Sharon Greenberger

Doctor of Humane Letters

Throughout her career, including as president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York, Sharon Greenberger has been at the center of countless efforts to improve lives and foster healthier, stronger communities—from building schools and hospital facilities, to rebuilding Lower Manhattan after 9/11, to caring for New Yorkers, mind, body, and spirit.

Greenberger grew up in Kansas and says she’s a Midwesterner at heart, but her mother insisted she attend college on the East Coast. As a student at Wesleyan University, she had a summer job at Common Cause in Washington, D.C., that introduced her to the government and nonprofit world. After college, she moved to New York City and landed a job renovating low-income apartments in Hell’s Kitchen, launching a versatile, dynamic career in urban planning and community development. 

After 9/11, she served as chief of staff to the city’s deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding. Next, as president and CEO of the New York City School Construction Authority, she led the completion of 100 new schools and 2,000 construction projects in four years. In 2011, after serving as chief operating officer of the New York City Department of Education, Greenberger joined New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where as a senior vice president she oversaw $2 billion in projects to expand and improve medical facilities.

In 2015, Greenberger became president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York, a role she has described as the “perfect marriage of community, education, health, and service.” Today, she leads the nonprofit in serving more than 500,000 children, adults, and seniors at 24 branches across the five boroughs. She developed a strategic plan to guide the organization’s growth through 2025. And, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the YMCA played a critical role in connecting with isolated seniors and providing emergency housing, school enrichment programs, childcare for health care workers, and health and wellness information.

Community is Greenberger’s north star, and she is intent on bringing even more New Yorkers together at the YMCA. In recent years, the organization opened two new locations in the Bronx. “We try to help New Yorkers find two things that everyone needs,” she has said, “a sense of belonging and a sense of achievement.”

For her inclusive, holistic approach to community development, and for her commitment to advancing the well-being of all New Yorkers, we, the President and Trustees of Fordham University, in solemn convocation assembled and in accord with the chartered authority bestowed on us by the Regents of the University of the State of New York, declare Sharon Greenberger Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. That she may enjoy all rights and privileges of this, our highest honor, we have issued these letters patent under our hand and the corporate seal of the University on this, the 20th day of May in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Three.