The President's Report 2005-2006

The Fordham Ram sculpture, commissioned by Robert Brodner, M.D. (FCRH ’68),and his son, John Brodner, D.D.S. (FCRH ’94), was unveiled on the Rose Hill campus last June, during the annual Jubilee Reunion Weekend. Photo by Jon Roemer

A Message From the President

For more than 165 years, Fordham’s mission has been to prepare leaders whose lives are marked by competence, conscience, compassion and commitment to the cause of the human family. Therefore, the University has always been a place where talent is nurtured, character is formed, hope is born and leaders are prepared for service to others.

During the 2005-2006 academic year, I witnessed countless examples of the ways in which that mission has been made manifest in the lives of our students, faculty, alumni and friends. For example, the University community responded to the crisis created by Hurricane Katrina with a generosity that was inspiring: our students, faculty and staff contributed more than $100,000 to the relief efforts along the Gulf Coast and welcomed more than 100 displaced students to campus to help them get through the traumatic first semester of the 2005-2006 academic year. Moreover, more than 100 student members of our Global Outreach Program have traveled to New Orleans to participate in the rebuilding efforts in that stricken city. Our undergraduate students, however, were not the only members of the University community who showed the generosity of spirit that we have always associated with Fordham. During the past year, the Law School celebrated its centennial in typical Fordham fashion. In keeping with its commitment to educating lawyers who are devoted to the service of others, the Law School observed its centennial not with self-congratulations, but with a yearlong campaign to have its alumni donate 100,000 hours to community service. (With the altruistic enthusiasm that has always been a hallmark of the Law School community, the Law alumni actually surpassed the ambitious goal that the Dean set for them at the beginning of the year!).

This is Fordham’s genius, and its noble and unchanging purpose: educating men and women of discerning wisdom, generosity and transforming excellence who are always seeking to do the world a world of good.

Informed by this spirit and inspired by the example of those who have gone before us, we are continually challenged to prepare Fordham for its future, and to provide our students with an experience characterized by the same kind of informed and transforming excellence that have always been the hallmarks of a Fordham education. And so we do. We have forged a vision worthy of our heritage as the Jesuit University of New York, the Jesuit University of the capital of the world. Toward 2016, a 10-year strategic plan that was completed last year and approved by the Board of Trustees, is designed to make it possible for us to regain our position of prominence and preeminence among America’s Catholic universities by 2016, the 175th anniversary of the University’s founding.

Substantial progress toward that goal was evident last year in the work of our students, to cite but one example. Many of our students threw themselves into the competition for prestigious fellowships and scholarships with renewed vigor. The hard work they put into their applications, and the one-on-one attention they received from a host of University professors and administrators, paid off quite handsomely. Fifty-seven students won a total of 62 awards. These exceptional scholars are on fire for excellence. They are a leaven for the entire student body, and they inspire the whole community with their reverence and commitment to the kind of education that can both stretch hearts and minds, and change lives.

There is, of course, much work to be done if we are to achieve our vision for the University. That work includes the enhancement of the facilities that we have on both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses. (We would like to add new academic, residential life and student center facilities on both campuses.) Our ambitions are grand, but they are the only ambitions worthy of Fordham, the Jesuit University of New York, the Jesuit university that stands at the crossroads of the world and that has educated leaders for more than a century and a half.

Neither the achievements of the past nor the dreams that we have for the future would be possible without the generous support of all who love Fordham. Therefore, on behalf of the entire University community (and especially on behalf of the students whose lives have been enriched by their support), I would like to thank the thousands of men, women and groups listed in the pages of this report. The spiritual, intellectual and financial gifts of our alumni and friends provide both the inspiration and the indispensable leadership necessary as we work together to realize our greatest dreams.