The Graduate School of Social Service is proud to announce the award and scholarship recipients for the Class of 2021. To celebrate, all recipients were given the opportunity to submit a photo and some words of wisdom about what the award or scholarship means to them. Below are their responses. Congratulations!
Student Graduation Speaker
Shaniqua Orr
“It is a great honor to have been selected to be the voice for the Class of 2021. I am forever grateful for this amazing opportunity! I strongly believe that you must have faith, believe in yourself, and most importantly, trust the process! The sky is not necessarily the limit. I believe that there are so many potential opportunities beyond the sky, if you just believe in yourself! Face your fears, step out of your comfort zone, and you will see that there is more to life than what is right in front of you!”
Dr. Peter B. Vaughan NASW (NYC) Award
Hannah Babiss 
“It is an honor to receive the Dr. Peter B. Vaughan NASW Student Award (New York City). As I receive this award, I pledge to maintain a high level of professional commitment, identity, and values through leadership and practice throughout my social work career and personal life.”
St. Peter Claver Award
Jacob Cohen
“I have a tremendous amount of gratitude to be a recipient of the St. Peter Claver Award. GSS has become a second family to me that has allowed me the venue to explore my passion for helping others, serving the community, and seeking authenticity in what has felt like the most rewarding yet trying of times. Receiving the St. Peter Claver Award is an honor and I am so thankful for everyone who has supported me along this journey. Thank you to my family and to GSS for all your love and support. We rose to the challenge!”
Holly Rosen Fink
“Being a recipient of the St. Peter Claver Award for the Class of 2021 is not only an honor but a milestone. As a student pursuing an MSW late in life, this award is further evidence that there is a time and a place for everything. It is a reminder of my immense accomplishment and of the person I want to be, for myself, my children, and the world.”
Mireya Garcia
“I am honored to have been one of the students chosen for the St. Peter Claver Award for this graduation class. It has been a tumultuous experience going from in person to virtual learning due to a global pandemic, but we made it work! I want to thank my mother and brother for supporting my education and helping me with my daughter so that I can take on school, field work, regular work, and life responsibilities. Having your hard work and efforts rewarded is an amazing feeling and accomplishment, especially in graduate school. Thank you to my village who supported me throughout this academic journey; you know who you are. I love you all and congrats to the entire Graduating 2021 class! We did it!!”
Anneliese Saltarelli
“I am honored and grateful to receive the St. Peter Claver Award this year. This recognition has helped put into perspective all of the hard work that has been put into this degree. I feel fortunate to have had such a positive experience at GSS over the past two years with the students and faculty members alike. Further, this award is a recognition of the support I received along the way from other students, professors, field advisors and supervisors, friends, and family members.”
Danielle Wright
“I want to thank God, my peers, mentors, professors, and friends & family who supported me. This award is an affirmation that my purpose in this world is to serve others as best as I can, and I would love nothing more!”
Shadequa Hampton
NASW Student Award (Connecticut)
Joshua Flaherty
“It is an incredible honor to receive this award from NASW. My time at Fordham GSS was very special and I learned so much from both faculty and students. I am extremely excited to begin my career in social work and hope to continue my relationship with GSS as an alumni.”
CICNY Award
Tonya Beecham
“I am thrilled and honored to receive the CICNY Award for the Class of 2021. It means the world to me to have my equity work recognized. I am especially proud of my work with the Long Island Racial Equity Donor Collaborative, a group of foundations convened by The Long Island Community Foundation to address the longstanding barriers to financial inclusion and security for Black Long Islanders. Thank you.”
Anna Trombetta
Esther Jean Arnhold Award
Claudia Clark
“I’m honored to receive the Esther Jean Arnhold award. To me, it supports the importance of how the arts can empower our youth and serve as a catalyst for social change.”
Michelle Mireau
“I want to express my sincere thanks for selecting me to receive the Esther Jean Arnhold Award for the Class of 2021. This is one of the most significant events of my professional career, and an honor to be affiliated with Esther Jean Arnhold. It is a memorable day in my life and an award I will always treasure. Receiving this award and recognition has strengthened my desire to work with children and families at ACS upon graduation.”
Jennifer L. Murphy-Mantle
“Art surrounds us. It helps us find meaning as we learn about what it represents in our own lives. It also helps us learn about others. This is why I am so honored to be receiving The Esther Jean Arnhold Award. Sharing my interests with children, teenagers, and caregivers has genuinely been so rewarding, as I have been able to see the world through their eyes and their perspectives. Art has been so ingrained in so much of my life that I am so honored to share it with my own children and those I have worked alongside. I have been able to utilize different expressions of art, depending on each child’s interests. I have had the privilege to witness children learn to express themselves better, interact with the world around them, develop essential skills, and think more critically. Whether through food, movies, literature, architecture, fashion, play, sculpture, dance, design, music, technology, or one of the other many forms, I am so grateful to those who have allowed me to participate. It has been an enriching experience, and I look forward to learning more. Thank you so very much!”
John G. Sullivan Award
Christian Ortiz
Sandra Sanchez
“When it was shared with me that I received the John G. Sullivan Award, I was thankful for the time and dedication I have put into the social work field and here at Fordham GSS. Fordham has fostered my growth surrounding homelessness, substance use, clinical diagnosing, medication, and HIV/AIDS, which allowed me to prosper in my internship where I directly worked with this population. John G. Sullivan dedicated his life to individuals within this exact population and his legacy continues through this award. I am immensely grateful to be acknowledged through this award and feel encouraged to continue to do the work I am meant to do within the social work field. Thank you.”
Children and Families Institute Scholars
Emily Arocha
“I am honored to receive the Children and Families Institute scholarship. I am so impressed with the Institute’s mission and look forward to working with Dr. Heyman and contributing to the 2022 conference!”
Allison McSpedon
“I am very honored to receive the Children and Families Scholarship Award for the Class of 2021. As nice as it is to be recognized personally, I’m also accepting this award on behalf of all of my colleagues and classmates who are also working for children and families. I am grateful for the people in my life, personally and professionally, who have supported me in pursuing my MSW. They continue to empower and inspire me to work hard on behalf of all people experiencing homelessness. Thank you for the award and the opportunity to express a little of the joy and meaning I find in my work.”
The Kathy and Brian MacLean Scholarship in Palliative Care
James Askin
“It has been a humbling experience to work with people confronting serious or life-limiting illnesses, and if I have been of any service, it’s a credit to the learning and experience I’ve been afforded by Fordham’s Palliative Care Fellowship. It’s impossible to overstate the value of the support I have received through the Fellowship and its growing community of alumni, and I look forward to being a part of that community in the years ahead.”
Kim Campi
“While my whole experience at Fordham has been invaluable, this year in particular is when everything really clicked, and I was able to get the direct experience and classroom learning I will need to work with palliative and end-of-life patients. As an older student returning to school, the Palliative Care Fellowship, and the MacLean Scholarship that it offered, made it possible for me to make this meaningful life change.”
Amalie Ceen
“Social work is a second career for me. I was a stay-at-home mom for many years and I chose to go into social work because it allowed me the opportunity to discover where I could be of most service – this turned out to be in palliative care. Under the wonderful and supportive leadership of Dr. Cathy Berkman, the small and intimate Palliative Care program, of which I was a part, helped guide me in this field. I found my field placement as a hospice social worker to be very fulfilling. Connecting with people who were dying was both profound and humbling. It was gratifying to help my clients and their families on many levels – practical, emotional, and spiritual. During this last year, when visits to nursing homes had been severely curtailed due to the pandemic, I was sometimes the only visitor my clients were allowed to see – I became the link between patient and family, ensuring their connection continued.
Samantha Idan
Siobhan James
Elizabeth Malone
“I am so thankful for the incredible generosity of the MacLean Family in funding my Palliative Care Fellowship at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. It has made my academic experience at Fordham rich, robust, and meaningful. I only wish it had started earlier and continued longer! I have greatly valued the mentorship and guidance of Dr. Cathy Berkman and my career mentor, Dr. Myra Glychen, along with all the alumni speakers from previous Fellowship years, and this year’s current Fellows I have been in class and field seminar alongside. This, along with my field placement on the Danbury Hospital Palliative Care Services and my coursework in grief and bereavement and palliative care, has provided me with a solid foundation for me to continue my education and further career development in a Post Masters Fellowship position in Palliative Care at MedStar in Washington D.C. I am so extraordinarily grateful for every aspect the Fellowship provided me with and it has only made it abundantly clear to me that I have found my passion and purpose in going forward into this vitally important and meaningful field.”
Charity Radway
West Side Inter-Agency Council for the Aging Beatrice M. Goldberg Scholarship
Recipient – Devika Raghubir
Honorable Mention – Ariel Cohen
The Thea Bowman, Ph.D., F.S.P.A., Research Award
Hans Menos
“I am honored to receive this award. My goal is to create lasting change for Black and Brown people who are oppressed by the criminal justice system on a daily basis. I know we can do better and promise to keep pushing until we do.”
