#CLASSOF2026CHANGEMAKERS
Nia Wallace Learns How Policy Change Gets Made

When applying to Fordham’s Master of Social Work (MSW) program, Brooklyn native Nia Wallace, MSW ’26, knew she wanted to use her degree to address the broader structures that cause harm.

“I wanted to impact the systems that were impacting the individual,” she said. “Even though social work also can be clinical, I knew I wanted to be community-based.”

Through an intro social work class as an undergraduate at Hunter College, Wallace participated in an organizing effort in Queensbridge focused on getting residents access to better food. COVID cut the project short before she could see the results, but not before realizing something important about herself.

“That was when I really was like, ‘oh, I like community organizing,’” she said. “I had that clear focus of what I wanted to do in social work.”

Wallace enrolled in the part-time three-year MSW program at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan. She said that meeting Fordham’s professors, many of whom maintain positions outside academia and across the social work spectrum, was a deciding factor; she wanted to learn from people who were still in the field, not just teaching theory.

“Everybody who spoke at orientation really seemed involved in social work still,” she said. “They weren’t just professors; they were still doing the work, and that was inspiring.”

An International MSW Program Experience

During her time at GSS, Wallace spent a semester in London: first participating in GSS’s two-week summer study abroad program with a cohort of 40 classmates, then remaining across the pond through the fall, completing a field placement at Oxford House, London’s oldest settlement house. Wallace noted that the settlement house movement’s London origins made the placement feel especially purposeful.

“Knowing that settlement houses started in London, what better opportunity to see it in real time and see how they’re still doing things?” she said. “I really wanted to see how they serve their community.”

London’s social work culture runs at a different frequency than she’s used to, Wallace said, even in such a monumental city. New York, by contrast, can be a bit overwhelming.

“Being a New York social worker is complex and challenging because of the environment that we’re living in,” she said. “Because of how fast-paced we are here, and how immediate the needs are.”

Wallace had arrived in London considering whether she might want to pursue her career there. She left knowing she couldn’t. The need back home was too great.

“I came back [to New York], and I was like, ‘There are things I need to do here. The job is not finished,’” she said. “Arriving back home reminded me of why I got interested in social work in the first place.”

Learning the Ropes from the Fordham Network

This spring, Wallace interned at Goddard Riverside Community Center in its Innovations in Justice Department. She worked under Winn Periyasamy, LAW ’22, the organization’s Director of External Affairs and a Fordham Law alumna — who, Wallace said, gave her a masterclass in how policy actually moves. The two met for coffee before attending a charter meeting at City Hall together (which featured NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NY Governor Kathy Hochul), and Wallace watched closely as Periyasamy worked the room.

Looking Toward the Future

Wallace’s end goal is a position advocating for affordable housing policy. Her broader mission is staying close enough to power to understand how to shape it.

“I want to get a job that involves me staying in the know of my own community on a policy level,” she said. “This is helpful for me, as opposed to doing one-on-one work, but I’m not even aware that [our community]just lost funding for XYZ.”

Oh, and by the way: in her spare time, Wallace is now an international DJ. She completed two radio shows in London. It’s on the resume. This is just the beginning — for a lot of things.