The connection between criminal justice and brain chemistry can sometimes seem like science fiction, but it's very much a part of the court system today. In 2015, Fordham established the Neuroscience and Law Center, to explore how advances in neuroscience have prompted the legal profession to question long-held notions about criminal culpability, free will, thought, behavior, and pain.

Deborah Denno, the center’s director and a professor of law, recently sat down with us to talk about her work with the center.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the Earth’s atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, leading to flooded coastlines, intensifying droughts, and human suffering and poverty.

This was the stark conclusion of a landmark report issued in October by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To avoid such dire consequences, activists have proposed that the United States embark on what they’re calling a Green New Deal. Most recently New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey introduced a congressional resolution calling for the implementation of one.

To make sense of it all, we recently sat down with Marc N. Conte, an associate professor of economics whose expertise includes the economics of climate change.

Jacqueline Reich, a professor and chair of Fordham’s department of communication and media studies, talks about her involvement with the Bronx Italian American History Initiative, and how she's embraced community-based scholarship.

In the last year, the phrase “me too” has become shorthand for survivors of sexual assault and harassment speaking out against their assailants. At the same time, the term “toxic masculinity” has also entered the public conversation, as a potential culprit for unrestrained, unresolved hostility toward women.

Jacqueline Reich, a professor and chair of Fordham’s department of communication and media studies, was one of the first scholars to explore the subject of masculinity, most recently through a 2015 book, “Stars: Masculinity in Italian Cinema.”

We sat down with her to talk about how shifting attitudes in both the United States and Italy have affected her own work.

In education, few topics are more fraught with tension than school integration. A new plan being promoted in Brooklyn that does away with admissions screening processes for middle schools is being watched closely by experts and parents alike.

For it to succeed, teachers will need to simultaneously teach students of different levels of academic proficiency in the same classroom. Akane Zusho, a professor of educational psychology in Fordham’s Graduate School of Education, says when students are properly motivated, it can be done.

In his upcoming book "League of Democracies," Fordham philosophy professor John Davenport notes that in many ways, the challenges the world's democracies face are similar to those that America's founding fathers faced in the 18th century. In this extended bonus track, Davenport delves into the ways in which game theory explains how.

In 2011, a series of uprisings known as the Arab Spring briefly gave the impression that democracy was on an unstoppable march across the globe. Seven years later, it hasn’t exactly turned out that way. Egypt has embraced authoritarianism, Libya is in a state of near anarchy, and Syria has been mired in a catastrophic civil war for seven years. Meanwhile, the international influence of authoritarian countries such as China and Russia has grown significantly.

John Davenport, a professor of philosophy at Fordham, says these and many more developments are proof that NATO and the United Nations Security Council, the two bodies best equipped to promote human rights and peace, are no longer up to the job. In a book that will be published by Routledge this fall, Davenport makes the case for creating what he calls a “League of Democracies.”

It’s September, which means students are flocking back to campus after the summer break. At Fordham’s school of Professional and Continuing Studies, 300 of those enrolled this fall will be participating in the Veterans Administration’s Yellow Ribbon program, which covers tuition and fees for eligible post 9/11 veterans at select colleges.

This past May, Mahlon Bailey, a subway mechanic for the MTA and Property Book Officer in the104th Military Police Battalion in the New York National Guard, joined the ranks of Yellow Ribbon graduates. He recently sat down to talk about how the degree he earned in organizational leadership helped him become an officer.

In this extra track, Gregory Acevedo, an associate professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, talks about the mental health needs of Puerto Ricans affected by Hurricane Maria who are expected to move to areas such as Florida and New York City this year.

Few issues burn hotter on the worldwide stage today than immigration. In May, President Trump instituted a zero-tolerance policy for anyone arriving at the southern border, and the issue has rattled Europe as well.

We sat down recently with Gregory Acevedo, an associate professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service and an expert on issues of immigration and globalization, and their implications for social work theory,