lift others up around us, no matter how big or small our gift may be.
—Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86

Rainford is head of advancing black leaders and diversity advancement strategies at JPMorgan Chase. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham. Prior to joining JPMorgan Chase, she served at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 21 years, where she rose to become the most senior black woman there and the first to rise to senior vice president. The author of an award-winning memoir, Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium (Eloree Press, 2014), she has dedicated much of her life to uplifting others by sharing her story of perseverance, as she did with local Bronx students on the Rose Hill campus in August.

Rainford will deliver a keynote address, “Paying It Forward: A Journey of Resilience and Giving Back,” at this year’s Women’s Philanthropy Summit.

Being a leader is about continuous learning, hands-on engagement, and the power of giving time and resources. Women do this exceptionally well. The challenge is to understand the exciting opportunities for change, and to still find time for self-care and reflection.
—Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82

Conley Salice is the president of the Salice Family Foundation. She also serves on the boards and chairs the development committees of Fordham University, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, and Greenwich Hospital. Before shifting her focus to philanthropy, she worked in the business sector for two decades. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Fordham College at Rose Hill and a master’s degree in fundraising and philanthropy from New York University. She was one of the keynote speakers at the inaugural Women’s Philanthropy Summit in 2017.

Women who have succeeded in business need to discuss how we navigated the workplace. These experiences are especially relevant today as some business leaders and politicians are seeking to erode the progress that women have made in this world. Women continually face discrimination based on their gender and have an especially tough path to managerial roles in many organizations. A man is considered tough when he makes a strong point while a woman is considered to be too emotional when making a similar point in a similar tone of voice. These stereotypes need to be put to rest. We must lead through a combination of common sense, empathy, and determination.
—Donna Smolens, FCRH ’79, GSAS ’81

Smolens has been a senior advisor at Insight Partners, a leading global private equity and venture capital firm, since 2015. Prior to joining Insight, she worked at Portfolio Advisors LLC, was a voting member on the investment committees of numerous Portfolio Advisors funds, and was on the advisory boards of 13 private equity funds. She previously worked at Crossover Ventures, DLJ Securities Private Fund Group, General Motors Investment Management, and New York Life Insurance Company. She graduated from Fordham University with both a B.A. and an M.A. in economics.

“My whole life, I’ve been this kid who’s gone through change and challenge, and I’ve turned that into my competitive energy,” said Rainford, managing director and head of Advancing Black Leaders strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The students from the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the South Bronx gathered at Faber Hall on Aug. 9 to discuss Rainford’s award-winning memoir, Until the Brighter Tomorrow: One Woman’s Courageous Climb from the Projects to the Podium, part of a summer school reading program sponsored by Areté Education, a community academic initiative.

A Bronx native herself, Rainford grew up in the projects, changing homes and schools every year (“if you name a school, I probably went to it”) while her family tried to make ends meet. She endured poverty, a drug culture, domestic violence, the death of her brother, and ultimately the devastating suicide of her mother, which led to Rainford dropping out of Fordham during her sophomore year.

“I had no intention of ever coming back,” she said.  “I lost my way.”

But support from University career advisers and the encouraging words and deeds of her late mother—the daughter of South Carolina sharecroppers with only a sixth-grade education—was seared into Rainford’s consciousness and drew her back into the fold.

“When I returned to Fordham, I wanted to make my mother proud. I feel like she’s been sitting on my shoulder, encouraging me ever since.”

Rainford commuted to Rose Hill and Lincoln Center during the day, returning to the Bronx where she was a cashier and manager at Key Food at night. On her days off from school, she worked at the bank nearby. With an aptitude for numbers and money, she majored in economics and earned her degree.

After meeting with recruiters on campus at Rose Hill, Rainford accepted an offer from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, her employer for the next 21 years, where she rose to become the first black woman to be promoted to senior vice president and the most senior black woman in the Federal Reserve system. But, she said, “I was just a good worker. I wasn’t working for the title.”

At JPMorgan Chase, Rainford continues to work with businesses as they reorganize and restructure. “My sole focus is to figure out how we hire, retain, and advance people who look like you and me,” she told the students, who were of diverse backgrounds.

Rainford says the early hardships she faced provided her with the experience, tools, and tenacity for later success.

“I was good at change. We were always struggling, but I was really good at adjusting and turning personal experience into a gift that no one else around me had,” said Rainford, who joined Fordham’s Board of Trustees in July. “I can look at a situation that everyone else has been staring at for a year and see it differently.”

Rainford signed copies of her book and led roundtable discussions facilitated by Sarah Benis Scheier-Dolberg, Ed.D.; John Garibaldi; and Anthony Baez of Areté Education. At the end of the session, the group presented Rainford with a thank-you card.

One of the students, Mariyam Sumarah, asked if there ever was a time when Rainford wanted to stop trying.

“Well, sometimes you can forget that the fight is worth it,” Rainford said. “It will take a while, but you have to keep at it. People are going to close doors on you. Just never give up.”

Publishers told Rainford that her story was not believable and advised her to restructure the narrative. Rainford refused, and instead launched her own publishing company, Elloree Press, a platform for new and aspiring writers to tell their own stories.

Following the event, the students toured campus venues including Hughes Hall, the Rose Hill home of the Gabelli School of Business; Dealy Hall; and Walsh Family Library, learning about college core classes, adjunct professors, and internships.

Student Leslie Rivas is considering Fordham’s Criminal Justice program. “I would be the first in my family to go to college,” she said. “College will be hard, and I have to be prepared to achieve.”

Another student, Pedro Nunez, reflected on Rainford’s life. “It inspired me and made me want to expand my education and keep doing good,” he said.

Rainford reflected on her own life as well. “In some way, I think God made me go through all that I went through so that I could be here today,” she said. “My purpose on the planet is to be a role model for others. I walk the streets that you walk, and if I can do those things, so can you.”

—Deborah Anders