The son of John and Margaret Whalen, Msgr. Whalen was born July 6, 1958 and raised with his brothers in Blessed Sacrament Parish, Staten Island. From Blessed Sacrament School he went to Msgr. Farrell High School where he later taught and was principal. He graduated from Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception, Douglaston, with a degree in history and was then sent to the North American College, Rome where he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he earned his STB in 1983. He was ordained a deacon in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome in April, 1983. Monsignor Whalen served as a deacon in the Diocese of Kakamega, Kenya which helped him to understand the richness of our Catholic faith in its diverse expressions.

He was ordained a priest on 23rd June 1984 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral by then-Archbishop John O’Connor. His summer assignments were in Resurrection, Rye and St. Joseph’s, Bronxville. He then returned to Rome to complete the licentiate in moral theology at the Academia Alfonsiana of the Pontifical Lateran University in 1985. Upon returning to the United States, he served in Resurrection Parish, Rye under the guidance of Monsignor Donald Pryor, whom he first knew as a young priest in Blessed Sacrament.

In 1987, he returned to his alma mater, Msgr. Farrell High School to teach religion and be chair of the Religion Department. In 1990, he was appointed secretary to John Cardinal O’Connor. He then returned to Rome to complete the doctorate in moral theology at the Academia Alfonsiana in 1995. He then began what would be twelve years teaching moral theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie while also serving as Vice Rector (1997-1998) of Dunwoodie and then Rector of St. John Neumann Seminary Residence, Riverdale (1998-2001).

During these years, he was a weekend and summer assistant at St. Clare’s Parish, Morris Park, The Bronx, serving the Italian speaking community. In May, 2001 he became pastor of St. Benedict’s Parish, Throggs Neck, The Bronx where he continued to serve the Italian speaking community and began outreach to the Spanish speaking community. After six years, he was named pastor of St. Joseph-St. Thomas Parish, Staten Island in 2007, where he served until being named principal of Msgr. Farrell High School in 2010. While principal, he also taught religion and foreign language. During these years he served as a weekend assistant at St. Charles and St. Ann’s along with serving the Spanish speaking community at St. Roch’s, all on Staten Island.

In January 2019 Cardinal Dolan named him Vicar for Clergy. On December 10, 2019, the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, Bishop Edmund Whalen and Bishop Gerardo J. Colacicco were ordained to the episcopacy.

On April 7, 2026, Archbishop Hicks named Bishop Whalen the Vicar General for the Archdiocese of New York.

Rosemary Charlene Sullivan is Executive Director of the National Conference of
Diocesan Vocation Directors (NCDVD), where she has provided national leadership in
promoting diocesan priestly vocations and supporting clergy formation for more than two
decades. A trusted advisor to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and
consultant to its Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations since 2009, she
has served the Church through national leadership, strategic planning, and major
initiatives, including as Co-Chair of Liturgy for the National Eucharistic Congress, and
Chair of Liturgy for the 2029 Congress.
Rosemary also serves as Director of Mission Advancement for the Diocese of Rockville
Centre’s Immaculate Conception Retreat & Conference Center. She serves on the
Episcopal Advisory Board of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, the Board of
Trustees for the Pontifical College Josephinum and the boards of the Foundation of
Priestly Vocations, Enkindle Catholic Ministries, and Shepherding Future Shepherds
(ThankAPriest.com). A graduate of St. John’s University, she and her husband, Gary,
have been married for more than 39 years and are blessed with four children and three
grandchildren.

John Sexton is President Emeritus of NYU, Dean Emeritus of NYU Law School, and the
Benjamin Butler Professor of Law. He joined the Law School faculty in 1981 and was
named the Law School’s Dean in 1988; he served in this capacity for fourteen years. He
was named the University’s President in 2001, and served in that capacity until January
1, 2016.
In addition to his work as President Emeritus, Sexton is a member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations
He previously served as Chair of the American Council on Education, the Commission
on Independent Colleges and Universities of New York, and the New York Academy of
Sciences. While Dean of the Law School, he was President of the Association of
American Law Schools. He is a life member of the board of the Institute of International
Education.
He was the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
(2003-2006) and Chair of the Federal Reserve Systems Council of Chairs (2006). He
served as a board member of the National Association of Securities Dealers
(1996-1998) and was Founding Chair of the Board of NASD Dispute Resolution
(2000-2002). He served as co-chair of the UK/US Study Group, an education policy
group convened by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and was a member of the Public
Policy Research’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education (UK), which issued its
report in June 2013. In Spring 2016 he served as the Kluge Distinguished Professor at
the Library of Congress. Sexton is a recipient of the Edward Weinfeld Award (2015), the
Law School’s highest honor and the Albert Gallatin Medal (2019), NYU’s highest honor.
In 2016, Sexton received the Eugene Keogh Award for Distinguished Public Service
from the NYU Alumni Association.
In 2012, he received the NASPA President’s Award, which is given annually to a college
or university leader who, over a sustained period of time, has advanced the quality of
student life on campus by supporting student affairs staff and programs. In 2014, the
Institute for International Education awarded him its Dugan Prize for “distinguished work
in education.” And, in March 2015 he received the TIAA-Cref Hesburgh Award for
Leadership Excellence, recognizing outstanding leadership on the part of a college or
university president or chancellor. In 2022, Sexton was the recipient of the UN Global
Coalition’s Award for Education Leadership.
In 2016, Commonweal Magazine honored Sexton as the Catholic in the Public Square.
The previous year, the Arab-American League awarded him its Khalil Gibran Spirit of
Humanity Award; and, the Open University of Israel gave him it’s Alon Prize for “inspired
leadership in the field of education.” In 2013, Citizens Union designated him as “an
outstanding leader who enhances the value of New York City.” The student editors of
NYU’s Annual Survey of American Law dedicated their Volume 60 to him. He has been
honored at the Harvard Law Review Annual Banquet, and has been named “Alumnus of
the Year” both at Fordham University and at his high school, Brooklyn Prep. In 2008 he
was named a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, the national order of the Legion of
Honor of France. Emory University has named him “Outstanding High School Debate
Coach of the Last 50 Years” for work he did from 1960-1975.
In 2016, he founded and for five years served as CEO of the Catalyst Foundation for
Universal Education, providing over $25 million in grants to educate underserved
refugee and displaced children around the world.
Sexton holds honorary doctorates from 26 colleges and universities, including Saint
Francis College (1996); University of Rochester (2005); Fordham University (2005);
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (2005); Saint John’s University (2007); Saint Joseph’s
College, New York (2010); Hamilton College (2011); Iona College, New York (2011);
University of Surrey, UK (2011); University of Warwick, UK (2011); Yeshiva University
(2011); King’s College London, UK (2013); University of Strathclyde, UK (2013); Miami
Dade College (2014); Brooklyn Law School (2016); Drexel University Kline School of
Law (2016); Felician University, New York (2016); Union College (2017), Wake Forest
University (2017); Mount Aloysius College (2018); Northeastern University (2018);
University of Haifa (2022); Asian University for Women (2023); Korea Advanced Institute
for Science and Technology (2023); Lafayette College (2024); and Jewish Theological
Seminary (2024).
John Sexton received a B.A. in History (1963) from Fordham College; an M.A. in
Comparative Religion (1965) and a Ph.D. in History of American Religion (1978)
Fordham University; and a J.D. magna cum laude (1979) from Harvard Law School.
He is an author of a leading casebook on Civil Procedure. He also is the author of
Redefining the Supreme Court’s Role: A Theory of Managing the Federal Court System
(a treatment of the Supreme Court’s case selection process) in addition to several other
books, numerous chapters, articles and Supreme Court briefs. His 2013 book, Baseball
as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game, is based on an undergraduate seminar
President Sexton teaches at NYU each spring and was a New York Times bestseller;
Major League Baseball has produced a full length documentary, Baseball: Beyond the
Game, based on the book. His latest book is Standing for Reason, which addresses
broad trends in global civil society and higher education.
Before coming to NYU, Sexton served as a Law Clerk at the United States Supreme
Court to Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Warren Burger (1980-1981),
and to Judges David Bazelon and Harold Leventhal of the United States Court of
Appeals (1979-1980). For ten years (1983-1993), he served as Special Master
Supervising Pretrial Proceedings in the Love Canal Litigation. From 1966-1975, he was
a Professor of Religion at Saint Francis College in Brooklyn, the Department Chair from
1970-1975.
He married Lisa Goldberg in 1976. Their two children are Jed and Katie Sexton, and
their grandchildren are Julia, Ava, Natalie, Ellis and Nea.

Diane Ferguson is a Managing Director and Head of Financial Institutions for Mizuho | Greenhill in the
Americas, where she leads Corporate & Investment Banking coverage for Financial Institutions
clients. She brings 35+ years of leadership experience across financial institutions, with previous roles
at Citi, RBS Greenwich Capital, and BNY. Over the course of her career, she has led numerous
strategic M&A transactions, IPOs, and capital raises for clients across Financial Technology, Specialty
Finance, Asset Management, Alternatives, Insurance and Banks, overseeing portfolios exceeding $20
billion.
Diane holds a BA and MBA from NYU and has studied in Japan and India. She has previously served
on the boards of CAE and The Better Business Bureau, and is currently expanding her focus toward
board service and advisory work to support mission-driven organizations. A practicing Roman
Catholic with a longstanding interest in Dominican spirituality and Catholic intellectual tradition, she
has been an active supporter of Catholic educational initiatives, including fundraising efforts for The
Catholic Center at NYU, and is committed to mentoring the next generation through faith-informed
service.

Martijn Cremers, the Bernard J. Hank Professor of Finance, was appointed as
the Martin J. Gillen Dean for the Mendoza College of Business in 2019.
Cremers previously served on the Yale School of Management faculty from
2002 until he joined Notre Dame in 2012. His research and teaching areas
include investment management, corporate finance, corporate governance,
and Catholic social thought.
Cremers’ co-authored paper “How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New
Measure that Predicts Performance” (published in 2009 in the Review of
Financial Studies) introduced Active Share, an innovative tool for determining
the extent of active mutual fund management by measuring the percentage of
stock holdings in a manager’s portfolio that differs from the benchmark index.
Active Share has become widely used in the financial industry and has been
integrated into major platforms including Morningstar Direct and FactSet.
He is widely published in academic journals, with over 17,000 Google citations
to date.
He serves as an independent director at Ariel Investments, an investment
company located in Chicago, and has a long-standing consulting relationship
with Touchstone Investments.
A native of the Netherlands, Cremers earned his master’s degree from the
Free Universiteit Amsterdam and his Ph.D. from New York University’s Stern
School of Business. He and his wife Liesbeth reside in South Bend, Indiana,
and have six children.

Margaret Colin is an American actress whose career spans more than four decades
across daytime and primetime television, film, and Broadway. She was born in Brooklyn
to a large Irish-Catholic family and raised on Long Island.
Colin attended Hofstra University and trained in drama at both the Stella Adler
Conservatory and The Juilliard School. She got her start on the soaps The Edge of
Night and As the World Turns, where she met her husband, actor Justin Deas. The two
have been married since 1988 and are raising two sons together.
Colin transitioned into film in the mid-1980s, appearing as Molly Ringwald’s English
teacher in John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink (1986), and going on to roles in Something Wild
(1986), Like Father, Like Son (1987), and Three Men and a Baby (1987). She later
starred opposite Harrison Ford as a married couple unwittingly harboring an Irish
terrorist, played by Brad Pitt, in Alan J. Pakula’s The Devil’s Own, and appeared in the
sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day (1996) as a presidential press secretary battling an
alien invasion.
On television, Colin earned a Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actress in 2000 for her
role as Lisa Wiseman in the series Now and Again. She is also known for her recurring
role as Eleanor Waldorf, mother of Blair Waldorf, across all six seasons of Gossip Girl
(2007–2012). Other television credits include Chicago Hope, The Wright Verdicts,
Elementary, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, Nurse Jackie, Madam Secretary, and Veep,
in which she reprised her role as McCabe in the show’s seventh-season premiere and
again in the series finale in 2019.
A member of the Actors Studio, Colin has also built a substantial Broadway résumé.
She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role
in The Invention of Love, and an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for her
performance in Show Boat. Her Broadway credits also include Jackie: An American Life,
for which she won a Theatre World Award, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Old
Acquaintance, Arcadia, The Columnist, and Carousel. She most recently starred on
Broadway as Ruth Ackerman in David Lindsay-Abaire’s comedy The Balusters.

Sally Blount is CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the
largest human services providers in the Midwest and among the largest nationally. Since
accepting the call to serve in 2020, Blount has led this $200 million, 108-year-old
organization through a five-year capabilities-building and strategic realignment process.
Working together, Blount and the Board have reimagined Charities’ governance,
streamlined its structure, and strengthened its financial operating model – all in service
of assuring Charities’ long-term sustainability, while creating more impact today for the
people and communities it serves. In 2025, Charities served more than 270,000 people
— regardless of their faith, ethnicity, gender, or nationality — across 20 outreach
programs and 50 service sites spanning Chicago, Cook and Lake counties.
In addition to her role at Catholic Charities, Blount is the Michael L. Nemmers Professor
of Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. An
internationally recognized thought leader in management and business education,
Blount is a highly rated professor and sought-after speaker on leadership, governance,
and organizational growth and transformation.
Blount also sits on the boards of Abbott Laboratories (ABT-NYSE). She previously
served on the boards of Ulta Beauty (ULTA-NASDAQ), the Commercial Club of Chicago,
the Economic Club of Chicago, the Joyce Foundation, and the Finance Council for the
Archdiocese of Chicago.
Blount holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Kellogg School at Northwestern
University and a B.S. in engineering from Princeton University. She began her career as
an associate at the Boston Consulting Group. Her first faculty appointment was at the
University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 1992 to 2001. In 2001, she joined
New York University’s Stern School of Business, where she became the Abraham L.
Gitlow Professor of Management and chaired the promotion and tenure committee,
before assuming the college deanship in 2004, as vice dean and then Dean of Stern
until 2010. From 2010-2018, Blount served as Dean of the Kellogg School of
Management.
Sally is mother to three adult children. She loves hiking, walks with her dogs, leisurely
meals with family and friends, and reading — modern fiction mixed with writings by
Catholic and Eastern mystics.