“Traditionally, researchers are trained to use a revolving door model where they go into vulnerable communities like conquistadors, they get the gold, and because we’re scientists the gold is data, put it in a sack over their shoulder and then go back to the ivory tower,” said Rivera-Mindt. “The communities never benefit from that work. There’s no positive feedback loop.”

The grant from Genentech, a subsidiary of the biotech giant Roche Group, is for a two-year study. She will be working with scientists who specialize in Alzheimer’s disease and health disparities research. The goal is to work with the community to develop a culturally-tailored digital platform and social media campaign to increase research participation and engagement of Black adults.

Though her research has shifted to cognitive aging, for years Rivera-Mindt’s academic career was dedicated to investigating the effects of HIV, substance use, and substance use treatment on the brain—particularly among Latinx and Afro-Caribbean populations. She published papers on how certain diverse ethnic groups are often researched as one whole, such as the Latinx population. This is problematic, she said, because being Mexican, for example, is a very different experience than being Puerto Rican, and even regions within Mexico are extremely diverse.

In 2010, The Clinical Neuropsychologist published her paper, “Increasing Culturally Competent Neuropsychological Services for Ethnic Minority Populations.” The paper represented a “call to action” for a discipline that she said was ill-equipped to handle the increasing diversity of the nation. The paper has been frequently cited for its recommendations to neuropsychologists on how to tailor their work in research, clinical services, and infrastructure for the communities they serve.

This January, the same journal published an article Rivera-Mindt wrote titled “White Privilege in Neuropsychology and Norms for Spanish Speakers of the US-Mexico Border Region” that reexamined the problem with a particular focus on the border region, though many of the themes were universal and drew from her earlier work, she said. The pandemic exposed stubborn issues of underrepresentation that she argued may be exacerbated by “white privilege and a lack of appropriate normative data.”

“There have been some gains from 2010 to 2021, and it’s still the case that a neuroscience and neuropsychology workforce is not well equipped to handle the country’s diversity and we continue to grapple with how best to prepare the workforce,” she said.

Over time, her research goals have changed with community needs. Such is the case with Alzheimer’s and dementia research, where the community has prompted Rivera-Mindt’s current focus. She noted that while the Black population is significantly overrepresented in terms of risk, they’re woefully underrepresented in the research—particularly Black men.

Rivera-Mindt said the community-based approach requires researchers to become involved in the communities they are studying. Over the years, this has meant that she has not only studied the Harlem and East Harlem communities, but she’s participated in neighborhood events.

“I took my kids to community meetings, I went to monthly meetings of the Harlem Community and Academic Partnership and the Manhattan HIV Care Network,” she said. “I needed to earn trust. So, I kept my mouth shut and kept my ears and eyes open.”

Once she gained the trust of the community, she was able to offer her services and knowledge. She was soon giving lectures on the importance of brain health, and it was there that her work with the aging population began.

She noted that Latinx and Black individuals are up to three times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or related dementia than white people. At the same time the same populations are aging at a faster rate, the ripple effects of which are staggering, she said.

“Or workforce capacity will be affected by the health care and caregiving that’s needed for these older adults, and that’s just one of many issues,” she said.

Today, she lives in Harlem and her children grew up going to public school there. She wears multiple hats at the community meetings now, as a community member, a parent, and as a researcher.

“It brought the work to such a deeper level. It has so much more meaning,” she said.

Rivera-Mindt said the pandemic has exposed the challenges of conducting community-based research. People who are most affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia, namely older adults, are frequently less tech-savvy and can no longer attend the community health meetings which have moved online. Rivera-Mindt has had to rethink ways to connect with her community partners. The Genentech grant money has allowed her to convene a Community-Science Partnership Board (CSPB) composed of community members and stakeholders at the start of the study, thereby involving the community from the beginning.  The members of the board will use a large-scale digital resource called the Brain Health Registry to help examine and track the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia in the Black community.

“We’re starting out at the ground level, but we’re acutely aware of the digital divide and thinking deeply about how to address it by not necessarily focusing all of the digital engagement towards older adults, but instead reaching out to their children and their grandchildren and taking a multigenerational approach,” she said. “We could really make it a family affair and educate everybody about the importance of getting involved.”

Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of history and African and African American studies, said Jones’ life made for a great story because it was so “incredibly improbable” but also relatable.

“A lot of people growing up in the Bronx can really identify with his stories, in terms of what’s going in their families and neighborhoods, and what gives you the ability to get out of difficult circumstances and become successful,” said Naison, who co-authored the memoir, which was published in 2009 by Fordham University Press.

On Oct. 16, Naison and the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) invited a dozen students from Mott Hall Bronx High School to a class he teaches called The Bronx: Immigration, Race, and Culture. Though the books hadn’t come in time for the class, Naison made a compelling case for why the students should read it when they arrive. In the Zoom conversation, the class dissected the story’s main themes, including the importance of mentorship and code-switching, or changing the way you express yourself with different groups of people. They also talked about how books like The Rat That Got Away, whose author was profiled in The New York Times and a 2009 Fordham News story, can have the power to change people’s lives. 

“It’s a book about a young man who grew up in the ‘50s in a housing project in the Bronx when public housing was a really desirable place to live, watched it deteriorate in the face of drug epidemics and the Vietnam War, and then led a double life as a drug dealer and a basketball player and ended up—because he had mentors—being sent to a New England prep school after spending four months in Rikers Island,” Naison said. “It’s a real, true story.” 

An ‘Upside Down’ View on College Classes

In his memoir, Jones writes about how rapping was a popular way of communicating with his peers in the Sixties, said Naison. So Naison showed his students and guests the video of the song “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang—the first hip-hop single to land in the Billboard top 40—and rapped to two different songs himself: “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and his own “Notorious Ph.D.” 

“The students thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen,” Naison said. “This is turning their views of what a college is like—or college professors—a little upside down, but hopefully getting them excited about going to college and then having the opportunity to be creative and expand their horizons.” 

Jainaba Camara, a senior at Mott Hall Bronx High School, said this class was the first college course she had attended. The media often portrays professors as strict instructors who don’t interact with their students, she wrote in an email. But at Fordham, a professor rapped to music, created a space where she felt comfortable sharing her thoughts, and taught her a valuable lesson that will help her prepare for college, she said. 

“Everyone has a story, no matter how boring or uninteresting you think your life is. It was really motivating and gave me the push I needed to start my college essay,” said Camara, who wants to become a nurse or health care professional someday. 

Keeping A Connection with the Community

Alison Rini, a senior English major at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said she recognized some of the high school students. The day before, she had virtually assisted a few of them with their Common Application college essays through a CCEL initiative that started this semester. 

With everything being on Zoom, she said, it’s easy to have class sessions with local high schoolers—“to still keep that connection with the community even though they can’t physically go on campus,” said Rini, who works as a research assistant for the Bronx African-American History Project and the Bronx Italian-American History Initiative. “It was really refreshing to have everyone altogether.” 

The iconic game-show host, who is living with stage four pancreatic cancer, arrived at the event straight from the studio still in makeup from recording five episodes of Jeopardy!. He told the crowd that he was there to provide comic relief from the formalities. Pointing to the statue, he noted that at 20 pounds it was the heaviest award he has ever received.

“That’s about a case of beer for those of you who keep track of statistics,” he mused.

On a more serious note, he acknowledged that his consistent appearance on the game show, despite his illness, has been an encouragement to others who are suffering.

“It’s humbling and it’s gratifying; because of the program that I have hosted for 36 years I have managed to touch the lives of so many people,” he said.

Fordham Trustee Fellow Armando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82, Trustee Brian MacLean, FCRH ’75, Alex Trebek and Jean Trebek, PAR, and Father McShane

He recalled a recent Lakers game that he attended where the sports announcer Mike Breen, FCRH ’83, leaned in to remind him that there were “a lot of people praying” for him.

“And if there’s one thing I have discovered in the past year it is that power of prayer; I learned it from the Jesuits when I was a kid, l learned it from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate when I was in boarding school,” he said with tears in his eyes.

The Trebeks would go on to send their two children to Jesuit schools. Their daughter, Emily, graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 2015 and their son, Matthew, graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill with a degree in philosophy in 2013. Today Matthew is a restaurateur in Harlem, an area of the city that the couple has grown very fond of. They established the Alex Trebek Endowed Scholarship, making gifts of $2 million to aid Fordham students from North Harlem and East Harlem.

“You think Alex Trebek is a good man; you don’t know the half of it, he’s better than you think,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “He’s a brilliant man who is the nation’s school teacher, let’s admit that. As the host of Jeopardy!, he is our school teacher and we look forward to going to school every evening.”

Father McShane called Trebek a man of “quiet generosity” who, even in tough times, continues to teach.

“He teaches us about how to live each day with purpose, with focus, with determination, with love, and without being obsessed with oneself,” he said. “All that he does is outwardly directed. And he would freely say that the inspiration for all of this is his muse, Jean.”

In accepting the award, Jean Trebek drove home Fordham values that align with those of her and her husband.

“We understand how education, and probably more importantly, higher education, is one of the linchpins of society,” she said. “The many issues that we currently face are intertwined and affected by the leveling of educational availability.”

She said that she and her husband find the very idea of how a scholarship can change a life “awe-inspiring.”

“Once we are allowed to have the support that leads to an educated mind, that mind has the opportunity to be open and curious which allows for a fuller understanding and appreciation of our humanity both individually and collectively,” she said, noting that she has seen it occur in her own family.

“On a personal note, thank you, Father McShane and Fordham, for helping to develop our son Matthew’s personhood, both intellectually and emotionally, so that he can move through his life, which he does, with great confidence, responsibility, and creativity,” she said.

Her husband echoed her sentiments.

“If you have compassion in your heart, everything is possible, peace everywhere is possible,” he said. “If we are able to affect society in a positive way then our lives will not be for naught.”

Father McShane said he could not agree more with the couple, particularly as it related to the power of prayer. He then asked the crowd to join him to pray for Alex and “for his ministry.”

“That’s the one thing that has become clearer and clearer in the last few months, the school teacher has now become the minister,” said Father McShane, before reciting the Our Father and blessing Alex.

Earlier, eyeing the Archbishop Hughes statue during his acceptance speech, Trebek noted, “I have a thing about men with capes.

“People ask me at the studio quite often ‘If you weren’t hosting Jeopardy what would have you wanted to be in your life?’ And my response for years has been consistent, ‘Pope!’”

On leaving the stage, he assured the crowd that he had already tried to lift the 20-pound statue and that he didn’t want it sent back to his home. He was taking it home himself.

“I want it,” he said.

The event was hosted by Madeline McFadden-Nuñez and Fordham Trustee Fellow Armando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82, chairman of ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group and chief content licensing officer at ViacomCBS. In attendance were alumni, students, and newly-accepted Rams who will start at Fordham in the fall.

“It is hard to overstate the impact of Alex and Jean’s generosity,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “Their gifts ensure a student body that is more diverse in every way, better prepared to excel as students at Fordham and as leaders upon their graduation. The University—and its students—owe a debt of gratitude to the Trebeks.”

Reached by phone at the couple’s home in Los Angeles, Jean Trebek said that there were several things that motivated the couple to continue supporting students from a neighborhood on the other side of the country, not least of which was the concept of paying it forward.

“If we can help them, they will help others, and there’s that beautiful rippling effect,” she said.

‘A Soft Spot for Harlem’ 

The Trebeks have two children: Emily, Loyola Marymount University Class of 2015, and Matthew, who graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill with a degree in philosophy in 2013.

When Alex first established the scholarship fund with Jean in 2015, he said the benefits of Matthew’s Fordham education were clear.

“My son’s career at the University not only sharpened his intellect but helped him develop as a leader and a well-rounded person,” said the Jeopardy! host. “My hope for this scholarship is that it helps many other deserving students have that same transformational experience.”

Thanks to their son, the Trebeks are no strangers to Harlem. Matthew has gone on to own two restaurants in the neighborhood: Oso, a Mexican restaurant at 140th and Amsterdam Avenue, and the soon-to-be-unveiled Lucille, named for his grandmother, at 152nd Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

“We have a soft spot for Harlem,” said Jean.

Experiencing Different Cultures

Fordham’s first Trebek scholar, Estefania Cruz, commuted to campus from her home in Harlem. She graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2017 with plans for a career in social work. The current scholar, Joel Gomez, is on track to graduate from Fordham College at Rose Hill next year with a degree in international political economy. Gomez said he first received the scholarship in his junior year, which helped him clear that year’s loans. He has received the funds again for this year.

When he first came to Fordham, Gomez said he wasn’t entirely aware that the campus would be so different from All Hallows High School, his alma mater in the South Bronx, where the student body was “about 98 percent men of color.”

“It’s important to see that the University caters to different students,” he said. “Giving help to students like me lets me absorb different cultures and that experience is really important.”

He said at first, he was a little stunned that the scholarship came from the famous game show host. He later took note of Trebek’s Canadian background and appreciated how the gift crossed boundaries and cultures.

“I think it’s exciting, he grew up in a completely different culture and to give back later to a whole different community—it’s pretty dope,” he said.

Jean said that after meeting one scholarship recipient’s parents, she felt a maternal kinship.

“I think anytime we help our children, you don’t feel alone, you feel a sense of oneness, a sense of engagement, and a connectedness,” she said.

Meeting a Need

Just as Harlem is often called the cultural capital of black America, home to the Apollo Theater and Schomberg Center, East Harlem is often referred to as El Barrio and is a cultural hub of Latino New York, home to Museo del Barrio and several other Latino cultural institutions and nonprofits. It is also home to a significant population of students in need of scholarships.

With this expansion, the number of prospective applicants for consideration for the Trebek Scholarship will nearly double, thereby increasing the likelihood that more students from Harlem and East Harlem will ultimately enroll at the University. Last fall, there were 116 applicants from Harlem, with 252 from both Harlem and East Harlem.

Jean said that the couple decided to expand the scholarship’s neighborhood parameters after conversations with Father McShane.

“Once it was proposed, we had no reason not to expand, because [Fordham’s] philosophy is that education is at the root of living a life of compassion,” she said. “You need the mind and the heart and that’s a beautiful thing that Fordham does.”

Less than one year ago, Guzman earned her master’s degree from the Graduate School of Education(GSE); a year before that she’d graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill, where she was a George and Marie Doty Founder’s Scholar. And yet, despite being less than six months on the job, she exuded the confidence and authority of a teaching veteran.

She credits the Five-Year Integrated Teacher Education Track with getting her acclimated to daily life in a classroom.

“The undergraduate program blends right into the graduate program,” she said. “When you’re an undergrad, the focus is on getting you comfortable being in classroom three days a week at different grade levels, so you can think about which kids you blend well with and where you’ll teach best.”

She said that’s how she realized that second and third grade were the right fit for her.

“Second and third grade is fun for me because they’re still small and they still love school,” she said. “A lot of middle schoolers are a bit too cool for school, whereas these younger students still have an innocence about them that’s really special. They love learning about the world and themselves.”

Guzman, who is the first in her family to graduate from college, said that she discovered her passion for teaching as a sophomore through the Fordham chapters of Generation Citizen and Jumpstart.

“Those clubs put us in classrooms that really opened my eyes to the inequity in New York City classrooms,” she said. “I was assigned to a classroom that used old textbooks, whereas other school districts like the one I went to have iPads and tablets.”

She said that as first-generation college student, she values education and wants to make sure students of all backgrounds get the same chance she did. She said she was thankful that she received the needed scholarships to make it happen.

“I wouldn’t be in this classroom if I hadn’t received the [Joseph C.] Zoller scholarship,” she said. “What’s unique about that scholarship is that it’s a community of teachers, so there were teachers who were really interested in my development and offered tips and tricks about being in the classroom all day, every day.”

GSE also gave her the theoretical underpinning that helped develop her approach to creating a “community of learners.”

“When a lot of us were in [middle and high]school, we learned the procedures of things, ‘You do this, and you do this next, and then this next,’” she said. “That is fine—if the questions and the problems always look exactly the same. But when they don’t, that’s where procedural teaching falls short.

“At Fordham, I learned concepts of teaching, such as ‘Why this works,’—and that pushes a student to think at a deeper level and a conceptual level.”

Such conceptual thinking doesn’t stop at the three R’s, however. It extends to getting the students to envision going to college, too. At the back of her classroom, Guzman has Fordham pennants and Fordham Ram gear. Each homeroom at Harlem Success Academy has an aspirant college, usually the teacher’s alma mater.

“They love to hear why Fordham is important to me, and that gives them a concrete impression of college,” she said.

And for those that make the trek from Harlem Success Academy to the University’s campuses, they’ll be in the Fordham Class of 2032.

“I knew I had to make changes in my life. It took me 30 years to make those changes.”

Today, Pullen is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Social Service researching how addiction affects her Harlem neighborhood. She is the president of Let’s Talk SAFETY, Inc., a not-for-profit dedicated to substance abuse prevention for teens and youth. And she is the chief operating officer of The PILLARS, a recovery center in the heart of Harlem.

“I cut my teeth in Fordham’s Office of Student Life on the Rose Hill campus,” she said. “I began to develop the model for SAFE in Harlem as an intern there.”

She said that, odd as it may seem, her personal journey from addiction to recovery has helped her to realize her calling—and for that she is thankful.

“In recovery, I found that my purpose was to come back to the community where I was born and raised. I want the youth to see me as an example of what is possible in the community,” she said.

PILLARS promotes holistic approaches to recovery, she said. The program offers “one stop shopping” with 12-step programs, individual recovery planners, peer recovery coach training, workforce development, domestic violence prevention, parenting skills, yoga, reiki, and even acupuncture.

Those coming into PILLARS for services can be assured of their anonymity; but Pullen doesn’t plan to hide her past.

“I stand as an example. That’s why I live my addiction and recovery out loud,” she said.

Pullen will be part of a film screening of “Reversing the Stigma” and a panel discussion on recovery on Monday, Sept. 25 at 5 p.m. at the New York Institute of Technology Auditorium, one block from Fordham Lincoln Center. The event is free and open to the public. Two continuing education hours are available for licensed social workers through GSS. 

Today, one would be hard pressed to find girls jumping Double Dutch on Bainbridge Avenue, or any other street in the city for that matter, said Roberts, who now spends five days a week on the Fordham campus as an executive secretary in the dean’s office at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she manages Dean Eva Badowska’s hectic calendar.

When not working, however, Roberts and several friends have set out to “keep the [Double Dutch]  tradition alive” by meeting twice a month in Harlem just inside Central Park at Central Park North and Lenox Avenue for open practices. You can usually find the group at 2 p.m. on alternate Saturdays, inviting any and all interested parties to join in and learn the skill.

Roberts said that the all-female group members of Double Dutch Lovers NYC found each other through the website Meetup, organized by her friend Tina King. The women’s ages range from early 30s to early 50s, which speaks to the game’s heyday of the 1970s through the 1980s, Roberts said.

At that time in Bedford Park,—Fordham’s neighbor to the west—the middle-class home owners lived next to working-class renters, while neighbors with more trying circumstances lived just a few doors down. The one thing all the girls in the neighborhood had in common was jumping Double Dutch.

It was a period when the Bronx was going through a trying time, yet was also producing some of the nation’s most vibrant cultural movements. Roberts said that while Double Dutch’s popularity wasn’t an offshoot of hip-hop, it wasn’t exactly divorced from it either.

“Double Dutch is very rhythmic, and has a beat from when you’re landing your feet, and when the ropes hit the ground. Where there’s a turn and stomp, and a turn and stomp, you’re making music,” she said. “It’s not hip-hop, but the beat is the umbrella over it.”

The group has jumped with the Children’s Aid Society and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, where the kids are “amazed at seeing someone jump two ropes.”

“They give it a shot and they usually do two, three, or four jumps,” she said.

Roberts said the group has brought her into contact with women she would have never known when she was a girl. Way over in Brooklyn, the girls had different names for “an inverted turning style” of jumping known there as “scotch,” but it was called “double orange” up in the Bronx.

“It’s a way to share this moment of when we were kids, when it was a just a way to be outside, have fun with other girls our age, to compete, and to push each other in a good way,” she said. “We used whatever we could—telephone extension cords, wires, clotheslines. You didn’t need a team or a uniform, just as long as you could jump.”