Fordham recently hired Beth Markowitz as the new director of first- and second-year advising at Fordham College at Rose Hill. The new position is part of the new Fordham College Advising Center, which is a new cooperative advising center for Fordham College at Rose Hill and Fordham College at Lincoln Center students.
Markowitz is originally from upstate New York. She received her B.A. in sociology from Siena College and moved to the city in 2002. She then got her M.A. in school counseling from Manhattan College, and worked for 16 years at New York University, where she also got her Ed.D. in 2020. During her time in the city, Markowitz was able to live in a wide range of boroughs and surrounding cities, including Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Yonkers and Riverdale.
Markowitz was the assistant director for academic affairs at NYU since 2014, and after getting her doctorate, she knew she wanted to do something new.
“Fordham was a college I’ve always been interested in,” Markowtiz said.
“I believe in the Jesuit tradition and their priority on education and then I also know people who have gone here, and they were always very happy. And so I knew that they were giving a quality education to students, and so it’s something I would want to be a part of.”
Regarding her new position, Markowitz explained that she also has a counterpart that was hired at the Lincoln Center campus and that they work closely together to make the advising center consistent across campuses. In addition, the advising center is still in the process of being fully operational, since it is currently only for first- and second-year students.
“Every year we’re grandfathering in the new students into the center. So right now we have the freshmen and sophomores and then the juniors and seniors who are still seeing their class deans for advising. And so there’s growth every year and so there’s new policy every year and just new programming so that we serve students,” Markowitz said.
Eventually, a director of third- and fourth-year advising will be hired to help advise the current first- and second-year students. Currently, each class year has a group of advisors that will work with them for their first two years and then a group of advisors for their last two years. Markowitz explained that it helps for students to have advisors who are able to help them with transitioning into college and declaring majors, and then the new advisors in the last two years will help them transition out of college.
Being almost two months into her new position, Markowtiz is looking forward to meeting new people.
“I’m looking forward to getting together with the different departments and meeting them and working with them to best serve the students. So that’s kind of next on my agenda. We’ll also be working on major declaration for the sophomores. So that’s something new that will be coming up soon,” Markowitz said.
The new advising center will officially include all four years of students in the 2025-26 academic school year, once the current juniors graduate.
“I’m kind of looking forward to when we have all four years in the advising center… Once we have that, there won’t be something brand new every year, and we can focus on where we want to grow and new things that we want to do,” Markowitz said.
Overall, Markowitz said she is excited to work with students and continue to meet more people.
“I have been having a great experience so far. People have been really friendly, very welcoming. I love working with the students. They’re really great, motivated students. And I feel lucky, you know, to be in a position that I love,” Markowitz said.
