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fairfieldthinkspace · 11 days ago

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A Moment of Reflection from Fairfield Bellarmine’s First Class

Scarllet E. Lopez

Fairfield Bellarmine

Class of 2025

Student Commencement Speaker

vimeo

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I have a confession to make, statistically, I shouldn’t be here.

As a Hispanic woman from Bridgeport who dropped out of college at 19, the odds weren’t exactly in my favor. But here I am, in this moment.

At 23, college was the last thing on my mind. My parents kept bringing it up. They saw the potential in me that I just didn’t see in myself. I was chasing fast money, just trying to get by, and I truly believed school wasn’t for me. Then one day, my mom made me go to an information session about Bellarmine. Nakia, the director of Admissions, was speaking. Something about the way she shared the program's vision lit a spark in me. I didn’t expect to feel inspired, but I was. The school wasn’t even fully built yet, but it felt like this opportunity had been placed in my lap exactly at the right time. I truly believe God was saying, “This is your moment, Scarllet.”

Now at 26, I’m proud to be known as the “older sister” of health studies. It’s not the traditional path, but it was mine. And it came with responsibility. I couldn’t afford to slack off, people were depending on me. And that pressure helped shape me into who I am today.

Today is more than a ceremony—it's a celebration of all we’ve overcome, all we’ve achieved, and all that lies ahead. When I think about my journey to this moment, I can’t help but look back on where it began. I started my education at a Catholic school, both for elementary and high school, then found myself attending a university in a building that was formerly a Catholic house of worship. It’s fitting, because God has been present in every chapter of my education, guiding me, giving me strength when I felt weak, and reminding me that this path was never meant to be walked alone. Without Him, I honestly don’t know how I would have made it. My faith has carried me to this stage, and I know I’m not the only one here who feels that way.

Fairfield University is a Jesuit Catholic university, one who’s rooted in faith, and being men and women for others. But here at Bellarmine, something even more beautiful happened. No matter our race, religion, or background, we all felt like we belonged. Whether you came from a different faith, a different culture, or a different life experience, this campus became a place of welcome and acceptance. We weren’t just students, we were seen, heard, and valued for who we are.

What we experienced here wasn’t just academic learning. The professors and the Bellarmine staff made sure our time here was about more. They pushed us to be better. They believed in us even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. They encouraged us when we felt overwhelmed (which was a lot). They checked in when we were quiet, which sometimes led to tears. They reminded us that we were capable of more than we ever imagined. And one of the most beautiful parts of our time together is how close we students all became, no matter our major. Whether we were studying nursing, business, liberal arts, or computer science, we formed real bonds. Our connection wasn’t based on what we studied, but on who we were. Students trying to grow, trying to survive, and trying to succeed …together.

I want to take a moment to talk about something small, but meaningful.

During our freshman year, many of us would stay after class, not because we had to, but because we simply wanted to be around each other a little longer. We gathered in that small study lounge downstairs in the Campus Center, not realizing at the time how sacred that space would become. We laughed. We studied. We vented about exams, about life, about everything we're trying to figure out. It was our escape from the noise of the world. We shared our hopes, even the ones we were scared to say out loud.

We were all strangers trying to find our place, and somehow, through studying, or eating, or just plain being here together, we found each other. It held our laughter, our vent sessions, our silent study hours, and our loudest moments of joy. That little room became more than a lounge. It became a home. A place where a community happened without effort. A place where a new kind of family was born.

As our second year began, life started to pick up. The schedule changed, the classes got harder, and we didn’t hang out as much as we used to. But even when we weren’t always in the same room, we still made the effort. We’d catch each other in those quick 15 minute breaks between classes, or stay behind after class was over—just to talk for an hour or so. And whenever there was a school event, big or small, we showed up. Most of the time, we didn’t even need a reason. We just wanted to be around each other, we weren’t just students coming to school—we had become something more. We had become family.

And now, as we pass by that little study lounge—the room where our story began, we see something beautiful… freshman gathering, laughing, studying, just like we once did. We’ve started to pass that space down. Not just as a room, but as a legacy. A reminder that this isn’t just a school—it's a community. A place where we all belong. Where no one has to figure it all out alone.

This moment is a turning point. We’re all planning to earn our bachelor's degree. That’s huge. Because let's be real, just by being here earning our associate’s degrees, we’re already breaking stereotypes. We are defying expectations. We are proving that where you come from doesn’t define how far you can go. And by continuing on to our bachelor’s degree, we're going even further. We’re rewriting the narrative, not just for ourselves, but for our families and communities.

We are Cohort 1, the very first class of Bellarmine. That’s something no one can ever take away from us. We are beginning. We set the standard. And I know, deep in my heart, that the path we walked will open doors for others— students who once doubted if college was for them, who just needed one more chance to believe they belonged.

We proved that this place works, because we made it work.

Bellarmine opened its doors to give students like us an opportunity. Not just to earn a university education, but to discover who we are, what we are capable of, and how we can impact the world. They believed in us, and because of that, we started to believe in ourselves.

So today, I want to say thank you.

Thank you to our professors, advisors, and faculty who challenged us, guided us, and never let us settle for less than our best. Thank you to the maintenance staff and campus security, who always looked out for us, made sure we were safe, and let us in when we forgot our Stag Cards. You all reminded us that we mattered. That we belonged. Thank you to our families and friends, who stood by us—even when they didn’t fully understand the stress we were carrying. Your support kept us going. And lastly, thank you to my classmates, you’ve made this journey unforgettable. We grew together. We believed in each other. And above all, thank you to God, for walking with us every step of the way.

This is not the end. This is just the beginning. As we walk across this stage and receive our diplomas, we are stepping into new opportunities, new challenges and new dreams. Wherever life takes us next, let's carry this with us, the strength we found in each other, the love we built in that room after class, and the courage to keep going. We are not just graduates, we are pioneers, trailblazers, groundbreakers. We are history in the making. And I know that whatever comes next, we are ready.

Congratulations class of 2025. We did it and we’re just getting started!!!

#Fairfield University #Fairfield Bellarmine #Classof2025 #Jesuit Educated #Vimeo

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fairfieldthinkspace · 19 days ago

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A Commencement Message to the Class of 2025

By Zachary Christian Maloy ’25

Student Commencement Speaker

To view click here.

Good Morning, everyone! President Nemec, members of the Board of Trustees, members of the faculty and administration, honored guests, family, friends, and most importantly, the outstanding members of the Class of 2025!

Four years ago, most of us showed up here enthusiastic, slightly anxious, and, at least for me,

uncertain how to use a laundry machine. We were all more or less strangers, dropped off and left to explore. We had a lot of questions: “Will I make friends? Will I fit in? What if I fail?” And now, as we stand on the edge of the next chapter, I can say this with confidence: We did fail. We did get lost. But we also succeeded in making friends who became family. We've been cracked open by failure and stitched back together by friendship. We found our footing, not in perfection, but in people. And that's what Fairfield gave us —more than a degree, more than a major—it gave us each other. If I could name one truth Fairfield made undeniable, it's this:

People are the education. Impact is the legacy.

Since we stepped foot on campus, we've all participated in one big social experiment. Our time

here wasn't just about preparing for careers. It was about discovering the value of true

connection.

Somewhere between freshman orientation and our senior victory lap, we learned the kind of

things you just can't teach in a classroom: How to be someone others can count on. How to lead with compassion, not just charisma. Fairfield didn't just prepare us for the workforce—it prepared us for life.

I've had the privilege of having multiple corporate internships and during my time at various

Firms. I've had the opportunity to speak with a wide range of executives, and when I asked them what their greatest lesson was, the overwhelming majority of them never mentioned technical skills. Instead, they stressed the soft skills. Being the kind of person others want to work with, grow with, and live life alongside. That's what we've practiced every day, with each other. And that, my friends, is the ultimate edge in a world starved for real connection.

We studied for exams, sure—but we also studied each other.

We spent time on relationships, on reflection, on growing into who we're meant to be.

Fairfield taught us that education isn't just about learning what to think, but how. How to be with people, not just around them.

This was done in the most effective way possible—through experiential learning. I think about the fun nights that turned into mornings, friendships that turned into lifelines, and

shared experiences that became core memories. We learned empathy from late-night talks in Loyola Hall. We learned resilience from athletic games in Mahoney Arena and at the RecPlex.

We learned humor over meals at the Tully and parties at the beach. We even learned leadership in class—while trying to get everyone to pull their weight in the group project. These moments, and many others, are what made this ride unforgettable. And they're more than just people. They're life-enhancers.

We often hear: "College is the best four years of your life." I disagree.

College is the four years that teach you how to live the best years of your life. Because what we built here-these relationships, this community, this Fairfield family—it's not

just nostalgia; It's foundation.

And under the often, overwhelming societal pressure to constantly achieve and accumulate wealth, Fairfield encouraged us to achieve the magis—the greater more. To live with more meaning. More courage. More impact. And that ability? That capacity to connect? That's emotional intelligence. The world doesn't need perfect people. It needs consistent ones. People who call back. Who cheer the loudest. Who lead with humility, not ego. Those are the types of qualities you don't put on a resume. But it's the kind that builds the type of person people remember.

This — all of this — is what Father Mac meant when he said, "Cura personalis."

It's clear that the memories that stick are the people, and they're the reason why Fairfield felt

like home. These relationships, this community, is what turns a school into something sacred.

We've come to realize that the people beside us matter— a lot!

Many of us have met our best friends here. And some of us are already on track to become

future Stag mates!

So look around you now — seriously! You probably see someone who, in some capacity—big or small—changed your life, or will. Someone who laughed with you, cried with you, pushed you, or walked with you through every twist and turn of these four years. This is the Fairfield education. You're not just classmates; you are all future colleagues, partners, and lifelong friends. You're all a part of a network of future leaders and agents of change—all coming from this university! This class should not only inspire you, but more importantly it should make you proud to be a Stag!

Now here we are on the eve of adventures unknown. Both excited and nostalgic. Ready, and

yet wishing we could hit pause just a little longer. That mix of emotions? That's not weakness. That's love. That's a sign you cared deeply about this place and the people in it. That means you really lived this season of your life. And now, you're ready to carry it forward.

As we go into the world, remember this: your legacy will never be your title. Rather, it'll be your impact on the people around you. Your job isn't just to succeed. It's to create value in the lives of others. That's success! It's someone saying, "I'm better because you were in my life."

It's being the person others want beside them when it matters most.

Jim Carrey said, "The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is."

So let's be the people Fairfield would be proud to call alumni—not just by what we achieve,

but by how we influence others. Because at the end of the day, you can teach someone how to write a business plan. But you can't teach them how to authentically connect with people and build genuine relationships. That's something you live your way into. And we did!

So take the best of this place—the laughter, the loyalty, the mission of service— and carry it boldly into the world! Because if we can carry the heart of Fairfield with us, then I think we're already successful.

So when the world asks, "Why you?" You tell them: "Why not?"

Thank you! I love you all! And GO STAGS!!

#Fairfield University #FairfieldU #ClassOf2025 #Commencement2025 #StagPride #FairfieldStags

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fairfieldthinkspace · 26 days ago

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Burnout Prevention—Strategies for Sustainable Success

Natasha Booker, PhD, LCSW

MSW Clinical Field Director and Professor of the Practice

Originally published in Workplace Wellness Blueprint.

The Cost of Burnout: Why It Matters

Burnout isn’t just an individual issue—it’s an organizational one. When employees experience chronic stress, exhaustion, and disengagement, the ripple effects can be devastating:

Decreased productivity: Burnout reduces focus, creativity, and performance.

Higher turnover rates: Exhausted employees are more likely to leave, driving up hiring and training costs.

Damaged workplace culture: Burnout erodes morale and team cohesion, impacting overall organizational health.

Understanding the root causes of burnout—such as excessive workloads, unclear expectations, lack of support, and poor work-life balance—is the first step toward creating sustainable solutions.

Evidence-Based Strategies to Combat Burnout

Preventing burnout requires a proactive approach. Here are actionable strategies backed by research to help organizations foster resilience and well-being:

1. Manage Workloads Effectively

Ensure workloads are realistic and aligned with employees’ roles and capacities.

Encourage managers to set clear priorities and redistribute tasks as needed to prevent overload.

Regularly check in with employees to assess workload challenges and adjust accordingly.

2. Implement Flexible Work Policies

Offer flexible work arrangements, such as remote work, hybrid schedules, or flexible hours, to help employees balance personal and professional responsibilities.

Trust employees to manage their time effectively, promoting autonomy and reducing micromanagement stress.

3. Provide Mental Health Resources

Invest in Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that offer counseling and mental health support.

Host workplace wellness workshops focusing on stress management and mindfulness.

Normalize conversations about mental health to reduce stigma and encourage employees to seek support.

Leadership: The Key to Modeling Healthy Boundaries

Leaders play a pivotal role in setting the tone for workplace wellness. Here’s how leaders can model healthy work-life boundaries:

Set an example: Take breaks, disconnect after work hours, and use vacation time—show employees it’s okay to recharge.

Communicate clearly: Encourage open dialogue about workloads and well-being. Be approachable and empathetic when employees express concerns.

Reinforce boundaries: Avoid sending emails or work requests outside of established work hours, and respect employees’ personal time.

When leaders prioritize their own well-being, they inspire their teams to do the same, creating a culture of balance and sustainability.

Your Call to Action

Burnout prevention isn’t just a wellness strategy—it’s a critical business strategy. By addressing the root causes of burnout and implementing evidence-based solutions, organizations can create a culture where employees thrive and success is truly sustainable.

Let’s create workplaces where well-being and success go hand in hand.

#Natasha Booker #PhD #LCSW #Fairfield University #burnout

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fairfieldthinkspace · 2 months ago

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The Unconquered Mathematics of the Inca

By Professor Chris Staecker, PhD

Department of Mathematics

The quipu is a beautiful thing. It was a mystery, but we figured it out. It’s a system of knots tied in cords that the Inca and their predecessors used to keep track of numbers. The Inca had no written language, so the only records we have from the old days were written with fingers in quipus. Over 1,000 pre-columbian quipus still exist today, mostly in museums.

One old document, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615), includes a famous drawing of an Inca recordkeeper—a quipucamayoc—holding a quipu. For historians, the quipus became a source of frustration: the old sources describe it, but none of them explain exactly how it worked. That’s where the mathematicians came in.

Left: Drawing of the Quipucamayoc, from El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, 1615. He holds a quipu, with a diagram of the yupana at lower-left.

Right: A replica quipu on the wall of the author’s office in Bannow Science Center. (Come see it!)

In 1912, American mathematician and historian Leslie Leland Locke was the first to propose a specific interpretation. He believed, without much evidence, that the Inca were using a base-10 positional number system exactly like our own. So the number 74 would be represented by a 7-turn knot followed by a 4-turn knot. It seemed reasonable, if a bit familiar, but really there was no way to test Locke’s theory.

Above: The number 74, as it would be represented on a quipu. (Photo and knotting by the author.)

Later work by Marcia and Robert Ascher in the 1970s discovered that many quipu bundles include a special cord which shows the sum of all the others. So the quipu functions like a spreadsheet! Several numbers grouped together, with the sum written at the bottom. This work finally proved that Locke’s interpretation of the numbers was right: the correctness of the sums only makes sense if the Inca really were using Locke’s proposed system.

Anyone with an appreciation for mathematics will recognize a particular thrill here: we encounter mysterious symbols, see strange patterns, and apply mathematical analysis to figure it all out! This “decoding” of the quipu represented one of the first great successes in what we now call “ethnomathematics:” the study of the mathematical practices of traditional cultures.

But the quipu was not the only mathematical instrument used by the Inca. There was also the yupana, shown in the lower left of Guaman Poma’s quipucamayoc. It seems to have been some sort of counting board, where counters would be moved around to represent calculations—like an abacus without bars. However, details in the old sources are very scarce concerning the yupana, even more so than for the quipu. No one described exactly how it worked, and Guaman Poma’s simple illustration is the only drawing of a yupana that exists in any primary source.

But in the late 1800s, archaeologists began to find rectangular boards divided into compartments, often with different shapes and heights (see photos). These artifacts were quickly identified as the mysterious yupana, and again the mathematicians took an interest.

Above: Author’s photo of a “yupana” artifact in the Museum of Natural History, New York City. The museum describes this item as: “carved stone block of unknown purpose.”

Below: Author’s 3D-printed replica of the “yupana” artifact of Chordeleg, excavated 1869. (Come see it in my office!)

The yupana artifacts are beautiful objects, but they didn’t come with instructions. How exactly were they used as calculators? Over the decades, many people have announced their own “decoding” of these things. But serious scholarship has reached other conclusions.

The problem is, these artifacts don’t actually match the historical descriptions of the yupana. The striking feature of the artifacts is their three-dimensionality, but Guaman Poma’s drawing is a flat grid of squares. Additionally, the old texts describe the specific geographical region where the yupana was used, which doesn’t correspond to the locations where the artifacts have been found.

We also know that the Inca loved to use regular geometric shapes in their art, and they played board games. So these artifacts could very well be artistic carvings or gameboards. The scholars generally agree: the Inca probably did use a counting board, but they are lost today. And there’s no good evidence that these “yupana” artifacts have anything to do with calculation at all.

Unfortunately, the mystique of the Inca is too strong for this kind of dry academic conclusion. Especially in our time, a lifetime of serious study is no match for the idle notions of a confident hobbyist who “does their own research.”

A European engineer made headlines in 2004 when he announced his own “decoding” of the yupana artifacts. His explanation assumes a base-40 number system (the Inca used base-10). He boasted that it took him less than an hour to “solve the riddle,” and that he did so with no knowledge of the Inca culture (no surprise there). Media reports did not point out how deeply unserious it all was. This guy probably felt a certain cosmic kinship with the Inca, a respectful connection across the centuries when he finally cracked their code.

But it is not respectful to trample so casually on another culture’s ground. Respect begins with seeing the Inca not as a puzzle, but as a people. They were a complex people, and yes, a mathematical people, but they did not exist in order to be deciphered. They created their own mathematics for their own reasons, and their knowledge was not lost by accident: it was purposefully destroyed. And who are we, after all this time, to demand answers from the Inca? Their yupana, at least, will probably remain forever unconquered.

This article is adapted from the author’s YouTube video about the yupana: https://youtu.be/93QoXmIEsvw.

#Chris Staecker #Fairfield University #College of Arts & Sciences #yupana #quipu #Guaman Poma #Inca #Marcia and Robert Ascher #Leslie Leland Locke #ethnomathematics

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fairfieldthinkspace · 2 months ago

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Trude Fleischmann—Facets of her biography

By Heike Herrberg

Trude Fleischmann, Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1945, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Peter Modley. ©Trude Fleischmann.

Famous & Family: Through the Lens of Trude Fleischmann will be on view in the Fairfield University Art Museum | Bellarmine Hall Galleries, May 2 - July 26, 2025.

In 1920, at the age of 24, Trude Fleischmann opened her photo studio in Vienna near the Town Hall in the first district on the Ebendorferstrasse, where the rent was quite costly. After a very brief apprenticeship in the studio of the famous Dora Kallmus, Atelier d’Ora, and three years at Atelier Schieberth, the young Trude started her own business. Her training included one semester of art history studies in Paris and three years at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna, the most important educational institution for photography, where women had only been allowed to train since 1908.

Trude Fleischmann had grown up in the bourgeois-liberal environment of a Jewish merchant family and had their full support, especially that of her mother Adele Rosenberg Fleischmann. To truly grasp the significance of the photographer’s achievements, it is critical to consider the historical context in which she lived.

Vienna in the 1920s

The First World War was over, and the military collapse had marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The multi-ethnic state with its linguistic diversity dissolved into its national components: Bohemia and Moravia, Galicia and Bukovina, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Croatia, Slovenia … Vienna, once the capital of a large empire with different cultures and 54 million people, now remained as a far too big metropolis for the rest of a very small Austria with only 7 million people. At the time, the city was also experiencing immense economic problems, causing citizens to suffer from hunger and poverty. Despite such hardship, the energy in local pubs and coffee houses was increasingly lively. The war had loosened bourgeois mores and Vienna celebrated its downfall in cabarets and at carnival parties to the rhythm of the shimmy, Charleston, and foxtrot.

“Vienna feasts, Vienna dances, Vienna amuses itself, Vienna sings and plays waltzes and more nonsensical operettas than ever before. And the same Vienna is wasting away, is dying, is full of reparations, commissions, and its political leadersare traveling all over the world to ask for help,”1 the journalist Milena Jesenská wrote.

The elections in 1919, when women were allowed to vote for the first time, had brought a comfortable majority for the Social Democratic Party. Vienna was thus governed by the Social Democrats, while the federal government was Christian Social. Consequently, conflicts were inevitable.

The City of Art

In social-democratic “Red Vienna,” many diverse lifestyles were possible. The city was leisurely but cosmopolitan, and there was alively exchange with other metropolises. The psychoanalytic scene in particular became increasingly international in the mid-twenties. In the American avantgarde, it was fashionable to be analyzed overseas, in the hometown of Sigmund Freud, and many European intellectuals also came to the capital of psychoanalysis for this purpose.

But above all, Vienna in the twenties was a city of art. This made it unique among other prominent European capitals of the time including London, Paris, and Berlin. The culture around actors and actresses had survived the war and mass unemployment. The stars of the theater were more popular in town than politicians or rich elite. Music and theater were the most beloved pastimes of the Viennese society. Those who couldn’t afford even a standing ticket for the opera or Burgtheater, read the reports in the newspapers in one of the numerous coffeehouses the next day. Portrait photos of the stars were enthusiastically collected, exchanged, and sold. The flair attracted artists and anyone who wanted to be part of the scene fromthe old imperial and royal monarchy to the Austrian capital.

That time of the First Republic was also especially exciting for women, who like Fleischmann, influenced the artistic milieu of the city like never before. Die Bühne (The Stage) was founded, a weekly magazine that addressed the modern, open-minded bourgeoisie and reported on the world of theater and opera, on premieres, nude dancers, winter fashion, and summer travel. The overall magazine market was booming, and with it photography, as the picture editors needed suitable material. Since the medium did not yet have a long tradition, many women interested in art and technology took advantage of these opportunities. The number of professional women photographers grew significantly, not just in Vienna. Most of them remained unmarried and childless. This was also true of Fleischmann, for whom photography was the most important thing in life.

“You must find yourself! … Be whoever you are, no more, no less, but be perfect,” Peter Altenberg had told her and this became her life’s motto. The double portrait of the well-known Viennese poet and the architect Adolf Loos, created together with her colleague Ilse Pisk, was one of Fleischmann’s first assignments. It brought her into contact with cultural circles that were decisive for her later career.

Atelier of the Famous

Her studio was unique from those of her colleagues. She did not have walk-in customers and didn’t offer the usual repertoire of wedding, baby and christening pictures. She wanted to develop a personal rapport with her clients and could rely on her large circle of friends and acquaintances who shared her artistic interest. The studio became their meeting point and was also a popular training place. “In her atelier in Vienna, Trude was always surrounded by young men and girls,”2 remembered Robert Haas, a renowned printer who became her photography student in 1930 and who later became a colleague and friend.

Trude Fleischmann actively advertised for customers and was a brilliant networker. Studio parties, Atelierfeste, exhibitions, social gatherings—on all these occasions the photographer gained new customers, which exemplified her extraordinary gift of connecting with people of all backgrounds. Seemingly without effort, she could engage with the other person on whatever level of conversation was offered. Her approachable nature and inquisitiveness directly contributed to her remarkable success as a photographer. “She made people feel comfortable when she photographed them, she had incredible empathy and an unobtrusive, very charming manner,”3 explains, like many others, Catherine Haas Riley, one of Robert Haas’ daughters. “She was interested in everything and was incredibly open and curious,”4 said Lily Munford, whose mother was a cousin and close friend of Trude Fleischmann. “She had guests every evening, for whom she cooked, always without a recipe! She simply attracted people. And they were often free spirits like herself.”

Trude Fleischmann was also a media professional, working for the press and publishing regularly in all the important Austrian society, fashion and cultural magazines. Soon her photos also appeared in other German-speaking countries, such as in the highly circulated Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. In these interwar years, no other Viennese female photographer, apart from Dora Kallmus, was as widely present in illustrated magazines as Fleischmann. Though, unlike Kallmus who had firm commitments with some newspapers, the younger colleague worked only by commission. This way, she had personal freedom working according to her own artistic ideas. One of Fleischmann’s notable connections was with the Theater in der Josefstadt, which in 1924 was under the directorship of Max Reinhardt, one of the most important directors of German-language theater in the 20th century. Fleischmann’s portraits were also highly treasured in the Burgtheater, the Deutsche Volkstheater, and the Viennese Opera.

Soon celebrities from music, theater and dance were gathering in her studio. With some of them she developed a personal friendship, like the actress Sybille Binder, the dancer Tilly Losch, or the actors’ family Thimig. Another friend was Alban Berg, the composer of operas such as Wozzeck or Lulu.

“Then on Christmas Eve 1935 came the news that Alban Berg had died. I had an invitation for that evening, but I was called to photograph the dead Alban Berg. He was in some hospital, I can’t remember which one. I went there with my camera and the spotlightsand photographed the dead Alban Berg who actually looked like a dead angel. Afterwards I went to this invitation, but I was so distraught that I couldn’t enjoy anything anymore. It was a terribly sad thing!5”

Her studio was also often visited by Wilhelm Furtwängler, the famous German conductor and composer, with whomshe was friends, and by the German-born Bruno Walter, who later after his emigration became chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic. The German stage and film stars Conrad Veidt and Paul Wegener also found their way to the Ebendorferstrasse when they had guest performances in Vienna. Other well- known customers were the writer Stefan Zweig, the actor Oskar Homolka, the singers Alfred Jerger and Michiko Meinl as well as the actresses Lil Dagover, Luise Rainer, and Dolly Haas.

One of the photographer’s early discoveries was Hedi Kiesler, who publicly announced when leaving secondary school her intention to go into film. She eventually became world-famous in Hollywood under the name Hedy Lamarr. Apart from this, the technically gifted Lamarr developed a radio remote control for torpedoes in 1940/41 to support the American troops’ fight against the Nazi regime. For this she only received public recognition in the 1990s.

Trude Fleischmann was an eager visitor of the lectures and talks of Karl Kraus, editor of the satirical journal DieFackel. Like his friend Adolf Loos who was committed to a non-decorative architecture, Karl Kraus, the literary enfant terrible and language philosopher, was fighting for a lean style in literature, one without embellishment. This aspect of reducing things to the essentials attracted Fleischmann. She focused on achieving a sense of distinctiveness with her photographs, working out the uniqueness of a face and the individuality of the person she portrayed. This resulted in large-scale facial and intensive body studies, which became one of her specialties.

Capturing Bodies in Motion

Vienna was one of the international centers of modern dance in the first third of the 20th century. Many of the dancers, often from Jewish families, were enormously popular, and they sometimes founded their own dance schools and worked as choreographers.

‘If you want a really good dance photo, you have to go to Fleischmann’, it was said. The photographer documented the dance boom and was herself thrilled with the performances. “I was a great admirer of Grete Wiesenthal. She was for me, and is still today, the best dancer who ever existed. She had so much confidence and naturalness in her dance. She was a dream. Absolutely unbelievable.”6 Even before the First World War Grete Wiesenthal had emancipated herself from the rigid forms of ballet and had developed her own approach to the Viennese waltz. Her international performances had taken her to numerous countries and already in 1912 to New York City.

Trude Fleischmann shot most of her dance photos in her studio, composing the scenes down to the last detail. The dancers were not really moving, but simulated it for the camera. The studies were great in demand and dancers like Mila Cirul, Tilly Losch, or Katta Stern often had their photos taken by Fleischmann. Sometimes she also worked outside, as with Toni Birkmeyer and his ballet (Cat. 15). The spectacular pictures Fleischmann produced were great publicity for both the dancers and the photographer.

Cat. 15.

Trude Fleischmann, Toni Birkmeyer Ballet in “Cancan,” Vienna, 1930, gelatin silver print. Lent by Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. ©Trude Fleischmann

In that heyday of modern dance, dance photography was a genre of its own, with fluid transitions to nude photography. This was not necessarily seen in an erotic context but rather as a liberation from the constraints of society and a closeness to nature. Fleischmann was fascinated by both kinds and soon became the most important photographer of nudes in Austria. For models, she preferred dancers with trained muscular or sculpted bodies, strong women who did not correspond to the cliché of the weaker sex. These pictures also showed her interest in progressive people, especially in emancipated women and unconventional lives. Her close connection to the German dancer Claire Bauroff, who made headlines in the twenties with her nude appearances on stage and in films, played a significant role in this development. In 1925, when Bauroff had a performance at the Admiralspalast in Berlin, Fleischmann’s photos were on display in the showcase, which caused a riot. A district attorney confiscated them. The justification: too scandalous!

Escape from Europe

With the global economic crisis and the bank collapse in 1931, unemployment again reached catastrophic proportions, the rich became poor, speculators became inflation millionaires. In 1933, the Austrian Parliament was dissolved. After Hitler came to power in Germany the same year, Jewish artists flocked to Vienna. But just one year later, the antisemitic slogans in Fleischmann’s homeland became louder, reforms were reversed, democratic committees were dissolved, and the progressive press was banned. A civil war broke out in 1934. In three days, social democracy was crushed. For many intellectuals, this was a warning to leave, a signal to make preparations for a life in exile. Fleischmann’s friends warned her to leave the country because they already recognized the upcoming danger for Jews in Austria.

Trude Fleischmann was at the peak of her career, but within a short time, clients were missing, including a great many of Jewish heritage who either had already emigrated or who were in the process of emigrating. For a time, she tried to save her studio, but ultimately recognized the seriousness of the situation, left all her possessions behind, including her well-equipped studio, almost all her cameras, and her pictures. She took only a selection of negatives with her, as well as an album with photographs, and a camera. First, she went to Paris, then on to London. There she applied for a visa for the United States of America. Three months later, in March 1939, she boarded a passenger liner in Southampton to New York.

Navigating the New World

When she disembarked in Manhattan on April 4, it was Helen Post Modley, a former student and friend, who met her. “She picked me up from the ship and took me straight to her country house, which was about two hours away from New York City.”7 The cottage was deep in the woods on the edge of the small town of Sharon, Connecticut, with two simple rooms, a water pump and a small washroom in the yard.8 Helen and her husband Rudi Modley, who came from a Hungarian-Jewish family, had built it in 1936 and used it in the summer and at weekends. In their townhouse on Lexington Avenue, the couple also often housed Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany, for whom they assumed an affidavit, noting full responsibility for their material existence. Helen had inherited two houses in Manhattan and sold one of them, so she was financially independent.

The two women had known each other for over ten years since Helen Post—and later her sister Marion Post Wolcott, who became a well-known photographer, working for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression—had studied photography with Fleischmann in Vienna. Helen and Trude had a close relationship, and according to both Peter Modley, Post’s adopted son, and also Robert Haas, for a while they had a love affair.9 In the late thirties and early forties, Helen Post documented the lives of Native American peoples in the west and southwest of the USA, lived with them for a time and learned their languages. In 1940, she published a book about this with the anthropologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Oliver La Farge.

Helen’s mother, Marion (“Nan”) Hoyt Post, became a mother figure to Trude. As her grandson Peter points out, she was an activist for progressive causes, a kind of suffragette. She had divorced her husband in the early 1920s and moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, campaigned for women’s right to contraception and was against racial segregation.10 She had a circle of bohemian friends, enjoyed going to the theater and loved classical music. Once she received a letter from Fleischmann, signed with: “Have a wonderful birthday, dear Mom, stay as you are, young and warm and beautiful.”11 On the note, she had printed two photos of a solar eclipse, highlighting one of Fleischmann’s favorite subjects—astronomy. “She often said she would give her life if she could fly to the moon and look at the earth from above,” recalls her cousin Barbara Rosenberg Loss.

At the end of 1939, the Center for European Immigrants’ Art and Handicraft organized a Christmas sales exhibition in the Empire State Building, where Fleischmann offered her portraits of prominent stage artists, for which she had been famous in Vienna. Eleanor Roosevelt visited the exhibition and did much of her Christmas shopping there.12 First Lady Roosevelt was known for her progressive thinking and political commitment, which in those years also repeatedly focused on refugees from Europe. It was likely here that the First Lady met Trude Fleischmann, who a few years later took a series of very personal portraits of Mrs. Roosevelt at the country estate in Hyde Park, north of New York (Cat. 39). Pulitzer Prize winner Richard W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis chose one of these photos in 1999 for their book American Characters from among “several others that were very distinctly impressive but a trifle more formal and public.”13

At the time that the Germans occupied Paris and threatened London with their bombs, the competition among creative professionals, many of whom were refugees from Europe, was enormous in the American media. Trude Fleischmann now was fighting for her survival like so many others. In this situation, it certainly helped that she was hardly interested in material things. She dressed humbly and didn’t need jewelry or expensive clothes.

In 1940, at the age of 45, she opened a studio in midtown Manhattan on 56th Street, which she initially ran together with Frank Elmer, a colleague from her days in Vienna. The 40-square-meter space was also her apartment, located in the vibrant theater district, between 5th Avenue and Broadway, just behind Carnegie Hall. However, at that time, she also went outdoors more often to take photos, knowing that in the States she would not be successful with studio work alone. In May 1941, some of her fashion photos, taken on the street and the Brooklyn Bridge, were published in Vogue. And Cipe Pineles, art editor of the fashion magazine Glamour from 1941 and the first woman to be named art director for the magazine, in the following year, hired “the best artists she could find, including photographers Andre Kertesz [...] and Trude Fleischmann; [...] of the many European refugee artists and designers living in New York at that time.”14

In 1941 and ’42, references to Fleischmann’s work appeared sporadically in The New York Times. For example, an exhibition of her photographs was announced in a new gallery on 46th Street, a “Fleischmann Show” at the New School for Social Research or “Camera Studies.”15 At some point, the photographer introduced an anglicized spelling of her name —Fleischman—perhaps after she was granted American citizenship in 1942, and potentially an indication of how connected she felt to the new country.

Connections and Opportunities

“When we visited Trude, she often told us that she was going over to Carnegie Hall in the evening for a concert or to take pictures of theartists there,” says Barbara R. Loss , a cousin, who cares deeply about the legacy of her ancestor. One of those artists was Marian Anderson (Cats. 44).

Cat. 44

Trude Fleischmann, Marian Anderson, 1952, gelatin silver print. Lent by Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. ©Trude Fleischmann.Photo credit: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library.

The African-American singer was celebrated in many European concert halls in the 1930s. In her own country, however, she was not allowed to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. in 1939 because of her skin color. With the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, she then gave an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial, which was attended by over 70,000 people. Fleischmann had heard the singer for the first time at the Konzerthaus in Vienna—“it must have been in 1932 or ’34”— and was thrilled: “absolutely superb.”16 Marian Anderson was the first Black artist to perform inthe Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Trude heard her again and photographed her at her farewell concert ten years later, at Carnegie Hall.

Arturo Toscanini, who had praised Anderson’s voice as the talent of the century, was also a customer of Trude Fleischmann. They knew each other from Vienna and the Salzburger Festspiele, and after the conductor had emigrated to the United States in 1937, Fleischmann took pictures of him on several occasions. She was impressed by the open manner of the maestro, who also invited her to his home in Riverdale, New York. In 1957, she was even allowed to take his photo on his deathbed.

Helen Post’s son Peter Modley remembers that his mother’s friend often visited her “models” spontaneously. “She simply went there with her camera, knocked, for example, on the door of Albert Einstein (Cats. 42) and said: ‘I’m here to take a photo of you.’” Judging by the number of pictures Trude Fleischmann took of the Nobel Prize winner in Princeton, he was quite cooperative. He may have reacted in a similar way as he did to her Berlin colleague Ruth Jacobi: “‘So, so,’ he considered, ‘if you will accept me as I am, without any further ado, even in my slippers, then I am completely at your disposal.’”17 Fleischmann was enchanted by Einstein’s manner. “That was such an experience!,” she still raved years later. “You can’t imagine that: This great man was so unpretentious and tolerant!”18 In 1980, Andy Warhol used one of those photos she had taken in the late forties and early fifties for his Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century.19

Cat. 42

Trude Fleischmann, Albert Einstein, ca. 1947, gelatin silver print. Lent by Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. ©Trude Fleischmann. Photo credit: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library

An Enduring Passion for Exploring

Fleischmann loved nature, the Austrian mountains, which in emigration she missed so much, and was fascinated with skiing and hiking. She was an enthusiastic traveler, be it to Italy or Hungary, to Yugoslavia or to cities like Paris or London, where she had friends. And she also enjoyed traveling in the United States.

Every summer, she traveled up to Rangeley, Maine, for several weeks. The small town is surrounded by forests and lakes that are perfect for swimming, fishing and hiking. Trude sent photos to relatives and friends and often wrote vacation cards. Sender: general delivery. Nobody knew her address. There are indications that she regularly met a man in Rangeley with whom she had been in love for many years, but who didn’t want to separate from his wife.

In the early sixties, she went to Mexico in a Peugeot with her nephew Stefan Carrell and ten-year-old cousin Henry. Henry Rosenberg later wrote: “In 1962 no one in the U.S. or Mexico had ever heard of a Peugeot. Stefan did all the driving.” Then Trude took the wheel—and was promptly stopped by a state trooper for drifting too far into the oncoming lane. But she “managed to charm him into a warning instead of a ticket. And this in a Peugeot with New York plates.”20

The photographer also had bold dreams about space travel. “If I were young, I would fly with you to the moon,” she wrote to her cousin Henry Rosenberg in 1969. “People are complaining about costs of space travel. Of course, it’s a lot of money. But would they ever use it for reasonable matters? Oh no, they would not build hospitals or art centers or old people’s homes. Some crooks would get richer and richer and decent people will starve anyway. So, let’s fly to the moon!”21

Family and Friends

The photographer’s private and professional lives went hand in hand. As she was friends with a lot of her clients, she often took photos of them and their families—after all, she always had her camera with her. In Vienna she had a close relationship to the Cornides family, especially to her friend Hermine Cornides, a physician, and the two sons Otto and Wilhelm. With Otto she remained connected all her life, they visited each other and went skiing together. His daughter Joanna was her “Upside- Down Girl.”

Robert Haas and his family also remained important to her life, and she often took photos of her colleague and friend, his wife Maude, and their daughters Catherine and Miriam. A lively correspondence and a lot of photos illustrate how close she was with the families of her first cousins Hans Rosenberg and Madeleine Buchsbaum, whose parents, Heinrich and Paula Gewitsch Rosenberg, had not been able to escape Vienna in time, and had been murdered by the Nazis in 1940. Hans and Madeleine, like their cousin Trude, had managed to flee. Among her very first known photos were those of Hans and Madeleine as little children in 1915.

Hans, his wife Ernestine, and their daughters Sandra and Barbara as well as their son Henry, became some of Trude Fleischmann’s favorite private models. At age 100, Madeleine Buchsbaum still remembered the experience of being photographed with her own teddy bear. She said that her cousin always took very little money for her photos, none at all from the family.

“In our eyes, Trude was always very unconventional, very independent, a bohemian,” says Barbara R. Loss. The bohemian lifestyle also included not worrying about issues like the future, retirement provision or inheritance. The photographer was never really interested in monetizing her archive. “She often had no realistic idea of what things cost,” explained Madeleine Buchsbaum. “When she wanted to move to Switzerland, she was shocked that she had to show a fortune of 7,000 dollars to get a visa. I thought that was rather cheap.”

Trude Fleischmann, Sandra and Barbara Rosenberg with Golden Heart Necklaces, 1951, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Barbara Rosenberg Loss. ©Trude Fleischmann.

Leaving a Legacy

At the age of 75, Trude Fleischmann moved back to Europe, from the big city of New York to the tranquil Swiss town of Lugano. And she left the States with mixed feelings. “If I can’t stand it over there, I’ll come back to you. Thank you for giving me this reassuring feeling,”22 she wrote to her cousin Hans Rosenberg in Connecticut in January 1970, shortly before her departure. She had added a photo showing her at a lecture in December 1969 at the Austrian Institute, the cultural institute on 52nd Street, which had organized a farewell exhibition.

From February 1970, she lived in Viganello, a small community near Lugano. She often spent time here in the company of her close friend Otto Ashermann, a playwright, continuing to hike and ski. But she increasingly suffered from poor hearing. She often argued with Robert Haas, who was almost blind in old age, about what was worse: going deaf or going blind.

For Trude Fleischmann’s upcoming 90th birthday, the Austrian Institute once again presented her photographs and flew the photographer in from Switzerland. “It was wonderful and I really enjoyed America and N.Y.C. again. Everything is so generous, including the people, very different from Europe!,”23 she wrote to Madeleine Buchsbaum afterwards. As she became increasingly frail, her nephew Stefan Carrell brought her back to the US, caring with his partner Pierre Galarneau for her in Brewster, NY, until her death in 1990.

An exhibition catalog in 1983 stated: “She never considered the historical importance of her photographs. She certainly recognized the renown of her clients. Nevertheless, she was too modest…too humble, to foresee the value of her collection. Consequently, her collection remained her private treasure…actually her very biography.”24

~ Heike Herrberg, 2025

___________________________________________________________

Wienpraßt, Wientanzt, Wienamüsiert sich, Wien singt und spielt Walzer und unsinnigere Operetten als je zuvor. Und dasselbe Wien siecht dahin, stirbt, ist voller Reparationskommissionen, und seine politischen Führer reisen in der ganzen Welt herum, um Hilfe zu erbitten. «Milena Jesenská: Alles ist Leben. Feuilletons und Reportagen 1919–1939. Frankfurt 1996, p.15.

In ihrem Atelier in Wien war die Trude immer von jungen Männern und Mädels umgeben.“Anna Auer, Fotografie im Gespräch. Passau 2001, p.160.

Phonecall, 22.8.2010.

Conversation in Pleasantville, 13.5.2009.

Dann kam am Weihnachtsabend 1935 die Nachricht, daß Alban Berg gestorben sei. Ich hatte für den Abend eine Einladung, wurde aber angerufen, ich möge den toten Alban Berg fotografieren. Er ist in irgendeinem Spital gelegen, ich weiß nicht mehr in welchem. Mit meiner Kamera und den Scheinwerfern bin ich dann hingegangen und hab‘ den toten Alban Berg fotografiert, der eigentlich ausgesehen hat wie ein toter Engel. Nachher bin ich noch zu dieser Einladung gegangen, war aber so verstört, daß ich gar nichts mehr genießen konnte. Das war eine furchtbar traurige Sache!“ Anna Auer, Fotografie im Gespräch, p. 107.

Ichwar eine Verehrerin von der Grete Wiesenthal. Sie war für mich, und ist’s noch heute, die beste Tänzerin, die es je gegeben hat. Es war etwas so Selbstverständliches, so viel NatürlichesinihremTanz....Sie war ein Traum! Absolut unglaublich!“AnnaAuer, ibid.

Sie hat mich vom Schiff abgeholt und gleich in ihr Landhaus gebracht,das etwa zwei Stunden von New York City entfernt lag.“ Anna Auer, p.108.

Interview with Peter Modley on May 21, 2009 in Bethesda, MD. Information on Helen Post, unless otherwise noted,ibid.

AnnaAuer,p.160.

PaulHendrickson, Looking for the light. The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott, New York 1992, p. 20 ff. Information on Marion Hoyt Post, unless otherwise noted, ibid.

Collection of Peter Modley.

Aufbau, 22.12.1939, p.6.

R.W.B. Lewis and NancyLewis, American Characters: Selections from the National Portrait Gallery, Accompanied by Literary Portraits, Yale University Press 1999, p.401.

Martha Scotford, Cipe Pineles: a Life of Design, New York and London 1999,p.43.

See NYT, 18.4.1941, 12.4.1942, 15.4.1942.

Letter to Henry Rosenberg, 5.11.1970.

‚,So, so‘,überlegte er‚ wenn Sie mich aufnehmen werden, so wie ich bin, ohne weitere Umstände, auch in meinen Pantoffeln, dann stehe ich vollkommen zu Ihrer Verfügung. ‘“Ruth Jacobi, Aufzeichnungen, in: Aubrey Pomerance (ed.), Ruth Jacobi. Fotografien, Jüdisches Museum Berlin 2008, p. 17–57, here p. 42.

Das war ein solches Erlebnis! Das kann man sich gar nicht vorstellen: Dieser große Mann war von einer Einfachheit und Toleranz “AnnaAuer, p.106.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco: www.thecjm.org.

Letter from Henry Rosenberg to Pierre Galarneau, 19.12.1993.

Letter to Henry Rosenberg, 24.1.1999.

“Wenn ich es drüben nicht aushalte, komme ich zu Dir zurück. Sei bedankt, dass Du mir dieses beruhigte Gefühl geben kannst.“Letter from 29.1.1970, collection Barbara R.Loss.

Es war herrlich und ich habe Amerika und N.Y.C. wieder sehr genossen. Alles ist so großzügig, auch die Menschen, ganz anders als in Europa!“ Letter from 18.10.1984, collectionBarbara R. Loss.

Dorothy Garfein, Preface in: Trude Fleischmann. Photographs 1918-1946. Thorpe Intermedia Gallery, Sparkill, NewYork 1983.

#Trude Fleischmann #Heike Herrberg #Fairfield University Art Museum #Famous & Family: Through the Lens of Trude Fleischmann #Bellarmine Hall Galleries

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fairfieldthinkspace · 2 months ago

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Easter Hope in Every Season

Fr. Paul K. Rourke, S.J.

Vice President for Mission & Ministry

In any time one can find multiple reasons for discouragement. The “glass half-empty” people never lack evidence for their case. How then can a Christian be hopeful in every season--even the worst of times? How can we be joyful always?

“Easter” is the one-word answer. Our faith tells us that Christ’s victory over sin and death was final: that the destiny of the world has already been decided. We are hopeful and joyful when we believe in this victory even when faced with a world full of suffering.

Christ’s victory is not simply a far-away promise about the end of time. We find Christ gloriously risen every day in the ordinary triumphs of generosity over selfishness. Whenever one shows kindness and chooses love over hate, the Risen Jesus emerges from the tomb of our human limitations.

At Fairfield we see Christ rise in so many different places. I think of the bright smiles, eagerness, and hospitality of our Bellarmine students, or the overflowing congregations at our Sunday masses. In countless, usually unseen, acts of selfless service our community bears witness to the triumph of love. As a Catholic university dedicated to the life of the mind, Christ rises in the daily advances in knowledge and wisdom of our faculty and students.

Easter is the Christian Passover, the celebration of God’s saving deliverance. At two Seder meals this year I encountered Jesus, a devout Jew, risen and gloriously present in the warm hospitality of Jewish friends and in the unity we feel as members of a loving community.

Easter reminds us that freedom is our birthright, and God’s kingdom our secure home. Nobody else can ever enslave us, if we choose to be free.

Happy Easter!

#Easter #Fr. Paul Rourke #Passover #Fairfield University #Jesus

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fairfieldthinkspace · 2 months ago

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The Important thing is not to be afraid

Rabbi James Prosnit

Jewish Chaplain, Campus Ministry

The Hasidic teacher Rabbi Nachman of Breslov lived at the end of the 18th Century, but his words have been resonating with me these days. “The whole world is a narrow bridge; and the most important thing is not to be afraid."

On so many levels there is cause for fear and concern. Divisions in our country seem deeper than ever. Folks on the margins are more vulnerable, higher education sees threats to the academic freedom that has been its foundation and economic uncertainties are very much at play as I write this message. Add to that continued brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza, dozens still held hostage, a rise in Anti-Semitism here and around the globe; and for many this Passover holiday comes at a very unsettling time.

But the words of Rabbi Nachman linger. "The whole world is a narrow bridge ….”

The Hebrew word for Egypt, mitzrayim, mentioned frequently in the Haggadah, the text read at the Passover seder, is not a geographic place on the map, but a conceptual “narrow” cramped place filled with anxiety and challenge. As the Israelites passed through the Sea of Reeds (aka the Red Sea) on their way to freedom, we imagine the fear that must have accompanied them as they fled the pharaoh and worried over the unknowns that awaited them.

A rabbinic story known as midrash envisions some of the debate and tension that may have been taking place. “The Israelites at the Red Sea were divided into four groups. One group said: Let us throw ourselves into the sea. One said: Let us return to Egypt. One said: Let us fight them; and one said: Let us cry out against them.”

Ultimately, in the Exodus story, it turns out that none of the Israelites’ recommended responses carried the day. Instead, Moses pleaded that the people trust in God, and in so doing, God intervened to provide redemption. While we know we cannot simply wait for miraculous intervention today, the midrash teaches us that we do not need to have all of the right answers, and sometimes, in moments of division, the best response is simply to have faith, take a breath and not be afraid.

At this Holy Season for Jews and Christians—at this season when both faiths envision a time of redemption—the prayer and the challenge is to move forward with faith, with hope and with the courage. It sustained our ancestors in days gone by—it might just be the antidote for our times too.

#Fairfield University #Rabbi James Prosnit #Rabbi Nachman of Breslov #Red Sea #Exodus

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fairfieldthinkspace · 3 months ago

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Unpacking the Loneliness Epidemic

In this first podcast episode of the Dean’s Dialogue Series, Fairfield University School of Education and Human Development Dean Evelyn Bilias Lolis, PhD, sits down to discuss the impact of the loneliness epidemic on mental health, physical health, and public wellbeing with public health professional and Director of the Egan School Master of Public Health Program, Anthony Santella, PhD, and psychologist and Assistant Dean of Students Clinesha Johnson, Psy.D.

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#Fairfield University #School of Education and Human Development #Evelyn Bilias Lolis #Anthony Santella #Clinesha Johnson #Loneliness Epidemic #Youtube

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fairfieldthinkspace · 3 months ago

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The Dolan Difference: First Executive DBA Cohort Leads the Way with Groundbreaking Research

In today’s fast-paced business environment, professionals need a program that combines real-world challenges with strategic decision-making skills. Fairfield Dolan’s Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) program is a game-changer for senior-level professionals eager to elevate their careers. The first cohort is already immersed in cutting-edge research across various business disciplines, including analytics, marketing, and finance.

The Dolan Executive DBA program stands out by allowing students to balance research with professional responsibilities. Over three years, students complete a chapter of their dissertation with each course, culminating in a comprehensive defense. This hands-on approach integrates theory with practical applications, preparing students for success in both academia and their careers.

What truly sets the program apart is its faculty. Each student is paired with an advisor who specializes in the student’s research area, providing personalized guidance throughout the program. These experts help students refine their research to make meaningful contributions to their fields.

The first cohort’s innovative research topics highlight the diverse perspectives shaping the future of business. Topics include:

Ronald Elowitz: Innovation Ecologies and Sustainable Practices (Advisor: Carl Scheraga, PhD)

Glenn Heller: The Impact of Gene Therapies on the Insurance Industry (Advisor: William Vasquez Mazariegos, PhD)

Rosemarie McLaughlin: The Impact of a 1% Excise Tax on Share Repurchases (Advisor: Steven Kozlowski, PhD)

Emily Ott: Gen Z Motivation and Millennials as Managers (Advisor: Mousumi Bose-Godbole, PhD)

Shilpa Rosenberry: The Impact of Post-Covid Remote Working Policies on Working Moms (Advisor: Yifeng Fan, PhD)

Deborah Stewart-VanOrden: Eliminating Waste in Government Defense Contracting (Advisor: James He, PhD)

Greg Tanner: The Influence of Board Composition and ‘Prestige’ on Company Performance (Advisor: Michael McDonald, PhD)

As these students continue their dissertations, their groundbreaking insights will underscore how the Dolan Executive DBA program is driving innovation and shaping the future of business leadership.

#Fairfield University #Dolan Executive DBA #Charles F. Dolan School of Business

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fairfieldthinkspace · 4 months ago

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Finding Hope in Christ’s Redemption

Rev. Paul K. Rourke, S.J.

Vice President for Mission and Ministry

Ash Wednesday connects us with the stark truth of our existence: “Remember, man, you are dust and unto dust you shall return.” We are weak, mortal, an ember that burns out. The works of Lent (fasting, prayer, and almsgiving) confront us with our existential poverty and radical dependence on God and other people.

But we who are dust find our hope not in the ash, but in the triumphant sign of our redemption traced on our foreheads. The late Jesuit theologian and homilist, Walter Burghardt captured this insight when he said, “…that symbol declares that dust has been redeemed. Redeemed not in some shadowy sense, but with startling realism. The sign of the cross tells us that in taking flesh, the Son of God became dust, that save for sin, his dust was the same as ours.”

Our Lent is a journey not toward the sign of the cross, but with and toward the Crucified One who is more than a sign. We are invited to enter more fully into His life, especially the living and unified mystery of His Passion, Death and Resurrection. We are called to walk with Him in his alienation and disfigurement, not just in our prayer and works of penance, but in our loving solidarity with the Christ who is crucified daily in our suffering brothers and sisters. Every day He comes to us. Do we see Him? When we look away from ones who suffer, saying and doing nothing, we are no better than the disciples who fled and denied Christ at his moment of need. Lent calls us to stand with Mary, the Beloved Disciple, and the faithful women at the foot of the Cross, offering what comfort we can.

One theory about the origin of the word “Lent” suggests it is a version of “lengthen,” recalling that the days grow longer throughout these forty days. Lent’s penitential spirit reminds of dust and ash and leads us to the Cross, but our movement is always toward the invincible light of Easter and the Risen Jesus. In these crucifying times we need to remember that light. When it penetrates and fills us, we can be united with a suffering world without ever losing hope.

#Ash Wednesday #Lent #Fairfield University #Rev. Paul K. Rourke

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fairfieldthinkspace · 5 months ago

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To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home

Catalogue Essay by David Brinker Director Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Saint Louis University

Co-curator, To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, Fairfield University Art Museum | Walsh Gallery On view January 24 – March 29, 2025

Photo: Mary Mattingly, Saltwater,2022, chromogenic Dye Coupler print, ed. 1/5. Courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery.

. . . I am ashamed

to say that most days I forget this planet. That most days I think about dentist appointments and plagiarists and the various ways I can try to protect my body from itself.

. . . I’m trying to come down soft today. I'm trying to see this place even as I'm walking through it.[1] — Catherine Pierce, “Planet”

Obliviousness to the world in front of us enables environmental degradation. Wearing blinders of narrow interests, caught up in systems of manufacture and consumption, we may feel overwhelmed, able only to shrug or despair at the possibility of making a dent in the challenges facing us. In contrast, artists invite us to shake off distraction and disinterest, to open our eyes and adjust our perspective, to look closely then look again. A robust engagement with art leaves us charged with insight and poised to move differently in the world.

Artists have shown perennial interest in detailed study, representation, and interpretation of the natural world. Depictions of animals found in cave paintings in Europe and rock paintings in Australia date back tens of thousands of years. Flora and fauna appear in the art of ancient civilizations. Later generations assigned symbolic and moral value to items from the natural world, as in seventeenth century-Dutch still lifes or eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscapes evoking the Sublime. Even as artists embraced radical changes in style and artistic intent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, nature remained a touchpoint.

At every stage, art has reflected and shaped the way that we view the world around us. Artists (along with scientists, politicians, industrialists and others) contributed to the dominant Western narratives that shape how many people perceive “nature”—ones that valorized human dominance over the rest of creation, erased the presence of indigenous peoples, and propagated the notion of an “unspoiled wilderness.”[2] When the broader concept of “environment” came to prominence in the twentieth century, artists were there again, illuminating the complexities of ecological systems and the pernicious effects of industrialization. More recently, concern for the environment and the impact of environmental destabilization have intersected with other movements for social change. Ecofeminist artists explore themes of femininity, nature, violence, and exploitation. Indigenous artists critique the exploitation of their ancestral lands and the simultaneous romanticization and erasure of Indigenous cultures. Spiritual and religious perspectives are evident in works that invite contemplation of the interconnectedness of Earth and the cosmos. Work addressing threats to the environment has been an integral element of powerful protest movements. Museum and gallery exhibitions increasingly focus on the environment and work addressing climate change.

Given the complexity of the ecological crisis and its multiple causes, we need to realize that the solutions will not emerge from just one way of interpreting and transforming reality. Respect must also be shown for the various cultural riches of different peoples, their art and poetry, their interior life and spirituality. If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of the sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out . . .[3] — Pope Francis

The present exhibition was prompted by Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, a wake-up call addressing the global ecological crisis and humanity's response to it (or lack thereof).[4] Giving consideration to the scientific, economic, political, sociological, and ethical dimensions of the crisis, Pope Francis proposes an “integral ecology” that links human flourishing with a responsible stewardship that flows from respect for all species. Integral ecology recognizes that the systems, institutions, mindsets, and habits that threaten vulnerable ecosystems and species also threaten the most vulnerable and marginalized people of the world. Consequently, a “true ecological approach . . . must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”[5]

Laudato Si’ acknowledges the damage wrought by centuries of Christian teaching that humans were the pinnacle of creation, that “nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures.”[6] It is important to respect the rights of peoples and cultures, and “it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions.”[7] Pope Francis recognizes that the Church does not have all the answers and “welcomes dialogue with everyone so that together we can seek paths of liberation.”[8]

In 2021 the Vatican launched the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, which proposes a framework for a “7-Year Journey Towards Integral Ecology.”[9] Jesuit universities like Fairfield University and Saint Louis University have responded to this call—probing for integrity amidst a torrent of disinformation, wrestling with the ethics of technological innovation, inspiring young adults to prioritize and protect the poor and marginalized, and bringing together the generations responsible for our situation with those who will inherit it.[10]

The final section of Laudato Si’ considers the habits, attitudes, and ethics that we must adopt to live sustainably and to undertake the difficult work ahead. Among these is the importance of “learning to see and appreciate beauty . . . If someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple.”[11] The Ignatian educational tradition supports our Jesuit university museums in the conviction that the arts—visual, musical, literary, theatrical, movement, and more—must play a crucial role in combating climate change and healing relationships. While the three artists highlighted in To See This Place are not explicitly responding to Laudato Si’, their work resonates with its themes and makes multiple points of connection.

Photo: Mary Mattingly, Still Life Returning, 2023, print of mixed media collage, ed. 1/5. Courtesy of the artist and Robert Mann Gallery

Art leads to alternative possibilities. It’s also part of building collective agency because it gives space for more people to be involved through exploring the complexities, ambiguities, and contradictions experienced around climate stewardship and climate change.[12] — Mary Mattingly

Informed by meticulous research, Mary Mattingly’s multi-pronged projects combine “photography, performance, portable architecture and sculptural ecosystems into poetic visions of adaptation and survival.”[13] For example, the Ecotopian Library is a “public toolkit” convening disciplines from forestry to philosophy, with contributions from artists, scholars, librarians, neighbors, scientists, and indigenous knowledge holders.[14] This holistic and generous-spirited project resonates with the call in Laudato Si’ for research informing an “economic ecology” that brings together the insights of different fields of knowledge “in the service of a more integral and integrating vision.”[15]

Water is a recurring concern for Mattingly and features prominently in her work in the present exhibition. Recalling childhood experiences of drinking water contaminated with agricultural runoff, she notes, “Water was my first subject, and having an ecological focus that responded to a place and encompassed home wasn’t a choice, but probably more of a fundamental part of how I perceive living in the world.”[16] Laudato Si’ likewise stresses the centrality of water in the world’s ecosystems and their delicate webs of life, especially the world’s oceans,[17] an interdependence frequently explored by Mattingly. Moreover, Pope Francis highlights water as a human right fundamental to the exercise of all other human rights, yet one under threat from pollution, disparities in distribution, and privatization.[18]

Mattingly discloses that much of her recent work recreates and explores a recurring dream (and real-life experiences) of flooding in her ground-floor apartment. “This dream in particular navigated the maze of a deconstructed apartment building that was dripping, leaking, and overgrown.”[19] The uncanny still lifes in the present exhibition, part of this visionary body of work, extend artistic traditions of imaginative seeing that imbue everyday objects and scenarios with symbolism. We all dream—but how often do we embrace our dreams as dance partners in the waking world?

The body holds a knowledge all its own. It is in intimate relationship with all that surrounds it as it ingests, breaths, spills, in and out of the land and the water. My body is an extension of the earth, and therefore the earth is always a research partner.[20] — Tyler Rai

Photo: Tyler Rai, Neshome Likht For Ecological Relatives, 2023, driftwood, beeswax candles, copper fittings. Courtesy of the artist.

Tyler Rai’s projects take into account the multiple histories and ecological relationships that structure a specific locale and “reveal the poetic entanglements between spirituality, mythology, embodied experience, and earth’s ecological systems.”[21] She convenes community members in participative experiences of movement, contemplation, and conversation, with video, music, and solo performances adding layers of resonance. This work is informed by what Rai terms “performance research.”

Where Mattingly’s investigations are more akin to traditional empirical research, Rai works intuitively, noting bodily sensations in resonance with specific locations. Reflecting on a series of projects linking the disappearance of glaciers with the unpredictable movements of grief through the body, she asks, “How can dancing for more-than-human life be a form of remembering? How can movement create connection and intimacy with that which is no longer present?”[22] Indeed, rituals relating to loss are a recurring focus in Rai’s work. She draws on her Italian and Jewish lineages for insights into how grief paradoxically sets the conditions for joy, and how mourning and celebration intertwine. Her work in the present exhibition reinvigorates the Eastern European Ashkenazi practice of grave-measuring by conducting it on “ecological relatives in peril.”[23] Rai’s consideration of trees, waterways, and other “more-than-human” life as ancestors echoes “The Canticle of Creatures,” the hymn written by St. Francis of Assisi that gives Laudato Si’ its title.[24] St. Francis praises God for and through all of creation, specifically Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and Sister Death.

Bringing together embodied performance with symbolic meaning and physical artifacts, Rai demonstrates how a balance between action and contemplation can inform our response to the climate crisis. “Rituals,” she writes, “are often a container for opening oneself up to the transformation occurring on a threshold, in a liminal space—between where one has been and where one has yet to arrive. I believe art to be a very powerful form of ritual, helping us into new iterations of a world we want to create.”[25]

I unfurl large rolls of paper on the floor and immerse myself in the painting, much like being in the landscape. . . . Surrounded on all sides by the expanse of paper, I move through the work as if I am traversing the terrain.[26] — Athena LaTocha

Athena LaTocha explores the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. Her work has been compared to that of the Earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s, who created massive artworks of natural materials that drew attention to the immensity of the earth’s geological processes and the outsized impact of human activity. But while those artists created installations in remote locations, LaTocha works on paper using materials such as ink, lead, earth, and wood as well as industrial detritus. Her unconventional artistic tools include wire brushes, scrap metal, and reclaimed tire shreds to push the ink around. This approach links LaTocha to the earliest artists, who employed the materials found in a particular place as both media and tools.

LaTocha’s work is informed by her upbringing in Alaska, where her “understanding of the land was influenced by both the rugged monumentality of the terrain and the impact of the oil and gas industry upon the land.”[27] LaTocha is attuned to the histories of places. Long hours spent documenting and reflecting in the sites that inspire her work imbue her materials simultaneously with a sense of immediacy and “deep time.” For instance, soil from Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery carries memories of the city’s dead, but also of the Lenape people who first inhabited the land, the glaciers that shaped the landscape, and the ancient bedrock schist.[28]

The expansive sense of time and space experienced in LaTocha’s work recalls art that seeks to evoke the Sublime, a sense of awe, fear, and the insignificance of humanity in the vastness of the universe. Such art has reflected humanity’s shifting relationship to the natural world—consider how the sweeping vistas of American landscape painting and photography are intertwined with the westward expansion of European settlers and the accompanying forced displacement of Native peoples and unrestrained extraction of natural resources. By contrast, the hyper-specificity of LaTocha’s materials invites us to recalibrate our relationship to the land and all its inhabitants. She challenges our tendencies to view the world around us with detachment, cautioning that “[l]andscape is not merely something you look upon or look at from a window.”[29] Her work insists that we acknowledge humanity’s collective impact on the planet, generation after generation. The implications of that acknowledgment are made clear in Laudato Si’, which observes that “[t]he earth was here before us and it has been given to us. . . . This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature.”[30] Furthermore, “[intergenerational] solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us.”[31]

Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change. . . . A great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal.[32] — Pope Francis

The work of Athena LaTocha, Tyler Rai, and Mary Mattingly calls us to a “loving awareness”[33] of our common home. By awakening us to the particularities and interconnectedness of the spaces we inhabit, these artists help transform climate despair into climate hope. With this shifted perspective, we may be ready to answer the call of Laudato Si’ and so many other voices, to move from awareness to action.

[1] Catherine Pierce, “Planet,” in Here: Poems for the Planet, ed. Elizabeth J. Coleman (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2019), 5–6.

[2] Joyce Bedi, “Who Invented the Environment?” Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation (blog), Smithsonian National Museum of American History, April 22, 2022, https://invention.si.edu/collections-who-invented-environment.

[3] Francis, Laudato Si’, encyclical letter, sec. 19, Vatican website, May 24, 2015, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html.

[4] An encyclical is a pastoral letter addressed by the pope to the whole Catholic Church providing guidance on important matters. In October 2023, Pope Francis released a follow-up document, Laudate Deum, that calls world leaders to task for their failures to meaningfully address the climate crisis.

[5] Francis, Laudato Si’, sec. 49 (emphasis in the original).

[6] Francis, sec. 67.

[7] Francis, sec. 146.

[8] Francis, sec. 64. Faith for Earth: A Call for Action, jointly published in 2020 by the Parliament of World Religions and the United Nations Environment Program, surveys a range of faith perspectives and responses. Available at https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/33991.

[9] See https://www.laudatosi.org/laudato-si/action-platform/.

[10] These observations are developed by Cardinal Robert McElroy in an address titled, “Laudato Si’: A Pillar for Identity and Mission for the Catholic University Today,” delivered at the University of San Diego in January 2024. Available at https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/viewpoints/cardinal-mcelroy-catholic-universities-should-lead-climate-change-action.

[11] Francis, Laudato Si’, sec. 215.

[12] Jan Garden Castro, “Repetition and Endurance: A Conversation with Mary Mattingly,” Sculpture, November/December 2023, 73.

[13] “Mary Mattingly,” Art Works for Change, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/mary-mattingly/.

[14] “About,” Ecotopian Library, accessed May 31, 2024, http://ecotopianlibrary.com/html/about.html.

[15] Francis, Laudato Si’, sec. 140.

[16] Castro, 64.

[17] Francis, Laudato Si’, sec. 40–41.

[18] Francis, sec. 27–31.

[19] “‘Ebb of a Spring Tide’ sculpture,” Artwork, Mary Mattingly artist website, accessed May 31, 2024, https://marymattingly.com/blogs/portfolio/socrates-sculpture-park.

[20] “About,” Tyler Rai artist website, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.tylerrai.com/about.

[21] Rai, “About.”

[22] “Performance Research (Grief and Mourning for Glacial Bodies),” Tyler Rai artist website, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.tylerrai.com/performance-research.

[23] “Neshome Likht for Ecological Relatives,” Tyler Rai artist website, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.tylerrai.com/neshome-likht-for-ecological-relatives.

[24] The phrase “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore” (English: “Praise be to you, my Lord”) introduces 8 stanzas of St. Francis’ canticle and is the opening sentence of Pope Francis’ encyclical. For an English translation of the canticle, see https://www.stanthony.org/the-canticle-of-the-creatures/.

[25] “Interview: Tyler Rai,” Interviews, ITSLIQUID, accessed May 31, 2024, https://www.itsliquid.com/interview-tylerrai.html.

[26] “Athena LaTocha,” Artists & Authors, Aktá Lakota Museum, accessed May 31, 2024, https://aktalakota.stjo.org/artists-authors/latocha-athena/.

[27] “Athena LaTocha.”

[28] Siddhartha Mitter, “Her Art Reads the Land in Deep Time,” The New York Times, November 24, 2021, Art & Design, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/arts/design/athena-latocha-bric-sculpture-native-american.html.

[29] Serenah McKay, “Arkansas museum spotlights American Indians,” Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, October 6, 2018, Metro, https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/oct/06/museum-spotlights-american-indians-2018.

[30] Francis, Laudato Si’, sec. 67.

[31] Francis, sec. 159.

[32] Francis, sec. 202.

[33] Francis, sec. 220.

#Fairfield University Art Museum #David Brinker #Mary Mattingly #Tyler Rai #Athena LaTocha

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fairfieldthinkspace · 7 months ago

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The Power of Love in Policy: A New Hope for Healthcare Transformation

Lisa Sundean, PhD, MHA, RN Associate Professor Director Healthcare Administration Program Egan School of Nursing & Health Studies

What’s love got to do with it? At the 2024 American Academy of Nursing’s Health Policy Conference in Washington, DC, love was invoked as a trigger for health policies and a means to creating health. Imagine talking about love in DC! Love as a topic of importance at a scholarly conference on health policy.

Consider the issues: A nation who outspends all other nations on healthcare, but has the poorest health outcomes. Communities and populations who have more barriers to healthcare and healthy environments, than access to fatal drugs and violence. Populations whose health outcomes track along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. Nursing shortages so deep due to burnout, retirements, and career changes, that hospitals are forced to limit services.

Enter love: social connection, caring for ourselves, our family, friends, and communities. Righting wrongs, envisioning better, dreaming big, working together, and making change happen. From a “Dreamer in Chief” dean of a school of nursing, who created a “connected community” of health services associated with the school; to a health foundation CEO who took on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to better serve populations; to a healthcare economist who re-envisions nurses as capital investment for hospitals, rather than expendable resource to be managed; to an innovator who prioritizes wellness in the workplace as a central value; to our Surgeon General who promotes love as an endless fount of motivation to connect us through shared experiences and common goals. These were the moments of inspiration I listened to at the annual national conference. Speakers who offered insightful and innovative ideas for a way forward toward better health.

I connected these inspiring ideas with our mission at Fairfield University to develop and educate socially responsible leaders in the spirit of cura personalis, to foster respect for differences, to walk with those on the margins of society, and to care for our common environment. This is love: connection, dreaming big, creating and acting together for a better future.

Love. The great connector. The great motivator. The reason nurses and other health professionals prevent disease and care for the sick. The reason educators engage with students. The reason we question assumptions. The reason we advocate for a better tomorrow. The reason we dream big and put hope into action.

The distance between love and policy change with hope for better health outcomes seems insurmountably wide. But without it, without love, what do we have? Love’s got everything to do with it. It’s the starting point for solving many of our social and healthcare problems, and it keeps us moving forward for a common good. Love in DC at a health policy conference— now that is innovation for a hopeful and healthful future.

#Lisa Sundean #Egan School of Nursing #Fairfield University #American Academy of Nursing's Health Policy Conference #Surgeon General

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fairfieldthinkspace · 7 months ago

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Lee Child Should Win The 2025 Nobel Prize For Literature

By Phil Maymin, PhD

Associate Professor, Analytics

Director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics Program

Fairfield University Dolan School of Business

Originally published by Forbes.

This year’s Nobel Prizes may have been some of the last to be awarded to humans, and even then, many of them went to humans who were instrumental in inventing modern artificial intelligence (AI). Eventually, AIs may win the prizes directly. In the meantime, perhaps the best transitional Nobel Prize for Literature next year should go to Lee Child.

Lee Child, the pen name of British author James Dover Grant, is most known for his wildly popular and best-selling Jack Reacher novels, of which the 29th is out this week. The Reacher series are often classified as thrillers but they could also be found in the mystery section or the fiction section or other categories. They can also be read in any order. While not conventional humor books, they are peppered with comedic moments, including long-running and charming character quirks. For example, in earlier books in the series, the hulking 6’5” 250-pound Reacher often shrugged. In later books, Reacher said nothing. In fact, Reacher said nothing so often that it became the title of a fascinating behind-the-scenes expose by British author and scholar Andy Martin exploring Child’s unique writing method. Martin watched, recorded, and reported as Child made “Make Me,” the 20th Reacher book.

Child writes in a way that almost no other human does, but in a way very similar to how an AI would. He does not have an outline. He doesn’t know where the story is going. When he writes a paragraph, he often has no idea what will come next. Child has said that editors sometimes suggest the story might be better if this event happened before that one, to which he replies, yes, that would have been great, but that’s not how it happened.

He also rarely revises. The first paragraph he ever wrote as an author was written in pen on lined yellow paper and appeared without modification as the first paragraph of the printed version of the first Reacher book. This is exactly how modern large language models (LLMs) work: one paragraph, one word, one syllable, one token at a time. Child also burst on the scene in much the same way LLMs did: from never having generated anything before, to being a mainstay on almost every human’s desk. Reacher books have sold hundreds of millions of copies in dozens of languages and a hundred countries or territories. Chances are you or a loved one are reading one right now.

Ironically, Child edited a volume of advice for mystery writers. Every chapter but his suggested all sorts of useful tips for plotting, character development, outlines, diagrams, and other plans. Child’s chapter basically said: don’t plan. You’ve read enough. You know what makes a good story.

This sounds exactly like the training protocol of an LLM, whose corpus has every story available. How does an AI write a story? It essentially recalls good stories it’s read before and tries to make another good one.

But do they? Just how powerful are LLMs, or how powerful can they become? Can they truly generate new stories rather than just combine old ones? Can they create? Can they think?

Illya Sutskever co-founded OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and recently left to co-found a new firm, Safe Superintelligence. The meme “What did Illya see,” originally referring to the possibility that he panicked when he saw some internal AI that exhibited superintelligence, is now almost as ubiquitous a phrase as “Who is John Galt?” in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, except that was fiction and what we are living in is probably reality.

In a conversation last year with NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang, Sutskever gave this example of how AIs can write new books, make new connections, think, and generate new creative knowledge despite “merely” predicting one word ahead: imagine a mystery novel, he explained. Imagine you’ve written all the details and the clues and explained the characters and the murder and the various motives and opportunities. Now comes the big reveal when the detective gathers all the suspects in a room, and then he says, “The killer was,” and the AI has to predict the next word. That would take thought and deliberation and consistency with the clues and other facts. That would be new.

Someday, we may be reading AI-written Reacher stories. Child has already taken a writing partner for his last several books: his younger brother Andrew. As a reader, in an experiment of n=1, I am happy to report that the quality is still exceptional, the writing is mesmerizing as usual, and the only reason you’d ever put it down or refuse to turn the page, like all Reacher books, is because you want to savor it.

Others have also added their vision of the Reacher universe. A shorter but nonetheless captivating Tom Cruise starred in two excellent Reacher movies. The more physically Reacher-like Alan Ritchson now stars as Reacher in REACHER, a streaming series on Amazon set to release its third season next year. So it’s not impossible for other carbon-based humans to contribute creatively to the Reacher universe. What about silicon-based AI?

I have happily asked AI to generate brief Reacher stories set in my hometown or working in my industry. Once, the AI had Reacher investigate a hedge fund trader who himself tried to use AI to predict stock prices. The finance applications are the same as the literature ones: if it can predict the next token, it can predict the next tick. But can it in fact make good Reacher stories?

I felt a little bad the first time I generated a new Reacher story. But then I recalled two facts. First is that it may take Child three decades to write thirty books, but it only takes a month to read them. And once you read your first one, you don’t want to wait. I’ve read every Reacher book, listened to every audiobook, watched every movie and episode, and still want more. And the second fact is something that happened to Child as a child. He was enjoying a book when he noticed the last big section was missing. Then he realized he could just extend the story in his own imagination. It could “end” however he liked. So I use the AI to kick-start my imagination, and I don’t feel as bad anymore. I think Reacher would shrug.

So far, the AI stories are not quite as good, but AI is constantly improving. Students in my class on AI at Fairfield University are each writing an entire (non-Reacher) novel using AI. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible, and the books are certainly readable. Perhaps it does better when it can create out of whole cloth rather than extend an existing literary universe.

But before our species capitulates entirely, before the AIs start winning all the awards, it might be fitting for Child to win the last Nobel Prize in Literature by a human. Because when AIs do start to win, they’ll probably be doing it the same way he does. Personally, if the Child-like quality can be maintained, I would love to pay a monthly subscription to ReacherGPT.

Podcast Episode: Lee Child

Lee Child is one of the greatest writers of all time, and he writes a lot like an AI would. But his insights about all things AI and non-AI are far too novel for any AI model that I'm aware of. Enjoy this fascinating conversation with this fascinating man.

Photo: (L-R) Lee Child and Phil Maymin.

#Fairfield University #Phil Maymin #Dolan School of Business #Lee Child #James Dover Grant #Jack Reacher #Nobel Prize

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fairfieldthinkspace · 7 months ago

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The Loneliness Epidemic: Understanding the Crisis and Creating Meaningful Connections

Evelyn Bilias Lolis, PhD

Dean & Associate Professor

School of Education & Human Development

A recent report from the U.S. Surgeon General highlights a growing public health crisis in America: loneliness, isolation, and a lack of connection are pervasive issues affecting millions. These feelings of disconnection can profoundly impact both physical and mental well-being, contributing to the alarming statistic that more than one in five adults and over one in three young adults in the U.S. are living with a mental illness.

In response to this urgent need, Fairfield University’s School of Education and Human Development hosted a panel discussion recently, entitled, Combating the Loneliness Epidemic: Science. Connection. Healing.

Dean of the School of Education and Human Development, Evelyn Bilias Lolis, PhD, moderated the discussion on the impact of loneliness, and strategies for creating connections, following her opening remarks:

In a brief released last year, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, MD, the 21st U.S. Surgeon General, highlighted a national epidemic of loneliness and social isolation in his advisory titled, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” He noted that nearly half of U.S. adults, especially young adults, experience significant loneliness, which adversely affects physical, mental, and social health.

Loneliness is defined as “a distressing experience stemming from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections.” The operative word here is “perceived”. The emphasis on “perceived” is vital, as the sense of connection is deeply personal, hinging on how individuals feel seen, understood, and valued within their families, communities, schools, or organizations. One's subjective appraisal is the most essential feature; a person may be surrounded by others yet still feel profoundly lonely, while someone who appears solitary may experience no loneliness at all. Ultimately, the true measure of loneliness lies in personal perception.

Why should we, as an institution of higher education and as the School of Education & Human Development, care about this issue and be moved to draw critical dialogue around this matter? Two reasons come to mind. The first and obvious is that this is a public health crisis. Scientific research has firmly established that loneliness significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and even premature death. These findings are not merely isolated; they have been consistently replicated across studies. To put it starkly, the health risks associated with social disconnection are comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Yes, prolonged feelings of disconnection are as detrimental to your health as smoking almost a pack of cigarettes a day.

The second, equally compelling reason we care is rooted in our identity as a modern Jesuit Catholic university. We are dedicated to shaping the minds and hearts of our students to cultivate compassion, to see and care for the whole person, to walk alongside the marginalized, to confront injustices, and to become powerful agents of healing, advocacy, and transformation in society. We strive to empower everyone who graduates from our institution to champion the right to a hope-filled future for every human being they serve in the world.

There is no doubt that we have our work cut out for us. The loneliness epidemic is multifaceted in causes, and equally complex in its remedies. It affects each of us individually and all of us collectively. This epidemic highlights the interconnectedness between individual and societal health. My well-being affects not only myself, but also everyone I serve in my personal and professional circles. You see, social connection exists at the intersection of "you and me," where our stories intertwine, where your existence finds a place in mine, and where we seek solace in each other’s care at the most fundamental level of our shared humanity.

We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that social connections are eroding in our society. Our social networks are shrinking, our reliance on technology is increasing, and opportunities for genuine, “no strings” quality social interactions (free of objectives, transactions, outcomes), are few and far in between. When we observe children in their natural environments, particularly during play, we witness the essence of mindfulness—what it means to being fully present and savoring the joy and leisure of another human being’s company. As adults, we often lose this very ability amidst our responsibilities, distractions, and duties to produce. The need for intentional opportunities for connectedness, for self and other need to become at the forefront of our shared objectives.

Hence, we gather here tonight united by a common purpose: we care. We care about our children, our schools, our campuses, and our communities. We feel compelled to take action. Intential, thoughtful, and planned action.

This is why I believe the School of Education and Human Development is the ideal venue for this discussion. We train educators, school-based mental health professionals, clinical mental health agents, marriage and family therapists and social workers, and leaders in social justice advocacy—individuals who will be at the forefront of addressing loneliness and isolation. We are the epicenter of interdisciplinary and intergeneraltional professional preparation, community engaged scholarship, and premiere expertise in matters of education, learning, and mental health.

While the loneliness epidemic poses serious challenges, it also offers hope—both in aspiration and research. Time and again, we witness the profound impact of individual connections and the sacred ripples they create. The power of one becomes the hope of many.

*The expert panel included Fairfield University alumni, campus wellness workers, community psychologists, and leaders in philanthropic efforts dedicated to combating youth disconnection: Michael Pisseri, a Fairfield University alumnus, and principal of Davenport Ridge Elementary School in Stamford, Conn.; Clinesha Johnson, PsyD, clinical psychologist and assistant dean of students at Fairfield University; Wendy Mendes, licensed mental health counselor and director of student wellbeing at Fairfield Bellarmine; Samantha Miller, portfolio director at Dallio Education; and Paula Gill Lopez, PhD, a nationally recognized crisis response trainer, director of Fairfield’s School Psychology program, and co-founder of the Connecticut Center for School Safety and Crisis Preparation. A group connection activity was facilitated by Melissa Quan, EdD, director of Fairfield University’s Center for Social Impact.

#Loneliness Epidemic #Fairfield University #Evelyn Bilias Lolis #Dr. Vivek H. Murthy #U.S. Surgeon General #Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation

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