Meet FDU alumna Kelley Kramer, BA’05 She Developed Her Nose for News at FDU

Kelley Kramer, BA’05, the deputy managing editor at Fox News Media, says that she can trace many of her professional successes to her time at FDU. “What will come as absolutely no surprise to the alumni and friends of FDU, is that the seeds for so much of what I have been able to accomplish were sewn during my four years at the metropolitan campus.” Kramer says that at FDU, she discovered the thing that sparked her imagination. And that, as well as the connections that she made, both inside and outside of the classroom gave her a strong foundation on which she has built her career.

Kramer, who served as editor in chief of the student run newspaper, the Equinox, recalls that paper’s advisor, Jane Foderaro, who was fondly known as “Tinker,” was both a mentor and a role model. On Thursday nights, when the paper was being put to bed, and the student editors would often work until the wee hours, Foderaro, then in her 70s and having already had a career as a working journalist, was always there at 3:00 am, making sure that the student journalists always head themselves to the highest journalistic standards. “I learned a lot about journalism, professionalism and ethics from her,” Kramer says.

Kramer says that the scholarships that she received while at FDU were the leg up that she needed. Originally focused on a career in public relations, says that a “wonderful alchemy of guidance, skill, focus, ambition, connections and a little luck” helped her to set her sights on a career in broadcast journalism. 

One of the internships that she had while a student – at Fox 29 in Philadelphia — led to her first job in journalism. She rolled the teleprompter for the station’s morning show.

After several promotions, she ended up on the assignment desk, but she says that, having held a variety of jobs at the station, she knew that what she really wanted to do was write and produce live TV news. Using some of the tenacity that she had honed at FDU, she began applying for producing jobs across the country.  “That’s how this Jersey girl ended up in Green Bay, Wisconsin,” she says, “running the morning show at the local NBC station.” From there, she was rehired by Fox 29, this time as a producer.  “I spent three years there before the big leagues came calling,” she says.  “I started at Fox News as a writer on Fox and Friends and worked my way up to senior producer before moving to the digital side. “

Kramer knows that ambition and tenacity are not always enough. “No one makes their way alone,” she says. “A great university is defined by the way in which it identifies and nurtures the talents that each student brings and that’s what FDU did for me. We all have potential and I was fortunate to find a university and mentors who saw mine and challenged me to grow, learn and find my way in the world.”

Kramer, who makes an annual gift to The Fund for FDU, says that hers is only one of the many stories of FDU students who you have been assisted by the generous gifts from donors — “the students who have taken the encouragement, training, guidance, inspiration, instruction and preparation into the world and created the best versions of themselves.”