Inducted in 1998
Prep Teacher & School Heraldist (1949-1980)

The first lay teacher inducted to the Prep Hall of Honor, Charles Warren DaParma, Jr. was born in the Bronx in 1928 to Charles and Elizabeth DaParma, a printer and a homemaker. He grew up with his sister, Catherine, in North Yonkers, a rural area at the time, where he attended Old Public School 4.

“Dip,” as he was affectionately nicknamed by his students, was a true son of Fordham, graduating with honors from the Prep as a member of the Class of 1945. A cousin, Edward DaParma, had graduated a few years before him in 1942.

Continuing his education at Rose Hill, Charles completed his studies at Fordham College in 1949 and received a master’s degree, also from Fordham, in 1951.

Chuck DaParma taught Latin at the Prep in five decades — from 1949 to 1980. He was an intellectual and ethical cornerstone for his alma mater, and one of the great teachers in the Prep's long and rich history. During his career, he would chair the Classical Languages Department, introduce Advanced Placement Latin to the curriculum, teach a few English classes along the way, advise the Student Government and Honor Society, and cheer unabashedly for Prep teams at countless games, meets and matches.  He was twice named “Teacher of the Year,” and received a Bene Merenti Medal for his service.

Last but not least, DaParma holds a unique title in all of Prep history: school heraldist.  After the school's formal separation from the University, DaParma provided Fordham Prep with the current design of the school shield as well as the school motto: Amor et Conscia Virtus.  

Chuck was clearly in his element working with and molding young men. While teaching Latin, he challenged students to expand their English vocabularies, become more adept with literary criticism, and vitalize their sometimes turgid writing styles. 

Classroom decorum was strict but hardly stuffy. On any given day, DaParma might sketch a cartoon on a quiz or handicap the Academy Awards. He entertained with Thurberesque tales of skirmishes with cantankerous automobiles or inept repairmen. Propped against a lobby wall at half-time at any given Prep basketball game, DaParma would be surrounded by students wanting to chat. He was always quick to offer droll commentary on the first half of the game, or politics, or movies — or any topic someone introduced.

In the words of fellow Hall of Honor member John "Jack" Foley, Class of 1963 and, like DaParma, longtime chair of the Prep's Classical Languages Department: "Chuck was an erudite, witty teacher whose scholarship and humor was evident to all he taught. He brought to the classroom the knowledge of the world around his students, constantly relating current events to material being covered in class. His use of the English language was superb. He  always chose just the right word or phrase to convey his meaning; his written prose was a delight. He was unfailingly polite even when  provoked to anger. And he would always poke fun at the pompous and self-important among us, student and faculty alike, often with devastatingly humorous results."

Chuck retired in 1980 because of serious heart disease. He relocated to Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he would tend the flower garden at a modest home he had dubbed "The Sabine Farm." Though his full-time teaching days were behind him, DaParma was not quite ready to leave school life altogether, and so, he would volunteer at the local high school working with an AP English group and in the library. And though, more than 700 miles away, Prep parents still sought his counsel on college placement questions. 

After his sudden death in 1982, alumni, friends and colleagues established the Charles W. DaParma Scholarship Fund, which has provided financial aid to Prep students ever since.

At the Memorial Mass for DaParma in the University Church, homilist, former student, and Prep Classics teacher Rev. Nicholas Lombardi, SJ, Class of 1961, quoted Bernard of Chartres to describe the influence of a great teacher: “We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants; we see more things and more far-off ones than they did…because they raise us up and add to our height by their gigantic loftiness”.

DaParma may have taught Latin, but even more so, for generations of Prepsters, he stood as an example of a life lived as a man of Christ, ever deepening in his faith and his love for his fellow sons and daughters of God. His personal explication of Amor Et Conscia Virtus was that it described "the hallmarks of a leader of high moral caliber who is self-aware and self-assured, but who has not lost, however, the capacity for an intense and personal love for others. These two qualities complement each other and combine in the one personality.” These words also convey the sort of man who Charles DaParma was  — honorable, compassionate, and one of the most eloquent, engaging and remarkable individuals to have served on the Fordham Prep faculty.