Fordham University Gabelli School of Business
Founded in 1920, The Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University began with a few night classes in the iconic Woolworth Building, offering courses in accounting, business English, and business law. Over a century later, it has grown into a prestigious institution with campuses at both Fordham’s Rose Hill location in the Bronx and its Lincoln Center location in Manhattan.
The school’s mission centers on developing business leaders who pursue both financial success and societal benefit–an approach rooted in Jesuit educational traditions. This “business with purpose” philosophy guidescurriculum development and shapes how faculty prepare students for careers where profit and social responsibility intersect.
Since earning AACSB accreditation in 1939, the Gabelli school has maintained its standing among top business programs, with multiple specialties ranking in the top 20 nationally, including international business, finance, and marketing. The school’s New York City campuses provide access to major corporations, financial institutions, and a professional network of more than 45,000 alumni.
THE CHALLENGE
In early 2020, leadership at the Gabelli School of Business identified a significant gap in their curriculum: their business students lacked the communications skills needed to navigate politically complex conversations about topics like sustainability and climate change, both which require clarity and conviction in high-stakes moments.
IN PARTICULAR, THE STUDENT BODY:
- Struggled to articulate complex concepts in business contexts
- Lacked confidence when presenting their views or ideas in fraught or politically charged conversations
- Had difficulty building persuasive arguments that connected competing interests with core business priorities
- Included many international students who hesitated to speak up, coming from educational cultures where challenging authority wasn’t common
The school’s Dean recognized that these challenges transcended academic concerns and would directly impact students’ future success in modern business environments, where navigating contested topics and building consensus among competing interests has become essential to leadership.
MY APPROACH
After seeing me present excerpts from my documentary work at Lincoln Center, the Dean approached me about serving as a consultant for the Gabelli school. My mandate was to transfer real-world stakeholder engagement methodologies into a new style of curriculum–one that would help Gabelli’s business students better prepare for the communications and leadership challenges they’d later face in their corporate careers.
TO DO SO, I DEVELOPED A MULTI-FACETED APPROACH:
- Immersive Simulation Design: I created custom role-playing scenarios that placed students in high-stakes communication situations where they had to articulate their positions clearly.
- Character Development: For each simulation, I wrote distinct roles, each with specific motivations and communication challenges.
- Mock Town Hall Facilitation: I organized realistic public forums where students fielded challenging questions and had to articulate clear positions under pressure.
- In-the-Moment Coaching: Throughout this, I provided real-time guidance to help students overcome communication barriers and stage fright.
Rather than teaching textbook communications theory, I replicated the actual stakeholder dynamics I navigate in my consulting work by creating scenarios that mirror real corporate and policy discussions, where business interests inevitably intersect with political, social, and environmental concerns.
THE RESULTS
PROGRAM OUTCOMES FOR THIS COHORT INCLUDED:
- Measurable improvements in student confidence and articulation of complex positions during public speaking engagements
- Students developed practical frameworks for communicating about contested topics and identifying common ground among stakeholders within business contexts
- Exercises built flexibility, empathy, and open-mindedness, as students practiced defending positions from multiple stakeholder perspectives
- International students engaged more actively, demonstrating increased comfort with constructively challenging authority and managing debate based environments
Most notably, the cohort left with immediately applicable tools: the ability to build persuasive arguments under pressure, navigate politically sensitive topics, construct positions that acknowledge competing interests, and serve as effective, communicative leaders in their future industries and professions.
KEY INSIGHTS
This engagement highlighted several important aspects of communication training that continue to inform my consultancy practice:
- Experiential learning outperforms theoretical instruction: Individuals gain more from active participation in simulations than they ever could from lecture material alone.
- Closing the gap between learning and working: By practicing through structured simulations, individuals can better prepare for their real-world communications challenges.
- Communication as practical business currency: Through this process, individuals realize that communication skills are as valuable as financial acumen in today’s business world.
- Connecting diverse perspectives: Individuals benefit from seeing how stakeholders can unite around shared solutions, in spite of having legitimate but conflicting motivations.
For organizations facing similar communication challenges–whether preparing teams to navigate contested topics, building stakeholder engagement capacity, or developing leadership communication skills–simulations training offers a proven methodology for translating real-world communication expertise into practical capabilities that drive results.