Featuring Matthew Capodicasa, GSAS ’15

The Glass Cannon Podcast is the flagship show of the Glass Cannon Network, a company that specializes in “actual-play podcasts”—live playthroughs of tabletop role-playing games (a genre that includes, most famously, Dungeons & Dragons). The podcast began in March 2015, when a group of five friends—including Matthew Capodicasa, a 2015 Fordham playwriting MFA graduate—decided to record themselves embarking on a campaign of the Pathfinder series’ Giantslayer Adventure Path. Almost 10 years later, Capodicasa and his fellow founders have expanded the Glass Cannon Network to include more than a dozen other shows covering multiple game systems. The cast members of The Glass Cannon Podcast also frequently put on a Glass Cannon Live! show, drawing fans to venues across the U.S. and Canada to watch Capodicasa and his fellow players go through the ups and downs of the game—and trade comedic banter—in person. They recently closed out their 2024 tour with a sold-out show at City Winery in Philadelphia, and their 2025 tour is set to kick off in February in Austin.

The April 29 event was the deans’ second forum for alumni on their commitment to furthering the University’s action plan for addressing racism and educating for justice. Fordham announced the plan in June 2020 after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice prompted members of the Fordham community to describe their own experiences of discrimination on campus.

“We’re asking hard questions, addressing proposals that have come forward, and moving forward indeed with hope and confidence into a future … that is marked by greater inclusivity, greater diversity, and greater commitment shared to building a much more just world as we educate for justice and seek to eradicate racism,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, in opening remarks.

Father McShane and the four deans were joined by moderator Valerie Irick Rainford, FCRH ’86, a Fordham trustee who is spearheading anti-racism training efforts within the University, and Rafael Zapata, Fordham’s chief diversity officer.

The panelists spoke of changes underway in the curriculum, recruitment of faculty and students, new programs, and other efforts to embed anti-racism in the University and effect permanent change.

“For students to come here from different backgrounds, it is vitally important that they feel that this institution represents them, that they do not feel like … they are here on sort of sufferance, that they feel that their communities are a part and parcel of what makes Fordham tick, what makes Fordham an excellent place,” said Tyler Stovall, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Faculty Diversity, Community Connections

Stovall emphasized the importance of forging links between the University and the diverse, vibrant communities surrounding the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. Zapata noted current efforts like a collaboration with the Bronx Book Festival and a speaker series focused on Bronx writers facilitated by faculty. “We are an institution of this wonderful borough, and I think that’s something we need to talk about a little bit more,” he said.

In efforts to diversify the faculty, Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, said 50% of the arts and sciences faculty members recruited to begin this academic year are people of color. In addition, Fordham announced the creation of the Margaret Peil Distinguished Chair in African and African American Studies and is currently recruiting for a newly created postdoctoral fellowship in critical race studies in the sociology and anthropology department, as well as a new position in the English department—a rhetoric specialist—to support the faculty’s work on revising the composition program toward anti-racist learning objectives and pedagogy.

Arts and Sciences also announced the creation of a new affiliate program in African and African American studies to elevate that department’s visibility and foster an interdisciplinary approach to anti-racism, Badowska said. Fifteen faculty members across departments have committed to joining the initiative.

On the point of hiring diverse faculty, Rainford noted that “once you hire those individuals, I think it’s also about inclusion and access.”

Stovall said a newly formed group of Fordham faculty members of color would be meeting soon to discuss diversity among faculty and at the University generally. “I think these leaders are going to have an awful lot to say, and it’s going to be up to us to listen,” he said.

He pointed out the importance of integration, “one of the terms we tend not to talk about.”

“Ultimately, what we are all about in this endeavor is producing an integrated educational experience and ultimately an integrated society,” he said. “Study after study has shown, in despite of people’s fears of integration, that actually integrated education benefits not just students of color but all students, and makes them stronger students.”

“This is a major pathway towards the ultimate goal of Fordham University,” he said.

Zapata said his office is offering a grant program titled Teaching Race Across the Curriculum to help academic departments integrate questions of race within their courses, particularly those that all students take.

“Students want to see themselves in the people that teach them, that they encounter throughout [the University], but they also want to see themselves in the curriculum. They’ve talked a lot about that,” he said.

Expanding Scholarship and Internship Opportunities

Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, pointed to the Office of Undergraduate Admission’s “above-and-beyond” efforts to increase diversity among incoming students. Changes this year include an effort “to appreciate and value a wider range of student experiences in the admissions process,” she said, as well as new events for prospective students of color who would be part of the fall 2021 entering class.

Also important, Auricchio said, is the recently created Trustee Diversity Scholarship Fund, which grew out of a scholarship fund that Rainford founded. “Before we could even announce it, we were starting to get donations,” Rainford said.

A new Cultural Engagement Internships program, funded by Fordham College at Lincoln Center and Fordham College at Rose Hill, has created paid internships that place students with New York nonprofits and cultural organizations that mostly serve communities of color or advance the work of anti-racism. “This opens up the internship opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to afford” to take unpaid internships, Auricchio said.

And diversity in the yearlong Matteo Ricci Seminar for high-achieving students on both campuses has grown by opening it up to all students who want to apply, rather than relying on a select pool of students recommended by faculty, she said; she also cited the importance of bringing on Assistant Dean Mica McKnight, a woman of color, as co-leader for the Fordham College at Lincoln Center program.

Supporting Students

In other efforts on the undergraduate level, Maura Mast, Ph.D., dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, said administrators on both campuses are developing a program to support first-generation students—61% of whom are students of color—and their families as the students navigate college life. At Rose Hill, the college is expanding access to undergraduate research opportunities by developing a one-credit course on the ins and outs of conducting research, such as developing a proposal and finding a mentor, Mast said.

“It’s … so important that we intentionally support students as they are and who they are, when they get to Fordham and when they’re at Fordham—that we are transparent and effective in this work,” she said.

In a culmination of longstanding efforts to increase diversity in the college’s Honors Program, 60% of students offered admission this year are either BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or people of color) or first-generation students, Mast said.

The University has also secured a planning grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to join a national learning community aimed at building capacity for developing inclusive, equitable, anti-racist approaches to STEM education—in first-year “gateway” courses, in particular—to support students who are underrepresented in these fields, she said.

The panelists took questions, including one about why the University doesn’t have an Asian American studies program with a major and minor offered. Badowska said she had met with members of the faculty—which would have to propose any new program, according to University statutes—about surveying the existing classes and resources to see what might be offered immediately while they work on developing a program.

“It is the curriculum that reveals who we are, and it is our academic programs that say we’re an anti-racist university or we are not an anti-racist university,” she said. “So that’s one of the reasons why an Asian American studies program is so critical for us to develop at this moment.”

Eradicating Racism

In response to another question—“Do you really believe that racism can be eradicated at Fordham?”—Rainford spoke of a long-term effort.

“There are some that still believe that racism doesn’t exist,” said Rainford, who is Black. “But the fact of the matter is, it’s in the fabric of everything in the country.”

“It will take time and effort, and we will not eradicate racism in our lifetime, but we certainly can help advance racial equity,” such as through the efforts the deans described, she said.

Zapata responded, “It’s going to take courage, the courage to … listen to the experiences of people who don’t always feel they have a chance to voice their experiences.”

Stovall said, “We currently live in a world where scientists are literally talking about creating human immortality in less than a century. So in that kind of world, I think all sorts of things are possible, including eradicating racism.”

Hurdles to Surmount

Asked about obstacles the University faces, Mast mentioned funding—for staffing, on-campus housing, and financial aid, for instance.

Badowska spoke of the challenges that would be inherent in changing the University’s culture to a point where everyone in the arts and sciences community would possess the five competencies that the deans have proposed:

• Knowledge about racism, white privilege, and related topics;
• Self-knowledge and a commitment to self-work and continuous learning in these areas;
• Commitment to disrupting microaggressions and racist dynamics in the classroom, the workplace, and beyond;
• Commitment to systemic change through examining policies and practices to make sure they support racial equity; and
• Reimagined community and allyship, or a capacity to form equitable partnerships and alliances across racial lines.

“We know that we have a long road before we can say that everyone has these five capacities, but we’ve identified them,” she said.

The event drew 64 attendees, nearly all of whom stayed nearly a half-hour beyond the event’s one-hour allotted time.

“That, I think, shows the great hunger and thirst that the people of Fordham have for this great work that we’re about together,” Father McShane said. “One of the things we have to remind ourselves is that this is a beginning, and that’s an important observation and an important thing for us to own. We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are up for it and will keep at it.”

New arts and sciences faculty members, by department, include:

Badr Faisal Albanna, PhD., Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences;

Habib M. Ammari, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Computer and Information Sciences;

Scott G. Bruce, Ph.D., Professor, History;

Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Political Science;

John D. Cunningham, S.J., Associate Professor, Physics;

Isaie Dougnon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Modern Languages and Literatures;

Miguel Garcia, Ph.D., Instructor, Modern Languages and Literatures;

Boris Heersink, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Political Science;

Julie Kleinman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Sociology and Anthropology;

Laurie R. Lambert, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, African and African American Studies;

Truong-Huy Dinh Nguyen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Computer and Information Sciences;

Meiping Sun, Ph.D., Instructor, Economics; and

Ralph Vacca, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Communication and Media Studies.

In the Gabelli School of Business, new faculty appointments include:

Eun-Hee Kim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Management Systems; and

Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Law and Ethics.

New to the Graduate School of Education are:

Margaret Terry Orr, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education; and

Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education.

The Graduate School of Social Service welcomes:

Jordan E. DeVylder, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Social Work.

Stephen R. Grimm, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, receiving the Undergraduate Teaching in the Humanities award;

Kirsten Swinth, Ph.D., associate professor of history, receiving the Undergraduate Teaching in the Social Sciences award;

Rolf Ryham, Ph.D., associate professor of mathematics, receiving the Undergraduate Teaching in Science and Mathematics award; and

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Ph.D., the Thomas F. X. and Theresa Mullarkey Chair in Literature, receiving the Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.

The event was sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Fordham College at Rose Hill, and Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), and was hosted by Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of FCLC.

Daisy Deomampo, PhD, an assistant professor of anthropology, has spent the better part of a decade researching transnational ART and commercial surrogacy. Her forthcoming book, Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship, and Commercial Surrogacy in India, is an ethnographic study of commercial ART—including egg donation, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy—in India.

On one side of the practice are the commissioning parents who travel to India from all over the world to visit clinics that offer commercial surrogacy arrangements. What primarily draws many of them to India is cost: In the United States, gestational surrogacy can reach sums of $150,000, compared to between $25,000 and $40,000 in India.

On the other side are Indian women who are commissioned as egg donors or surrogate mothers. In the case of gestational surrogacy, an embryo is created through IVF using sperm and egg from the commissioning parents (or third party egg or sperm providers) and then implanted in the surrogate mother’s uterus. She carries the fetus for the nine months of pregnancy, during which she remains under the care of a doctor. Once she gives birth, she gives the baby to the commissioning parents.

These practices raise complex questions about motherhood. Who can be considered the mother in the case of gestational surrogacy? Is it the woman who gestated the fetus and gave birth? The woman who ultimately raises the child? Is it the person who contributes her DNA?

“It challenges our preconceived ideas about basic social categories like the family and motherhood,” she said.

Moreover, Deomampo said, “The dominant discourse in the media suggests this is a win-win situation for everyone involved—in the end the intended parents get their baby, and the surrogate earns much-needed income. But as an anthropologist, I know that human experiences are more complex than that. And the trope of the ‘win-win situation’ only conceals the inequalities embedded in transnational surrogacy.”

The questionable ethics of surrogacy

By 2008, when Deomampo first traveled to Mumbai for her research, India had become a global hub for commercial surrogacy. However, the industry operated within murky legal and ethical waters, and was deeply misunderstood.

For one thing, surrogacy can be dangerous, Deomampo said. In addition to the normal risks associated with pregnancy, the women undergo hormonal treatments for which the long-term consequences are unknown. Nearly all of the women give birth via caesarean section, which is a riskier form of childbirth.

“The industry is not regulated, and there’s no one keeping track of how many times women donate eggs or become surrogates,” Deomampo said.

Even though surrogate mothers can earn up to $6,000 per pregnancy—an ample figure for many of the families that Deomampo met—the sum is rarely enough to free families from the poverty that often drives them to surrogacy. For instance, in order to have the full amount needed to purchase a home, Deomampo said, one surrogate had to sell some of her family jewelry.

Even the promise of financial relief—however brief—is complex, said Deomampo.

“Some women saw it as an opportunity and felt it was life-changing—they were providing a service and they were making good money,” she said. “But other women felt it was a degrading experience. They were subjected to a host of medical interventions they didn’t feel comfortable with, and very few ever met the parents who were going to take the babies.”

Surrogacy and race

As an anthropologist, Deomampo is particularly curious about the impact that transnational commercial surrogacy has on racialization—the process of ascribing a racial identity to an individual or a group. In cases in which non-Indian parents pay an Indian woman to carry their child, then, how do they make sense of their connections with each other? How does racialization function in these relationships, especially in light of the fact that commissioning parents and surrogates rarely meet?

“The different people involved tend to rely on these racial constructions to justify why they’re participating in surrogacy and why it exists . . . Race keeps everyone neatly separated,” Deomampo said. “But the construction of race is a dynamic process. It’s not fixed . . . and it’s inherent to the unequal relations at the heart of transnational surrogacy.”

But for current leadership at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the question to start asking is: Why wouldn’t an English scholar be the perfect fit for such a job?

This year GSAS launched a new professional development initiative called GSAS Futures. Funded by GSAS and the Graduate Student Association and staffed by graduate students, the program aims to prepare GSAS students for innovative careers after Fordham—whether or not these careers are academic.

The Futures program pivots on the idea that an advanced degree in the arts and sciences is intrinsically valuable. Its philosophy is a unique response to an ongoing national conversation about the “usefulness” of graduate studies, especially in the humanities, relative to disciplines such as science and technology.

According to GSAS Futures, graduate students do not need to justify their training by recasting it in more “marketable” terms; rather, students need to harness and articulate their distinct expertise.

“It’s not about ‘translating’ skills. It’s about owning the skills,” said James Van Wyck, an English doctoral candidate and GSAS Graduate Student Professionalization facilitator.

“It’s saying, ‘This is my skill set, and it prepares me to do many things well.’ The idea is to identify what those skills are and how they match up with the needs of a nonprofit organization, or a government agency, or any of the careers our alumni have entered.”

For an English scholar like Tinker, this would mean underscoring skills such as being able to grasp complex material quickly or distilling a vision for multiple audiences, Van Wyck said.

“With GSAS Futures, we want to ensure that if Nathan Tinker had wanted that career all along, we would’ve been preparing him from the moment he arrived on campus.”

“Alternative” academic careers

Historically, graduate arts and sciences programs have often demurred from encouraging students to consider careers outside of academia, said Interim Dean of GSAS Eva Badowska, PhD. However, the data on actual students outcomes have consistently told a different story.

“About 50 percent of graduate students nationally go on to nonacademic careers,” Badowska said. “We have lived in a kind of imaginary space believing that only a small proportion of PhD holders end up in nonacademic careers, whereas there has always been a substantial number of PhDs who do so.”

Graduate schools are slowly starting to recognize this reality by offering more robust career preparation, Badowska said. At Fordham, this recognition has manifested through initiatives such as the newly formed Liberal Arts Task Force and now GSAS Futures.

“Preparation for academic careers happens beautifully in academic departments. But the graduate school can provide something in addition to that, which is the more professional side—for instance, CV and résumé writing, networking, digital presence,” she said.

“We’re giving students the space to think about and articulate the high-level skills they have away from the particular academic field in which they already practice them.”

Anna Beskin, an English doctoral candidate, regularly attends GSAS Futures events. One of the program’s greatest benefits, she said, is the opportunity to gather with peers and share thoughts about graduate training and life after Fordham. These discussions have helped Beskin and her classmates home in on the skills and qualities they have to offer the professional world.

“Being good at close reading, at analyzing, at seeing various perspectives of the same issue serves me well in daily life, not just in academics,” Beskin said. “I see that with my own [undergraduate]students, too. Every time we push their understanding of a text, or complicate something that seemed simple originally, it opens up a different path of thinking. It’s exciting.

“I wish we didn’t have to defend [graduate study], but I feel we sometimes do. So it’s good to be self-aware enough to at least be able to speak about it from your own perspective.”

Data mining

In addition to organizing professionalization events for GSAS students, the Futures program is also working with campus partners such as Alumni Relations to collect extensive data on graduate student outcomes. The goal is to both analyze where alumni have ended up and follow up with current students after graduating.

There’s more to the data analysis than simply observing outcomes, Van Wyck said. It is also important to dig deeper to understand the steps graduates took that led them to the jobs that seem incongruous—like Tinker’s path to biotechnology.

“The data is beginning to tell us a story that many people still have trouble believing. Yes, many of our students go on to nonacademic careers, but they don’t go on to failed careers,” he said.

“The clichés circulated in the media about the PhDs who go on to work at Starbucks are flat-out wrong, especially for Fordham graduate students. They don’t take into account the complexity of the lives our students lead after they graduate and the interesting careers they build for themselves.”

“We need to jettison the idea that there is something incongruous about going from being an English scholar to the director of New York Bio,” Van Wyck said.

Chukwuneke, who is majoring in general science with a minor in chemistry and creative writing, has found a good match with her mentor. “He’s destroyed every stereotype [I’ve had] about doctors. He’s one of the funniest persons I know, and he has wonderful rapport with his patients,” she says. “I just watch [him]and think, this is how it’s supposed to be.”

Throughout the year, she’s watched Longobardi, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, perform several surgeries, and she’s shadowed him during his rounds in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, where he is an assistant professor of clinical orthopaedic surgery.

“The fact that he’s allowed me in to see surgeries—it’s an opportunity you don’t [often]get [as an undergraduate],” says Chukwuneke, “it’s what medical students get.” She says Longobardi also quizzes her about what she sees on X-rays, explains anything that she finds confusing, and asks her about her Fordham science classes. “He just treats me like a student interested in medicine. ‘See what you like, see what you don’t like.’ I think that is great.”

Longobardi, who has been a mentor in the Fordham Mentoring Program for four years, says, “No one learns in a vacuum. We’ve all been taught by other people. I try to impart some of the things [my teachers]taught me about taking care of people.”

It was after he broke his wrist as a freshman at Fordham that led Longobardi to one of his mentors, Kenneth Kamler, M.D., a microsurgeon specializing in hand reconstruction and finger reattachment, and an eminent adventure physician who practices medicine in remote regions. “I met him right after he came back from an expedition to the Amazon,” says Longobardi. “I was taking general chemistry then and while he was putting the cast on my arm, we were talking about the chemical reactions happening. He always made it very easy to understand what’s going on in orthopedics. That’s something that I always admired and always tried to replicate.”

It was that experience with Kamler, whom Longobardi calls “a mentor, an inspiration then, and friend to this day,” that spurred his interest in orthopedics. The interest was enhanced by his construction work experience during high school and college. “I had some ideas about drills and saws, so orthopedics kind of came naturally. But it’s not for everyone,” he says.

After observing a knee replacement surgery, Chukwuneke knew she could stomach being a doctor, but her career aspirations lie in becoming a reconstructive plastic surgeon. In 2005, when Chukwuneke was a student at the Loyola Jesuit College in Nigeria, Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crashed in Omagwa, killing 108 people, including 60 students from the school. One of the two survivors, a friend of Chukwuneke’s, was critically burned. “I watched how she struggled through one plastic surgery after another,” says Chukwuneke. “She’s so much better now than she was.”

Chukwuneke sees plastic surgery as an outlet for her creative side. “I believe science and art are inseparable and for this reason, I tend to incorporate both in nearly everything that I do,” says Chukwuneke, who sings with Fordham’s Gloria Dei Choir and attends performances at the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet as often as she can. “Plastic surgery is the one place in medicine where I could explore both sides of me.”

She’s also sharing some of her varied interests by tutoring and counseling high school and Fordham students. Through a summer program in Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, Chukwuneke has tutored local 10th and 11th graders in poetry and calculus, and counseled them on the college experience. Since her sophomore year she has been providing tutoring assistance in math, music history, and general chemistry to students in Fordham’s Higher Education Opportunity Program. “I love it,” she says. “It’s really rewarding for me.”

Longobardi finds fulfillment, too, in sharing his knowledge with students. A member of the admissions committee at the NYU School of Medicine, he’s conducted mock interviews with Fordham students preparing for medical school admission and given lectures to pre-health professions students.

“I really love the University. I always feel you need to give back and give back not just by giving monetary donations,” Longobardi says. “What’s really going to help students is guidance. And if there are areas that you can help in that way, that’s what’s going to make the programs at Fordham better, and give the students a better edge so that they can make better and more intelligent decisions.”

His “take-home message” to students is to “find what you really love,” says Longobardi, an avid baseball and football fan who has treated athletes from the New York Islanders, Florida Marlins, and University of Tennessee. “If you’re going to spend your life doing something, find something you love.”

—Rachel Buttner

Below are the new arts and sciences faculty members, along with their departments:

• Gregory Donovan, communication and media studies, Ph.D., City University of New York, 2013

• Audrey Evrard, modern languages and literatures, Ph.D., University of Illinois, 2011

• Sarit Gribetz, theology, Ph.D. expected from Princeton University

• Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis, art history and music, D.M.A. University of Maryland, 2008

• Jessica Philippi, communication and media studies, Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2012

• Ana R. Pissarra Pires, mathematics, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010

• Oleksiy Roslyak, physics, Ph.D., City University of New York, 2007

• Amy Seymour, philosophy, Ph.D. expected from the University of Notre Dame

• Arunima Sinha, economics, Ph.D., Columbia University, 2010

• Marie Thomas, natural sciences, Ph.D., City University of New York, 2007

• Molly Zimmerman, psychology, Ph.D. University of Cincinnati, 2004

The new business faculty members, along with their areas, are:

• Navid Asgari, management systems, Ph.D. expected from the National University of Singapore

• Alexander Buoye, marketing, Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2004

• Ying Hong, management systems, Ph.D., Rutgers University, 2009

• Genevieve E. O’Connor, marketing, Ph.D. expected from Rutgers University

• Jie Ren, information systems, Ph.D. expected from Stevens Institute of Technology

• Benjamin Segal, accounting and taxation, Ph.D., New York University, 2003

• Lin Tong, finance, Ph.D. expected from the University of Iowa

• Baolian Wang, finance, Ph.D. expected from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Joining the Graduate School of Social Service faculty:

• Fuhua Zhai, Ph.D., Columbia University, 2007

The scholarship that has followed is copious, but disjointed, said Fordham Professor of philosophy Christopher Gowans. His solution is Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction (Routledge, 2014).

“There has been a lot of work lately interpreting Buddhist thought in terms of Western moral philosophy, and there is no book that brings this together in a single volume,” said Gowans, who specializes in contemporary moral philosophy and Buddhist philosophy.

“Since there is little that can be considered moral philosophy in the [Buddhist] tradition, this is really a new field. I’m trying to introduce the reader to it.”

He explained that the Buddhist tradition does not approach the subject of moral philosophy like the West does. Although Buddhist thought centers on ethics (namely, how we should live our lives), its philosophical reflections are primarily metaphysical and epistemological—not explicit, how-to guides to morality.

Nevertheless, contemporary scholars find value in examining Buddhist works through a Western lens, drawing on the likes of Aristotle and Kant. But because this scholarship is still evolving, the upshots of uniting Buddhist and Western moral traditions remain unclear.

“An optimistic response might envision these two enterprises as partly overlapping circles… Despite significant differences, there is enough common ground to generate a reasonable expectation that something valuable will come from examining Buddhist thought through the perspectives of Western moral philosophy,” Gowans writes in the book’s introduction.

“A more pessimistic response may [say]any such examination is, in the end, basically a futile effort to fit square pegs into round holes… Readers are invited to determine which of these responses is most appropriate.”

Broken into three sections, the book:

• presents the teaching of the Buddha and developments in Buddhist traditions (mainly the early Mahayana schools);
• examines the main areas of Buddhist moral philosophy (such as well-being, the problem of free will, normative ethics, issues about moral objectivity, and moral psychology) and the concerns that many Western thinkers have concerning karma, rebirth, nirvana, and related topics; and
• introduces readers to a contemporary movement known as socially engaged Buddhism, which delves into ethical issues such as human rights, war and peace, and environmental ethics.

Buddhist Moral Philosophy comes out today.

Ignatius advised the superior to first ask himself, “Who are you? And who are you seeking to serve?” If a printing press is needed to carry this out, then he should purchase one.

Ignatius was centuries ahead in understanding the importance of brand, said Matt Malone, S.J., GSAS ’07, editor of America magazine, who spoke at a 2014 Jesuit Advancement Administrators conference session at Fordham.

Brand, which equals identity, is vital to an organization’s success. Father Malone offered America’sbranding process as an example. Founded by the Jesuits in 1909,America is among the oldest weekly magazines in the country and the only national Catholic publication of its kind. At 105 years old,America has survived countless iterations of communications technology — an accomplishment few publications enjoy.

Despite its ecclesiastical connections, the magazine owes its longevity to neither divine intervention nor philanthropic loyalty. Its success, Father Malone said, boils down to brand.

“The defining characteristic of a modern media organization — the thing that is going to allow it not only to survive, but to prosper in this rapidly-changing media environment — is having a brand,” he said. “It’s what every organization needs to get right to accomplish what it’s trying to do.”

The first and most important question for an organization to ask itself is, “Who are we?” The answer should clearly distinguish its brand from its product.

“Brand is platform- and product-neutral,” he said. “For example, if IBM’s brand came down to ‘We make typewriters,’ then they would no longer be in business. Instead, their brand is, ‘We solve business problems.’”

Any ensuing questions, such as what an organization does, who is its audience, and how it accomplishes its mission, will derive from that first answer. Again, Father Malone stressed, the answers to these questions should never be tethered to a platform or product.

The brand inquiry at America generated a simple statement: “America is a Jesuit media ministry, a smart Catholic take on faith and culture that leads the conversation by producing content that is unique, accessible, relevant and impactful.”

“None of that has anything to do with our platform, that is, whether we’re in print, we’re online, or we have an iPad app,” Father Malone said.

Platform neutrality is especially important for media organizations, he said, because the communications field is in constant flux. These groups, which includeuniversity marketing and public relations departments, should focus on one task: To move from producing content that fits a single platform (such as print) toward content that can be disseminated across multiple platforms — print, digital, social media, and more.

And brand, Father Malone said, is what links it all together.

“Good media companies know that when you’re trying to build a community across multiple platforms, you need one thing that narrates the experience,” he said. “That’s brand — what makes multiple platforms cohere.”

Moreover, when a certain technology no longer serves the brand, then organizations must move on and find technologies that do, Father Malone said — though this often causes great heartache for media outlets grieving the decline of print.

But there, too, Ignatius was in the vanguard. Ignatius advised the superior that if he does purchase a printing press, then he shouldn’t get just any press — he should get the best. And if that should become obsolete, then he ought to move on to whatever will best accomplish his mission.

“We have to ask ourselves these questions, tough as they are,” Father Malone said. “We have to be unafraid to cherish what is perennial — the values that form our brand — and to discard the things that no longer work, no matter how much they’ve contributed to our wellbeing and prosperity.”

“Doctor DePinho is a distinguished scientist and proven administrator capable of leading the nation’s premiere comprehensive cancer center,” said Gene Powell, chairman of board of regents. “He has an excellent background in teaching and research and a demonstrated ability to work effectively within complex medical institutions. The board is extremely confident he has the ability to advance the institution’s mission ‘to make cancer history.’”

The son of Portuguese immigrants, DePinho earned his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Fordham College at Rose Hill, with a minor in art history, before earning his medical degree with distinction in microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he later served as a member of the college’s faculty.

A renowned cancer geneticist, DePinho is currently director of the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center and professor of medicine (genetics) at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

DePinho’s focus includes the fields of cancer research, aging and chronic degenerative diseases. He is a leader in using lab mice as a model of human disease, genetically manipulating and engineering the mice to understand the molecular underpinnings of complex human disorders, most notably cancer and aging.

In 2002, DePinho received the 43rd Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association of Cancer Research, in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in research.

More recently, he appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss his research of reverse aging in mice.

Once officially approved by the board, DePinho will become the fourth president in MD Anderson’s 70-year history.

“This is what makes this country great,” DePinho told the Houston Chronicle, “that the son of uneducated Portuguese immigrants could become president of the nation’s premier cancer center.”

DePinho was profiled in the fall 2003 issue of FORDHAM magazine.