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.”

Thanks to a recent visit from Joseph P. Kennedy III, they’ll have a better idea of what to expect as they explore the region and learn about its past.

“You expect politicians to put a veneer over everything, but he was very honest about the situation on the ground in Northern Ireland,” said Rylan Carroll, a sophomore at the Gabelli School of Business and one of the 11 students who will travel to the region for eight days in March.

To prepare students for the trip, Fordham hosted Kennedy, a former U.S. representative from Massachusetts and U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs from 2022 to 2024, at a Jan. 23 luncheon at the Lincoln Center campus.

Exploring a Troubled History

When the Global Outreach students visit Northern Ireland, they’ll  spend time in Belfast and Derry and learn about the sectarian strife between Catholics and Protestants that dominated the region for decades, long known as “the Troubles.” 

Active hostilities ceased in 1998, but tough questions remain about how a society heals from the trauma of a conflict that lasted nearly four decades and resulted in an estimated 3,500 dead and 47,500 injured. The conversation with Kennedy in January touched on many of those questions.

For instance, Carroll said, Kennedy recounted his conversations with a man whose father had been killed in the conflict. His father’s killer had been freed from prison as part of the peace process, and he still struggled with the notion that the man was walking the streets today.

“We can go on talking about religious pluralism, but there are also …  real-world consequences to all of the movements that have happened there,” said Carroll, a global business major with a concentration in marketing.

Carroll signed up for the Global Outreach project because he’s interested in religious pluralism and because he sees parallels with marketing, which is fundamentally about understanding how people react to messages and make decisions.

“We talked a lot about how people came to decisions to end the Troubles,” he said. 

“Like, can you live with the people who have committed these acts against you and be at peace? Can you come from a perspective of wanting your children and their children, and so on and so forth, to be all right?”

John Gownley, director of Global Outreach, credited James Haddad, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, with proposing Northern Ireland as a destination. Once that was settled, Gownley said, the next step was finding a speaker to join the nine-week formation period during which students discuss race, religion, and other topics relevant to their destination.

Kennedy was an obvious choice, having spoken about Northern Ireland as the speaker at the University’s 179th commencement, where he also received an honorary degree. Gownley said Kennedy is the kind of speaker he hopes to recruit for future Global Outreach trips.

“We’re trying to find opportunities beyond the classroom for students to get real face time with people who work [in the region they’re visiting], whether it’s in government, politics, religion, or social justice movements,” he said.

The panel is an independent advisory body that synthesizes scientific information on climate change. Members advise city policymakers on local resilience and adaptation strategies that protect against extreme heat, heavy rain, coastal storm surges, and other climate hazards. 

“Much of New York City comprises islands. We must be prepared for the fact that we’re at risk of future hurricane landfall, we’re going to lose land to sea-level rise, and there will also be drought and temperature increases,” said Conte.

“I’m very excited to contribute knowledge that can be put to good use for a panel like this.”

Conte is the first Fordham professor to join the panel, which was first formed in 2009 and renews its membership every three years, tapping experts from government, non-profits, and academia. This appointment is not the first time the government has called on Conte for his expertise;  his research on climate change was cited in a major report issued by the White House. 

Learning from Past Climate Disasters

Each new panel is tasked with issuing a report at the end of its three-year term. Conte said that past panels have analyzed global climate models that had been recently released, downscaling them to show how they might affect New York City.

No new models have been released recently, so he said he expects this panel will dig deeper into the challenges that are already known–particularly those highlighted by recent disasters. The group will hold a series of public meetings this year to gauge the public’s interest in specific areas. 

Conte said the panel will provide important guidance during a critical time. 

“Given the outcome of the recent election, we expect that federal leadership in this area is going to be greatly diminished,” he said. 

“New York City is a high profile area, so this kind of assessment is important to maintain the focus on the challenges we face and show what can happen at the local level to reduce the impacts of climate change.”

Recent examples of extreme weather worth re-examining are numerous. Conte said the panel may determine what will happen to water supplies if droughts like the one that lasted nearly a month continue. Or it might try to quantify the risks that New Yorkers will be exposed to as a result of extreme bad air days caused by Canadian wildfires or those posed by brush fires that have been on the rise in the New York City area. 

“We’re also thinking about when the next Superstorm Sandy is going to come through and how we’ll have to deal with it,” he said. 

Conte, who has published research on outdoor air pollution in New York City, the challenges of managing tropical cyclone risk, and the impact of climate change on natural capital, hopes the panel will explore each of these topics.

The Everyday Costs of Climate Change

He’s also hopeful that as an economist, he’ll be able to help the panel illustrate the societal costs of climate change and pollution that are poorly understood by the general public. 

“One of the big challenges is that, as we just saw in this election, everyone cares about the price of milk, but we don’t have a price for clean air or a price for not having to miss work because of asthma or because it’s too hot,” he said.

“I’m hoping to provide literature that shows what types of policy interventions are successful when facing these challenges and what the difficulties are for policymakers in putting them into action.”

Father Massaro said he has known of “the prestigious McGinley Chair since I was in my 20s,” in part because of the semiannual public lectures the chair historically delivers.  

This tradition, said Massaro, “is one of the ways that Fordham reaches out and plays its role as a center of theology in the broadest, pluralistic circles of New York City life.”

Tracing the Legacy of the McGinley Chair

The McGinley Chair takes its name from Fordham’s 26th president, the Rev. Laurence J. McGinley, S.J., who deepened Fordham’s ties to New York City life and culture by establishing its Lincoln Center campus and serving as a founding director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Upon McGinley’s retirement in the 1980s, colleagues in New York’s civic and arts communities contributed generously to endow the chair.

As the third person to serve as the McGinley Chair, Father Massaro said he is “very conscious of walking in the footsteps of the first two occupants.” Inaugural chair Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., was the first and still only American theologian to be named a cardinal of the Catholic Church. The second chair, former Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Fordham, Patrick Ryan, S.J., was widely known for his expertise on Islamic political thought and fostered mutual understanding between followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He served as the McGinley Chair from 2009 until his retirement in 2022 and now lives at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit retirement home outside Fordham’s Bronx campus.

Father Massaro, whose area of theological scholarship is social ethics, has written extensively on Catholic social teaching and its recommendations for public policies. He has published 150 articles to date and authored 11 books, including United States Welfare Policy: A Catholic Response (Georgetown University Press, 2007) and Pope Francis as Moral Leader (Paulist Press, 2023).  

“A moral theologian like myself is well positioned to hold this chair and to leverage its publicity to address a broader audience,” he said, “one that includes not just people of faith, but people who don’t think often in terms of religious belief or practice.”

A Fresh Take on American Exceptionalism

As part of his installation ceremony, Father Massaro will deliver his first McGinley Chair lecture on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 in the Keating Hall first floor auditorium at Rose Hill. The topic will be the problematic and ambiguous concept of “American exceptionalism” as seen through a Catholic lens. 

“Catholics have hardly ever spoken about this notion of America as inherently unique and morally superior compared to other nations,” said Father Massaro, “leaving a void of perceptive assessments regarding America’s potential contribution to the global pursuit of political values. So I’ll be offering a fresh perspective. This research project has been percolating in my mind for many years now.”

The annual tradition was also celebrated at the University Church at Rose Hill on Dec. 8, bringing together voices from the combined University choirs and the Bronx Arts Ensemble. President Tania Tetlow lent her own voice to the festivities, joining the choir singers and performing a solo of “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

St. Paul the Apostle, Lincoln Center

University Church, Rose Hill

Funding for the new outdoor play space was secured with help from Fordham’s Center for Educational Partnerships, a part of the University’s Graduate School of Education. The center partnered with MS 331 beginning in 2015, providing administrative help and assisting with tasks such as funding requests. GSE graduate Serapha Cruz is the principal of MS 331, which shares the complex with an elementary school, PS 306X. 

Anita Batisti, Ph.D. associate dean and director of the Center for Educational Partnerships, said that one of Fordham’s mandates is to improve the wellness and well-being of students and the community. Studies have shown that clean, well-kept playground equipment helps students feel more connected to their community while promoting exercise and play.

“It really was a natural progression for us to do this,” Batisti said. 

“With our skills for raising money and helping to prepare proposals and bids, we were able to move this process along through the various funding sources.” 

Fordham President Tania Tetlow joined Batisti at the Oct. 25 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 46,0000-square-foot play area. Also in attendance were GSE Acting Dean Ji Seon Lee, U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres; Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson; Councilmember Pierina Ana Sanchez, who helped secure funding for the project; and representatives from the Trust for Public Land and the Department of Environmental Protection, which oversaw the design and construction of the space.

When work on the $2.85 million project began in 2021, the space in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx was a cracked, crumbling stretch of asphalt. It now features a full basketball court, a volleyball court, game tables, an outdoor classroom, a gazebo, and play equipment for younger children. There is also fitness equipment for older students and community members, benches, a running track, and a turf field for soccer and football.

Designed for for working professionals and recent graduates, the 30-credit degree will give students the scientific knowledge and technical skills needed to succeed in a growing field where groundbreaking developments such as gene editing and personalized medicine are advancing at a rapid pace. The degree can be completed in one year.

Biotechnology Is a Growing Field

Falguni Sen, Ph.D., head of Fordham’s Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center, said hiring in the field of biotechnology is expected to increase.

“We see the potential for major growth taking place broadly in the life sciences areas, which includes biotechnology,” said Sen, who oversees the program.

Statistics paint an encouraging picture of the field. According to IBIS World Industry Reports, the market size of the U.S. biotechnology industry grew 7.7% per year on average between 2018 and 2023.

The industry, which combines engineering and natural sciences to create commercially viable therapeutics, is also important to New York City’s economy. In December, Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation offering tax incentives for growing biotech companies to create jobs in the city. According to the city’s Economic Development Corporation, an estimated 16,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the field by 2026.

What Can You Do with a Biotechnology Degree?

Sen said the degree is tailored to the areas of the field where there are opportunities.

A student who recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and aspires to be a scientist or scientist’s assistant will benefit from classes about biochemical and biomolecular technologies.

Someone who is already working in the industry and wants to include a focus on AI will benefit from classes about data analytics and informatics.

“The degree allows you to become a specialist in the analytics side, but you’re not just a run-of-the-mill analytics person. You’ll be an analytics person who knows the biotech industry. That gives you a leg up,” said Sen.

Sen noted that because biotechnology is a fertile area for startup businesses, the degree will also be of interest to anyone who is working in the industry and wants to strike off on their own.

“They might have a Ph.D. already, but they have an idea and really want to be an entrepreneur. They need to know what the regulatory system is, how to get venture money, how to do all of that,” he said.

Other fields graduates will be equipped for include finance, government, compliance, and biopharma. 

Practical Biotech Degree Offers Flexibility and Hybrid Learning 

Classes are a hybrid of in-person instruction and online learning, with flexible schedules designed for working professionals. 

Several new courses, such as AI in Biotech, Marketing in Biotech, and Strategic Entrepreneurship and Business Development, have been created specifically for the degree. 

“What’s wonderful about this degree is that there is a core of five courses that really give you a sense of how this industry is structured, how it makes money, what its peculiarities are, and all the possibilities that are out there,” said Sen.

“You can take all of this knowledge and harness it for whatever direction you want to take.”

The program is being offered through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and leverages the expertise of faculty from the GSAS, the Gabelli School of Business, and Fordham Law.

This story was updated on February 18.