Fordham University will present five honorary degrees at its 164th commencement at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 16, on the Rose Hill campus. Two additional honorary degrees will be awarded at diploma ceremonies in the following days.
The University will present the 2009 commencement speaker, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, with a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa. Also being recognized with that honorary degree at commencement will be Hon. Michael Bloomberg, mayor of the City of New York.
Three other guests will be so noted at the Rose Hill ceremony: Justin Lin, chief economist of the World Bank; Frank J. Macchiarola, former chairman of the New York City Charter Revision Commission; and Kathryn Wylde, chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City.
Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public school system, will receive a doctor of laws degree, honoris causa, on May 17 at Fordham Law School’s diploma ceremony. Joe Moglia (FCRH ’71), chief executive officer of TD Ameritrade, will receive a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, on May 19 at the Graduate School of Business Administration’s diploma ceremony.
In addition, Mindy Fullilove, M.D., professor of clinical psychiatry and clinical sociomedical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center, will deliver the keynote on May 21 at the diploma ceremony for the Graduate School of Social Service.
Hon. Michael Bloomberg is the 108th Mayor of the City of New York. Elected to office in 2001, in his first term, Mayor Bloomberg cut crime; created jobs; unleashed a boom of affordable housing; implemented ambitious public health strategies, including the successful ban on smoking in restaurants and bars; gained control of the nation’s largest school district; and improved the efficiency of government.
In 2005, he was re-elected by a diverse coalition of support. In his second term, while balancing the budget and driving unemployment to a record low, Mayor Bloomberg has taken on a number of new challenges. He launched an innovative program to combat poverty. He’s undertaken a far-reaching campaign to fight global warming. And as co-founder of a bipartisan coalition of more than 200 mayors from every region of the country, he is working to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals and off city streets.
Bloomberg began a small start-up company called Bloomberg LP in 1981. Today, Bloomberg LP has over 250,000 subscribers to its financial news and information service. Headquartered in New York City, the company has 9,500 employees in more than 130 cities worldwide.
Justin Yifu Lin, Ph.D., was named World Bank chief economist and senior vice president on June 2, 2008, the first chief economist named from a developing country. A native of China, Lin has served for 15 years as a professor of economics and founding director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University. He has held a variety of public roles in his country, such as deputy of China’s People’s Congress and vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. Twice Lin has been awarded China’s highest honor for economics, the Sun Yefang Prize.
Lin earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1986. He is the author of 16 books, including The China Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform (Chinese University Press, 2003), and has published more than 100 articles in international journals and collected volumes.
Frank J. Macchiarola is chancellor and former president of St. Francis College in Brooklyn. Macchiarola’s professional career and public service has touched New York institutions far and wide. He served as New York City Public Schools chancellor from 1978 to 1983 and as president and chief executive officer of the New York City Partnership, Inc., from 1983 to 1988.
He has held dean and/or faculty positions at several major metropolitan area universities, including the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, and the City University of New York campuses at City College, Baruch and the Graduate School. His most recent commitment to public service is as chair of the New York City Charter Revision Commission.
In 2003, Macchiarola was called upon by the city to help negotiate a fair settlement between the Local 802 Musicians Union and the League of American Theaters and Producers, after a strike shut down Broadway and cost the city millions in revenue.
Kathryn Wylde is president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization of the city’s business leaders that was established by David Rockefeller in 1979. She also founded the Housing Partnership Development Corporation and served as president from 1982 to 1996.
An internationally known expert in housing, economic development and urban policy, Wylde serves on the Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board, the NYC Economic Development Corporation, the NYC Leadership Academy and two NY-based research alliances, one on Bioethics and one for the public schools. She is a native of Madison, Wis., and a graduate of St. Olaf College.
Joel Klein has been chancellor of the New York City public school system since 2002. A New York City native and graduate of the New York City public school system, Klein initiated a comprehensive education reform program as chancellor that included ending social promotion in third, fifth, seventh, and eighth grades and giving principals greater control over how they run their schools while holding them accountable for results.
Klein is a former chairman and chief executive officer of Bertelsmann, Inc., one of the world’s largest media companies with annual revenues exceeding $20 billion. Prior to that commercial venture Klein served under President Bill Clinton as assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division. There he led the 700-lawyer division in cases against Microsoft, WorldCom/Sprint, Visa/Mastercard, and General Electric. He has been widely credited with transforming the antitrust division into one of the Clinton administration’s greatest successes.
Klein holds a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School.
Joseph Moglia (FCRH ’71) is chairman of Ameritrade, which grew from a small “dot com” brokerage house to one of the most widely recognized names in financial services during his seven-year tenure as chief executive officer. During that time, the firm’s market capital grew from $700 million to $10 billion and Ameritrade shareholders enjoyed a triple-digit rate of return.
Prior to his career in finance Moglia had a 16-year career as a high school and university football coach.
Moglia holds a bachelor’s in economics from Fordham, where he made the Dean’s List and was a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the National Economic Honor Society. He is the author of Coach Yourself to Financial Success: Winning the Investment Game (Wiley, 2005) and has also authored a books and articles on football.
