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Graduate Student Mixes Dance, Social Work
and an Enduring Commitment to Help the Elderly
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Shenell Eaton-Foster
Photo by Bruce Gilbert |
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By John DeSio
Despite her accomplishments, graduate student Shenell Eaton-Foster, FCLC ’06, remains grounded. In fact, Eaton-Foster is so humble that she didn’t think her academic prowess warranted a profile on the eve of completing her master’s degree in social work.
“I really think that I have done just about everything that everyone else at the school has done,” she said. “I don’t think my accomplishments are any different than any other student at the Graduate School of Social Service.”
But her humility can’t begin to hide the stellar career Eaton-Foster put together at the University. A native of Oakland, Calif., she graduated from Bishop O’Dowd High School and then attended the University of California at Berkeley for two years before making her way to New York City to study dance through the University’s cooperative program with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Having studied the capoeira, a mix of dance and martial arts, while at Berkeley, Eaton-Foster felt it was time to pursue a degree in dance and came to Fordham to realize her dream. But her academic studies in dance were short-lived.
“I realized you didn’t need a degree in dance to dance professionally,” she said.
Instead, she channeled her energy into social work. After receiving her undergraduate degree last year, Eaton-Foster was awarded Public Sector Practicum Partnership Program scholarship to continue her studies at GSS. She chose social work over other fields out of a desire to make a difference in her own community and throughout the world.
“When I had the idea to get my undergraduate degree in social work it was really simple: I just wanted to have the skill set to work in a job that I knew I would be making a difference, that I would care about when I wasn’t dancing,” Eaton-Foster said.
So she immersed herself in the field of social services, particularly as it relates to the elderly. And her desire to work on the international level took root while at Fordham—she currently serves as the representative to the United Nations for the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, an Albany-based nonprofit group.
Even though Eaton-Foster has been keenly focused social work, she has not forgotten her roots in dance. In fact, she hopes to design a program that would use capoeira and other dance techniques to aid older people in staying active.
Learning to see the connections between what would seem as the disparate worlds of dance and social work, Eaton-Foster said, was all part of the many lessons she learned at Fordham. |
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Copyright © 2007, Fordham University.
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