Fordham Notes: 2010

Monday, December 20, 2010

FCRH Dean's New Book on U.S. Foreign Policy

Michael E. Latham, Ph.D., professor of history and dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, has been getting some advance praise for his new book, The Right Kind of Revolution: Modernization, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the Present (2010, Cornell University Press).

“Michael E. Latham’s readable and insightful book casts recent nation-building undertakings within a century-long history of the faiths—and delusions—of America’s recurrent efforts to ‘modernize’ others. The broad scope of this book recommends it to scholars, policymakers, and citizens alike.”
Emily S. Rosenberg, University of California, Irvine, author of Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion 1890–1945

“Well-written, broad-gauged, and just plain smart, The Right Kind of Revolution ably synthesizes, indeed moves beyond, the scholarship on American efforts to ‘improve’ the Third World. The new standard work on American modernization and development policies, it is has much to teach scholars and graduate students while still being suitable for use in undergraduate courses.”
David Engerman, Brandeis University, author of Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts

Latham is also the author of Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era, and coeditor of Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War and Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective.

Cornell University Press
P.O. Box 6525,
Ithaca, NY 14851-6525
orderbook@cupserv.org

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu
Phone: (607) 277-2211 | Fax: (607) 277-6292

Friday, December 17, 2010

FORDHAMScience: One Fish, Two Fish…

Biologists spend a lot of time studying tiny details to come up with the answers to big questions. Rose Carlson, assistant professor in Fordham’s Department of Biological Sciences, is making a career of darters, fish in the perch family that inhabit the rivers and streams of North America, and most species of which are under three inches in length.

Carlson, who took her doctorate in population biology from U.C. Davis, has logged thousands of hours in the lab and in the field taking note of minute distinctions between darter species from streams in the southeastern United States.

“I’m interested particularly in the diversity of characteristics that have some kind of important function for the species,” Carlson says. “In my dissertation work I focused on characters of the [darter] jaws that we know are going to affect what the species are eating. When you see differences among species in jaw shape you can infer with pretty high confidence that it correlates as in what they’re eating. And then when you put species with different jaw shapes in a community, you can then make another inference: which is that they’re all eating different things, and that perhaps this diversity facilitates coexistence.” (See: “The ecological morphology of darter fishes,” with Peter C. Wainwright, Ph.D.)

One aspect of Carlson’s research is looking at species coexistence and community assembly: how different species can populate a given habitat—in this case some very shallow streams in upstate New York, Tennessee and northern Georgia, to name a few. Small as these streams are, it’s the bottom inch or two that most concerns Carlson: that’s where darter habitat mostly lies, in a slower boundary layer between the streambed and the faster moving water above it.

Her post-doctoral work has focused on understanding the function of differently shaped and sized fins in darter fishes. Darters mostly hold their place on the streambed, eating what is directly in front of or very near them. Occasionally they will dart forward for a morsel of food, or to avoid a predator (mostly birds and bigger fish).

“They kind of sit, for a long time and then move very quickly, explore their area, dart again, sit. That’s kind of the cycle,” Carlson says. “They eat things that are on the bottom for the most part, on the sides and sometimes on tops of rocks—a lot of aquatic invertebrate larvae.”


Right now Carlson measures the maximum stream flow speed in which darters can stay in place. The fish are set up in Plexiglas recirculating flow tanks and given time to acclimate (“They’re freaked out when you first put them in there,” she says). The flow is generated by a propeller calibrated so that the researchers know the flow speed in the tank for set numbers of revolutions per minute. The tanks are filled and the researchers move the darters into a standard position, sitting on the bottom—holding station—and then slowly turn up the flow speed, from a very low speed up to the maximum speed at which the fish can hold position.

“You can see when they start to struggle to hold position,” Carlson says. “That’s one of the types of test that we would do. At other points, when we’re interested in visualizing flow patterns, we’re just interested in having the fish sit in a particular position for a long period of time, not necessarily at its maximum flow speed, just visualizing the water movement over the fin and over the substrate.”

The researchers capture the darters on high speed video. For some of the performance studies they have two views: lateral and dorsal, to capture motion from the side and top. “It’s all contingent upon them having the same type of locomotor behavior,” Carlson says. “If we find they have the same habitat and the same fin shape, that’s strong evidence that fin shape is somehow adaptive in that type of environment.”

The next step, according to Carlson, is to get out in the field and “really make very close observations on what darters are doing,” by measuring where they are in the habitat. She wants to get a better idea of how the laboratory findings translate to nature. That will mean lying in a stream (either in a wet suit or dry suit, depending upon the water temperature), at eye-level with the tiny fish. Carlson says a flow meter that will work in such shallow water is “going to require a little bit engineering and ingenuity… But that’s one of the fun things about fieldwork.”

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lincoln Center of the Past Resurrected in Student Presentation


Long before the area between West 60th and 66th streets became home to Fordham University, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Amsterdam Houses, the beat of life was very different.

On Tuesday, December 7, members of the Fordham College Lincoln Center Honors Program’s class of 2013 described just how different things were. The Lincoln Square History Project, a presentation culled from 61 essays and 400 pictures, explored historical facts that are both well known (Condemnation of 17 blocks of tenement buildings lead to the sites’ construction) and less known (McMahon Hall was once the site of the Grace Institute, a school Sisters of Charity-run school for underprivileged girls).

The School of Law? It was once the site of the 12th Regiment Armory, built in the late 19th century for the then enormous sum $750,000.

“These two buildings serve to show the character of this space before Robert Moses’ urban renewal. Think of the demographic that we serve today. A private institution, and a well to do performing arts center, and think of the buildings that became before, and it may be said, that truly this space could not have changed more under Robert Moses’ direction,” said Max Slade.

Dan Mallia admitted that he was disturbed by the readings about protests that preceded the bulldozing of the neighborhood.

“It was a tough subject to wrap my mind around, because I naturally sympathized with the residents and the lawyer of who lead the resistance,” he said, noting that the proponents of “urban renewal” were case as villains.

“I’m in the midst of my second year at Fordham, and I have yet to find any evidence that Fordham is an evil corporation which revels in displacing poor residents. In fact, I found a lot of evidence to the contrary. A lot of the administration expressed concern that the process should not be abusive and should actually help the area. Furthermore, it is even harder for our generation to feel anger about the renewal, because today we are enjoying the benefits of it.”

The Amsterdam Houses, which were built in 1947 on the other side of Amsterdam Avenue, were constructed in place of demolished tenements, and like the Lincoln Center itself, faced a numerous obstacles. From the start, tensions were high, as residents mistakenly assumed that like Stuyvesant Town, it would exclude black residents. It also didn’t help that, under the theory that more light and air, the better a family will fare, all the homes of in the neighborhood were destroyed.

“They also demolished the storefronts they frequented, the neighborhood hangouts that they were used to hanging out in, and they also demolished everything that made the community what it was. So people began to feel isolated and disoriented,” said Annemarie Gundel.
The Center has seen its ups and downs too. Avery Fisher Hall, Darrya Rosikhina noted, was finished in 1962 after three years of construction, but had such poor acoustics, that it had to be completely gutted and rebuilt nearly from scratch in 1973.

The Juilliard School building, which was completed in 1969 and is home to Alice Tully Hall, has been called a marriage of form and function, but Jacqueline Battaglia noted that the New York City Opera and the New York Philharmonic were given venues that were of lesser quality than the New York City Center and Carnegie Hall, where they came from, respectively.

“In 1959, the owners of Carnegie Hall refused to renew the Philharmonics’ lease, because they were thinking about demolishing the building to build a more profitable office building,” she said.

Still, like Fordham and the Amsterdam Houses, the she said that Lincoln Center has become an integral part of the city’s fabric.

“Despite how and why they ended up at Lincoln Center, or how they changed the Lincoln Square neighborhood once they got here, these arts institutions are an essential part of the culture of New York City,” she said. “They all began here, some almost 200 years ago, and they continue to be some of the most important arts institutions in New York today.”
—Patrick Verel

Friday, December 10, 2010

Theology Scholars to Assess Avery Cardinal Dulles’ Legacy

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Fordham’s former Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, published 750 articles and 23 books on theological topics, including Models of the Church (Doubleday, 1974), Models of Revelation (Doubleday, 1983), The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1985) and The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (Crossroads, 1992).

On Tuesday, Dec. 14, his vast catalogue of scholarship will be the focus of a panel discussion at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus.

Avery Dulles and the Future of Theology will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Pope Auditorium. The publication of Avery Cardinal Dulles: A Model Theologian (Paulist Press, 2010) by Patrick W. Carey will be the point of departure for a panel of theologians to discuss and debate the future of theology in light of Cardinal Dulles’s work.

They will look at both questions that Dulles asked and didn't ask, the answers he gave as a potential foundation for future Catholic theology, and the significance of his method and style for addressing pressing theological issues.

The discussion, which is sponsored by the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, will be moderated by Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology and Co-Founding Director of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Program.

The panel will feature:
Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D., Chair, Fordham Theology Department and Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology;

Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Hofstra University;

Robert P. Imbelli, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College and a priest of the Archdiocese of New York;

Patrick W. Carey, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Marquette University, and author, Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.: A Model Theologian (Paulist Press, 2010);

Miroslav Volf, Ph.D., Director, Yale Center for Faith and Culture, and Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University

The event is free and open to the public. RSVP at CRCevent@fordham.edu or (212) 636-7347

—Patrick Verel

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A Look at Fordham's Festival of Lessons and Carols




The rapture of soft harmonies in candlelight; blending vocals rising from a tiered chorus; the story of the coming of Jesus; a full congregation in song. These are the rituals of Fordham’s annual holiday concert, the Christmas Festival of Lessons and Carols, held Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 on two Fordham campuses.

This year’s event featured the Fordham University Choir and Liturgical Choir, under Robert A. Minotti; the Fordham University Women's Choir, under Stephen Fox; and the Bronx Arts Ensemble. Saturday's program also featured sophomores from the Fordham/Ailey B.F.A. Dance Program.

What a perfect start to the Christmas season.








—Janet Sassi

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

GBA Dean to Lead Event on Handling Rough Economy

David Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration, will lead an upcoming discussion designed to help executives negotiate the harsh economic conditions buffeting the nation and world.

At 8 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 9, Gautschi will facilitate “CFO Thinktank: Shaping the Future of Business,” at the University Club in Midtown Manhattan.

He will present data that suggests the economy in an extended period of uncertainty, and that this is reflected in confusion surrounding business schools’ curricula and emphases.

In the discussion, which will be held in partnership with the CFO Alliance, he will address:
• how CFOs should plan in an era of economic uncertainty and increasing confusion;
• how CFOs can manage through the next crisis and prepare for market changes;
• what CFOs can do to prepare the next generation of financial talent for an evolving business climate.

Tickets are $30 for non-members and basic CFO Alliance members and free to CFO Alliance all-inclusive members and first-time attendees. To register, visit www.AchieveNext.com/events.

—Patrick Verel

Monday, December 6, 2010

Lecture to Dig Deep into Lincoln Center’s Rich History

The area surrounding Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus has a wealth of history that is easy to miss. But in a lecture “The Lincoln Square Project,” students from the Lincoln Center campus Honor’s Program will detail the beginnings of the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, the Amsterdam Houses, the Upper West Side and Fordham’s own eight acre campus, which was established in 1961.

The lecture is sponsored by the Fordham University Lincoln Center Honors’ Program.

When: Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.
Where: Cafeteria Atrium, Lowenstein Center
Contact: Ines Montero, (212) 636-6300
—Patrick Verel

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Fordham Professor Addresses Young Bronx Latinas


If there’s one thing Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Shantee Erasme can tell you about getting to college, it’s that it takes more than good grades.

“Although my parents had somewhat of an education, they couldn’t help me explore colleges,” said Erasme, 20, a Bronx native. “I basically had to get information on my own. I asked teachers, guidance counselors or anyone that could for help.”

Erasme serves as a volunteer with Mentoring Latinas precisely for that reason. She said she loves to offer guidance to middle and high school girls from her home city.

Run out of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), Mentoring Latinas links at-risk middle and high school students with successful Latina college students.

In addition to spending time with their mentors on the Rose Hill campus once or twice a week, the Bronx middle and high schoolers participate in arts and cultural activities. The program is designed to give them experiences to broaden their horizons and prepare them for a college-bound life.

On Nov. 17, mentors and mentees from the program got a dose of inspiration from a Fordham professor who was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and later, Yonkers, N.Y.

Norma Fuentes, Ph.D., assistant professor of Sociology
, told the group of 40 girls how her grandmother in the Dominican Republic raised her while her mother was working in New York City. While her grandmother didn't have a college education, she encouraged Fuentes to work hard to achieve her dreams.

“I tell my daughters to look in the mirror and not feel weird about looking different or having a name that sounds different,” Fuentes said. “I don’t think of myself as a Latina professor, per se, but I do feel privileged. And sometimes I do feel different.”

Fuentes-Mayorga discussed how she worked her way through Columbia University, where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She lightly touched on her comparative research on the immigrant and work integration of first-generation Dominican and Mexican women in New York City, and the relationship between school and labor market integration between second-generation Dominican and Moroccan girls living in New York City and Amsterdam.

It was an opportunity to hear about how education leads to success from a person who looked just like them.

Fuentes-Mayorga told the girl to set their differences aside and focus on how being bilingual is a strength.

“You’re the cream of the crop, I can tell,” she said. “You are growing up in two cultures. You will take the best from your parents and the best of U.S. education to be the best.”

Gina Vergel

GSS Welcomes Rogler Fellowship



Faculty and friends of the Graduate School of Social Science (GSS) gathered on Dec. 1 to welcome the inaugural recipient of a fellowship funded by Lloyd H. Rogler, Ph.D., Fordham’s Albert Schweitzer Professor Emeritus in the Humanities (above, left).

The endowed fellowship was awarded to Donna Dopwell (above, right), a second-year doctoral student of social work who is specializing in the study of Hispanics. Going forward, the endowed fellowship will completely fund one GSS doctoral student per year.

Rogler, who spent more than 50 years as an author, academic and medical researcher, said he made the gift to help advance the social work profession’s cultural competence by funding doctoral students studying Hispanic life and culture.

Dopwell will be working with Claudia Moreno, Ph.D., associate professor of social work, on the effects of HIV Aids within the Latin American community, with a special emphasis on those of Puerto Rican heritage.

During his 27-year teaching career at Fordham, Rogler founded the Hispanic Research Center with funding from competitive grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He is the author of eight academic books and, most recently, a fictionalized memoir, Barrio Professors: Tales of Naturalistic Research (Left Coast Press, 2008).

“Lloyd has always been a pioneer in cultural competence,” said Peter Vaughan, dean of the GSS, “and someone who has always supported students who can carry on the research that he began.”

Janet Sassi

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Student Activist Tells How He Took On Diebold and Won

A student who successfully sued industrial security giant Diebold spoke on Nov. 19 at Fordham Law about copyright law, free culture and privacy issues in an increasingly technological world.

When Nelson Pavlosky was an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, he sued Diebold in a precedent-setting case aimed at protecting freedom of speech from the abuse of copyright law.

In 2003, internal Diebold e-mails that focused on flaws in the company’s electronic voting machines were brought to light by hackers who retrieved them from the company’s computer network.

For example, in one message, an employee wrote that in the 2000 presidential recount, one district had recorded Al Gore receiving negative 16,000 votes. Another employee mentioned that when a voting machine would not cooperate during a demonstration, that employee would fake the results.

To alert the public to the problems with Diebold’s software, Pavlosky and his peers published the e-mails online. Diebold responded with a claim of copyright infringement and threats of legal action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).

Pavlosky joined forces with the Online Policy Group (OPG) to file counter-litigation asserting that Diebold’s claim of copyright infringement was illegitimate.

Pavlosky argued that the e-mails fell under fair use copyright laws because:
• he wasn’t making a profit,
• it was in the public interest,
• the e-mails were not creative works,
• Diebold was not losing profits over the e-mails, and
• by publishing all 13,000 e-mails in their entirety, the public could discover for itself what information was troubling.

In the end, Diebold was found to have abused the DMCA by claiming a violation of copyright laws occurred when it knew no such violation actually took place—all in an attempt to restrain legitimate speech.

After winning the case, Pavlosky co-founded Students for Free Culture, a student activist group that promotes awareness about technology, copyright and free culture issues, affects changes in policy on the local and federal levels, and trains the next generation of activists. The group has branches at universities across the country, including Fordham Law.

—Jenny Hirsch

Friday, November 19, 2010

What is Entrepreneurial Discipleship?

A new model of the church that harnesses collective innovation, community-based initiative and creativity to respond to the calling of Christ.

WHO: Robert Brancatelli, Ph.D., visiting professor at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, and David Gautschi, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration.
WHAT: A lecture discussing Entrepreneurial Discipleship
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 29
WHERE: St. Francis of Assisi Church at 135 W. 31st St.

The lecture is sponsored by the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education. For more information, visit www.fordham.edu/gre or call (718) 817-4800.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Opus Prize Ceremony

Beatrice Chipeta, R.S., director of the Lusubilo Orphan Care Project in Malawi, Africa, and John Halligan, S.J., founder of the Working Boys’ Center (WBC) in Quito, Ecuador, were named as co-recipients of the million-dollar annual Opus Prize on Nov. 11 in a special ceremony at Fordham University.



See the full story: "Two Unsung Heroes of Faith Receive Opus Award"

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Humanitarian Experts in Goa, India


The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs in Goa, India

From Left to right: Florian Razesberger, Arancha Garcia, Larry Hollingworth, Argentina Szabados and Gonzalo Sanchez-Teran

The academic team of the 32nd International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance program visit the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, where they are currently teaching humanitarian aid professionals.

For more information go to the Institute's website, www.fordham.edu/iiha

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Join In Conservation Biology Conversations This Friday

A series of lectures focusing on conservation biology, by representatives from the New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) will take place at the Flom Auditorium in the William D. Walsh Library at Rose Hill on Friday, Nov. 19 beginning at 9:30 a.m.

The lecture schedule is as follows:

9:45 a.m.: James Miller, Ph.D., dean and vice president for science at the NYBG’s International Plant Science Center, on “Research to Inform Conservation: Assessing Risk of Extinction for the World’s Plant Species.”,
10:45 a.m.: Joshua Ginsberg, Ph.D., senior vice president and deputy chief conservation officer at the WCS, on “The Impact of Scale on Conservation Interventions;” and
11:15 a.m., George Amato, Ph.D., director of the Center for Conservation Genetics at AMNH, on “The DNA Barcoding Initiative for Conservation of Biodiversity: An International Partnership.”
The lectures represent an effort to strengthen Fordham’s Conservation Biology program as well as its partnership programs with the three institutions.

In the afternoon, faculty who are interested in learning more about grant proposal writing in the sciences can attend a 1 p.m. session moderated by John Wehr, Ph.D., professor of biology and director of Fordham’s Calder Center.

There will also be a brainstorming session to explore ways in which to collaborate in the field of conservation biology. Steven Franks, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, and Evon Hekkala, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, will moderate the session.

The event is sponsored by Fordham's Dean of Faculty, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Fordham College at Rose Hill and the Department of Biology. For more information, contact Amy Tuininga, Ph.D., associate dean for strategic initiatives, partnerships & assessment at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and associate professor of biology. To register, go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/JHG2SRH

Friday, November 12, 2010

Opus Winners, Up Close and Personal

Last night's Opus Prize co-recipients, Beatrice Chipeta, R.S., director of the Lusubilo Orphan Care Project in Malawi, Africa, and John Halligan, S.J., founder of the Working Boys’ Center (WBC) in Quito, Ecuador, have touched so many lives that words alone cannot do their work justice. Our own Office of Marketing and Communications officer Michael Foley shot more than 40 hours of video of the two humanitarians doing what they do, day in and day out, to empower the poor in the countries where they reside.

The footage has been reduced to two eight-minute clips, which premiered last night at the Opus Awards ceremony at Rose Hill. First, Father Halligan in Quito:



And Sister Chipeta in Karonga, Malawi.



The unmistakable voice is Fordham's own William F. Baker, Ph.D., the Claudio Aquaviva Chair and Journalist in Residence and president emeritus of WNET.

—Janet Sassi

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Now Playing on Fordham’s Youtube Channel . . .

Fordham University will welcome Sister Beatrice Chipeta and John Halligan, S.J., to its Rose Hill campus tomorrow, Nov. 11, for the announcement of the winner of the 2010 Opus Awards.

If you want a better idea of what these two Unsung Heroes have done to deserve the Opus Foundation’s attention and consideration, visit Fordham's YouTube Channel and watch clips of them both. First, Sister Beatrice Chipeta:




And Father John Halligan




The award will be announced Thursday, Nov. 11 at 5:15 p.m in Keating First on the Rose Hill campus.

—Janet Sassi

Fordham to Host Veterans' College Fair and Forum


Fordham’s Westchester campus will host a College Fair for Veterans on Thursday, Nov. 18, from 4 to 7 p.m. Along with Fordham, all of Westchester County’s major colleges and universities will be on hand to provide information to veterans seeking to continue their education at the undergraduate or graduate level.

A representative of the NYS Division of Veterans Affairs will also be on hand to answer questions about the Post 9-11 GI Bill and the Yellow Ribbon Program, which Fordham participates in.

After the College Fair, Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) will present “Serving Those Who Served,” a panel discussion on supporting active duty military, veterans, and their families. Mary Ann Forgey, Ph.D., associate professor at the GSS, will discuss military culture. Sgt. Arthur Moore, a Vietnam veteran, and SPC Fianna Sogomonyan, who served in Iraq, will tell their stories.

Paul Tobin, president of VetsFirst, and Elizabeth Rahilly and Kristen Tuttle, social workers with the Veterans Administration of Hudson Valley, will share their work with veterans and their families. The discussion, which begins at 7 p.m., is open to the public and free of charge.

Fordham’s Westchester Campus is located at 400 Westchester Avenue in West Harrison, N.Y.
For directions and details, visit www.fordham.edu/westchester

--Gina Vergel

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Fordham Community Hails its Unsung Heroes

Last week, in anticipation of the Opus Prize Awards honoring some of the world’s unsung humanitarian heroes, Fordham’s news and media relations blog invited the University community to submit their own stories of people who work quietly for the betterment of the world.

Below are some of the responses.

Luke Carriére, FCRH ’04: “My unsung hero is the late Guy Bevil, who founded Amigos de las Americas in 1965, which continues to this day to partner with Latin American organizations to create young leaders and empower poor communities through cross-cultural experiences.”

Angela Belsole, grants and special projects officer in the Graduate School of Social Service:
"Sister Beth Dowd, OSU, the founder and executive director of Songcatchers, Inc. Sister Beth (pictured left) founded Songcatchers over 30 years ago in New Rochelle, N.Y. It offers quality music instruction for disadvantaged children and youth in the New Rochelle area, with a stated mission of ‘reaching for peace through music.’ It largely serves the children from Mexican immigrant families by offering lessons at $5 each. In addition to the after-school program (the music instruction), there is also an intergenerational concert choir, a choir camp during the summer and a music program for very young children.”

For Gena Clark, GSE ’90: Pastor Oren Harris of Plainsboro, N.J., is an unsung hero. The Free Methodist minister counseled Clark when she was going through a difficult time and does so for many others who have been hurt through betrayal. “Pastor Harris believes in restoration in a world where cynicism is the norm and betrayal and adultery are tolerated.”

Kristen Clonan, FCLS ’08: Fordham College of Liberal Studies Professor Thomas J. Callahan. “At a point in which I had almost given up, he made me believe I had talent and challenged me, leading to my career in the field of journalism. Great man, professor, motivator, role model.”

And Paul Francis, director of Fordham Global Outreach, provided three unsung heroes he has met through GO:

Father Martin Keaveny—a missionary priest in Colinas, Brazil, since 1994. Fordham’s GO Brazil team works with his parish, which covers a huge area and which is located in one of the poorest areas of Brazil. Father Keaveny formerly served at St. Philip Neri parish in the Bronx before heading to Brazil.”

Father Tim Murphy, (pictured right) a Glenmary priest who works in rural Mississippi. In addition to being parish priest and doing prison ministry, Father Murphy organizes a camp for kids in the summer. Fordham’s GO Mississippi team works at the camp, which services many local children from foster families and low-income households.

Terilyn Burg, a volunteer at Stand Up for Kids in San Diego, which is a drop-in center for homeless teens. She organizes Fordham’s GO students, who work with them over spring break. Burg holds a full-time job and does volunteering on the side.

And Maria Noonan, assistant director in the Office for Prestigious Fellowships, names Father John Flynn. "(He) served at St. Raymond's parish during the 1960s and 70s -- during the time I attended grammar school in the parish. He is (and always has been) a true inspiration to others! He recently retired from St. Martin of Tours due to problems with his health. He is an unsung hero -- for me and for many others whose lives he has touched.

To hear more stories of unsung heroes, visit the Opus Prize site and please attend the Opus Awards Ceremony at 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 11 in Keating First on the Rose Hill campus. You can RSVP here.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Feerick Center Wins Pro Bono Award


The Feerick Center for Social Justice has been awarded the 2010 New York State Courts Access to Justice Program Pro Bono Star Award at a ceremony held in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The Center received the award on Oct. 25 on behalf of its Civil Legal Advice and Resource Office (CLARO). The award recognizes Fordham Law’s outstanding work in responding to the severe burdens placed on the court system by the consumer debt crisis.

Since its launch in February, 2008, CLARO Manhattan has helped over 700 litigants, drawing upon the services of 120 volunteer lawyers and 100 law student volunteers. A similar program was launched for the Bronx in 2009, and has assisted more than 730 litigants.

The award was presented jointly by the New York State Office of Court Administration, the New York State Bar Association, and the Office of the Mayor of New York. Above, Hon. Jeffrey Hong, supervising judge of the New York City Civil Court, presents a citation and crystal "star" award to Dora Galacatos (left), adjunct professor of law, and Wilma Lopez (right), administrative and programmatic assistant, of the Feerick Center.

- Janet Sassi

Center Gallery Brings a Bit of Backstreet Tokyo to NYC


(Untitled, by Kota Sake)

Last year, a former Fuji film 35-minute processing lab in the Araiyakushi district of Tokyo became the monthly showcase for an unconventional collective of photographers. The space was so small and the shows proved so popular that Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, a Fordham professor spending a semester in Japan, often found it hard to get inside.

The space showcased the artists, known as the 35minutesmen, for only one year. But the photographs, coupled with the act of creating one’s own exhibit space, so impressed Apicella-Hitchcock that he decided to bring the work to Fordham’s Center Gallery.

On Saturday, Nov. 6, the Center Gallery opens its doors on “35minutesmen”, a photo exhibit of a seven-artist collective that Apicella-Hitchcock calls an “an anomaly of the Tokyo art world.”

“They are seven artists who said, ‘let’s do this ourselves,’ which is unheard of in the very insulated Tokyo art world,” said Apicella-Hitchcock, who is co-curating the show with Anibal Pella-Woo, adjunct professor of visual arts.

"We thought it would be wonderful for our students to see these artists’ ‘do it yourself’ strategy to showing their work, now more than ever, because today nobody knocks down the door to offer most artists a chance to show their work," he said. "Their communal spirit and energy will hopefully serve as encouragement for young photographers and emerging artists to create their own peer support structure and exhibition opportunities."

More than just an art show, said Apicella-Hitchcock, the 35minutesmen exhibits created a blurring of the boundaries between art and everyday life, one in which the shows themselves led viewers to socially interact and create a community around the shows and their openings.

The 35minutesmen consist of photographers 大同朋子 Tomoko Daido, 福村順平 Junpey Fukumura, ペイ PAI, 酒航太 Sake Kota, 長広恵美子 Emiko Nagahiro, 真田敬介 Keisuke Sanada, and 塩田正幸 Masayuki Shioda.

Apicella-Hitchcock and Pella-Woo chose the Center Gallery show from a year’s worth of images sent via email from all seven artists, in black and white, color, Polaroids, and both digital and film-based photos. Also available will be a catalog of their work, said Apicella-Hitchcock.
The opening reception will be held on Friday, Nov. 12 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Center Gallery, Lowenstein Center, Lincoln Center campus. The show will be on display every day from 8 am. to 8 p.m. through December 19th.

As a complement to the show, Apicella-Hitchcock will be teaching a four-credit course this December in “Photography in the Documentary Tradition: Japan,” that includes a trip to Tokyo and Kyoto over the Christmas and New Year’s break.

-- Janet Sassi

Zen At Fordham | UPDATE

Roshi Robert Kennedy, S.J., will now be joining us on Tuesday, November 16 (rather than November 9), to sit, give a talk and take questions about interfaith Zen practice.

Sensei Ray Ruzan Cicetti of Empty Bowl Zendo in Morristown will visit on Tuesday, November 30, to give a talk and take questions. A dharma heir of Roshi Kennedy, he is a psychotherapist in private practice.

Sensei Michael Holleran, a Fordham alumnus and former Carthusian monk, joins us on the fourth Tuesday of every month to give a talk and daisan. He is a parish priest in New York City and a dharma heir of Roshi Kennedy.

Zen practice is held every Tuesday evening from 6:10 to 7:45 p.m., in the Blessed Rupert Mayer Chapel at the Lowenstein Center at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus.

Free and open to all, no registration required. Beginner instruction is given whenever ecessary.

For more information on this branch of the White Plum Asanga, visit www.kennedyzen.org.

The Fordham Interfaith Zen Sitting Group is based on the teaching of Robert Kennedy, S.J., Roshi, who began his Zen practice in Japan when he was sent there as a young priest. He and his dharma heirs support the Fordham Sitting Group by coming to teach each semester.

Sensei Paul Schubert, also a dharma heir of Roshi, joins us the first Tuesday of every month. Sensei Paul was a research chemist, recently taking early retirement to teach science to high school kids. He and his wife Peggy run City Tiger Zen and a sitting group at Xavier.

Roshi Kennedy was interviewed by Tom Fox at the National Catholic Reporter last year: listen to the podcast, in which he describes how he first came to Zen.

For More Information:
Roshi Kennedy: www.kennedyzen.org
Michael Holleran
Paul Schubert

Free and open to all, no registration necessary. Sponsored by the Office of Campus Ministry.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Poets Out Loud: Performance, Symposium and Contest

Poetry, Music, and Visual Arts

Thursday, November 4, 2010 | 7 p.m.
Poets Out Loud at Fordham University
presents
featuring
Anna Rabinowitz
Bino Realuyo
with graduate student
Amanda M. Calderón
in conjunction with
Turning Tides: A Symposium on Diasporic Literature

12th Floor Lounge | Lincoln Center Campus
Reception & Book Signing to follow
Free and open to the public


Turning Tides: A Symposium on Diasporic Literatures

Saturday, November 6, 2010 | 1 p.m.
McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center Campus
www.turningtides.squarespace.com

This creative and scholarly symposium which will highlight three different legacies of diaspora in the United States: Haiti, The Philippines and Puerto Rico. Each panel will feature a short scholarly talk, a reading by two writers followed by a moderated conversation. What do Filipino American writers take for granted, in terms of artistic freedom? In what political and aesthetic ways are Puerto Rican writers employing creative disobedience? Until January 2010, descendents of the Haitian diaspora could call Haiti their home—that geography has been rent. What kind of scattering will result? And, how will it be told by writers?

The principle aim of Turning Tides is to involve prominent artists and scholars in an exchange of ideas for the purpose of proactively responding to the growing phenomena of American diaspora as it is in the making and to ground and contextualize this conversation within a critical understanding of a larger global history.
Free and Open to the Public.
  • 1 p.m. Opening Remarks: Yvette Christiansë
  • 1:15 p.m. Panel on Haiti: After the Earthquake with J. Michael Dash, Denize Lauture, Yolaine M. St. Fort
  • 2:15 p.m. Panel on Puerto Rico: Creative Disobedience in New Nuyorican Writing with Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Willie Perdomo, Edwin Torres
  • 3:15 p.m. Break
  • 3:30 p.m. Panel on the Philippines: The Artist as Activist with Nerissa S. Balce, Bino Realuyo, Melissa Roxas
  • 4:30 p.m. Reading and Reception
Speakers

Nerissa S. Balce is Assistant Professor of Asian American literature at Stony Brook University’s Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. She was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. She worked as a journalist in Manila, writing articles on Philippine literature, politics, culture and the arts. She took doctoral studies at the University of California-Berkeley where she received a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies. Before joining Stony Brook University, she taught at the University of Oregon’s Ethnic Studies Program as a post-doctoral fellow, and at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst as an Assistant Professor of comparative literature. She is currently completing a book manuscript on American imperialism as a visual language and the image of the Filipino savage.

Yvette Christiansë is a novelist, poet, and scholar. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was raised in that city, and Cape Town, as well as Mbabane, Swaziland. In her late teens her family moved to Australia to escape apartheid. Her first full volume of poetry, Castaway, which was nominated for the PEN International prize. In 2006, she published the novel, Unconfessed, which was a finalist for the Hemingway/PEN Prize for first fiction and recipient of the 2007 ForeWord Magazine BEA Award. She teaches African American and postcolonial literatures, as well as poetics, at Fordham University.

Daniel Contreras is the author of What Have You Done to My Heart: Unrequited Loved and Gay Latino Culture and is Assistant Professor of English at Fordham University. His new work focuses on Latino literature and the problem of mediation.

Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé is Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Fordham University in New York. He is author of Queer Latino Testimonio, Keith Haring, and Juanito Xtravaganza: Hard Tails (Palgrave 2007), a book about the relationship between high art and Latino popular culture in the gentrifying New York of the 1980s. He is also author of a study on the prose fiction of one of Latin America’s most important twentieth-century writers, José Lezama Lima, El primitivo implorante (Rodopi 1994), and coeditor with Martin Manalansan of Queer Globalization: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism (New York UP 2002). He teaches courses on contemporary Caribbean literatures and New York in Latino literature and film at Fordham. He has been the recipient of the NEH and Ford Foundation fellowships and has been invited professor at Harvard, Emory, and the University of Pennsylvania.

J. Michael Dash is Professor of French at New York University and director of the Africana Studies Program. He is the author of Literature and Ideology in Haiti (1981), Haiti and the United States (1988), Édouard Glissant (1995), The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context (1998), and Culture and Customs of Haiti (2001); editor (with Charles Arthur) of Libete: A Haiti Anthology (1999); and translator of Gisèle Pineau's The Drifting of Spirits (1999). He is currently at work on a manuscript entitled "Surrealism in the Francophone Caribbean."

Luis H. Francia who has lived in New York since the 1970s is the author of several other books, including Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago, which won both the 2002 PEN Center Open Book and the 2002 Asian American Writers literary awards. His poetry collections include the recently released The Beauty of Ghosts (performed as theater at Topaz Arts in 2007); Museum of Absences; and The Arctic Archipelago and Other Poems. He is also the author of A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos, published this year. He edited Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Philippine Literature in English, and co-edited, with Eric Gamalinda, Fiippin’: Filipinos on America, and, with Angel Velasco Shaw, Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999. He writes an online column for Manila’s Philippine Daily Inquirer and teaches creative writing at the City University of Hong Kong, literature at Hunter College, and Tagalog Language and Culture at New York University.

Denize Lauture's poety has appeared in Callaloo, Black American Literature Forum, African Commentary, Drumvoices and Bomb. He has written four volumes of poetry. In Creole: The Blues of the Lightning Metamorphosis, The Curse of Sincerity River's Samba. In English: When the Denizen Weeps, The Black Warrior and Other Poems and children's books: Father and Son (nominated for the 1993 NAACP Image Award), Running the Road to ABC (winner of the 1996 Coretta Scott King Award) and Mother and Daughters.

Willie Perdomo is a prize-winning Nuyorican poet and children's book author. He is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime (W. W. Norton & Company, 1996) Postcards of El Barrio (Isla Negra Press, 2002), and Smoking Lovely (Rattapallax Press, 2003), which received a PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and recently was a Woolrich Fellow in Creative Writing at Columbia University. He is co-founder/publisher of Cypher Books and teaches in New York City.

Bino A. Realuyo is the author of The Umbrella Country, a novel, and The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, a poetry collection. His works have appeared in The Nation, The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, New Letters, and several anthologies. For the past fifteen years, he has worked as an Adult Educator and Community Organizer in underserved communities in New York City. He can be found on the web at binoarealuyo.com. He recently founded a social enterprise for low-skilled, low-wage immigrant workers, We Speak America.

Melissa Roxas is a Filipino American poet who has won fellowships from PEN USA Rosenthal Emerging Voices and Kundiman. She is co-founder of Habi Ng Kalinangan, a Los Angeles-based Filipino cultural organization dedicated to promoting community empowerment and progressive social change. In May 2009, while on a medical mission in Tarlac, Philippines, she was abducted at gunpoint and held against her will for six days until her surfacing in Quezon City. She campaigns today for the safety of activists in the Philippines.

Yolaine M. St. Fort is a writer of Haitian descent. In 2000, she received an M.A. in Creative Writing from Long Island University. Her thesis was a novel titled My Shadows in the Mirror. She’s had her prose and poetry published in Downtown Brooklyn, Prose Ax, Calabash, Vwa: Poems for Haiti, Poetry in Performance, General Authority: Earthquake 2010, For The Crowns Of Your Heads: Poems For Haiti, and The Caribbean Writer (forthcoming) . She has also written a second novel titled Hear Their Echoes. She’s currently working on a collection of short stories and a poetry manuscript. She teaches English at Edward R. Murrow High School and sometimes adjuncts at Long Island University. She is the adviser for the school’s literary magazine called The Magnet.

Edwin Torres is a recepient of poetry fellowships from The Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art, the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and The Poetry Fund and his CD Holy Kid was part of The Whitney Museum's exhibition, The American Century Pt. II. Edwin is currently co-editing POeP! an eJournal, and Cities Of Chance: An Anthology of New Poetry from The United States and Brazil, both from Rattapallax Press.

Free and Open to the Public. Sponsored in part by Ports Out Loud
See website for full details: www.turningtides.squarespace.com


Poets Out Loud Prize Deadline

Monday, November 15, 2010

The POL Prize awards $1,000 and publication to a full-length poetry manuscript. For the first time this year, two volumes will be published by Fordham University Press.

Judge: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
For more information and guidelines go to: www.fordham.edu/pol
To submit online, go to: pol.submishmash.com/Submit

CONTACT:
Poets Out Loud
Fordham University
113 W. 60th Street, Room 924i
New York, NY 10023
(212) 636-6792
www.fordham.edu/pol
pol@fordham.edu

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Fordham Shatters Silence at ‘Take Back the Night’ Event

On Oct. 21, the Fordham community took back the night.

About 65 students, alumni and faculty members, as well as several speakers and other supporters, gathered in the wind on Robert Moses Plaza for the third annual “Take Back the Night” event at Fordham. The vigil and forum gives voice to the survivors of sexual, domestic, and LGBTQ-related violence.

The event was sponsored by Isis, a student organization at the Lincoln Center campus that facilitates discussions on feminist aspects of the political, intellectual and cultural climates of the world.

Students shared stories about their experiences and stories about family members and friends who were victims of violence. In addition, several students performed music focused on the themes of love, compassion, support and putting an end to hate.

Fordham faculty in attendance included Keith Eldredge, dean of students at the Lincoln Center campus; Vincent DeCola, S.J.; Sofia Bautista Pertuz, assistant dean and director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs; and Margaret Schwartz, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication and media studies and the Isis faculty adviser.

Ten speakers from outside the Fordham community joined in the discussion about violence. They shared their experiences of living through violence and working with organizations that try to curb violence.

The vigil ended with a student reading Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise.”

Following the forum was a debriefing session facilitated by psychologists from Counseling and Psychological Services at the Lincoln Center campus. Topics of discussion included gender violence and not blaming the victim.
—Jenny Hirsch

Tell Us About Your Unsung Heroes



What makes a hero? To kids, it might be a comic book character with a cape; to students, it might be that special teacher who imparts a lesson that inspires them to live their dreams. Or it could be a first responder who makes a daring rescue in the line of duty.

There are countless untold stories about people who walk among us who are working to change the world, one small act at a time. These persons are our unsung heroes.

On Nov. 11, Fordham University is shining the spotlight on ordinary people doing extraordinary things when it hosts the Opus Prize 2010 on the Rose Hill campus. The Prize recognizes faith-based humanitarian leaders from all around the world who tackle some of the most persistent global problems and who, in the process, show a deep commitment to service and inspiring social entrepreneurship.

Past recipients of the award may not be household names, but they are larger than life in the eyes of those that they serve. Recipients include:

-- Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, a pediatrician who founded an innovative public health program in Brazil that taps 265,000 volunteers to help raise poor children with dignity;

--Aïcha Ech Channa, founder of Morocco’s Association Solidarité Féminine, which helps unmarried women with children gain the skills needed to support themselves; and

-- Brother Stan Goetschalckx, whose AHADI International Institute in Tanzania helps refugees from the war-torn nations of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi earn their high school diplomas.

As a private and independent foundation, the Opus Prize Foundation has already chosen its nominees for this year’s award, to be announced at Keating Hall on Nov. 11.

However, we would like to invite faculty, administrators, students, alumni and other members of the Fordham community to share with us your stories of the unsung heroes in your own lives.

Please post an entry here on our blog, via email or a comment on Facebook about that special person whom you feel has worked large or small to empower the disenfranchised, bring opportunity to the poorest, and inspire others toward lives of service.

Entries will be shared with the Fordham community on Nov. 9 through Fordham’s SPOTLIGHT daily calendar, and will be posted on the News and Media Relations blog.

Don’t forget. No act of service is without merit.

And don’t forget to attend the Opus Awards on the Fordham campus on Nov. 11. Go to www.fordham.edu/opusprize to RSVP.

Free Seminar on Fundraising to be Held at Fordham

The Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP) will be hosting a free fundraising seminar for leaders and workers of non-profit organizations on Monday, Nov. 1, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Room 633, Dealy Hall, on the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx.

“We at the Bronx African American History Project are very excited to offer this opportunity to the students and community organizations we work with,” said Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor and chair of African and African-American studies. “I strongly recommend that Fordham students and alums with interest in the non-profit world attend this seminar as jobs in fundraising and development are always available even in a recession.”

Fordham alumna Molly Neville (FCRH ’06) and Tricia Keck of OAC Productions will lead the seminar. Neville once served as an event planner for the BAAHP and has had a successful career as a fundraiser and event planner in the Boston metropolitan area since graduating from Fordham.

Lunch will be served but space is limited. Those interested in participating should call (718) 817-3748 to RSVP.

Gina Vergel

Friday, October 22, 2010

U.N. Diplomat Outlines Road Ahead for Sudan in New Book


A first-hand look at one man’s lifelong efforts to advance peace and cooperation among the Sudanese is the subject of a new book published by the Fordham University Press.

Sudan at the Brink: Self-Determination and National Unity (Fordham University Press, 2010) was authored by Francis Mading Deng, United Nations under-secretary-general and special adviser on the prevention of genocide. Kevin M. Cahill, M.D., director of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham, has written the foreward.

Deng, an expert on conflict management and U.S.-Africa relations, gave a lecture on constitutionalism in Africa at Fordham in April 2009.

He has served as Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, as Sudan's Ambassador to the Nordic countries, Canada and the United States of America and as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Sudan.

More information on the new book can be found here.

Gina Vergel

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Fordham RETC to Leave 'Lights on After Dark'


Fordham’s RETC—Center for Professional Development will participate in “Lights on After School,” the official celebration of after-school programs, on Thursday, Oct. 21, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

“We will be celebrating along with communities nationwide in order to raise awareness about the importance of after school programs for students,” said Theresa R. Lupo, a professional developer with the RETC. “We are excited to share the success of our students with the community!”

The open house event, which is for parents, community partners and the Fordham community, will include a presentation about the RETC’s Community Learning Center (CLC). Attendees will also participate in raffles, enjoy refreshments and even see CLC students at work.

In Manhattan, the Empire State Building will light up in honor of this event and after school programs across the city will sponsor exciting events that allow students and families to express what these programs have meant to them.

Across the country, some 7,500 events are scheduled to take place. This nationwide rally for afterschool programs is organized by the Afterschool Alliance.

According to the Afterschool Alliance:

• More than 15 million school-age children (26 percent) are on their own after school.

• Among them are more than 1 million are in grades K to 5. Only 8.4 million K-12 children (15 percent) participate in afterschool programs.

• An additional 18.5 million would participate if a quality program were available in their community.

• The hours between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. are the peak hours for juvenile crime and experimentation with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and sex.

For more information about the RETCs 21st Century Community Learning Center, visit their website.


--Gina Vergel

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

WFUV Second Annual Big Broadcast “Rent Party”

The Manhattan Rhythm Kings, Terry Burrell, Bryan Wright
and Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks Perform at
The Second Annual Big Broadcast “Rent Party”
Wednesday, October 20th at 7:00 PM


New York, NY – The Second Annual Big Broadcast “Rent Party,” an evening of music with Jazz Age roots benefiting WFUV (90.7 FM, wfuv.org), will take place on Wednesday, October 20th at 7:00 PM at 320 Park Avenue. The event will include performances by The Manhattan Rhythm Kings, Terry Burrell, Bryan Wright and Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, while Big Broadcast host Rich Conaty emcees throughout the evening. Tickets include cocktails, buffet dinner and performance and are available at $2,000 for tables of four and $500 or $250 for individuals. More information can be found at www.wfuv.org/bigbroadcast.


In the 1920s, money-crunched New Yorkers would throw “rent parties” to raise some fast cash. Entertaining their guests with performances by singers and jazz bands, hosts would raise funds to meet their month’s rent. Public radio station WFUV will revive this ritual at the Big Broadcast Rent Party, where performers will pay homage to Milton Ager, whose hits included “Ain’t She Sweet,“ “Happy Days are Here Again” and “Happy Feet,“ which was performed by The Manhattan Rhythm Kings and Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator.“ In an additional nod to the era, a part of ragtime pianist Bryan Wright’s performance will be captured on original 100 year-old Edison cylinder recording equipment by phonograph expert Peter Dilg.

“We’re all very excited to present another evening of this wonderful music in such an unmatched setting. And we hope to capture the fun an excitement found the grooves of those old 78 RPM records I get to play on the program every week,” says Conaty, who has been hosting the program since 1973.

“Rich is doing important work with his program on WFUV and his listeners came out to last year’s rent party in full force to show their appreciation. Everybody seemed to have so much fun that we decided to make the rent party an annual tradition,” said WFUV General Manager Ralph Jennings.

Airing on WFUV every Sunday evening at 8:00 PM, The Big Broadcast has featured classic jazz and pop tunes of the 1920s and '30s for more than 35 years, and its focus has remained on the vast amount of music produced in this relatively brief period. Over the years the program has expanded from one to four hours and has found loyal online listeners as far away as Hawaii, Australia and Thailand.

The Manhattan Rhythm Kings started performing together on the sidewalks of New York in 1980 and graduated to playing cabarets, colleges and concert halls across the country. In 1992, they were featured as Mingo, Moose, and Sam, a trio of crooning bumpkins, in the “new” Tony Award-winning Gershwin musical “Crazy for You.” �

Terry Burrell's Broadway credits include “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Swinging On A Star,” Stephen Sondheim’s “Into The Woods,” Michael Bennett’s “Dreamgirls,” “Honky Tonk Nights,” “Eubie” and the first London production of “Showboat.” In addition, Terry is a seasoned cabaret artist who’s performed her nightclub act for audiences from Monte Carlo to the Caribbean.

Bryan Wright began piano studies at the age of fivee and holds degrees in Musicology from the College of William and Mary and the University of Pittsburgh. He has hosted popular radio programs dedicated to ragtime, traditional jazz and big bands. Wright founded Rivermont Records in 2004 as a way of preserving music for the first half of the 20th century.

A big-band historian and collector, Vince Giordano has more than 60,000 scores in his collection. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks are renowned on the New York scene for their commitment to preserving and authentically presenting 1920s and ‘30s jazz and popular music. He and his band can be seen currently in Martin Scorsese’s HBO’s series “Boardwalk Empire.” Vince and The Nighthawks perform every Monday and Tuesday evenings at Sofia’s Restaurant/ Club Cache.

For press passes to the Big Broadcast Rent Party, please contact Eva Dilmanian, 646-675-8550 or eva@buzzwordpr.com.

WFUV is a non-commercial, listener-supported public radio station, licensed to Fordham University for over 60 years. Serving the New York area as well as an international audience on the web, and a leader in contemporary music radio, WFUV is Rock & Roots Radio, offering an eclectic mix of rock, singer-songwriters, blues, world and other music, plus headlines from National Public Radio and local news.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

International Journalists to Attend Workshop at Fordham

Fordham's Program in Public Communications will host a group of United Nations journalism fellows on Oct. 13 and 14 on the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx.

The journalists, who hail from countries such as Bahrain, Mozambique and Togo, are visiting the country as part of the United Nations’ Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalists Fellowship Program. This is the third time Fordham hosts the Al-Farra fellows in as many years.

Participants will attend two days of workshops including topics such as, "Photojournalism, Conflict and Crisis" and "International Affairs and Journalism on the Internet." The workshops will be led by members of the Fordham faculty.

The fellowship was well established before taking its name from Al-Farra, a U.N. public information employee who died in 2003 in an attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. For the past 30 years, it has invited radio, print and television reporters from around the world to live and work in New York.

This year’s crop of journalists will cover the proceedings of the High-Level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals and the High-Level session on Biodiversity, in addition to briefings by diplomats and senior officials from the United Nations Secretariat, specialized agencies, programs and funds.

The participants will also visit major media organizations and relevant non-governmental organizations and visit the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.

For more information about the Program in Public Communication, which falls under the Department of Communication and Media Studies, visit the Fordham website.

--Gina Vergel

Friday, October 8, 2010

Fordham Alumni Serve as Jesuit Volunteers

BALTIMORE – Recent graduates of Fordham University answered the call to serve through Jesuit Volunteer Corps:
  • Brittney Cavaliere – The Alliance of AIDS Services—Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
  • Mariel de la Cruz – United Community Housing Coalition, Detroit
  • John Donahue – Chrysalis, Los Angeles
  • Lauren Foley (2nd year volunteer) – St. Aloysius School, New York
  • Christine Gosney – Central Arizona Shelter Services, Phoenix
  • Margaret Hannigan – Miriam’s Kitchen, Washington, D.C.
  • Shannon Hirrel – Disability Rights Legal Center, Los Angeles
  • Tara Nadeau – MAAC Project, Chula Vista, Calif.
  • Elizabeth Wing (2nd year volunteer) - St. Mary Goretti Secondary School, Moshi Tanzania
  • David Yusavitz – Hands on Hartford, Hartford, Conn.
During their time as Jesuit Volunteers, they will be dedicated to living simply and working for social justice in a spiritually supportive community of other volunteers who are working with people who live on the margins of society.

These alumni are among the 340 JVs living in 48 communities in the U.S. and six other countries across the globe. Volunteers work at hundreds of schools, health clinics, legal clinics, parishes, and nonprofit organizations to provide essential services, saving them a combined estimate of $6 million each year, in comparison to the cost of a salaried employee.

“Jesuit Volunteers allow local organizations to provide more services and have a greater impact within their communities,” said Kevin O’Brien, president of JVC. “As a former JV myself, I know the transformative effect of full-time service. This experience will open their hearts and minds and change their perceptions of the world around them. It’s inspiring to welcome a new generation of women and men who want to work for justice and peace.”

In 2009, five of the six Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC East, JVC Midwest, JVC Southwest, JVC South, and JV International) organizations merged to form JVC. With shared resources directed toward one common mission, JVC is building upon its grassroots history and strives to strengthen and improve the organization. With a 16 percent increase over last year’s volunteer count, Jesuit Volunteers can be found in inner-city neighborhoods like Brooklyn, NY, rural communities like the Rosebud Indian Reservation of South Dakota, and many other places throughout the U.S. They also serve in developing countries in South America, Africa, and Oceania.

Based in four core values—social justice, simple living, community, and spirituality—Jesuit Volunteer Corps offers women and men an opportunity to work full-time for justice and peace. Jesuit Volunteers are called to the mission of serving the poor directly, working for structural change in the United States, and accompanying people in developing countries. For decades, Jesuit Volunteer Corps has worked in collaboration with Jesuits, whose spirituality the volunteers incorporate in their work, community, and prayer life. More than 250 grassroots organizations across the world count on Jesuit Volunteers to provide essential services. During their one to two years of service, volunteers integrate Christian faith by working and living among the poor and marginalized examining the causes of social injustice. JVC offers volunteers an experience that will open their minds and hearts to live always conscious of the poor and committed to the Church’s mission of promoting justice in the service of faith.

Learn more at www.jesuitvolunteers.org or www.facebook.com/jesuitvolunteers.