Points of Pride

FAS improved support for faculty research and teaching by providing $126,577 through the Challenge Grant program in 2022-23. Primarily funded by restricted gifts, Challenge Grants are a vital resource to support faculty research and teaching. Activities funded by Challenge Grants included, for example, workshops to disseminate research to revise the traditional understanding of the Renaissance, a conference on traffic in the global eighteenth century, a conference on cultural exchanges between Italy and the world, and a composers’ workshop.

On April 11, the Department of Economics, with support from CASD and the Office of Research, held the Data Science Symposium: Doing Good with Data at Lincoln Center. The symposium reflected the current and increasing importance of data science in our society, as well as its potential as a tool to benefit society. Showcasing the diversity in the vast amount of interdisciplinary data science research at Fordham, the symposium included eighteen presentations from the following eight departments in the Arts and Sciences: Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Communication & Media Studies, Computer & Information Sciences, Economics, Natural Sciences, Psychology, and Physics and Engineering Physics. Presenters included faculty and students ranging from the doctoral to the undergraduate level. Congratulations to organizers, Johanna Francis (Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Economics), Gary Weiss (Professor, Department of Computer & Information Sciences), and Yijun Zhao (Assistant Professor, Department of Computer & Information Sciences), on a successful event (see photo above).

In November 2021, Stephen Grimm, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, received a three-year, $300,000 grant to launch the program, “Visions of the Good in the Bronx,” that aims to work with students from the borough, particularly those who are underserved or might not have access to the same resources as their peers. Students in the seminar tackle questions about what it means to live a good and fulfilling human life, and the program kicked off last summer with sixteen Bronx high school students who lived in the dorms of the Rose Hill campus (see photo below). With much excitement and enthusiasm, the program will be continuing this summer under the leadership of Lauren Kopajtic, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy, and Nicholas Smyth, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy. The three-week seminar will run from July 5-25 on the Rose Hill campus, and the summer program will be followed by a year-long mentoring program where students reinforce essential life and college-readiness skills, and successful students will receive letters of recommendation from their summer professors to accompany their college applications. Professor Grimm notes that "It was a pure pleasure to be part of the seminar last year. The discussions were great, everyone worked hard and had fun, and we all learned a lot from one another."

Varsha Panjwani, Ph.D., an Adjunct in the Department of English at Fordham’s London campus, teaches Shakespeare with a 21st-century twist. Her course shows students how to use the famous plays to relate to their lives regardless of their ethnicity, culture, or sexual orientation. She is a Shakespeare expert who has contributed her research to journals and film festivals and has been invited to deliver talks at prestigious institutions, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the University of Oxford. Watch this 1-minute video to learn more about her class!

The neighborhood of San Juan Hill was razed in the 1950’s to make way for Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and other developments, as part ofthe Lincoln Center Urban Renewal Plan. With the support of Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning and an Interdisciplinary Research Grant, Catalina Alvarez, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts/Art & Engagement, will be teaching VART 2222: Archival Reenactments at Lincoln Center in the fall. This course will create an archive of new oral history interviews with former and current residents of the geographical area impacted by this urban renewal program, culminating in works of media art directed by students. Professor Alvarez shares, “I’m excited to learn more about our history and to be doing this meaningful research with students. I’ll be guiding them inlistening deeply, collaborating, and working with primary sources as poetic and musical material.”

In May the A&S Council voted to approve a new bi-campus interdisciplinary Islamic Studies minor. The Islamic Studies minor aims to further Fordham’s mission by challenging students to view the world through non-western European constructs of nature, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, cosmic realities, and corporeal experience. To complete the minor, students will take six courses in Islamic Studies, which are defined as courses that deal with some aspect of Islamic civilization. We congratulate the leaders of this effort, Sarah Eltantawi, Ph.D., intellectual historian of Contemporary Islam and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, and Kathy Kueny, Ph.D., 

Fordham’s Department of Chemistry received the Jean Dreyfus Lectureship Award, a highly competitive award from the Dreyfus Foundation that was only given to seven universities in the United States this year. The award enables the department to host a lecturer of their choosing, and Fordham proposed Taekjip Ha, Ph.D., a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Ha, who has done pioneering research in the field of single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and is a leader in the field of CRISPR technology, delivered two lectures at the Rose Hill campus on April 12 and 13 (see image below). One, titled “Light, CRISPR and DNA Repair” was geared toward the scientific community, while the other, “Single Molecule Views of Nature’s Nanomachines” was crafted for the general public. The latter focused on how biophysicists are using light-based tools to examineproteins—nature’s nanomachines—one molecule at a time.

We are so proud of our faculty who are continually making a difference and building local partnerships. Check out a small sample of recent collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts, where our faculty are serving as catalysts for change in our own backyard!

Led by Robert J. Hume, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Robert J. Parmach, Ph.D.,Director of Ignatian Mission Initiatives in the Office of the Vice President for Mission Integration and Ministry, West Wing – now in its final semester –has been an Integrated Learning Community (ILC) of Ignatian Leadership and Civic Service for sophomores and juniors of Fordham College at Rose Hill, as well as the Gabelli School of Business. Earlier this month the group traveled to The Boogie Down Grind Cafe in Hunts Point (see photo below), to sit with owner, urban revitalization strategist, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, and author of “Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One,” Majora Carter, who spoke with students about the Bronx and the importance of community-engaged work. In reflecting back on the visit, Bob Hume is truly proud of the work the students are doing to deepen our engagement with the Bronx community.  To learn more about The West Wing’s visit, please click here.

Dawn Fariello, Ph.D., Lecturer in Biology, and Andrew Simons, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics, taught a new course in the fall called Ecology and Economics of Food Systems. Professor Fariello created the course in May 2021, after the Provost issued a request for an interdisciplinary STEM course with a Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) connection. The class is a small part of Fordham’s larger efforts to address the effects of climate change, as food insecurity is emphasized during the first half of the course and sustainability is the crux of the second half.

Stephen Holler, Ph.D., Chair & Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, and Usha Sankar, Ph.D., Advanced Lecturer in Biology, have been busy moving forward with Project FRESH Air (a Reimagining Higher Education Incubator Project), which has expanded further into Queens and Brooklyn. Earlier this year, they hosted a webinar featuring updates about the project, as well as guest speaker Dr. Sunit Jariwala, Professor of Allergy and Immunology, Co-Director of the Montefiore Asthma Center, and Director of Clinical & Research Innovation of the Department of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center.