Christopher R. Blake, Ph.D., BUS,
Joseph Keating, S.J., Distinguished Professor of Finance, delivered the graduate address at William Paterson University’s 183rd Commencement in Wayne, N.J., on Tuesday, May 16, and was honored at the ceremony with the University President’s Medal. Arnold Speert, president of William Paterson, bestowed the medal on Blake, who graduated summa cum laude from the university (then William Paterson College) with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1983.

George Drance, S.J., A&S,
artist-in-residence in the Department of Theatre and Visual Arts, is adapting C. S. Lewis’ novel The Great Divorce for the stage. Father Drance received permission from the Lewis estate to adapt the novel as a play and is developing it with members of Magis, the theatrical company he founded. The work will be presented as a staged reading in June at the summer leadership conference of Christians in Theatre Arts, in New York, and Father Drance will open the show off-Broadway in January 2007.

Mark Naison, Ph.D., A&S,
professor of African and African American Studies and the director of the Urban Studies Program, was featured in The New York Times City Section on Sunday, April 30, in an article about the Bronx African American History Project’s research on the musical traditions of the Morrisania neighborhood. Naison also lectured on “Crossing Racial and Cultural Boundaries Through Music: An Historian’s Journey from Rock & Roll to Hip Hop” at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., in April.

Joan Roccasalvo, C.S.J., A&S,
adjunct professor of theology, published, “Fordham’s ‘Jewel in the Crown,’” an article on the University Church, in the 2006 edition of Sacred Architecture, the journal of the Institute for Sacred Architecture. “The art and architecture of the chapel,” Sister Roccasalvo wrote, “create a visual atmosphere that engages the human for the sake of divine worship, its details being directed to the life of faith fashioned in the Jesuit spirit.” Built in 1845 as a seminary chapel and the parish church for surrounding farms, Fordham University Church was declared a New York City landmark in 1970.

Lloyd H. Rogler, Ph.D., A&S,
Albert Schweitzer Professor Emeritus, was designated a “superstar” in medical research by a team of health economists at Columbia University. The Columbia study identified the academic opportunities that top researchers create, and the impact they have on their own institutions and colleagues. The superstar researchers ranked above the 95th percentile in the National Institutes of Health’s distribution of extramural research grants from 1977 to 2003, according to the Columbia team. Rogler, who was named the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Fordham in 1974, takes an interdisciplinary approach to research, covering sociology, psychology, psychiatry and history.

Lawrence Sacharow, A&S,
professor and chair of the Theatre Program, directed a Fordham University Theatre Company production of the Tony Kushner play SLAVS! in Pope Auditorium on the Lincoln Center campus last April, and hosted a question-and-answer session with the award-winning playwright after the April 26 performance.

William Treanor, J.D., LAW,
dean and professor of law, was profiled in The New York Sun on May 11, in an article titled “Activist Dean Lifts Fordham Law’s Profile.” The wide-ranging piece focused on Fordham Law graduates’ substantial representation at top law firms, their commitment to public service, the Law School’s mission and Treanor’s leadership philosophy.

James Vellozzi, A&S,
research technician at the Vector Ecology Laboratory, part of the University’s Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y., confirmed the first-known nesting and fledging of saw-whet owl chicks in Westchester County. The small owl is common in northern New York state and Pennsylvania, but rarely sighted in Westchester in the warmer months. Vellozzi helped biologists measure and band the five well-fed owlets in their nest on Friday, May 19. The last recorded breeding pair in southern New York state was on Long Island in 1968.

Edward Wachtel, Ph.D., A&S,
associate professor of communication and media studies, won the Media Ecology Association’s 2006 Walter Benjamin Award for Outstanding Article in the Field of Media Ecology, for his book chapter, “Did Picasso and Da Vinci, Newton and Einstein, the Bushman and the Englishman See the Same Thing When They Faced the East at Dawn? Or, Some Lessons I Learned From Marshall McLuhan About Perception, Time, Space, and the Order of the World.” The chapter appears in The Legacy of McLuhan (Hampton Press, 2005), an anthology edited by Wachtel with Lance Strate, Ph.D., associate professor of communication and media studies at Fordham. The award is presented at the association’s annual convention in June.

Robert M. Wharton, Ph.D., BUS and Albert N. Greco, Ed.D., BUS,
professor and area chair of management systems, and professor of marketing, respectively, presented a research paper, “The State of the U.S. Book Publishing Industry: 2004-2005 With Projections for 2006-2010,” at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on May 19. The lecture was part of a series hosted by the Library of Congress’ Science, Technology, and Business Division, and the Technology Policy Directorate, and was videotaped by the Library of Congress for its archives, and for use by researchers. Wharton and Greco presented another paper, “Book Industry Trends 2004-2010,” at Book Expo America, the nation’s leading book industry meeting, also in Washington, D.C., on May 19.