CSTEP and STEP are programs that provide support to New York high school and college students from underrepresented backgrounds, including academic support and counseling, scholarships, and research opportunities. (CSTEP is for undergraduates, while STEP is for middle and high school students.) 

Fetal Development, Eel Health, and Neurodegenerative Disease 

Students in Fordham’s programs presented their research to judges at the programs’ regional student conferences and were recognized for the quality of their projects. 

Three CSTEP students, who are all undergraduates at Fordham College at Rose Hill, were honored at the 29th annual CSTEP statewide student conference on April 16 in Lake George, New York: Daphne Buitron, a May graduate who earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology, won honorable mention in the natural sciences category for her project “Influence of COVID-19 Infection during Pregnancy on Infant Neurodevelopment,” conducted through a summer scholars program at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine; Latif Diaoune, a rising senior who studies general science and sociology, won 4th place in the natural sciences category for his project “H(eel)ing Our Rivers: An Assessment of River Health and a Survey of the American Eel,” conducted through Project TRUE; and Isaac Mullings, a rising senior who studies psychology on the pre-med track, won third place in the health sciences category for his project “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Biomarkers of Disease Progression,” conducted through Columbia University’s PrIMER program. 

In addition, Laura Maca Vela, a high school senior at West End Secondary School in Manhattan, won third place in the biological sciences category for her research project “TLS Polymerase Activity in B. Subtilis in MMS” at the 23rd annual STEP statewide student conference in Albany on March 26. She conducted her research with Elizabeth Thrall, Ph.D., an assistant chemistry professor at Fordham. 

A Bronx Native Studies the Bronx River 

Diaoune, a Bronx native and commuter student, studied the Bronx River, the only freshwater river in New York City. In a project conducted with Project TRUE, he researched the impact of macroplastics and other pollutants on the American eel, a keystone species that lives in the Bronx River. 

“We saw the result of accelerated plastic production combined with [poor]waste disposal management, which is ultimately causing the oceans and rivers to suffer,” said Diaoune, who caught and measured local eels and plastics. “These consequences are felt by marine species like the American eel.”

The purpose of his project was to get his hands wet with research, said Diaoune, a pre-med student who is considering becoming a surgeon. He learned how to run his own experiment and mentor younger scientists. (Diaoune supervised several research assistants who are high school students in the Bronx.) 

Diaoune has presented his research before, at a Project TRUE symposium held at the American Museum of Natural History, but he said the CSTEP symposium was different. 

“I realized how big CSTEP really is,” said Diaoune. “It’s a huge community.”

“You have achieved great things, and in the heart of the pandemic, you have managed to keep this community alive,” Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said to the CSTEP students and staff. “This is a program that is a community. You all watch out for one another—and you inspire us.”

Fordham CSTEP is a statewide program that supports minority and economically disadvantaged students through mentorship and academic and career-oriented resources. The program prepares students for professions in areas where they are underrepresented, including STEM, health, and other licensed fields, and provides a “transformational, educational experience to future professionals and leaders,” said Renaldo D. Alba, associate director of the CSTEP and STEP programs. 

This spring, 73 CSTEP students will receive their diplomas, said Alba. After graduation, they will pursue different opportunities across the country. Among them are four students heading to dental, medical, or law school; one student attending a Ph.D. psychology program; 12 students pursuing master’s degrees in various disciplines; and one student participating in the City Year program, he said. 

In addition to recognizing graduating seniors, the ceremony celebrated other CSTEP scholars, including more than 100 students who achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher and about 50 students who served as tutors and peer counselors in the pre-college STEP Program for middle and high schoolers. 

Rafael Zapata, chief diversity officer, special assistant to the president for diversity, and associate vice president for academic affairs, was recognized with CSTEP’s Outstanding Service Award, which is presented to faculty, administrators, and partners who have provided exceptional service to CSTEP students. In his acceptance speech, Zapata lauded Michael A. Molina, director of the CSTEP and STEP programs, for leading the program over the past 35 years. (Molina was unable to physically attend the event because he is recovering from a medical procedure, but he joined via Zoom.) 

“No other office at Fordham better serves the needs of first-generation college students, low-income students, and students of color, with more dignity, understanding, love, support—and challenge—than CSTEP,” Zapata said. 

Zapata, a native New Yorker who grew up in public housing and became the first in his family to graduate from college, said he wished he had a community like CSTEP when he was younger. 

“I had a lot of loving and caring teachers. But I never had anyone who I could talk to about my life … I didn’t have this community. I wish I did,” Zapata said. “There’s so much pressure on you to sound differently, to act differently, to even walk differently. And for that, I’m grateful to remind you that I can be [myself], and you can be [yourself here].” 

In heartfelt speeches, students described their own experiences in the program. 

“CSTEP has been the best part of my undergrad experience and it has helped me grow socially, personally, and academically,” said Anusha Imran, FCLC ’22, a first-generation college student and aspiring physician who will receive CSTEP’s highest award at Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s award ceremony for graduating seniors. “I found a tight-knit community and met students who have similar stories, which only made me and them more resilient and fierce in the advocacy of our own education.”

In his keynote speech, CSTEP alumnus Braulio Carrero, FCRH ’04, senior counsel at Cityblock Health—a company that provides medical services to marginalized populations—congratulated the seniors and offered them advice for life after graduation.

“In my 20s, my purpose was trying to find my purpose,” Carrero said. “Some of you are very determined in the path that you want, and others aren’t. But at the end of the day … always remember what matters and why you’re doing what you’re doing.” 

(Vincent Harris, FCRH ’22, who was scheduled to receive CSTEP’s highest award at Encaenia—Fordham College at Rose Hill’s award ceremony for graduating seniors—died suddenly on May 10. The University published an obituary and held a memorial Mass for Harris at the University Church at Rose Hill on May 13.)

“When the pandemic first broke, we were able to pivot, keep the kids tuned in, and give them a sense of community and belonging,” said Michael A. Molina, director of Fordham’s STEP program. “I think that was extremely important and part of why we received this award.” 

STEP is a state-funded program that helps minority and economically disadvantaged junior high and high school students prepare for professions in areas where they are underrepresented, especially STEM. Fordham spearheads two STEP programs—one at Rose Hill, the other at Lincoln Center—that collectively serve more than 500 students every year. 

In typical years, STEP students receive academic counseling, internships, scholarships, and research opportunities both on and off campus. In addition to regular programming after school and during the summer, they have conducted research with professors at the Rose Hill campus and presented their findings alongside Fordham students at research symposiums. During the pandemic, they continued to learn and stay connected through reimagined ways of learning. In a virtual winter panel, successful Fordham alumni offered advice to STEP students. Last summer, a Fordham professor helped STEP students make connections between the civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement; a University psychologist also offered guidance on how to understand racial trauma and identify strategies for self-care. 

This fall, more STEP graduates than ever will be entering Fordham as first-year college students, said Molina. 

“This is the largest contingent we’ve had since 1986, when we first started the program at Rose Hill,” said Molina, adding that the usual cohort is about five students, but this year, the number is 18. “And this is not an accident—this is something we’ve been working on for a long time. For the past five to 10 years, our team and the admissions office have been emphasizing to the STEP kids to consider coming to Fordham and joining CSTEP so we can continue to support them.” 

CSTEP is similar to STEP, but the C stands for “collegiate.” The state program prepares undergraduate scholars from underrepresented groups for careers in STEM, health, and licensed fields. Fordham’s program is one of the largest in the state. This fall, Fordham CSTEP will resume in-person programming because students on campus are required to be vaccinated. But the STEP program, which serves local junior and high school students, will stay virtual until vaccinations are available and mandated for all children, said Molina.  

“We’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing: create a program that’s as interactive as possible with less lecturing and more of a hands-on approach with projects and faculty,” Molina said. “I’m optimistic. We have a lot of partners, great staff, and teachers who are creative.”

In a few weeks, Molina and his team will welcome to campus not only first-year students, but CSTEP sophomores who never stepped foot on campus during the pandemic when they were first-year students themselves. The CSTEP students, who served as virtual mentors to STEP students during the pandemic, will continue in that role, said Molina. 

“One of the biggest things we’ll be focused on is building community with the kids. In-person relationship-building, the academic and non-academic relationships that students build with each other and us—all of that, we’re going to need to rebuild with the kids,” Molina said, referring both to STEP and CSTEP students. “We’re looking forward to having them back.”

CSTEP is a statewide program that prepares minority and economically disadvantaged undergraduates for professions in areas where they are underrepresented, including STEM, health, and other licensed fields. The STEP program, similar in design, focuses on junior high and high school students. Both programs at Fordham provide academic support and counseling, internships, scholarships, and research opportunities throughout the academic year and summer. Together, the Fordham CSTEP and STEP programs serve roughly 800 Fordham undergraduates and local high school students. 

Over the past nine months, CSTEP/STEP have remained a constant in the lives of students dealing with the tricky transition to remote learning, technology glitches, and a loss of normalcy. Through reimagined ways of learning—from a virtual student lounge where students have bonded over popular games like Kahoot! and Among Us, to shorter meeting times designed to decrease screen fatigue—their programs have continued to serve students. They’ve also recently expanded their reach with new partnerships in local schools. Their events haven’t been canceled, either. This December, around 30 Fordham CSTEP alumni spoke with STEP students about their careers on a virtual panel; next January, the CSTEP program will launch its third mentoring program that pairs alumni with current students who share similar career goals. 

“Our meeting space has changed, but what really has stayed the same is our impact,” said Renaldo D. Alba, associate director of the CSTEP and STEP programs and a 2002 graduate from Fordham College at Rose Hill and its CSTEP program. “That’s something that we’re really proud of.”

The two programs have also addressed traumatic national events with special activities for students in the wake of George Floyd’s murder this past spring.

“The issues that were raised by George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed it are issues that our students and my staff have personal experience with. We’ve been subjected to it or we’ve had family and friends who have,” said Michael A. Molina, director of the CSTEP and STEP programs. “We were sensitive to these issues, and we knew that we wanted to do something.” 

This past July, Mark L. Chapman, Ph.D., associate professor of African and African American Studies, spoke with STEP students about the similarities between the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and today’s world. Ashlee W. Davis, Ph.D., a supervising psychologist and coordinator for diversity, inclusion, and social justice initiatives at the Rose Hill campus, also helped students understand racial trauma, find words for their emotions, and identify strategies for self-care. 

“We want our students to understand that you should always have strong feelings about these things that happen in life: the pandemic, George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement. You should feel whatever you feel. But you should also have facts and some balance when you’re looking at what’s going on,” Molina said. 

Staying ‘INSTEP’ with High School Students in the Bronx

Through virtual learning, CSTEP counselors and students have also continued to extend their pre-pandemic “INSTEP” college access initiatives to outside schools and community-based organizations, including KAPPA International School, a public school located a few blocks south of the Rose Hill campus. 

“How do you select a college or university? Should you go away? Should you stay in New York City? Should you apply to a CUNY or a SUNY or an independent school? What does living on campus look like? These are the kinds of discussions that our college students, the CSTEP students, do in small groups with the INSTEP high school kids,” Molina explained. 

Over the past two years, KAPPA students have visited the Rose Hill campus and learned about the transition from high school to college—the thing they struggle with the most—from Fordham CSTEP students who can empathize with them, said their assistant principal, Casey Smith. 

“It really hits home,” Smith said. “The kids really find it beneficial to work with college students and to have what feels like a mentor to walk them through the process.” 

Help with College Applications

This fall, the INSTEP program focused on a more timely topic for high school seniors: college application season. 

“I’ve learned signing up for FAFSA and TAP as soon as possible will help you go to college with barely any debt,” Amado Reynoso, one of the 26 KAPPA students who participated in the INSTEP program this fall, wrote in an email. “My favorite part of the program is when we did fun activities like college-themed Family Feud. It taught us more about college and stuff and financial aid, and [the Fordham counselors and students]kept it fun while doing so.” 

The virtual workshops also helped Leslie Garcia Torres navigate the financial aid process—something unfamiliar to many potential first-generation college students like herself. 

“The college process is stressful, especially if you don’t have any family members that have gone to college. It was just me, alone. I had to do the CUNY application, the FAFSA, all of that, the TAP application, by myself, but with a little bit of help,” said Torres, a high school senior from the Bronx and a Fordham STEP student. 

Among the CSTEP students co-leading the sessions was Anita Adu Manu, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill. Manu said they also discussed how to manage being a person of color in a predominantly white institution.

“These are kids who want to go abroad, in a way—outside of the city. We had to talk about that and how to find your own community,” Manu said. “We definitely used CSTEP as an example of one of these communities that other schools might have.”

‘Hey, I’ve Been In Your Shoes’

Manu said she found her own home through CSTEP. Before she became a program scholar in her sophomore year, she tagged along with her CSTEP friends to their program-sponsored biology and chemistry review sessions. She said she was also welcomed to a CSTEP potluck in her first year, even though she wasn’t officially part of the program. 

“I was able to build a community that I didn’t know I needed,” said Manu, a pre-med biology major from Van Cortlandt Village in the Bronx. “All the people I met freshman year at CSTEP are basically all my friends now.” 

She said her CSTEP counselors also helped her believe in herself. 

“There were a lot of things I didn’t know about the pre-med track, but all the counselors steered me in the right direction. And when I felt like I wanted to switch my major because I just wasn’t good enough, they reassured me. They were like, hey, I’ve been in your shoes,” Manu said, adding that many counselors are Fordham alumni, including Anya Patterson, FCRH ’19, a past Coro Fellow. 

Manu said she’s now considering becoming a sports cardiologist who travels with a soccer or football team. But at first, she wasn’t sure it was possible. 

“I felt like I was lagging behind. But when I would sneak into the review sessions,” Manu said with a laugh, “I had a boost of confidence. The professors were there. My peers were there. We were all collaborating. It made me feel like, OK, yeah. I think I can do this.”  

Thirty-Four Years of Growth 

Collectively, the CSTEP and STEP programs have been thriving at Fordham for decades. The STEP program at Rose Hill was created in 1986, while the STEP program at Lincoln Center became official in 2011. CSTEP has existed at the Rose Hill campus since 1987 and expanded to the Lincoln Center campus about 15 years ago.

“What the University has done over these past 34 years with the Rose Hill STEP program and for the past 10, 11 years with the STEP program—if you look at those numbers, you probably have somewhere between 8 and 10 thousand students over the life of these programs that have been positively impacted and who have been introduced to the possibilities of going to college and pursuing a career in a STEM, health, or licensed field,” Molina said. 

The oldest Fordham STEP graduates are now in their 40s, said Alba. The oldest CSTEP graduates are in their mid-50s. 

“These are folks that are doctors, physicians, Ph.D.s, accountants, lawyers, scientists, social workers, teachers,” said Alba, adding that many of them are originally from the Bronx. “And they proudly carry the STEP flag wherever they go.” 

Molina said the most rewarding part about their work is seeing their students as young as 11 realize their options in life and become adults. “You see these kids come in. They’re looking around like tourists … They’re wide-eyed with a lot of ideas and ambition and they’re highly motivated,” said Molina, a graduate from a similar program, the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). “It’s really a joy to see them grow, develop, and become these really accomplished young people by the time they leave us.”

Over the past six weeks, the team of three—Stephen Holler, Ph.D., associate professor of physics; Alan Vara, a rising senior from the Bronx; and Bryant Ramos, a rising senior from Brooklyn—have been collaborating on climate change research through the Fordham Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), designed to help underrepresented students in junior and high school prepare for STEM-related careers. Inside Holler’s lab, they controlled a carbon dioxide sensor, calculated CO2 concentrations, and dissected their data. At the annual Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium on Aug. 8, they presented their research results alongside six other STEP students, who developed projects related to biology, psychology, and chemistry.  

But what seems to have had the largest impact on them, said Vara and Ramos, was learning about the increasingly devastating effects of climate change. Recent historically high carbon dioxide measurements at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory have made them consider the impact of CO2 in their own homes in New York City. 

“You can see that it’s not just there—it’s our neighborhoods as well,” Ramos said. 

“It’s a lot more personal. You realize that it’s not [just]in some far off island,” Vara chimed in. “It’s right here, where you live and enjoy your life.” 

Dissecting the Science 

In mid-July, the two high school students began visiting the Rose Hill campus several times a week. 

“Every day they’d come in, and we’d sit down, get the software up and running, start building the box,” Holler said, referring to the box that held their carbon dioxide sensor. “[Then] we’d do some machining and programming.” 

The trio’s main tool was a non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor: a special device that converts light rays into numbers. The sensor sucks air into a tube and shines infrared light through the gas. The infrared light comes from a lamp at one end of the tube and shines through to detectors at the other end. A pump sucks in the air from the outside into the tube.

At the other end are two detectors that measure the intensity of the light coming through. What Holler and his two mentees were concentrating on, said the professor, was the way the light interacted with carbon dioxide molecules. 

“[CO2] is one carbon and two oxygens. They’re bound to each other. You can think of them as being little masses on springs. They vibrate at certain frequencies. And when your light source corresponds to that frequency that they like to vibrate at, you’ll get light absorption,” Holler said.  

In other words, the carbon dioxide absorbs some of that light, thus removing the light from inside the tube. Meanwhile, one detector at the back end measures how much light was absorbed. The other detector measures the amount of remaining light.

“Based on those relative intensities, I can say something about how much CO2 is in the tube,” Holler explained. 

The Earth’s rising carbon dioxide levels are primarily the result of fossil fuel burning. This leads to rising sea levels and other phenomena that can negatively affect communities and creatures around the world, as Holler’s high school students have observed this summer. Although the air at the Rose Hill campus is safe, they wanted to take a look at how the carbon dioxide levels fluctuate, particularly during morning and evening rush hours, said Holler. 

The team ran the NDIR sensor several times throughout the summer: twice in the lab overnight, and a few times in the lab for an hour and a half. Sometimes they threaded a tube from the box through a lab window outside; other times they measured CO2 levels in the lab itself. Then they graphed the CO2 concentrations and analyzed their results. 

They noticed that during the morning and evening rush hours, there was a slight increase in carbon dioxide. When the lab’s air-conditioning unit shut down at night, there was an increase in carbon dioxide levels due to the warmer temperatures, as opposed to during the day with cooler temperatures. Their indoor vs. outdoor data were relatively similar. 

Overall, the results of their preliminary experiment have prepared them for final data collection tests in the future, Holler said.

“[This shows] that we can have an instrument that monitors CO2 in here,” he said. “We know we have some improvements to make in the way we collect the data.” 

But ultimately, Holler wants to create a local network of CO2 sensors that could spark more dialogue about climate change. Instead of having people hear about data from distant places like Hawaii, he wants them to see what’s happening right in their neighborhoods—and realize that this issue does impact them, Holler said. 

“What I want to do is really have a tool for communicating—that we can engage non-scientists, we can engage the public on these issues that we’re dealing with right now,” he said. 

Bringing Climate Change Closer to Home 

Ramos said he knows that climate is real. But it was surreal to learn about the issue up close—to learn how a local sensor could capture carbon dioxide data in his own city. 

“We were talking about the environment and stuff at school,” said Ramos, who attends the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem. “I can bring this to school and share it [with people].” 

Vara, a rising senior at the High School for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at City College echoed the same sentiment. 

“We got the device up and running, but then there was also a why to it. We had to understand why we were building it, what the point of it was, what we were trying to convey in graphing data,” said Vara. “We [also]saw videos about Hurricane Sandy and how it affected Staten Island and how just a couple of centimeters of water, like sea-level elevation, has a disastrous effect for the people on the coast. Getting to see that climate change isn’t as distant as a lot of people would think—it’s not a 100 years into the future; it’s something that’s affecting people right now—that was definitely eye-opening.”

“The projects this year run the gamut, from fungus and bats, to lichens to blue-green algae, to an invasive tick, to evolution in lichens, to pollination trials, back to bats and how they are affected by light, and finally diversity in forests,” summarized Thomas Daniels, Ph.D., director of the Louis Calder Center, in his opening remarks. 

In 20-minute-long presentations, seven Fordham students spoke about what it was like to explore the sprawling 113-acre biological field station through CSUR: a 21-year-old program that allows Fordham undergraduates to conduct independent research projects with a Fordham faculty member and a $5,000 stipend. In wooded areas, Ian Sokolowski, FCLC ’20, foraged for Asian long-horned ticks with a white corduroy cloth and forceps. In the middle of Calder Lake, Julia Sese, FCRH ’20, retrieved water samples and analyzed algae blooms. 

Several of the students also shared how their projects began. Joseph Laske, FCRH ’21, recalled the day he found a wild bat while cleaning a Harlem park with members of the Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice club at Fordham. 

“I was raking some leaves, and I heard a squeak. I looked down, and there was this bat curled up on the ground in a fetal position,” recalled Laske, an environmental studies student. 

Concerned about the wild creature’s well-being, Laske snapped a picture of the animal and sent it to his professor, Craig Frank, Ph.D., who studies the effect of white-nose syndrome in bats. Could this bat be affected by the same disease, Laske wondered? 

It wasn’t. But his email sparked a conversation with Frank that would lead to Laske’s application to the CSUR program. For 10 weeks, Laske looked at how white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease, grows at different temperatures and how one species in particular, the Eastern small-footed bat, is able to resist the dangerous disease. 

“Bats are important pollinators [and pest eaters]. They contribute a huge amount to the agricultural industry,” said Laske, who plans on working as a technician in Frank’s lab this fall. 

The keynote address delivered by Alexandria Moore, Ph.D., a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at Columbia University, also explored science research. Most of her speech spotlighted her work in coastal wetland restoration. But the rest focused on her identity as a queer person of color and how it informs her work as a scientist. 

“What I have talked about so far today has been sort of referencing gaps: The first one is a gap in our knowledge of how ecosystems work and how we can do a good job at recovering them; the other one is a gap in our understanding of the differences between people and the importance of those differences that people have,” Moore said. “What I do now in my work is combine all of those things together …. What I do at the museum is I ask the same kinds of research questions that I asked at Yale. I ask them in areas where we haven’t asked them with people who never really get to be part of those conversations.”

Sitting in the audience were eight local high school students in Fordham’s Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP)—an academic enrichment program for underrepresented youth from 7th to 12th grade—who presented their summer research posters that afternoon. 

The year before was the first time that STEP students participated in the program. One member of the inaugural cohort will be a first-year student at Fordham College at Lincoln Center this fall, said Patricio Meneses, Ph.D., who helped bring the students to the annual program. 

For DaiJon James, a rising senior at Equality Charter High School in the Bronx, the six-week research experience clarified his career path. It showed him that he wants to become a scientist—a first for his family, he said. But what surprised him this summer was the level of respect and collaboration that he experienced with his Fordham mentors, including Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D. 

“It was kind of like …  jarring because as a teenager, you don’t ever really expect to be given the kind of opportunity to show what you know,” said James, who studied how to best use teletherapy to improve post-procedure care for teenagers with liver transplants. “Working with Dr. Annunziato changed that perspective for me.” 

This summer, another student—Alexa Caruso, a rising senior at New Rochelle High School in Westchester County—performed data collection and analysis on perovskites, a promising material in solar cell research. 

“With the people and the resources that we now have in this day and age, we can definitely make something useful,” Caruso said. “What I did, it’s gonna help the future one day.” 

Who he is
Director of Fordham CSTEP (Collegiate Science & Technology Entry Program) and STEP (Science & Technology Entry Program)

What he does
We administer the STEP program, which is the pre-college program at Rose Hill, and a new one at Lincoln Center that’s about three years old. We also administer the CSTEP program, which is the undergraduate program. The purpose of both is to address the preparation of minority students, and particularly blacks and Latinos, in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and licensed fields.

What he likes best about the job
Working with students, seeing them come in as wide-eyed freshmen and leave as accomplished young men and women. It’s quite a transformation, and it’s wonderful to see every four years.

What it means to be awarded the Sursum Corda award at the March 3 Convocation. (See story Fordham’s Most Loyal Celebrated at Convocation)
I view it as recognition for the work we do. I have a great staff of eight people who are absolutely phenomenal. They keep me young; they’re really smart, and they’re great with the students. I do appreciate the recognition; it’s very flattering. And the fact that Father McShane was there—he’s someone I really have a lot of regard for and he really shares our vision.

His background
I’m a born-and-bred Puerto Rican New Yorker. I grew up in the Jefferson projects in East Harlem and was the first person in my family to go to college, so I’ve had a blessed life. I’ve lived in New Providence, N. J., for the last 16 years. After living in New York all my life, it’s an interesting change. Suburban living is great—except for the commuting.

What he does for fun
I’m a Tito Puente fanatic. I like all the new jazz musicians too; I just heard Russell Malone at Shanghai Jazz in Madison, N.J., and got to meet him and have a picture taken with him. I love going to Jazz at Lincoln Center; I’ve seen Eddie Palmieri, Joey DeFrancesco. I don’t play though; I’m a frustrated musician. I just bang drums on the counter when I get really excited.

His family
I have a great family that allows me be here late many nights and go to conferences and events that take time away from them. I’ve been married to my wife, Ada, who’s chief clerk of the criminal court in Staten Island, for 30 years, and I have two daughters: Laura, FCRH ’08, and Sandy.

Why he has stayed at Fordham for 27 years
I grew up during the civil rights movement and saw history taking place. I was a young man in high school and college when Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and all these others who brought about change were alive and actively involved in the struggle to make the United States the place it is today. I guess, being a child of that period, this kind of work is consistent with who I am and what my values are.