For one thing, make sure that school is a place where they want to be.

That’s one takeaway from a new Fordham study of Bronx public school leaders trying to advance equity in their schools and ensure they’re welcoming and supportive for every student.

For these schools, that meant overcoming the effects of poverty, exclusion, and bias, or whatever else might be keeping students away. Schools in the study “thought about this really holistically” and reduced absenteeism as a result, said the study’s author, Elizabeth Stosich, Ed.D., associate professor in the Graduate School of Education and associate chair of the Division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy.

Poverty and COVID Hurt Attendance

Her study was published in November in Frontiers in Education. From 2021 to 2022, she examined the efforts of four district leaders and eight school leaders in one of the 12 community school districts in the Bronx. It’s a district where absenteeism is an especially tough problem because of high rates of poverty and the death rate—one of the city’s highest—during the coronavirus pandemic, she said.

The schools she studied were trying to advance equity through continuous improvement, a management approach from the corporate and health care spheres that more and more schools are adopting. Among other things, it emphasizes a bottom-up approach to understanding an organization’s problems and making changes.

Getting Creative: Laundry, Fun Fridays, and Campfires

What did that look like in the schools? One of them set up a laundry because some families lacked access to one, hindering their kids’ attendance. Teachers identified the student groups in each school who felt the most ignored—in one case, English learners—and found ways to engage them. One school launched “Fun Fridays” full of meetings by clubs that reflected students’ interests—strategically scheduled on a day when students tend to be absent.

Teachers cooked with students or began art projects; one of them set up a faux campfire around which students could tell stories. “They really got creative, and it spurred new ideas,” she said.

Asking Students What They Truly Need = Success

Crucially, all of these initiatives came from talking to students themselves, Stosich said.

“By going to students and asking what they truly need, and then redesigning school in that image, that is how they engage in more really transformative work to support student success,” she said.

Also important was creating inclusive, supportive school environments for students from historically marginalized racial and ethnic backgrounds, she said: “They thought about, yes, getting students into school, but then creating the experiences that would pull them in and keep them through both a more engaging and culturally responsive curriculum and instruction.”

While absenteeism remained a stubborn challenge, the districts’ schools showed a lot of improvement compared with similar districts in the area, she said.

‘Start Small to Learn Fast’

Stosich noted the importance of a long-term focus on equity, in addition to short-term efforts. Continuous improvement has a “start small to learn fast” approach, involving a series of short-term inquiry cycles combined with empathy interviews and data gathering to get at the roots of an issue and find the best solutions, she said.

“Oftentimes in education and other fields, we start with a solution,” she said. “We’ll adopt some practice across the whole district or across the whole school before we even know if this would lead to improvements. It can lead to a lot of burnout and ‘initiative fatigue’ among educators who are not convinced that the next new thing is going to be any better than the last new thing.”

The reasons for absenteeism evolve and change, and vary from one school to another, she said, “so spending time to really understand the problem is essential.”

Kramer has written widely about the importance of sound for appreciating history, art, literature, and current events. Why this approach? Because thinkers dating from Aristotle have treated sight as the most important of the five senses, leading sound to be a little, well, overlooked.

“When you begin to concentrate on sound, all kinds of things come up that traditionally would never have come up,” he said.

In his most recent book, Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being, he continues his focus on the humanistic side of sound studies, a field that emerged in recent decades because of advances in sound technology. The overall message is that sound is “the medium by which we measure the sense of being alive,” he said.

The book comprises 66 short essays about “all of the remarkable ways in which sound has affected human lives … and also affected the way in which people feel about being alive,” he said. His hope, he said, is “for people to start listening to the world as hard as they look at it.”

Some encapsulated essays from Experiencing Sound:

The Wind on Mars

In 2018, a NASA Mars lander detected something no earthling had ever heard: the Martian wind. It conveyed that Mars was a world in a way the quiet, windless moon is not. “The sense of a world cannot be established only by what we can see, as we can see the lunar landscape,” Kramer writes. “A planet can be seen, pure and simple. But a world can be seen only if it can be heard.”

The Talking Dead

A voice recording conveys life and presence in a way that the visual (i.e., someone’s portrait) does not, as exemplified in 1890, when the voice of the deceased poet Robert Browning was played at an event commemorating him, creating the air of an “extraordinary séance,” one journalist noted. His grieving sister viewed it as a kind of sacrilege, Kramer writes—for her, “it was too alive for comfort.”

Annals of Slavery

In her 1861 memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs describes hiding in an attic’s crawlspace for seven years to avoid being sexually abused by her enslaver. For Jacobs, the street sounds she could hear from the crawlspace were a thread that linked her to life, Kramer writes—until she was able to escape to the North, “what freedom she had was carried on the sound of voices in the street.”

The Contralto Mystique

The author William Styron, in his 1990 memoir Darkness Visible, is dissuaded from attempting suicide when he hears a soaring contralto singer in a movie. It stirred family memories and had a power that was “literally maternal,” Kramer writes, because it reminded Styron of the voice of his late mother singing the same music.

Prisons of Silence

The human need for sound was apparent to Charles Dickens, who wrote “the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful” after visiting America’s first penitentiary, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where all prisoners were held in solitary confinement in enforced silence. And in a 20th-century Russian gulag, the enforced silence was described as physically stifling by prisoner Eugenia Ginzburg: “I would have given anything to have heard just one sound.”

Minding the Senses

“[K]nowledge comes as much through the ear as through the eye,” Kramer writes. Henry David Thoreau knew this, apparently, with his descriptions of murmuring wind, creaking footsteps in the snow, vibrations in the ear, and the jingling of ice on trees. Even so, today someone returning from a walk will be asked “What did you see?” rather than “What did you hear?” “This,” writes Kramer, “needs to change.”

A sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, Magazine spent last fall interning with Fordham’s Office of Sustainability. His work included collecting data that the University will use to establish a framework to measure its sustainability performance.

He said his work not only helped him learn how to encourage sustainable practices, it also gave him the chance to make Fordham more sustainable. 

“Part of being in a community of people that you come to know, and you come to care about, is also wanting to see it improve,” he said. 

“So a lot of my perspective going into this internship has been ‘What ways can I improve the Fordham of tomorrow?’”

This Is My Community

Magazine’s interest in sustainability and climate issues also circles back to another community: his hometown of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He lives there with his family and commutes to the Lincoln Center campus. 

According to government statistics, the neighborhood’s lack of cooling infrastructure makes its citizens more vulnerable to climate-change-related heat waves than anywhere else in NYC, making the issue of sustainability very personal to him. 

Along with several siblings, he’s part of his family’s first generation to attend college. The ability to major in environmental studies is what drew him to Fordham.

“When the neighborhood has any sort of disaster that can be enhanced by climate change, we feel it very hard,” he said.

“I live here. These are my neighbors, this is my community. I don’t want to see East Flatbush turn to charcoal in 2030 or 2050.”

Peeking Under the Hood 

Magazine had participated in climate justice-related activities in high school, so when he learned about the Office of Sustainability’s internship program, he jumped at the chance to join the program along with 25 other undergraduate students.

Along with several other interns, he was asked to help the office gather data to fill out a framework known as STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System). It was developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and is colloquially known as AASHE STARS. Institutions can earn AASHE ratings based on everything from sustainability-related courses to water usage.

There are 372 colleges and universities with AASHE STARS ratings ranging from bronze to platinum. Fordham will soon submit the data necessary to gain a rating as well. 

For AASHE STARS, Magazine gathered data related to the University’s investments. Activists have long advocated that institutions that embrace climate change mitigation policies should reconsider supporting the fossil fuel industry through their endowments; at Fordham, President Tania Tetlow announced that Fordham’s Board of Trustees had created an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, comprising students, faculty, administrators, and alumni, to discuss issues around ethical investments.

Magazine compared the experience to peeking under the hood of a car to see how the engine works. 

“This was my first instance of being able to work in policy from inside the house instead of outside of it,” he said, noting that it deepened his understanding of the ways a large institution functions.

Improving the Fordham of Tomorrow

Gathering data and synthesizing it into a form that can be submitted for AASHE STAR consideration was somewhat tedious, but Magazine said it was worth it.

His takeaway is that Fordham is moving in the right direction when it comes to sustainability. In addition to embracing renewable energy and working with local communities to help them deal with climate change, establishing benchmarks such as an AASHE STAR rating moves the University toward a greener future.

“Even though things move slowly, they’re going to keep moving. They’re not going to stop,” he said. 

“That it is something that we can work on, and we’ll reach the point where we get to that destination.”

Read the full story on fordhamsports.com.

Jasmine just had her 18th birthday behind bars and now she’s facing an uncertain future. “I’m kind of on my own, and I don’t really know what to do,” she said on the first episode of “Roadmap for Change: Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice.” 

The new podcast from the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice is co-produced by Keith Cruise, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Fordham and co-director of the center, which is a partnership among Fordham, the University of Connecticut Health Center, and other institutions. 

Through the podcast and the center’s other work, Cruise is on a mission to elevate the voices of young people like Jasmine, and to infuse trauma-informed care into the juvenile justice system. 

Creating a Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice System

Stories like Jasmine’s are not uncommon in juvenile detention. On average, kids who come into contact with the justice system have experienced four traumatic life events, and according to a 2021 study, 23% of detained girls and 9% of detained boys meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. (The respective rates in the general population are just 8% and 2%.) 

The center  is affiliated with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and is funded through the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It trains juvenile justice professionals across the country—like judges, lawyers, probation officers, and social workers—to understand and respond to the trauma they see every day while working with young people and their families. 

As a co-director, Cruise helps to manage the center’s work plan and develop training, information, and resources. He hopes to shift the conversation away from short-term punitive measures and toward deeper healing of youth and families while also promoting community safety. 

“When youth get arrested and charged in juvenile court, the focus tends to be on the behaviors they’ve engaged in and their level of aggression and acting out,” said Cruise. “We hope to raise awareness that behaviors are shaped by what a youth has experienced in the past … and if trauma can help to explain delinquent behaviors, that opens up new avenues for intervening.” 

To that end, Cruise said, the center supports universal screening for trauma for kids in the juvenile justice system, along with increased access to treatment, including grief therapy, which the center trains professionals to provide. 

“One of the most common traumatic events that youth experience in their lives is traumatic loss. They’ve lost a family member, a loved one, or a close friend, usually due to community violence, gang violence, or a violent crime that resulted in death,” Cruise said. 

Elevating the Voices of Adolescents and Their Families

Cruise hopes the podcast will amplify the experiences of adolescents like Jasmine so that everyone involved in the juvenile justice system can approach their work with greater understanding. 

“The stories from youth and families themselves are really important,” said Cruise. “Good trauma-informed care treats youth and families as the experts in their own life stories and co-collaborators in what they need to recover and heal. We need to learn from their voices and their experiences.”

Listen to “Roadmap for Change: Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice.”

Fordham Law center supports part-time, evening J.D. program with gift from alumnus law firm
National Jurist 02-15-2025
Fordham University School of Law unveiled the Urquhart Learning Center in October 2024, established with a gift from the law firm of alumnus Bill Urquhart (’78), who passed away in 2019 at the age of 72. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP’s gift to Fordham Law will support part-time, evening J.D. students with scholarships and financial aid, health and well-being support, experiential learning opportunities and programming.

After 25 Years of Triumphs and Troubles, a Ballerina Bids Farewell
The New York Times 02-12-2025
In the years since that “Firebird” when, she said, “I didn’t know anything,” [Ashley] Bouder became one of the company’s most visible ballerinas — she also earned a double degree in political science and organizational leadership from Fordham University; married and had a child (her daughter, Violet, 8, is a student at School of American Ballet); and embraced being a feminist, speaking out about injustices in the ballet world.

A GOP U.S. Attorney Does the Right Thing in Eric Adams’ Corruption Case
U.S. News & World Report 02-14-2025
“The best hope is that lower-level lawyers will follow the lead of principled prosecutors like Sassoon by doing their jobs in the tradition that Robert Jackson articulated so well. That means declining to follow directions that are improper and resigning in protest if necessary,” wrote Bruce Green, professor at Fordham Law School and director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, who co-authored the article for U.S. News & World Report.
This article was picked up by MSN.

New book explores how Catholics experience the Bible
Catholic World Report 02-15-2025
Fordham University theology professor Michael Peppard shares an interesting anecdote about when he and his publisher were trying to find the right title for his new book. An editor suggested his book about Catholic biblical interpretation could be called How Catholics Read the Bible.

Pope rebukes Trump administration over migrant deportations, and appears to take direct aim at Vance
The Associated Press 02-11-2025
David Gibson, director of the center for religion and culture at Fordham University, said in a social media post that Francis’ letter “takes aim at every single absurd theological claim by JD Vance and his allies in conservative Catholicism (and the Catholic electorate). … This is the pope also directly countering misinformation about the Catholic faith that is being expounded by the Catholic vice president,” he added to The Associated Press. “And it is the pope supporting the bishops as well.”
This article was picked up by MSN, ABC, and New York Daily News, and Gibson was also quoted about Francis’ letter in The Guardian (MSN), Metro (MSN), Newsweek, and Raw Story.

NY Mayor Eric Adams faces tough reelection even if charges dropped
Reuters 02-11-2025
Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, says any polling at this juncture should not be given too much weight and believes that Adams still has a chance to regain the support he needs to survive the primary. “In politics you are not dead until you are literally dead, so Eric Adams is still very much in this,” Greer said.
This article was picked up by MSN.

Guantánamo is a legal black hole. What rights do immigrants have there?
Vox 02-16-2025
“That puts it in a different legal paradigm,” said Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law. “That sets up a whole new system that they’re going to have to create and it remains to be seen how any of these laws that would protect migrants would apply.” There’s no precedent for this legal situation.
This article was picked up by MSN.

Fordham Law center supports part-time, evening J.D. program with gift from alumnus law firm
National Jurist 02-15-2025
Fordham University School of Law unveiled the Urquhart Learning Center in October 2024, established with a gift from the law firm of alumnus Bill Urquhart (’78), who passed away in 2019 at the age of 72. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP’s gift to Fordham Law will support part-time, evening J.D. students with scholarships and financial aid, health and well-being support, experiential learning opportunities and programming.

Many Want Hochul to Force Adams From Office. She Isn’t Rushing.
The New York Times 02-14-2025
Jerry H. Goldfeder, a longtime election lawyer who teaches at Fordham Law School, said in an interview that Mr. Roosevelt allowed Mr. Walker “free rein” to call witnesses and introduce evidence to defend himself. If Ms. Hochul were to play this card, he said, she would be on firm ground so long as Mr. Adams was given clear reasons for his removal and the chance to offer a defense.

Kanye West’s Yeezy Site Now Has ‘Stores Coming Soon’ Message
Women’s Wear Daily 02-13-2025
Susan Scafidi, founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, said that while unlike in Germany, “it is legal in the U.S. to sell items that use the swastika to advocate Nazism, the T-shirts may have violated Shopify’s ‘Acceptable Use Policy,’ which prohibits actions that ‘breach the social contract of commerce,’ including advocating violence against specific groups.”

A GOP U.S. Attorney Does the Right Thing in Eric Adams’ Corruption Case
U.S. News & World Report 02-14-2025
“The best hope is that lower-level lawyers will follow the lead of principled prosecutors like Sassoon by doing their jobs in the tradition that Robert Jackson articulated so well. That means declining to follow directions that are improper and resigning in protest if necessary,” wrote Bruce Green, professor at Fordham Law School and director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, who co-authored the article for U.S. News & World Report.
This article was picked up by MSN.

How to Rescue Your Slumping Humanities Program
The Chronicle of Higher Education 02-11-2025
“Rescuing the humanities isn’t going to be easy. Every department could identify its own strengths and devise a plan for how to translate those commitments into a community that attracts students. The English department at Wash U. shows it can be done,” wrote Leonard Cassuto, professor of English at Fordham University.

Hagan Scotten, lead Adams’ prosecutor, resigns telling DOJ only a ‘coward’ will follow order to drop case
New York Daily News 02-14-202
Former Manhattan federal prosecutor and Fordham Law School professor Bruce Green, who heads the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics’, on Friday said Bove’s memo to drop the case was “abusive” and that Sassoon had made the right choice. “One can only conclude that the decision was made for improper partisan political reasons. Prosecutors are not permitted to prosecute, threaten to prosecute, or decline to prosecute, to serve partisan political ends,” Green said.

New York City shoppers call price of eggs ‘ridiculous’ amid rising prices
News 12 Bronx 02-10-2025
But an economics professor at Fordham University [Giacomo Santangelo] says he doesn’t think that’s the case. “I think we are actually seeing them passing the increase in their costs on to the consumer.” He says this is about supply and demand. He adds until the bird flu is under control, egg prices will reflect that.

Why do Black voters currently seem to prefer Andrew Cuomo over Eric Adams?
City & State New York 02-10-2025
Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said that while the former governor makes a point of maintaining his relationships with the Black community, the concerted effort to remind voters about his record has not begun. “We do have short political memories, but we have not seen ads reminding voters about how he handled nursing homes or his allegations about sexual behavior and conduct,” Greer said.

PA Shoppers Spend Bigger Share Of Paychecks On Groceries Than Most Northeast States: Study
Daily Voice 02-17-2025
“Often, folks think there is this magic formula or Harry Potter-esque Patronus spell that can resolve our high cost of living expenses (especially groceries) with a swoop of the Elder Wand,” said Fordham University business professor Mario DiFiore. “As we said in The Bronx, where I grew up, ‘It is not happening.'”

Grocery Costs in Florida: How Much Are Residents Spending?
Central Florida Lifestyle Magazine 02-13-2025
“In short, slow thinking, what I will call mindfulness in decision-making allows us to leave those purchasing biases behind and focus…on what is needed with an eye to inexpensiveness, less waste, more nutrition, and real needs satisfied,” Mario J. DiFiore, PhD, Senior Assistant Dean; Chairman, SMF Investment Fund; Finance and Business Economics Faculty, Fordham University said.

Rev. Al Sharpton To Host Summit Concerning NYC Mayor Eric Adams
NewsOne 02-13-2025
“A potential loss of Al Sharpton is huge because you don’t want him against you,” Fordham University political science professor Dr. Christina Greer said. ” He’s an organizer, a brilliant one at that, and has been for a very long time, and knows all five boroughs of New York City. But he also has a very strong, active, loyal collection of people who really do listen and respect his political analysis.”

New home for osprey birds being built in Eastchester Bay
Bronx Times 02-18-2025
Fordham University is building a new waterfront facility near Villa Maria Academy in Eastchester Bay, which will include a designated nesting site for ospreys returning from South America this spring. The project’s first phase—rebuilding a dock that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2010—is nearing completion and is expected to be finished in the coming weeks.

New ways to CPA
Accounting Today 02-04-2025
“What was a boondoggle beginning for the schools has flipped around because the customer goes elsewhere,” said Stan Veliotis, associate professor and chair of accounting and tax at Fordham University. “At the beginning, the customer had to come to you because you were the only one selling this product. Then they realized, ‘You know what, I could just substitute this with something else,’ and that’s what’s happening.”

Read the full story on fordhamsports.com.

Read the full story on fordhamsports.com.

Here at Fordham, Mitchell is cultivating that same culture of winning. In her first season, the Atlantic 10 Conference preseason poll predicted her team would finish 13th; instead, they tied for eighth, securing the most wins by any first-time women’s basketball head coach at Fordham in over 30 years.

This season, after a hot start that saw the team in fourth place, they’ve had a few tough losses—including an overtime loss at St. Louis University—but are hoping to finish strong heading into the A-10 tournament. With two weeks to go before the conference tourney, Mitchell and her players remain focused on making every game, and every practice, count.

“You can’t go out and win a game if you haven’t practiced hard,” Mitchell said. “I am a firm believer from experience that if you’re focusing on winning the day, and being better than you were yesterday, the wins are gonna come.”

Stacking Wins and Rewarding Victories

At the start of the season, Mitchell gave her coaching staff a copy of The 2% Way by Myron Rolle, reinforcing her philosophy that committing to small, daily improvements leads to big wins.

Forward Rose Nelson, a junior communications major from Australia and the team’s co-captain, says the team has embraced this mindset. “We harp on it every day—stacking drills, stacking days, stacking wins.”

Mitchell, in turn, celebrates her team’s hard work, treating them to ice cream, for instance, after road wins. In Pittsburgh, that meant a trip to the Milkshake Factory to celebrate beating Duquesne, 64-62, and to Lickety Split after routing Loyola Chicago, 68-53.

“We don’t even let her talk after a game,” said Nelson. “We just start screaming, ‘Ice cream! Ice cream!’”

‘Representation Matters’

In Mitchell’s first year of coaching in 2023, the women’s basketball team retained just four players. Some had graduated; some went on to play elsewhere via the transfer portal, which makes it easier for college players to move around and for coaches to recruit rising stars.

Co-captain Taylor Donaldson, a grad student at the Gabelli School, was one of Mitchell’s first recruits. The New Mexico State transfer, a leading scorer with an average of 16 points per game, said she was drawn to both Fordham’s academics and the opportunity to play for Mitchell.

“Playing for a Black woman head coach is rare in college basketball,” she said. Though Black student-athletes make up 41% of Division I teams, only 23% of those teams have Black female head coaches according to NCAA data.

“Representation matters,” said Mitchell. “For me to be leading and mentoring—I’m honored.”

Cultivating Team Spirit in Greece

To build chemistry among the new and returning players this year, Mitchell took the team overseas to compete in Greece before the season.

“Getting to bond so early really helped us,” Mitchell said. “We played basketball, but we also had fun, and that strengthened our relationships.”

She reinforces those bonds with group activities throughout the season, be it a community park cleanup or a team-building exercise, like a scavenger hunt on the court using words alone as clues. 

“Communication is crucial for defense on the court,” said Mitchell. 

It’s also key to her coaching style. Mitchell has made forging personal relationships with her players a priority, in part to work through any personal or academic stress that may impact their playing. She assigns assistant coaches to meet weekly with small “families” of players and holds one-on-one monthly check-ins herself. 

These bonds help strengthen her players’ commitment to the team. As Nelson put it: “When your coach cares about you, you want to play for them.”

Teaching Skills for Life

Mitchell sees all of these efforts as vital to her team’s success, as players and as people.

“If you’re not touching the endline in practice, that means you’re taking shortcuts elsewhere. And shortcuts don’t get you anywhere—you’re cheating yourself. We’re learning that through basketball, but you are also learning that skill for life.”

Cheer on the Women’s Basketball Team

There are four games left before the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, with a special Black History Month game on Feb. 19 featuring a marketplace of Black-owned businesses. Find the schedule and get tickets for their upcoming games at Rose Hill Gym here. Employees get a 50% discount by calling the box office, buying tickets in person, or emailing [email protected] in advance. All games are also broadcast on ESPN+.

Have an accomplishment you’d like to share? Fill out this form to be featured in the next edition of Fordham’s Achievements and Recognition. 

Rufus Burnett, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, associate professor of theology, provided the introduction for the lecture Faith Seeking Liberation: Xavier University of Louisiana’s Contribution to Theology at Xavier University on Jan. 30.

Elaine Congress, Ph.D., GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE, professor and associate dean for special programs, published a new chapter titled “The Role of the Culturagram in Medical Education: Emphasis on Documented and Undocumented Migrant Families” in a Teaching Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility in Medical Education: A Practical Guide.

She also presented at the UN NGO Committee on the Status of Women. The title of her presentation was “Indigenous Women: Education and Poverty.”

Dora Galacatos, LAW ’96, FORDHAM SCHOOL OF LAW, adjunct professor of law and executive director of the Feerick Center for Social Justice, was one of two Fordham Law professors honored at the 2025 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting, held last month in San Francisco. In recognition of her commitment to public service, Galacatos received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the AALS Section on Pro Bono and Access to Justice.

Susanne Hafner, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, assistant professor of German, recently taught a workshop on codicology, the study of manuscrips, for the New York Classical Club Winter Conference at NYU on Feb. 1.

Sertan Kabadayi, Ph.D., GABELLI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, professor of marketing, coauthored the research paper “From Theory to Practice: A Collaborative Approach to Social Impact Measurement and Communication,” published in the European Journal of Marketing on Feb. 10.

Ela Lesham, FORDHAM SCHOOL OF LAW, associate professor of law, won the 2025 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Aging and the Law Emerging Scholar Award at the AALS conference.

Lance Strate, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, professor of communication and media studies, published the book Not A, Not Be, &c, (Institute of General Semantics, 2024). 

He also published the book chapter, “Imagining a New Ashkenazi Motherland: Alternate History in Simone Zelitch’s Judenstaat” in Jewish Women Science Fiction Writers Create Future Females: Gender, Temporality—and Yentas, edited by Marleen Barr.

Akane Zusho, Ph.D., GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, professor of school psychology, was recently appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Education (JXE). JXE is a highly regarded journal that publishes articles focused on expanding the understanding of how instructional, motivational, and social processes affect education outcomes for all students in the United States and beyond.

The cafe will open in September at the Lincoln Center campus in 140 West, in the garden-level space currently occupied by Argo Tea.

Wanted: A Student CEO

Saxbys, which bills itself as “an education company disguised as a coffee company,” will recruit students to run the cafe, including a “Student CEO” who will be responsible for all operations for a six-month term. In exchange for salary and course credit, the CEO will oversee 15 team leads and roughly 34 team members.

The first Student CEO will be chosen from the Gabelli School of Business, while successive ones will be drawn from throughout Fordham’s student body. The other positions, including team leads, will be open to all Fordham students from the start.

When the cafe opens, Fordham will join roughly 30 other colleges, primarily in the Northeast, that operate cafes in partnership with Saxbys. Fordham will be the company’s first New York City partner.

“When people support a Saxbys, they’re not just getting a great product and a great hospitality environment. They’re supporting the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs,” said CEO Nick Bayer.

“These are really hard jobs with high expectations where young people are taking what they learned in the classroom, they’re getting a learning experience, and they’re coupling those two things together to go off and be great leaders.”

Saxbys arrival marks the second student-run coffee shop at Fordham, joining Rodrigues, located at the Rose Hill campus. 

Argo Employees to Stay at LC 

Since Saxbys is run exclusively by students, the current Argo employees will remain valued members of the Ram Hospitality team at Lincoln Center.

Saxbys Staples: Cold Brew and Grilled Cheese

The cafe will feature an expansive menu anchored by cold-brew coffee, grilled cheese sandwiches, and smoothies. Bayer said the expanded offerings will extend the appeal of the space beyond mornings when coffee and tea are in higher demand.

“We really want to continue to energize that space and make it one that people are excited to visit morning, noon, and night,” said Bayer. 

New Kind of Experiential Learning

Vincent DeCola, S.J., assistant dean at the Gabelli School, said the Saxbys partnership will dramatically expand opportunities for experiential learning–a priority for the business college. 

“They’ll be learning in real-time about supply chains, maintaining inventory, planning for the pricing, the placement of things, and promotions,” he said.

“It’s a terrific experience, especially in areas like marketing, entrepreneurship, and accounting.”

Because the Student CEO role will be a full-time position, DeCola said he expects those students’ course load to be adjusted accordingly. Credits will be applied from their time managing the cafe, and they’ll also be given the opportunity to take a night class.

He said he was encouraged by the fact that the arrangement has been successful at so many other colleges, including St. Joseph’s University, a Jesuit school in Philadelphia. He noted that one of the supports that Saxbys offers to student CEOs is access to a group of former Student CEOs who they can turn to for advice.

“We anticipate that we can do this in a way that’s meaningful, and we’ll find things to improve each semester as we move forward,” Father DeCola said.

The Fordham community is invited to a tasting event at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, in the Garden Lounge, on the ground floor of 140 W. 62nd St.