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.

The editors of Commonweal, an acclaimed journal of religion, politics, and culture, said they chose to honor Tetlow because of her trailblazing lay leadership and commitment to justice.

“Her attention to forming and informing the next generation of Catholics and all people of goodwill, and her spirit of knowledge-seeking and creativity exemplify the values Commonweal continues to embody,” they said. 

For Tetlow, receiving an award from the renowned publication was an honor. “Commonweal embodies the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition, asking the critical questions, pushing on assumptions, seeking truth for a century,” she said. It “continues to lovingly push our church to read the signs of the times and to keep striving towards the truth of the Gospel.” 

Tetlow is the first woman and the first layperson to lead Fordham, and according to Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi, that’s part of what made her an ideal candidate for the Centennial Award.

“She’s an inspiring example who really aligns with Commonweal’s mission, and our belief in the importance of laypeople in matters of faith and leadership,” said Preziosi, a Fordham alumnus. He said Tetlow, who recently appeared on the Commonweal podcast, is “the perfect expression of the kind of community we’re building around as we launch into our second century.”

Fordham Board Chair Armando Nuñez and Kim Bepler, a Fordham trustee, were co-chairs of the dinner. “Tania is a gifted and charismatic leader who is both entrepreneurial and a fierce advocate for Fordham and Jesuit traditions,” said Nuñez. “As president, she is a faith-first leader, called to the service of the University community every day.”

Several other friends of Fordham were on hand for the ceremony. Timothy Shriver, the disability rights activist, presented Tetlow with the award. Shriver received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2019 and delivered the keynote address at that year’s commencement.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J, professor emerita of theology at Fordham and an award-winning author, delivered the invocation and touched on Tetlow’s unique role as a layperson leading a Jesuit institution. 

“Thank God for the laity,” she said. “Thank God that in an era when the expected lay role was to pay, pray, and obey, some few decided to raise their distinct lay voices to explore how Catholic faith could intersect with culture and politics—critically and fruitfully.”

Commonweal, which was recently profiled in the New York Times on the occasion of its centennial, produces a print magazine, podcasts, live and virtual events, and local community gatherings centered on reflective discussions of faith, public affairs, the arts, and the common good. Its past contributors include Dorothy Day, W.H. Auden, Hannah Arendt, John Updike, and Graham Greene. 

Tania Tetlow grew up in a uniquely Catholic and Jesuit-influenced household, where dinner conversation centered around intellect, scripture, and justice. Throughout her career, her Jesuit formation and devotion to justice have guided her.

On this episode of The Catholic Leaders Podcast, hosts Kerry Robinson and Kim Smolik sit down with Tetlow, who grew up in New Orleans and spearheaded efforts to raise millions to rebuild and reimagine the city’s libraries after Hurricane Katrina as chair of the New Orleans Library board. She is a trailblazer in Catholic higher education, having served as the first female president of Loyola University New Orleans before becoming the first female president of Fordham in 2022.

The College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, convened by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, will focus on three civic commitments: educating for democracy; preparing students for a vibrant, diverse, and contentious society; and protecting and defending free inquiry. 

Tetlow said the coalition’s work dovetails with the values of Jesuit universities like Fordham.

“For 500 years, Jesuit universities have taught not just knowledge but wisdom. We teach our values—empathy and openness, and our skills—critical thinking and active listening,” said Tetlow, who signed on to the initiative earlier this month.

“We encourage students to question assumptions, both ours and their own. We model for students how to argue with passion and logic, without attacking the motives of those with whom we disagree.”

The coalition’s civic commitments are woven into the work of Fordham’s FitzSimons Presidential Initiative on Civics and Civility—a yearlong project of education and engagement, offering a model for genuine, respectful dialogue among Americans and fruitful avenues for cooperation in creating solutions to common problems. 

Institute for Citizens & Scholars president Rajiv Vinnakota said that higher education has a responsibility to provide students with critical civic skills and knowledge to participate effectively in our constitutional democracy.

“College campuses are among the most diverse spaces in our country, and college is an important time for students to develop the habits, practices, and norms to live in a multicultural and interconnected democracy,” he said. 

“Doing so can create a ripple effect, making young people more optimistic and increasingly committed about their future and our nation.”

The University’s Internship Promise, unveiled this week, pledges that every undergraduate student from the Class of 2029 and beyond will have the opportunity to participate in at least one internship, research project, or other form of experiential learning.

“Learning by doing has always been part of the Fordham experience, as our students demonstrate every year through their internships and research in our hometown of New York City,” said Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow. 

With New York City as their launchpad, 90% of undergraduate students participate in at least one internship—and many enter the workforce with more than one on their resume. Unlike other locations, New York City offers internship opportunities year-round. 

Fordham students have interned at places as varied as Bloomberg, the Apollo Theater, the United States Tennis Association, EY, and Disney. They have been awarded research fellowships and opportunities stemming from unique partnerships, including those with NYC’s faith communities. Student journalists at Fordham’s WFUV have reported from the field at Yankee Stadium and gone on to intern at top news organizations like MSNBC.

Proven Benefits

Annette McLaughlin, director of Fordham’s Career Center, said students who participate in internships are more likely to receive offers for full-time employment, regardless of their field of study. 

“There’s great value in any type of hands-on learning experience, and we find that’s true even with students who do internships and then decide that it’s not the right industry for them,” she said.

“Internships are important for student’s career exploration and professional development, as well as giving them insight into the culture of an organization.”

A recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that employers rate internship experience within their industry as the top factor they consider when deciding between two otherwise equally qualified candidates. 

“In everything they study, students want to understand the ‘why.’ So when they can get hands-on experience through internships, they can connect what they’re doing in the classroom to the real world,” McLaughlin said.

Finding Internships at Fordham

The Career Center, which expanded its footprint in the Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Campus Center in 2022, hosts employers at several events each semester. In addition to holding nine career fairs annually, the center also hosts a fair devoted exclusively to internships, featuring employers such as Barclays, EssilorLuxottica, L’Oreal, Phillips Auctioneers, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, EY, LSEG, and Tapestry. 

Students can also access internship opportunities—86% of which are paid—through Handshake, the Career Center’s one-stop online career platform for students and alumni. Gabelli School of Business students have access to the Career Center’s resources as well as their school’s Personal and Professional Development Center, which has connected students to internships at companies such as Morgan Stanley, Estee Lauder, and PwC. 

Fordham students can also receive internships via Serving the City, a unique paid internship program that connects them to New York area nonprofits and cultural organizations. 

In addition to internships, learning opportunities such as research and fieldwork can be found University-wide. Fordham faculty oversee capstone projects, assignments, case studies, and research projects. Students can also gain experience with Fordham departments such as the Center for Community Engaged Learning, Marketing and Communications, and the Office of Information Technology.

Continuous Support

As they progress in their education, students are encouraged to connect with alumni mentors who can help them with career advice and utilize all the tools of RamConnect, the University’s online community for professional development. Career counselors also work with students all four years to help them improve their career readiness skills. 

“We are always looking to prepare our students for the future,” said McLaughlin. 

“Internships, research, experiential learning, and study abroad are key components to setting our students up for success.”

“If we don’t have healthy political discourse, then we don’t have a healthy democracy,” he said on Sept. 24 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

“America is founded on ideas that require debate and refinement that comes from talking, from arguing.”

In a lecture and Q&A with Fordham President Tania Tetlow, Dickerson laid out the structural reasons Americans are engaging less with each other on controversial topics. 

The event kicked off Fordham’s FitzSimons Presidential Initiative on Civics and Civility, a year-long project of education and engagement created as a model for respectful dialogue and cooperation among Americans. 

The Gold Standard from the ’80s

The reason political discourse feels unproductive today is because the country’s political climate has shifted dramatically, he said. 

In the 1980s, the relationship between President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neil became a gold standard for bipartisanship, as Reagan, a conservative Republican, and O’Neil, a liberal Democrat, worked together on issues such as Social Security.

That was only possible, Dickerson said, because, in 1982, voters in 85 House districts sent a Democrat to Congress and yet also voted for Reagan for president. To satisfy these “Reagan Democrats,” O’Neil and Reagan needed to work together. The number of districts where this kind of “split ticket voting” takes place has since plummeted to just 16 in 2020.

He pinned the blame on “money, movement, and media.” In 2012, it cost an average of $500,000 to run for a House seat and $11.4 million to run for a Senate seat. Today, it costs $2.7 million for a House seat and $26 million for a Senate seat. Since outrage fuels fundraising, candidates have no incentive to keep the discourse civil.

Fewer Politically Diverse Counties

Meanwhile, Americans have continued to move to communities where political leanings are more homogenous. In 1976, 25% of them lived in counties where one political party consistently won landslide victories. Today, that number has increased to 58%.

“So in these kinds of counties…the political contest doesn’t then become between two parties,” Dickerson said. “It gets fought in primaries. It [becomes a fight]among the people of the same party. And that tends to lead opinions in the party over to … the more extreme side.“

Finally, he said, mobile devices have made it difficult for people to take time to think in a nuanced way about complex issues.

‘Give Space and Grace’ 

To solve the problem, Dickerson recommended that Americans recognize the ways the current system is designed to keep us in conflict with each other. That means checking yourself to make sure you aren’t disagreeing with somebody because your peers are driving your response. 

It also means placing a premium on freedom of speech, the value of asking why when we are unsure of ourselves, and prioritizing understanding over knowledge.

“So give space and grace to those you disagree with. Listen, restrain judgment, and don’t pile on.”

Watch the full lecture and conversation.

“These are enormously complicated institutions with so many different constituencies,” she said. “How do you navigate the latest controversy while still moving the university forward?”

“Bridging the gap between what they can afford to pay and the excellence they deserve is getting harder and harder,” Tetlow said. “It’s important to understand those goals are in tension with each other.”

“I am so eager to console the students who are in a great deal of pain,” she told the journalists. “I find myself in the embarrassing situation of revealing to them I have less power than they imagine that I do.”

“It’s so much easier to tear down an institution than to build one,” she said.

“What I’m proud of is helping Fordham double down on who we are — a Jesuit institution in New York, determined to find out how we can have an impact on a really broken world.”

“The advantage we have at this moment in a religious university is the ability to unabashedly talk about values and faith,” she added. “That’s harder at secular institutions, because they have to worry about offending people.”

Our fates are united, Joseph Patrick Kennedy III told the Fordham Class of 2024, and peace is possible when we recognize that “our pathway forward is together.”

Speaking at Fordham’s 179th Commencement on May 18, the U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs recalled that region’s painful history—and eventual peace—to illustrate that even amid longstanding war and division, there is reason for hope. 

“While we may come from different backgrounds and perspectives, the lesson Northern Ireland teaches is that our future is shared,” he said from Keating Terrace on the Rose Hill campus, just after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University.

“It is as true in Belfast as in Boston. It is true across our United States. It is true in Israel and Gaza, where terror and heartbreak, violence, and suffering must give way to a shared future. And it is true in every other corner and cranny of our planet.”

A Bostonian who told graduates he loves New York (even if he can’t quite get behind the Yankees), Kennedy is a grandson of the former New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He represented the 4th Congressional District of Massachusetts for four terms before assuming his diplomatic role in 2022.

Northern Ireland’s journey from the strife known as the Troubles, which ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, is proof that change is possible, he told graduates.

“It’s not perfect. Like everything human, it is really messy and really hard. But 26 years later, the region is still at peace,” he said.

As the sun shone through clouds on the crowd of more than 20,000 people, Kennedy shared anecdotes about meeting people in Derry and Belfast who once were enemies but now are working together. 

“There is a difference between being guided by the past and being held hostage by it,” he said. 

“If we are bold and brave enough, we can learn to make space for each other, even when we disagree on really big things—if not for our benefit, then for those whose futures are yet to be written.”

He told graduates that the world they inherit needs them.

“It is a world that needs your vision and your grace. Your empathy and ambition. Your courage to choose to leave the world a little better than you found it,” he said. 

“And please hurry. Your world awaits, and it needs your help.”

A Time to Celebrate

In her second Fordham commencement address, President Tania Tetlow acknowledged that this year’s ceremonies hold special resonance for many students whose high school graduations were disrupted by the COVID pandemic. 

“Today is the day to glory in what you have achieved,” she said, noting that even the Empire State Building will be shining in the graduates’ honor tonight.

In graduating, students joined the ranks of millions of Jesuit-educated people around the world who can bond with each other simply by referencing the phrase cura personalis, or care for the whole person, she said. 

“But this isn’t the kind of secret handshake that gets you insider entitlement. Instead, it’s an enormous responsibility that you carry with you forever,” she said.  

“You came to Fordham with blazing talent, each of you blessed by abundant gifts from God. But—and this may be a rare thing to say at commencement—those gifts do not make you better than anyone else,” she said.

“What makes you special is how you use your gifts to matter to the world.”

The University officially conferred roughly 3,300 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the ceremony. Including those who graduated in August 2023 and February 2024 and those who are expected to graduate in August 2024, the University will confer nearly 5,700 academic degrees in all.

In addition to Kennedy, Fordham conferred honorary doctorates upon two other notable figures: Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and a leading global activist against capital punishment, and the University’s former board chairman Robert D. Daleo.

—Photos by Chris Taggart, Bruce Gilbert, Hector Martinez, and Taylor Ha

Watch the full ceremony here.

“[W]hen we look at those generations forged in the fires of suffering and crisis, we see the generations who mattered most to history. Class of 2024, you have become fiercely focused on what matters. You have refused to accept the brokenness of the world. You face the challenges ahead with courage. You look for truth with curiosity and openness. And today, especially today, you remember to find joy. There’s nothing more Jesuit than that,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University. 

Christ is risen!

At a moment when the world sorely needs it, today we celebrate life conquering death. We celebrate hope conquering despair. For in matured faith, Fordham encounters all creation, saying quietly, Peace be with you—the peace of learning, the peace of good will, the peace of love.

Easter is the “Pasch,” meaning “passage.” As Pope Francis describes it, “For in Jesus the decisive passage of humanity has been made: the passage from death to life, from sin to grace, from fear to confidence, from desolation to communion.” Today, we run towards the light, as the women in the Gospel rushed to find the risen Lord.

The events we remember in this Holy Week teach us that joy does not just descend upon us. Joy comes from struggle and suffering, from the empathy and humility we learn the hard way. We are remembering now that God’s Son, fully with us in our humanity, has gone the hard way before us.

Then He rose. When He first spoke to the disciples, he said “Peace be with you.” Today we pray fervently for peace, for an end to devastating pain in the world. We comfort ourselves not by looking away, but by daring to hope.

Happy Easter,
Tania Tetlow
President

Today our Muslim friends celebrate the extraordinary feast of Ramadan, a time of renewal, commitment, and connection. Like Easter and Passover, Ramadan moves with the ancient lunar calendar, beginning with the sighting of the new crescent moon that ushers in the ninth (and most sacred month) of the Islamic year.

Observers will fast from sunrise to sunset and shift their focus to the power of night. They will gather in community, to break the fast with relief and joy, and to pray.

During the day, for 30 days, they will model a remarkable self-restraint, breaking out of the usual distractions of life—to help purify their souls, deepen their empathy, remember the less fortunate, and connect to the Almighty. Opening their hearts to Allah, they renew their commitment to family and community.

The rest of us will support our remarkable and hungry classmates and colleagues with awe.

Prayers and blessings,
Tania Tetlow, President