From left: Margaret Freije, provost and dean of the College; Thomas Beecher, Jr. ’56; Deborah Fuller ’91; Stephen Harbeck ’68; Katherine Gallagher ’92; Col. Malcolm Joseph ’71; Rev. Philip Boroughs, president of the College.
- Thomas R. Beecher, Jr. , Esq. '56
- Dr. Deborah L. Fuller, DMD, '91
- Katherine M. Gallagher, Esq. '92
- Stephen P. Harbeck, Esq. '68
- Col. Malcolm N. Joseph lll, M.D., USAF (Ret.) '71
Thomas R. Beecher, Jr. , Esq. '56
Tom Beecher, you are admired as “a hero, a prince and a visionary” in your native Buffalo, New York. Your nearly six decades in the practice of trust and estate law have been distinguished by the great generosity of time, counsel and resources you give to your clients, community and Catholic diocese. You are a gracious man of great faith, deep commitment and grand vision. You work your way to solutions where others can’t see the light. You feed the hungry and provide access to high-quality education for deserving, but disadvantaged, young people. You served your country with honor as a U.S. Army Reservist. You served your community with distinction as the vision-forward leader of a grand-scale medical campus project that has transformed healthcare delivery throughout Western New York.
Prior to founding the wealth management firm Barrantys LLC in 2004, you were a partner, now counsel, in a prestigious Buffalo law firm. You have actively led or served on the boards of more than a dozen companies, four foundations and nearly three dozen community organizations. Your email handle, "Trustee Tom," underscores decades of extraordinary volunteerism.
You were familiar with the Jesuit mission to “add value to the world” when you came to 17³Ô¹ÏÍø from Canisius High School. Years before you became a man for others, you were a boy for those in need. The oldest of six siblings, you began cooking for your family at 13 after your mother died. You have nourished others by cooking Sunday suppers for close friends and preparing hundreds of meals for the homeless for nearly a decade. You provide breakfast for the children who attend St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy.
You co-founded the Buffalo Inner-City Scholarship Opportunity Network, or BISON, in 1995 to fund scholarships for low-income students seeking private elementary education. BISON has provided 23,000 scholarships to disadvantaged families seeking school choice options. Buffalo-area colleges have sought out your wise counsel, including Canisius College, where you were a regent, and the University at Buffalo School of Law, where you earned a J.D. degree in 1959.
As board chair of Buffalo General Hospital in the early 1990s, you negotiated a full asset merger of several hospitals and healthcare providers to create Kaleida Health, which eased access to healthcare and eliminated duplication of services. You did it again in 2001 with bricks and mortar when you finally realized a grand-scale project that, at times, seemed to be beyond your wildest dreams. Under your leadership and the partnerships you brokered with many stakeholders, the world-class Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus took shape on 100 acres in the Queen City’s downtown. The Thomas R. Beecher, Jr. Innovation Center, at the heart of campus, was named to honor your transformational tenure as board chair and the pivotal role you played in forging “an effective consortium of institutional interest in the project.”
You have been honored often for your leadership and service. We also honor you as a loyal and engaged son of 17³Ô¹ÏÍø, one who led many in your family to Mount St. James. Your brother, Michael ’60, followed you up Linden Lane. Your daughter, Kathleen Beecher Moore ’90, and your niece, Jennifer Beecher Whitten ’94, are both Crusaders. You have supported the College mission as an active member of the President’s Council and the 1843 Society. You were instrumental in the record-breaking success of the Class of 1956 60th Reunion. You and Judy have generously supported the Joyce Contemplative Center. You also have made the precious gift of your time, sharing your wisdom with our pre-business students. Your life’s work exemplifies the message you gave them, “Do well to do good.”
For your exemplary commitment of lifelong service; for your generous investment of self in life-changing efforts on behalf of children and families, and for having the vision, courage and endurance to create a transformative health care system and medical campus that have put thousands on the path to wellness, the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø presents you, Thomas Beecher, with the Sanctae Crucis Award.
Dr. Deborah L. Fuller, DMD, '91
Deborah Fuller, you have been a woman on a mission since you earned your doctor of dental medicine degree nearly two decades ago. As a young dentist in public and private practice you witnessed great disparity in the quality of oral health care that disadvantaged children experienced from infancy. You have worked tirelessly to remove barriers to access and provide first-quality dental services for Rhode Island’s infants, children and the underserved. You have leveraged your distinguished career in dentistry, public service, research, teaching and the insurance industry to be a powerful voice for equitable treatment for all dental patients in need. Your dedication has created a dynamic network of dental caregivers throughout the state, boosted coordination among service providers and sparked an annual free pop-up dental clinic for thousands of underserved patients.
You came to 17³Ô¹ÏÍø from Bishop Stang High School, where the charism of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur infused academics with a commitment to service. You settled into Alumni HaII planning to major in psychology and premed. Your full embrace of the Jesuit magis to “be more” led to a high-profile nontraditional career in dentistry and wide-ranging volunteerism. The results of your dedication have been transformational for Rhode Islanders who lacked access to oral healthcare. Your statewide leadership on oral healthcare access and awareness initiatives has reduced expensive teeth-related emergency room visits by the uninsured, who now have increased access to regular dental care. You have affected tremendous change by focusing grand-scale efforts within the confines of our nation’s smallest state.
Since you graduated from UConn School of Dental Medicine in 1995, you have earned master’s degrees in public health and in management with a healthcare concentration. You joined the MetLife insurance company in 2014 as director of dental network development. You also serve as a public health dentist to the Rhode Island Department of Health to provide guidance on oral health policies. You have served as a clinical adviser, dental coding business consultant and technical services director for a dental materials product company. You have experienced and contributed to nearly every aspect of dentistry: related clinical and academic activities and the dental industry at large.
On parallel tracks, you also have invested yourself and your multipoint expertise in extensive volunteerism on behalf of others, while protecting family time with your husband, endodontist Brian Gaudette, class of 1989, and your own children, Eric and Alexa. As a founding member and former vice president of the Rhode Island Oral Health Foundation, your personal and professional commitment to serving children and the underserved has been evident in the foundation’s high-impact yearly event, the Rhode Island Mission of Mercy. The two-day clinic provides free dental care to the uninsured, underinsured or anyone who lacks access to dental care. Services are provided by more than 600 licensed dental professional volunteers who perform exams, cleanings, root canals and many other needed procedures. Since 2012, Mission of Mercy volunteers have cared for more than 4,000 patients and performed nearly 16,000 oral procedures worth $2.3 million.
You have been recognized for your tremendous integrity, ethical leadership and exceptional service to others. In 2015, you were inducted into the fellowship of the International College of Dentists. You were named a fellow of the Pierre Fauchard Academy, an international honorary dental organization that recognizes outstanding colleagues for “distinguished work, research, contributions and public service.”
For your great passion and tireless advocacy for creating equitable access to dental care for all of Rhode Island’s children; for your sustained sense of urgency and strategic leadership in illuminating and addressing the state’s oral health crisis and for the shining example you provide to our students through your personal investment and compassion for the underserved, the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø presents to you, Deborah Fuller, the Sanctae Crucis Award.
Katherine M. Gallagher, Esq. '92
Katie Gallagher, your no-holds-barred engagement in international criminal law, universal justice and human rights advocacy has been your compelling career and courageous calling for more than two decades. You regularly spur the rule of law to examine its edges for innovative legal strategies. You offer a strong voice to the powerless, relief to the oppressed and justice to the wronged. As a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, you train the high beams on those who egregiously misuse the court of law to trample on, truncate or terminate human rights.
A native New Yorker, you arrived on campus with the strong values and deep faith of your good parents. You swiftly unpacked your fierce intellect, well-muscled conscience and burning passion to make a difference. At 17³Ô¹ÏÍø you found a fearless intellectual environment, scholarly context for the world’s wrongs that need righting and real-world opportunities to serve others. You found professors who helped you hone the analytical skills, writing prowess and confidence of conviction needed to effect change. You also found lifelong friends who remain to this day awed by your strength and sacrifice on behalf of the voiceless. You left the Hill as a true woman for others in the best Jesuit tradition. Your deep understanding that we don’t get to choose or define the “other” we serve has defined your life’s purpose.
Since you joined the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York in 2006, you have held individuals, this nation’s and foreign government officials, military contractors, and corporations accountable for perpetrating serious human rights violations. No miscarriage of justice has been too controversial, too political or too close to home to engage you. The abuses at Abu Ghraib, and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests versus the Vatican, are two of your most high-profile cases.
You worked for five years at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. You lived in Syria to learn Arabic. You served as a legal rights advisor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kosovo and with the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown. You joined the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice and were admitted to the International Criminal Court to ensure that gender-based violence and discrimination were adequately addressed. You served as vice president on the International Board of the International Federation for Human Rights and on the editorial committee for the Journal for International Criminal Justice.
You speak and write extensively about the cases you have worked, the causes about which you care and the issues that you believe deserve the world’s attention. You amplify your voice, your writing and your impact through your full embrace of social media, your research, public lectures, teaching, televised debates, YouTube, public television and other mainstream media appearances. Your articles and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and the Jurist, among other publications. In addition to the master’s degree in journalism and Middle East studies you hold from NYU, you earned a J.D. degree in 2000 from the City University of New York Law, where you served as editor-in-chief of the New York City Law Review. Today, as an adjunct law professor, you enlighten CUNY’s next generation of public service lawyers.
For your unwavering commitment to live an intentional life in pursuit of justice; for your courageous efforts to effect the structural changes necessary to thwart those who would coerce, oppress or dehumanize others; for your personal investment in a career dedicated to justice for the oppressed, disenfranchised and disadvantaged throughout the world, the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø presents you, Katherine Gallagher, with the Sanctae Crucis Award. ###
Stephen P. Harbeck, Esq. '68
Stephen Harbeck, you have long been admired as ethical, clear-eyed and calm under fire. You were called by our country in 1969, after your first year of law school, to serve in Vietnam as an army sergeant and sniper. Your colleagues and your 17³Ô¹ÏÍø classmates point to your extraordinary leadership, great integrity, principled upholding of the law and tremendous self-discipline. Your stellar personal qualities, Jesuit education and military experiences have served as the rock-solid foundation for your long and distinguished career in service to others.
You lead the nonprofit Securities Investors Protection Corporation, or SIPC, charged by Congress since 1970 to protect investors against loss in financially troubled brokerage firms. You focus relentlessly on your vital mission, trying to do the best you can for the greatest number of people, consistent with the law. You have communicated with great clarity that you will negotiate over disputes of fact, but you will never compromise the integrity of law.
Your 42-year career with SIPC began when you joined the agency’s legal staff as a young attorney in 1975. That same year you married Judy, your Cornell Law classmate, and went to work in Washington. You were named general counsel in 1995 and SIPC president and CEO in 2003. Until 2008, the biggest bankruptcy case the agency had handled in its nearly 40 year history amounted to $175 million. That figure rose astronomically to nearly $100 billion during the height of the nation’s financial crisis. Three “too-big-to-fail” securities firms did fall like dominoes. The string of Lehman Brothers, Madoff Investment Securities and MF Global failures presented a challenge of historic proportions for SIPC to untangle. Potential losses were in the upper billions, triggering a looming threat to stability and market confidence.
Your exceptional leadership and organizational skills in times of crisis enabled you to assemble able and effective teams to handle all three liquidations. The high-profile Madoff Ponzi scheme presented especially complex legal and financial issues. Despite facing criticism from some members of Congress during the recovery phase, you courageously upheld the law and stayed the course. Ultimately you and your team recovered more money for all of the Madoff victims than anyone had anticipated.
You learned to “stay the course” when you joined the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø track team at the suggestion of Fr. Ambrose Mahoney. He cited the discipline that develops from daily practice. With classmates John Collins, Paul Hartrey and Chris Shea from the class of 1966, you still hold of the College’s outdoor record for the 4-x-110-yard relay. You credit the Jesuits for their emphasis on discovery, analysis and truth, and for creating a fierce intellectual environment where no ideas are feared. An economics major, you graduated cum laude and went on to Cornell Law School, where you were awarded a fellowship.
Your commitment to the equitable treatment of investors has been recognized with a 2015 Turnaround Atlas Award for leadership achievement. Your distinguished military service has been honored with the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star and the Air Medal.
You continue to contribute to the education of law students by serving as an adjunct professor of bankruptcy law at American University's Washington College of Law. You also have written many law review articles on bankruptcy and are committed to expanding investor educational initiatives.
For your deep respect for the law and your unwavering resolve to uphold it; for the generosity of time and expertise you invest in preparing the next generation of dedicated, ethical attorneys, for the tremendous example you set as a principled son of 17³Ô¹ÏÍø committed to protecting others, and for your valor and proud service to your country, the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø presents to you, Stephen Harbeck, the Sanctae Crucis Award.
Col. Malcolm N. Joseph lll, M.D., USAF (Ret.) '71
Dr. Malcolm Joseph, you are a compassionate healer, a tireless advocate for greater access to healthcare for the homeless, and a powerful voice in the dialogue on diversity, wellness and disease prevention. You are a man for others in the best Jesuit tradition. You came to 17³Ô¹ÏÍø from the Bronx in 1967 for the strong science program. An exceptional student, you intended to go on to medical school after graduation. You were one of an extraordinary coterie of black students, many of whom then president Fr. John Brooks personally recruited in the 1960s in an all-out effort to diversify the student body. You, like many of the other students of color, thrived academically, despite the insensitivity, racism and lack of inclusivity that you often faced on campus.
You proved to be a resilient young man of strong character and high ambition, and a member of a group of classmates who Fr. Brooks observed “helped to turn 17³Ô¹ÏÍø into the college it needed to become.” Fr. Brooks became your mentor and described you simply as “a very, very strong man,” a high compliment. You have expressed great appreciation for his unfailing support of your efforts, before and after graduation, maintaining that it was the foundation for all that you have accomplished.
You graduated in 1971 having completed a major in biology and the premedical track.. You accepted an Air Force ROTC commission as a second lieutenant. You went on to earn a doctor of medicine degree from Boston University, becoming the first black alumnus of 17³Ô¹ÏÍø to graduate from medical school, and received additional training in aerospace medicine. You completed an occupational medicine residency and a master’s degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University. You served your country with distinction for more than two decades as an Air Force chief flight surgeon, traveling the world providing medical staffing for three presidential administrations, while serving on Air Force One. You also served as Vice President Walter Mondale’s personal physician. You retired from active military duty with the rank of Colonel. In 1998, you were named medical director for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield of Maryland. In that leadership role, you are a tireless advocate for equitable access to healthcare. You work within the Baltimore community assisting with public and private healthcare issues for the uninsured, the homeless and the marginalized.
In addition to extensive community service affiliations, you are fully engaged in healthcare advocacy at the national and state levels through your active board memberships, outreach and fundraising initiatives focused on sickle cell disease. The litany of your professional and personal involvements includes Community Health Partnerships Ltd, Adventist Healthcare Centers’ Health Disparities Inaugural Board, the William E. Proudford Sickle Cell Fund, and the Maryland Steering Committee for Adults with Sickle Cell Disease. Your wonderful wife Pam, a former Air Force major and flight nurse, passed away in 2016. You have honored her memory by shouldering her strong advocacy for increased cancer awareness and research. Your son and two living daughters fully support your efforts.
Among your many honors, you were awarded a 2015 Health Care Leadership Award from Dialogue on Diversity for your strong support, generous counsel and active engagement as a speaker at Dialogue’s annual health care symposia. You were recognized for your outstanding commitment to sickle cell research by the William E. Proudford Sickle Cell Fund.
For your tireless advocacy for equitable access to healthcare for the homeless and the uninsured; for your tremendous efforts to raise funds and improve outcomes for people with blood diseases; for your decades of distinguished service to your country, the 17³Ô¹ÏÍø presents to you, Malcolm Joseph, the Sanctae Crucis Award.