A major gift of $9.2 million from Fordham University Trustee Rose DiMartino ’79 MA and her spouse, Karen Sue Smith, will provide new financial support and learning opportunities across the University and deepen its social justice impact. It will fund everything from student stipends to new social work initiatives that empower students and faculty to help the vulnerable.
The gift will fund a host of initiatives at the Graduate School of Social Service that magnify its efforts to serve society: stipends that expand practicum opportunities for MSW students, a suicide prevention training academy, and a distinguished scholar award for faculty working in human rights and global justice. The funds will also expand Fordham’s Serving the City program, providing students with more paid internships at nonprofits and cultural organizations in New York City. And it will grow the entrepreneurship education programs run by the Gabelli School of Business in the Bronx and in Africa.
DiMartino and Smith said the gift is rooted in their Christian faith.
“We see Fordham doing what we believe, and we want to support them in doing that,” said DiMartino, a retired corporate lawyer and longtime donor to the University. “The more we learn about Fordham, the more we love Fordham.”
They both have master’s degrees in theology and an inclination toward service, “so we’re prone to looking for where money can actually help solve human problems,” said Smith, a retired writer and editor who worked at Commonweal and America Magazine.
Among other prior contributions to the University, DiMartino and Smith made a major gift in support of Fordham’s Bronx Research Institute for Community Solutions (BRICS), launched in 2024 to collaborate with Bronx leaders on addressing challenges facing the borough.
“We are gratified beyond words at the generosity of Karen and Rose,” said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham. “They are making the kind of investment that will have deep and lasting benefits for our students and faculty carrying out Fordham’s Jesuit, Catholic mission. It’s clear that they have taken that mission to heart and deeply care about advancing it, which makes their gift all the more meaningful.”
Serving the Vulnerable
The Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) will receive roughly two-thirds of the gift, making it the largest gift the school has ever received, said Debra McPhee, PhD, dean of the graduate school. The school will put the gift to use right away, funding three long-standing priorities starting this semester, she said.
The gift will provide critical stipends to students in the MSW program completing practicum internships across a wide range of organizations and service agencies throughout New York City and the U.S., she said. “This support could not be more timely,” McPhee said, noting the added financial burden MSW students face due to recent federal student loan changes and the elimination of Graduate PLUS Loans.
In addition to providing financial relief to MSW students, the stipends will strengthen the practicum-to-employment pipeline and “encourage students to pursue practicums in service areas they might not otherwise have considered,” McPhee said.
The Academy for Suicide Prevention and Education, the first of its kind in a school of social work, will provide training to professionals and frontline providers—social workers, educators, nurses, law enforcement, EMTs—while offering education and research opportunities for faculty and students. Its first director will be GSS professor Dana Alonzo, PhD, an internationally known expert in suicide prevention and intervention, McPhee said.
The first Distinguished Scholar for Human Rights and Global Justice will be Marciana Popescu, PhD, co-founder of Her Migrant Hub, an organization serving migrant women. The funded award will allow her to pursue new partnerships, programs, and research supporting vulnerable women and children, McPhee said.
She said she’s “incredibly touched” by the support of DiMartino and Smith and “the faith they have in the school.”
“That’s the real gift, because it will not only provide much-needed immediate support to our students, but enable GSS to extend its reach and positive impact in several critical areas well into the future.”
Giving the Gift of Business Education
By providing funding to programs at the Gabelli School of Business, the gift will expand entrepreneurship education in Fordham’s backyard and across the world. Last year, Gabelli School professor Dennis Hanno, working with student volunteers, ran an entrepreneurship education program for 25 clients of the Bronx social service agency Part of the Solution. This year he has plans to serve as many as 75 Bronx residents because of the new funding.
And he’ll also be able to expand the entrepreneurship education programs he has been running in Bronx high schools and in Africa, where Gabelli School students consult with local entrepreneurs and students. The benefits flow both ways, showing Fordham students the impact they can have—”how the knowledge they have as business students is something that other people really want, and that it has incredible power,” he said.
Expanding Internships in Public Service
The gift will grow the number of Serving the City internships at least 50% and help the program expand into new spheres, such as health care or government, said Jessica Lang, PhD, dean of Arts and Sciences. It will also help with planning for longer-term, more in-depth Serving the City internships down the line, she said.
Serving the City is a popular program, Lang noted. “We have a lot of students at Fordham who want to do good in the world and want to think about their role in helping strengthen opportunities for those with higher needs than they have, and the nonprofit arena is one place where impact can be deeply felt,” she said.
