Fordham Observer - Issue 12

Observer the

NOVEMBER 6, 2014 VOLUME XXXIII, ISSUE 12

www.fordhamobserver.com

Campuses Registration Inequity

Photo Feature

By JUSTIN ROBELLO Staff Writer

Fordham University’s registration system may be unable to handle simultaneous multicampus registration which creates disparities in an attempt to maintain equity. Fordham University Lincoln Center (FCLC) students register before Fordham College Rose Hill (FCRH), but FCLC students have to make concessions because of this.

Robert K. Moniot, Ph.D., associate dean of FCLC, explained why FCLC registers before FCRH students: “Because they’re bigger than us … it is better for the smaller school to register first.”

FCRH is larger than FCLC with 3,649 students enrolled in FCRH and 2,001 in the Gabelli School of Business (GSB). The Lincoln Center campus has 1,765 students enrolled in Fordham College at Lincoln Center and 81 students enrolled in the Gabelli School of Business(GSBLC).

“If you allow students to register [together] the Fordham College Rose Hill seniors would be getting first dibs on courses that might be interesting to Fordham Lincoln Center juniors … both senior classes at both campuses could fill up a class and could lockout lower class FCLC students,” Moniot said Because of the limitations of the system used for registration, “there is no way we could allow them just to register for FCLC courses and not FCRH courses we have to make them wait for everything until we are all done,” Moniot said.

Moniot maintains that the current system, “does have that effect of protecting FCLC students.”

“The only inequality is that we have to wait and enroll in placeholder courses for insurance to have a full schedule,” Moniot said.

Students enroll in placeholder courses to maintain a full schedule while waiting to see if courses see REGISTRATIONg. 3

JESSICA HANLEY/THE OBSERVER

The men’s round of the New York City Marathon on 119th St. & 1st Ave. See centerfold for more NYC marathon photos.

American Studies Professors Resign in Protest

By TYLER MARTINS Editor-in-Chief

Six faculty members, all Jewish, resigned from Fordham’s American Studies program this summer, in protest against the program’s decision to take no action opposing a controversial resolution passed by the American Studies Association boycotting all Israeli academic institutions. (See sidebar on page 2 for more information.)

The six professors include Doron Ben-Atar, professor of history, who published his critique of the Fordham American Studies program in Tablet, a Jewish publication. BenAtar resigned from the program and vowed to “fight against it until it took

a firm stand against bigotry,” BenAtar wrote.

Daniel Soyer, professor of history, resigned from the program because the boycott is “a bad thing for Israel … a bad thing for the cause of peace and justice in Israel and Palestine ... a violation of Academic Freedom and leads to all kinds of insidious ethnic and national discrimination,” he said. “It turns the field of American Studies into a partisan political camp rather than an academic discipline.”

The other four faculty members, who declined to comment, are: Richard Fleisher and Jeffrey Cohen, professors of political science, Elaine Crane, distinguished professor of history, and Saul Cornell, professor of history.

The boycott will not affect the curriculum taught to American Studies majors. “Faculty are free, as ever, to teach whatever texts they wish to include and to cover whatever material they believe is relevant to their topics,” Micki McGee, director of the American Studies Program, said in a statement. “There is not a set national American Studies curriculum, so the boycott has little bearing on what is taught in American studies classrooms.”

Glenn Hendler, chair of the English department and former director of the American Studies program, echoed McGee’s statement. “The boycott asserts only that the national American studies organization as an institution will not collaborate with

state-funded Israeli institutions. I can’t imagine how that could affect students in the classroom,” Hendler said in an email. “It’s worth noting here that the only reason it has come to the attention of students at all is that Professor Ben-Atar has brought it to your attention.”

It is not that Hendler believes students should not discuss the issues raised by the boycott, but that “there was and is no intention of making it a central topic in Fordham’s undergraduate American Studies major,” he said.

For Soyer, however, the boycott could restrict access to good teachers and scholars and affect how Amerisee ASA pg. 2

Inside

FEATURES

SPORTS

ARTS & CULTURE

S.A.G.E.S. Goes Public

Chasing the Championship

“Phoebe in Winter”

Behind the scenes of S.A.G.E.S.

Student athlete Chase Edmonds

FCLC’s new MainStage Show

Page 13

PAGE 15

PAGE 10

THE STUDENT VOICE OF FORDHAM COLLEGE AT LINCOLN CENTER

OPINIONS

Inequality in the Church Vatican report fails to be inclusive

PAGE 6

2

News

News Editor Adriana Gallina — agallina@fordham.edu

November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

Students Harassed in Restaurant Industry

By ANNA BARBANO AND GUNAR OLSEN Contributing Writer and Staff Writer

A new report, “The Glass Floor: Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry,” by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United finds that nearly two-thirds of women working restaurants experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

Several Fordham students, including Arce and Laura Hetherington, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’17, work in the industry to pay for school and other life expenses.

“This one guy said I had really nice eyes, and just kept commenting on my face and saying how ‘exotic’ I looked. And when he left, he left a hotel card for a hotel door,” Shery Arce, FCLC ’16, a server in Manhattan, remembered. This is not uncommon for women who work tipdependent jobs.

“It happens everywhere,” Hetherington, a former hostess, said. “It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to you when it’s happening to you unfortunately, because it’s just so common which is really messed up.”

Heatherington rarely ever reported sexual harassment to her boss. “I think it’s really sad that we never told anyone about it every night because it would happen every single night,” she said.

She continued to explain some the reasons she was reluctant to speak up: “You’re going to get a bad rap. Your table’s going to be upset with you ... I was a hostess, and I didn’t want my waitress to get tipped low because I flipped out on some guy.”

The minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers in New York is $5 per hour. Therefore, the majority of a server’s income comes from her tips. Servers face a challenge about how to respond to sexual harassment since they rely on their customers for their income.

Arce makes $5.50 per hour, but including tips she earns between $25 and $35 per hour. “You’re put in this position where you can play

REX SAKAMOTO/THE OBSERVER

Two-thirds of women working in the restaurant industry experience sexual harassment.

along with it and get a really great tip, but then also lose some dignity there, or you can just report it to your boss,” she said.

Arce has experienced not only sexually inappropriate comments, but also racially-charged language.

“I’m Latina so people always ask me where I’m from, and I say that my family is from Colombia, and so they’re like ‘Oh, Sofia Vergara!’ and they’ll make sexual jokes.”

Another example of harassment that Hetherington experienced is when a customer said to her, “Oh, you look so sad. Smile more.” She said, “Even that is so irritating to hear because it’s so annoying. Why are you telling me how I should be looking at you?”

According to the National Institute of Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse, one-half of sexual assault cases by male perpetrators are prefaced with their alcohol consumption. “When patrons would get a little intoxicated towards the end of the night, it would definitely happen,” Hetherington said.

“You’ll see customers play around, especially after consuming alcohol when they feel more relaxed and will take the extra step and flirting or even touching you,” Arce said.

Hetherington and Arce partly attribute the culture of the restaurant industry to the prevalence of sexual harassment in their workplace. “The thing when you’re working in a restaurant is it’s about service and about presenting yourself and being friendly, but people misconstrue that with your appearance.

They take ownership of the way you look and everything while you’re serving them,” Hetherington said.

“It’s sort of an unspoken thing in every restaurant that you work in … that you should just deal with it,” she said.

Arce agreed: “People think it’s okay because part of our job is to make people comfortable. It’s like a king-server dynamic where you’re constantly serving these customers … It’s that power dynamic which makes things okay, even though they’re not okay.”

Resignations Won’t Affect American Studies ASA FROM PAGE 1

can Studies is taught in the classroom. “It urges teachers of American studies to distort what they teach about American culture and politics,” Soyer said.

According to Soyer, the boycott also damages the academic field.

“You can see that it’s very controversial and has caused all sorts of very vitriolic disputes which don’t attract people to the field, don’t strengthen the field in terms of research of teaching.”

Though McGee was disappointed that faculty members chose to show their opposition to the ASA by resigning from Fordham’s program, she does not believe that there will be a shortage of course offerings for American Studies majors. “Generally speaking, the Affiliated Faculty provide the courses that comprise the major and minor. But as we currently have 50 active faculty members, we do not anticipate that there will be a shortage of course offerings,” McGee said.

McGee is also hopeful that the faculty that resigned from Fordham’s program will still offer cross-listed courses for American Studies students. “Certainly we anticipate that the majority of our colleagues would not want to do anything that would undermine educational opportunities for Fordham students, regardless of how passionately they may feel about the national association’s boycott resolution,” McGee said.

In fact, some courses being taught

by resigned faculty members are still cross-listed for American Studies, including Ben-Atar’s “History of U.S. Sexuality,” according to McGee and My.Fordham.edu. “These courses were cross-listed quite some time ago -- before my directorship -- and we have not removed the attribute since no faculty member has requested that their courses not be cross-listed,” McGee said. “It is important to remember that a faculty member does not need to be a member of the American Studies affiliated faculty to have courses cross-listed for the American Studies major or minor.”

When asked what Soyer’s resignation meant for students in the classroom, he said the effects were limited.

“It doesn’t affect how I teach anything,” Soyer said. “Neither the initial resolution nor my resignation mean anything for how I teach American history in the classroom.”

For Hendler, these resignations will only impact students if the professors choose to. “If they choose to make their resignations damage student education by refusing to have their courses cross-listed by the program, then that’s their choice,” Hendler said. “I’ll regret that because I very much respect the teaching and scholarship of all those who resigned.”

Soyer has no intention of not offering courses cross-listed by the program. “I don’t know that I have any control over what gets cross-listed, so I don’t think it has that much of an effect on students,” Soyer said.

Timeline of the American Studies Association Resolution and Impact on Fordham On Oct. 13, 2014, Doron Ben-Atar, professor of history, published his account of being investigated for religious discrimination by Anastasia Coleman, director of the office of institutional equity and compliance and Title IX coordinator, because he vowed to fight the Fordham American Studies Program, which had decided not to withdraw from the national American Studies Association (ASA) after they voted in favor of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

On Dec. 13, 2013, the ASA passed a resolution supporting an academic boycott of Israeli institutions which “endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions,” the ASA said in a statement.

On Dec. 27, 2013, Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University, deplored the ASA’s resolution but took a stand in favor of faculty members’ academic freedom. “We believe that boycotts of this kind seriously undermine and hinder the efforts of any intellectual community to fulfill its mission in the service

of wisdom and learning,” Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University, said in a statement following the ASA’s resolution. However, McShane noted that Fordham “recognizes and reveres the freedom of conscience of the individual scholars who comprise its faculty” and that faculty members might have a different view on the boycott.

On Feb. 24, 2014, the Fordham American Studies program’s executive committee held a meeting for affiliated faculty to discuss how to respond to the ASA resolution, chaired by John Harrington, dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH). The executive committees took no action in relation to the national organization.

Ben-Atar opposed the program’s decision to remain neutral. “As an American historian who delivered in 1987 his first paper at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association and served on the executive committee of Fordham’s American Studies program, I wanted Fordham’s program to sever official ties with the national organization until it rescinded the measure,” he wrote in Tablet.

Ultimately, Ben-Atar and five affiliated faculty members resigned from the American Studies program.

According to a statement released

by Micki McGee, director of the American Studies program, on Oct. 21, Ben-Atar subsequently sent emails to her, and others, describing her as anti-Semitic because she did not publicly object the boycott, and threatening to “fight the American Studies Program at Fordham in every forum and in every way” if the program did not withdraw from the ASA. These actions led McGee to file a Title IX complaint, which led to an investigation of Ben-Atar. After a few administrative mistakes that included a failure to disclose what charges were brought against him, Ben-Atar was ultimately cleared of all charges, but was found having violated the University’s code of civility.

Ben-Atar’s commentary went viral and was picked up by multiple news organizations, including Legal Insurrection, Insider Higher Ed and the New York Post.

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER November 6, 2014

News

3

Inside FCLC’s ROTC Program

By ELIZABETH LANDRY Staff Writer

At 9 a.m. on Friday mornings, young men and women in Army fatigues trickle onto the Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) plaza, gradually forming a small group and dropping the laughs to stand at attention. Exercise and drills are part of their weekly cadet responsibilities.

The Fordham University Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Program (ROTC) was established at Fordham in the late 1840’s.

According to U.S. Army Master Sergeant and Fordham University Senior Military Instructor David Paradis, most of the Cadets that meet at FCLC are not Lincoln Center students. “All the students there are actually not Fordham kids. As a matter of fact, most of them are from other schools like New York University and Columbia, a whole host of schools in Manhattan,” he said.

The Fordham Ram Battalion page lists prestigious alumni of the Fordham ROTC program, which include Major General James R. O’Beirne, a Medal of Honor recipient who helped track down President Abraham Lincoln’s assassins and helped establish the Fordham ROTC program, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its peak of participation in 1948, the number of cadets grew to 925. Today, that number is a memory, with the program comprising about 130 cadets total; 45 to 50 at Rose Hill, 30

CHARLIE PUENTE/OBSERVER ARCHIVES

ROTC at Fordham consists of about 130 cadets, but they are not all Fordham students.

to 37 meeting at Lincoln Center and the rest at Marist College.

The ROTC program does not rely on school administration to provide connections to other colleges and instead utilizes its own resources. In this case, none of its participants go to school at the campus where they practice, Lincoln Center.

Although many students might think that the rumored scholarships are the main benefit of the program, Paradis explained that the Army has now capped the number of Cadets the program can contract with every year. He said, “The majority [do not] have scholarships, but [the scholarships] are available.”

“Right now the number [of students] is dwindling because the Army is downsizing, so unfortunately there is not as much scholarship money available. The Army just doesn’t need as many officers as before.” He added, “The good side of that is that we get to be a little more selective about the people that we put in the program. Now it’s about quality.”

A Cadet’s quality is determined by his or her maintenance of physical fitness, academic dedication and how useful the Army perceives him or her to be. The cadets’ responsibilities include physical training at least three times a week, special events, and six hours weekly split between labs and classroom military instruction. Paradis described their classes as “very basic military leadership,” and clarified that they do not involve specific areas of mili-

tary theater.

However, the ROTC program always puts academics before training. According to Paradis, students are urged to spend as much time as they need to keep their grades up.

Cadets are allowed to pursue a double major, and students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are especially sought after, currently. “It benefits the Army and it benefits the student,” Paradis said.

Paradis noted that only about half of the Cadets are set to go on to serve in active duty. The others will go into the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve and will only spend one day a month in service.

He emphasized that ROTC training will prepare students for more than just military situations: “When you get here, it’s not necessarily going to be just walking around in circles, pretending to shoot at people ... most of it is actually leadership, things they can use in a business sense, things they can use with their academics.” He also said that stressing the development of critical thinking is key and will put Fordham Cadets ahead of the pack when they graduate into the Army’s ranks.

According to Paradis, even though students in the program graduate with the rank of Second Lieutenant, “the focus is making sure that they are well-rounded individuals when they’re done here, being members of the community, being productive citizens.”

Registration Policy Disadvantages FCLC REGISTRATION FROM PAGE 1

they want at FCRH fill up, but if a course they want to take is open at FCRH, they will drop the placeholder course and will take the course at FCRH. Since students at FCLC have to wait to register for FCRH courses until FCRH students have registered for courses, many FCLC students are not able to take the courses they want.

Riley Edwards, FCLC ’16, had problems registering for the courses she wanted last year: “When I registered in the spring, a couple of my required courses and another course that I really wanted to take were already full with Rose Hill students because as a Lincoln Center student, I couldn’t register for Rose Hill courses until they’d already had a week or so to register.”

Many students have to have ask their department chairs or class deans for help. “Luckily, the department chair for my major raised the registration cap for my required courses so I could get into them,” Edwards said.

Associate Chair of Communication and Media Studies at FCLC,

PHOTO COURTSEY OF FORDHAM IT DEPARTMENT

Some students do not think placeholders are an adequate way to maintain registration fairness.

Gwenyth L. Jackaway, Ph.D. explained, “Students on both campuses are interested in taking classes at the other campus because faculty have different areas of speciality.”

“Departments as big as ours try

to offer sections very popular courses on both campuses and inevitabiy there is going to be some disparity in what’s offered,” Jackaway said.

The registration issues only applies to elective and major courses

because students must take core classes at their campus, aside from special exemptions that have to be approved by deans.

“The reason that there is a rule that you have to take your core on

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your home campus has to do with making sure there [are] enough seats available for the appropriate number of students on each campus, ” Jackaway said.

The university does have a different way of handling an analogous situation with FCLC students and students enrolled in Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies. “We have a similar although not identical situation here on this campus [Lincoln Center] we have several different schools. We have FCLC and we have PCS ” Jackaway explained.

The way the University handles this registration issue,is they cap the number of FCLC students,” who enroll in a PCS course and “if there are still seats left after the evening students [PCS students] have registered then more day [FCLC] students are allowed. It seems to me that something like that could be worked out between FCLC and FCRH,” Jackaway said.

Moniot maintains that the most equal system for registration is the current system and that “you really have to put up with the placeholder solution.”

Opinions

Rachel Shmulevich — Opinions Co-Editor rshmulevich@fordham.edu Marina Recio — Opinions Co-Editor marinarecio@icloud.com

STAFF EDITORIAL

R

could satisfy everyone.

Because we’re a smaller school, Lincoln Center (LC) students register first, which has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to registration.

Advantage: We get to register for classes on our campus before anyone else.

We get priority over every class taught here.

Disadvantage: We don’t get to register for classes at

Save us a seat at Rose Hill. That’s all we’re asking for.

Rose Hill until Rose Hill students register.

At first, it seems fair, right? Students get to register for classes at their home campus first, getting priority over class offerings and minimizing the risk of students being locked out of classes on their home turf.

But Lincoln Center students can’t register for any class at Rose Hill; in other words, we’re shut out of many classes that we otherwise want—and NEED—to take.

Rose Hill is a bigger campus, with a bigger population and a wider variety of class offerings.

Observer the

ERROR: PLEASE CONTACT YOUR REGISTRAR egistration: Fordham’s very own Hunger Games, where the strong come out on top with the classes they want, and the weak are left scrambling for whatever is left over.

Registration has never been an easy time. It’s not easy for us to wake up to register for classes when the sun is just peeping out, and it’s not easy for Fordham’s system to accommodate thousands of students who try to outdo one another to see who can log into My.Fordham.edu the fastest.

Fall Semester 2013: Fordham tried to have both campuses register simultaneously, but the system simply could not handle it.

Instead of trying to address the technical problems to improve the system for future generations, another way to register was sought out.

Spring Semester 2014: The system, still traumatized from the previous semester, just gave out and crashed, and freshmen spent hours in line on the eighth floor of Lowenstein, being registered manually by the deans.

And the administration, still troubled by the inefficacies of the system, have found no solid solution that

November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

Lincoln Center, the smaller campus, doesn’t have nearly as many classes—or even a variety—and many students have to take a majority of their classes for their majors or minors at Rose Hill.

So, really, Lincoln Center students are just getting the shorter end of the stick because first-come firstserved does not mean the same thing as first-come better-served.

The School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) has placeholders for Lincoln Center students, so that students have an allotted number of spaces in PCS classes.

Why can’t Fordham adapt a practice they already use and apply it to Rose Hill and Lincoln Center students?

Fordham could have a specific number of placeholders for Lincoln Center students in Rose Hill classes. (We’re not allowed to take core classes anywhere besides our home campus anyway, so core classes wouldn’t be affected in any way.) That way, Rose Hill students still have priority for classes at Rose Hill, but Lincoln Center students would have a fighting chance of getting a seat.

Save us a seat at Rose Hill. That’s all we’re asking for.

Fordham College at Lincoln Center 113 West 60th Street Room 408 New York, New York 10023 Tel: (212) 636-6015 Fax: (212) 636-7047

Editor-in-Chief Tyler Martins Managing Editor Kamrun Nesa News Editor Adriana Gallina Opinions Co-Editors Rachel Shmulevich Marina Recio Asst. Opinions Editor Dylan Reilly Arts & Culture Editor Ramona Venturanza Features Editor Ian McKenna Literary Co-Editors Meredith Summers Mark Lee Sports Editor Dylan Penza Copy Editor Meredith Summers Layout Editor Jennifer McNary Layout Staff Gabrielle Samboy Celeste Rodriguez Ariel Kovlakas Elodie Huston Photo Editor Sarah Howard Asst. Photo Editors Kirstin Bunkley Jessica Hanley Multimedia Producer Ian McKenna Online Editor Ben Moore Business Manager Victoria Leon Faculty Advisor Prof. Elizabeth Stone Faculty Layout Advisor Kim Moy Faculty Photo Advisor Amelia Hennighausen Faculty Multimedia Advisor Roopa Vasudevan PUBLIC NOTICE

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THE OBSERVER November 6, 2014

Opinions

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IAN MCKENNA/THE OBSERVER

Petition for Sex and Gender Equality for All POINT

COUNTERPOINT

Unrealistic Expectations

By JOCELYN HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

Due to their message and methods, the Sex and Gender Equality and Safety Coalition (S.A.G.E.S.) has quickly become a hot topic on campus. This group of students has brought it upon themselves to advocate for gender equality and for the promotion of safe sex at Fordham University. Their demands include access to free condoms, birth control prescriptions, testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and resources for pregnant women. They also call for a change in the structured rules of the University by asking for the elimination of the guest policy and the creation of co-ed dorms. These demands are with good intention, but S.A.G.E.S. has failed to see how some of these are unrealistic in a Jesuit environment and thus should be revised.

In their petition, S.A.G.E.S. claims that the guest policy is “paternalistic, infantilizing and heteronormative,” and it hinders students from forming co-ed friendships. Yet the policy doesn’t ban signing in people of the opposite gender, it just requires them to be signed out by 3:20 a.m.

The ability to have any guest over from 6:30 a.m. to 3:20 a.m. allows for plenty of time to form friendships. In fact, a person probably wouldn’t have a guest over that wasn’t already considered a friend. As for the required passes, the policy’s function is deeper than just somehow discouraging sex. It’s a way to limit the times a person can have overnight guest to diminish roommate conflicts. It’s also a safety precaution because by signing the people in, security can know approximately how many people are in the building in case of an emergency.

As for creating co-ed dorms, there are other colleges that have them in place but one must remember that Fordham is a Jesuit school, meaning that the University’s principles are based on those of the

Roman Catholic Church. Having co-ed dorms would be seen as encouraging sex in the eyes of the Church. It’s understandable that a part of the population just wants to be open about sex, but Fordham has to reflect the values of the Church, whether or not those values resonate with us on a personal level. Fordham does not call the shots, the Catholic Church does. Any change in Fordham’s ideals would need to be implemented in the Catholic Church in general. Also, as the policy stands now, people have to live in suites with members of their gender but the floors themselves aren’t gender exclusive. Nor are there restrictions on visits from a member of the opposite sex within the residential halls. Of course, this is mostly the case for the Lincoln Center campus since there are no community bathrooms. As for the Rose Hill campus, separating students by gender does make sense in an environment where a communal bathroom has to be shared. Even the most liberal students might feel more comfortable in the current situation. Not to mention the reluctance most parents would feel in enrolling their sons and daughters into such an environment.

These two changes don’t seem realistic at Fordham, but maybe the administrators can agree to provide us with the more feasible items on the S.A.G.E.S. agenda.

These include resources for information on safe sex and even condoms and birth control prescriptions. S.A.G.E.S. needs to pick and choose its battles so the administrators aren’t overwhelmed by the demand to implement so many changes at once.

Realistically speaking, the administration will not restructure dorms to be co-ed or do away with a policy that has multiple functions. Our student body may be very liberal for the most part, but we have to remember the identity of our University, one that we were made aware of even before we enrolled. If anything will be accomplished, the demands need to be changed and adapted to be compatible with Fordham’s Catholic identity.

Give Your Support

By SOFIA DADAP Contributing Writer

The Students for Sex and Gender Equality and Safety Coalition (S.A.G.E.S.) has faced opposition from students who either misunderstand their aims or just do not care about women’s health and reproductive rights. To clarify the group’s specific goals, S.A.G.E.S. advocates for free distribution of condoms and access to birth control on campus, gynecological services in the health center, resources for pregnant women, free speech zones, trans-inclusive housing and removal of the infantilizing and heteronormative housing and guest policies.

Some claim that it is unrealistic to ask a Catholic university to change its view on birth control. But all progressive change has come through struggle. The history of this country is littered with institutions founded on bigoted principles of mistreating one group to raise up another. It is still visible today in the broken prison system with its mass incarceration of people of color, as well as undeniably racialized police brutality. The Roman Catholic Church itself used to claim that racial segregation was “demanded by God” but eventually radical churchgoers committed themselves to changing those ideas. The Catholic Church, just like other institutions, only changes when people demand it.

No amount of morality or outdated tradition should be able to infringe upon human rights.

Though it may be the opinion of some that use of birth control is immoral, it is simply untrue that sex is only for heterosexuals attempting to reproduce. Though it is enough of a reason in itself, it is also untrue that birth control methods are used only to stop unwanted pregnancies. People use birth control to protect their bodies from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and to regulate feminine health issues. Women are told that if they want access to contraceptives and gynecological services, they can seek those things themselves, but the reality is that many people do not have access to these resources. Medical services and birth control can be very expensive, and it is not the duty of the administration to

dictate to women what basic measures they can or cannot take to protect their own bodies.

Can the student body, paying millions of dollars for an education in a modern institution, really be forced to conform to the patronizing and arbitrary standards of morality upheld by an out-of-touch administration?

Fordham’s claim to Jesuit values goes beyond the compulsory study of theology and is radically different from attempting to instill compassion and honesty into its students when those values are used as excuses to subjugate women. Whatever “moral opposition” the administration may claim against birth control is self-contradictory because the healthcare plan provided for Fordham faculty does include contraceptive coverage. The government funding of $1.4 million given to Fordham for calling itself a secular school invalidates the privatization of its healthcare policies. Students are allowed to have sex but are paralyzed because they are denied ready access to contraceptives, shamed by socalled Catholic values for wanting or needing abortions and essentially refused accommodations if they have children.

The administration’s failure to coherently respond to S.A.G.E.S. is indicative of their unwillingness to consider their students’ wants and needs, as well as their inability to take the tuition-paying adult women and men seriously.

The administration either ignores and silences student voices or passive-aggressively fights against them through subtweeting and fear tactics. The group has received some peculiar backlash—back in September, the Dean of Students at Rose Hill tweeted, “@fordhamSAGES Secret protests are fun, but at college, we debate ideas rather than litter about them. Info for you: http://www.fordham.edu/CARE.” The school has threatened students aligned with this cause to be fired from their Resident Assistant jobs, which disempowers them to engage in social conversations or express their dissatisfaction.

The lack of transparency about how students can be punished for protesting is an equally discouraging implicit threat. Fordham knows what its students want and require but so far has not shown that it cares enough about its students to acknowledge or take actions toward fixing its misogynistic policies.

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Vatican Report Fails To Be Inclusive to these people “without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions.” Homosexual people may now be people in the eyes of the Church, but their actions are still seen as morally deviant. That simply is not acceptance and it simply is not progress.

Is the Vatican’s new rhetoric a step in the right direction? Possibly.

To be fair, it does not make claims that are worse than any other example of Church discourse regarding homosexual people. But to be frank, a document of semi-tolerance from the Vatican does not undo the discrimination that LGBTQ people face or have faced from the Catholic Church in their daily lives. This recent document doesn’t erase the times that a teacher confidently told her high school students that homosexual love is abominable, the times that an elderly priest croaked that his Sunday congregation should pray for the sinners who engage in homosexual relations in the same breath that he prayed for the patients of a local hospital, the times that a Christian mother disowned her own child for their sexuality. While Pope Francis supporters may (fairly) see this document as a means by which he is attempting to create a less hostile space for all Catholics, it simply is not enough.

If the Church really wants to make a difference in the lives of Catholics, it should remind its followers how to be Christians. Christ spread love, especially to those whom society had cast aside as Other. If He were alive and preaching today, Jesus would not dine with tax collectors; He would share never-ending breadsticks at Olive Garden with LGBTQ people. Until the Church and its followers accept that, a large portion of LGBTQ people will likely continue to use their Sunday mornings for sleeping in.

By CHRISSY PUSZ Contributing Writer

On Oct. 13, the Vatican released a midterm report that addressed family situations such as divorce, cohabitation before or without marriage and most interestingly, homosexual individuals. While the defining assertion, “homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” seems as if it is appealing to all of Pope Francis’ socially progressive fans (one cannot forget the pontiff’s famous “who am I to judge?” quote from last year) this recent change in rhetoric is far too little to inspire the return of LGBTQ people to the Roman Catholic Church which the Vatican might be hoping for.

The reason why the Church’s recent report will not inspire a large crowd of LGBTQ people to suddenly embrace Catholicism is because the document fails to accomplish anything outside of acknowledging that homosexual people are humans.

While such a revelation is not without value, I invite readers to parse the Vatican’s quote with a critical eye. It is rather hypocritical that an institution that allegedly promotes altruism will value a community only because members of that community “have gifts and qualities to offer” the Church itself. Based on the ways that Catholic priests are trained to beg for funds every Sunday, I would not be surprised if homosexual people’s “gifts and qualities” are purely monetary.

Further, the document only credits positive attributes to “homosexuals.” There are two main reasons why this word choice is problematic. The first reason is because using one aspect of a person’s identity as a noun

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strips that person of his or her personhood. Just as it would be absurd and offensive to refer to someone with light skin as “a white” or someone with dark skin as “a black,” it is equally unacceptable to refer to someone as “a homosexual”. Identities are not appositives because nobody is equal to only one aspect of his, her or their identity.

The second reason why the Vatican’s word choice is problematic

is because it fails to address many people with whom this document is concerned. In an attempt to sound inclusive, the Church succeeds in perpetuating its usual exclusive nature. Yes, homosexual people have value, but what about bisexual people? Transgender and transsexual people? Queer people? People who slide around Kinsey scales and gender spectrums throughout their lives? Any or all of these people might

be directly affected by the Church’s stance on homosexual actions yet they are not acknowledged.

Beyond the poor linguistic choice, the Church’s statement fails to modify its rhetoric on a pressing issue among Christian LGBTQ people: that of marriage. While the document attributes good qualities to homosexual people, it quickly backpedals and clarifies that Catholics and Church leaders must be civil

Has Anti-Semitism Become Accepted?

By EMILY SITNER Contributing Writer

In the past few months, the world has seemingly reached its most disastrous and terrifying points, given headlines such as the beheadings of three captives by the Islamic State of Iran and Syria (ISIS), the outbreak of Ebola and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. Though the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has simmered slightly since this past summer, its consequences are still raging. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise during these several months all over the world, most notably in the rallies in Germany and Britain.

Slogans such as “Death to Israel” have become popular, and acts eerily reminiscent of Europe in the early 1940s, such as the burning of the Israeli flag and the looting of Jewish-owned stores, have become rampant.

In New York City, the most recent case of anti-Semitism has been in regards to the controversial opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” which is currently being performed at the Metropolitan Opera House (Met).

Critics have stated that the opera glorifies terrorism and the murder of a Jewish-American cruise ship passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. The controversy behind this opera stems from the music and overall dangerous language which lionize terrorism. A writer for The Algemeiner, a prominent Jewish newspaper in America, expressed his disdain for the opera: “The Palestinian chorus is beautifully composed musically […]

The Jewish chorus is a mishmash of whining about money, sex, betrayal and assorted ‘Hasidim’ protesting in front of movie theaters. The goal of that narrative chorus is to compare the displacement of 700,000

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Palestinians—some of which was caused by Arab leaders urging them to leave and return victoriously after the Arabs murdered the Jews of Israel—with the systematic genocide of six million Jews. It was a moral abomination.”

There is a fine line between being anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish, and “The Death of Klinghoffer” has crossed it. The combination of the score inadequately written for

the characters of the Jewish monologues, the legitimization of the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, and the rationalization for the acts of the terrorists amount to anti-Semitism.

There are those who can justify the opera in the name of free speech— but that very same right was not given to protesters outside of Lincoln Center, whom the Met sought to silence by not allowing the showgoers to listen to the demonstration.

The show-goers were quickly ushered in, only delaying the start of the opera by several minutes.

Hitting even closer to home, anti-Semitism has been on the rise among college campuses as well.

On Oct. 24, Fordham received antiSemitic fax messages, and though they have been labeled as political speech and not hate crimes, it still shows that there may be members of the community harboring hate for the Jewish population at Fordham.

Instead of furthering the education about the erroneous roots of antiSemitism, Fordham has experienced a major setback. The American Studies Department at Fordham, though it has not supported the larger decision made by the American Studies Association (ASA) to boycott Israeli colleges and universities, has not denounced it either. Though the ASA supposedly promotes the right to freedom of expression and thought, it has proved otherwise.

The boycott is blatantly anti-Semitic for several reasons, but perhaps the most telling is that the ASA defends its boycott by arguing that it wishes to participate in a “deeper engagement” with international scholars across the Middle East. Yet, it excludes Israel from such discussions.

Though the Palestinian-led boycotts of Israeli institutions are driven to initiate reform within the Palestinian community, such as a need for stronger education and rebuilding of infrastructure that was bombed

by Israeli troops, the larger political reason hovering above these campaigns is rooted in anti-Semitism.

In 2005, for example, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Movement (BDS Movement) joined together with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to call for the elimination of Israel, rather than improving the governmental situation in Palestine. Furthermore, Israel is one of the most highly ad-

vanced, democratic countries, that has contributed enormously to the understanding of science, history and medical research. To boycott such a state is unfair and unwise to say the least. Why not boycott Iranian institutions since Iran has an intensive, well-known, nuclear program? Or perhaps, why not call for a boycott of China, for its Communist ties and obvious lack of freedom of speech and political expression?

Another unfathomable product of the rise of anti-Semitism was the hashtag that was created on Twitter over the summer: “Hitler was right” The hashtag eventually waned, but Twitter failed to remove it or give a public statement undermining the authority of that phrase.

When events like these hit home, both in the Fordham community and in my own life as a Jewish student, I would like to know that I am able to seek comfort among my peers. I do not want to feel the helplessness I experienced several months ago when my friend told me that his temple was defaced with swastikas during the height of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I would like to be able to wear my Star of David in public places without feeling like I’m being judged for it. I would like to be able to use my freedom of religion without feeling pressured to label myself as pro-Israeli or proPalestinian. The Jewish community should do more to stand up for itself and more importantly, educate the Fordham community about the conflict in the Middle East. The major setback with regards to the Middle East especially is that people fail to check the facts before drawing a conclusion. Of course, there will always be bias, but the best we can do as Jewish students and as a community at large is to raise awareness about anti-Semitism and do our best to stop the hatred from culminating.

Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture Editor Ramona Venturanza — ramonaventuranza@gmail.com

November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

Robert Miraldi Wins Sperber Award for Hersh Biography most a decade to complete, due to the large volume of books, articles and stories that Hersh had published. “I unearthed all his work that I could find. That was an incredible amount of material. This is a book about his work and you can’t write about somebody’s work unless you read the work,” Miraldi said. “I found hundred and hundreds of articles” from the Hersh’s time at the Associated Press, New Yorker and New York Times.

Before Miraldi began writing, he wrote a letter to Hersh to let him know that he was writing a biography about him. “The first thing Hersh said was ‘I’m not dead!,’” Miraldi said. “He gave me interviews over time, we exchanged a lot of emails and he never stood in

By TYLER MARTINS & JENNIFER MCNARY Editor-in-Chief & Layout Editor

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, retired journalist and author Robert Miraldi will add another accolade to his mantle as winner of the 2014 Ann M. Sperber Award for “Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist,” a biography on the Polk and Pulitzer Prize-Winning investigative journalist.

The Sperber Award is given in honor of Ann Sperber, author of “Murrow: His Life and Times.” The award was established to promote and encourage other biographical works that focus on a media professional and has been presented annually by Fordham’s Communication and Media Studies Department for the past decade.

“Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist” is a “probing and provocative investigation of this country’s premier investigative journalist,” Brian Rose, acting director of the Sperber Award and professor of communication and media studies, said in a statement.

News that Miraldi had won the Sperber Award came as he was in an airport in France, as he was about to board the plane. “I see in my email a note from Brian Rose from the communications department saying, ‘Congrats you have won …’ I couldn’t tell if it was spam or if I had really won something,” he said.

Miraldi was thrilled when he heard the news. “What excites me first off is affirmation that it is a good book, but it’s a great list that it becomes part of,” Miraldi said.

“There are truly some terrific biographies and Hersh belongs on that list, his life and his career belong on that list.”

Winning the award has a special meaning for Miraldi, who had a working relationship with Sperber, which began when Miraldi was writing his first book in 1991. “She had done a biography on Edward R. Murrow, and I was working on a chapter of a book that dealt with him,” he said. “I can’t remember if I wrote to her or talked to her on the phone, but she helped me with Murrow and told me where the archives might be, what I might find.”

people. On the other hand, he can be brutal, threaten them in order to get them to talk. He had multiple approaches in order to get the story.”

Although reporting was his first love, Miraldi always felt that he “had one foot in the newsroom and one foot in the library.” Research was always his passion, and after having spent nine years as a reporter for the Staten Island Advance, Miraldi turned down an offer to join the Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau in order to return to the classroom. “The newsroom is a very confining place. Ideologically, you have to stick to certain rules, objectivity, confining in terms of space, confining in terms of style. I was looking to break out, write longer things, so academics and being an

“The first thing Hersh said was ‘I’m not dead!’”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT MIRALDI

Robert Miraldi wins Sperber Award for his biography on Seymour Hersh.

Miraldi was always interested in the history of journalism, even when he himself was a reporter. After having written and researched about investigative journalists at the turn of the century, “it seemed logical to me to write about the person who was the best, most prolific and most effective of the current breed of investigative reporters and that was Seymour Hersh,” he said. “I’ve had my eye on Hersh for a long time.”

“I’m working as a full-time newspaper reporter beginning in 1972, and of course Watergate comes in 1974 and I begin to follow Hersh’s

scoops and stories,” Miraldi said.

Hersh, though not a household name like other journalists of the time, was an investigative reporter whose work have shaped American public policy, including his expose on the massacre at the village of My Lai in Vietnam to the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and his work during the Watergate scandal.

“I was originally thinking of doing a book on Watergate, it’s seems like a lot of that has been written, but no one has written Sey Hersh’s biography,” Miraldi said.

Writing the biography took al-

my way with research, except to his family.”

“I just followed the work. After you do that, you start to call people.

I’m an old reporter – I know how to work the phones,” Miraldi said. In addition to Hersh’s body of work, Miraldi “interviewed a lot of people who worked with Hersh, people who loved him and people who hated him.” Miraldi spoke to Bob Woodward, one of the original two reporters who unearthed the Watergate scandal, and Ben Bradlee, Hersh’s editor at the Wall Street Post.

Because of the volume of work that Miraldi had to tackle, he wrote the book one chapter at a time. “I kept dealing with one big chapter after another and before you know it, you have a 475-page book,” Miraldi said.

Though Miraldi knew the work that Hersh had put forth, he had no idea that he would uncover such a fascinating American figure. “He’s irreverent, he curses like crazy – just like an old hard newsroom guy,” Miraldi said. “People who never in the world would talk to a reporter would talk to Sey Hersh. He has this ability to be charming, to convince

author seemed like a comparable place to be.”

“I’ve missed the newsroom my whole life,” Miraldi said. “I still miss the newsroom but I never regretted the choice I made to go back to the classroom and back to the library.”

Miraldi is very interested in the changing landscape of the world of journalism. “Journalism is obviously in chaos and the middle of tremendous change – it is very exciting to be able to tell stories in a digital fashion,” Miraldi said. “Our reach is suddenly much, much more while circulation has gone down.

Our ability to tweet our stories, put them on Facebook has much larger audiences but nonetheless, the legacy media has really shrunk back and it’s rather daunting.” Though many in the industry have shown concern over recent changes in how content is distributed, however Miraldi doesn’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. “I see it as the glass if half full.”

Though writing this book was a large undertaking for Miraldi, he felt “it paid off a lot and it all came together. The Sperber Award is a nice culmination for me.”

The Comma Interrobang On Physically Assaulting Tim Gunn

By MEREDITH SUMMERS Literary Co-Editor & Copy Editor One of the aspects of life in New York that people who don’t live in New York get the most excited about is celebrity sightings. When people find out where I live some of the first questions I get asked are: “Don’t you just love Times Square?”, “How do you sleep with all that noise?”, “Do you go to Broadway shows all the time?” and “Have you seen any celebrities?”

They are always disappointed to hear that my life here is much like their lives wherever they live: I have homework, I have a job, I’m on a budget, and usually the exhaustion caused by these things allows me to sleep perfectly well at night. Additionally, the fact that I do not spend all of my time doing touristy

activities just escapes their comprehension. Most of all though, they are always disappointed by my celebrity sighting stories.

I think I have some sort of facial blindness that applies only to celebrities. I recognize people that I ride the bus with two days a week by sight, but I can never recognize the people I spend countless hours watching on TV and in movies when I see them in real life.

For instance, I was at Barnes and Noble perusing the poetry section when a tall man kept blocking my way. It happened like three times and being myself short in stature, I had had enough so I pushed said man out of the way in something akin to a body

check. Immediately after I did that, my boyfriend grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the aisle.

“Do you have any idea who that was?!” he asked once we were out of earshot. “A rude guy who would not get out of the way?” I guessed. As it turns out, the man that I had just body checked was none other than Tim Gunn, the fashion god himself. I hadn’t recognized him at all.

So for all the people who are trying to vicariously live the city life through me, I guess when it comes to celebrity sightings, I just can’t “make it work.”

See how fun The Comma is? observercomma@gmail.com

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November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

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NYC MARATHON The New York City Marathon had over 50,500 finishers this year. Observer photographers captured moments and participants from mile 1 to mile 26.

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Some communicative facial expressions along the Willis Bridge.

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A woman running her last mile near Columbus Circle.

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A Swiss citizen racing on a lying down tricycle.

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Two professional men sprinting the last mile near Columbus Circle.

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Participants run near northeast Central Park under supervision.

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An AirBNB volunteer gets the audience excited between the line of Park Slope and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn.

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NYC MARATHON

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Mary Keitany takes first edging out Jemima Jelagat Sumgong.

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The 19-Mile marker and timer in East Harlem.

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The green squad of volunteers sponsored by Poland Spring and Gatorade prepare for the general round of runners with cups ready at Mile 7.

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A member of the wheelchair division at Mile 21.

The women’s professional round at Mile 8 in Clinton Hill.

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This young man was all smiles as he completed Mile 25.

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Students’ Guide to Top Concert Venues in New York City an incredible ambience. I saw Lykke Li there earlier this month and it was a really moving show.”

The one major con of Radio City Music Hall is the price of tickets.

Acosta said, “I tried getting tickets for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular but majority of the tickets were over $100. During the Christmas season, it is tough to find cheaper tickets because of the large demand to see the shows.”

1260 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

By JOSEPH RAMETTA Contributing Writer

New York City is a mecca for music. Throughout the five boroughs, there are many concert venues students alike go to. Starting from number five and working the way down to the number one venue, here is the list of the top concert venues that Fordham students go to in New York City.

5) MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG

Music Hall of Williamsburg is one of the oldest music halls of Brooklyn. With a capacity of just about 500 people, it is a venue that captures a more intimate atmosphere. The performers themselves range from well-known to up-andcoming artists.

Emma Wallace, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, (FCLC) ’17, said, “Music Hall in Williamsburg is intimate, energetic and a worthwhile experience for those looking to go out in Brooklyn.”

Despite the venue’s intimate, energetic vibe, a downside of the venue is its distance from Manhattan. “Although it’s a fun place to go, the biggest con to the venue is that it is in Brooklyn, and so for students living in Manhattan, it can be a bit of a distance to get to,” Wallace said.

66 N 6th St, Brooklyn, New York 11211 4) TERMINAL 5

Being in close proximity to Fordham , Terminal 5 is one of the most popular student venues. According to some of the students, nights out at Terminal 5 will be loud, packed and wild. Tony Macht, FCLC ’17, Torra Alexander, FCLC ’17, and Jenna Wyman, FCLC ’17, all agreed, saying, “the sound is really nice, you can see pretty well especially from the first floor, and the floor lights and scenery are really cool.”

According to some students, cons of the venue include its small size and the crowd capacity. Yiana Matthews, FCLC ’17, said, “Terminal 5

1) MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

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Radio City Music Hall is known for putting on the notable “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” every year.

is a lot of fun but, they check your ID before you walk in, you can only stand during the concert, can’t get food and if you arrive late, you can’t always see the stage well.” Another student, Sara Jackson, Fordham College at Rose Hill, (FCRH) ’15, said, “The atmosphere is good and the security isn’t overly strict but one negative is that when it gets too crowded, it’s impossible to go from level to level because there is only one small stairway.” Another major con that many students have expressed is the view from the second floor.

Macht said, “The first floor has some great viewing spots of the stage but once you go up to the second floor, especially when its crowded, the stage invisibility becomes a problem especially when you’re stuck in corners”.

610 W. 56th St. New York, New York 10019 3) WEBSTER HALL

Webster Hall has a history of being one of the most famous music venues throughout New York City.

From Frank Sinatra back in the 1950s, to Aerosmith in the 1980s, to Linkin Park and John Mayer in the 2000s, Webster Hall has a history of performances of every genre. After the sun goes down and the concerts end, the venue turns into a nightclub where various DJs from all over the world come to play tracks all throughout the night. According to Marlon Acosta, FCLC ’17, “Webster Hall is a unique experience because it has four floors made up of four different types of music. You go into the basement and there is a DJ playing

dubstep EDM and then you walk up to the third floor and you can listen to rap music.”

Additionally, Webster Hall is unique because you can go see a concert there during the earlier hours of the night and then watch it transform into a multiplex nightclub after midnight. As for the cons, Acosta said, “The security is extremely strict and depending on the performers.

Also, the crowd can be a little grungy and ratchet.”

125 E. 11th St. New York, New York 10003 2) RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL

Radio City Music Hall is a worldrenowned arts venue most notably known for the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular.” Dean Fryn, FCLC ’17, said, “Radio City Music Hall has

Madison Square Garden (MSG) is the known for hosting sports and entertainment events and shows.

Every major artist has performed at the Garden. With a capacity of about 18,000 people, MSG is one of the largest venues in the city to experience a concert. Acosta said, “I saw Jay Z at MSG and I could not get over how loud the crowd was when he started performing some of his hits.”

MSG has a reputation for making every type of performance unique and exciting in its own ways.

Matthews said, “I saw Muse and Coldplay at Madison Square Garden and both experiences were amazing.

Madison Square Garden attracts energetic and versatile crowds and has great lighting, great acoustics and all the seats offer an unobstructed view of the stage.”

But being a large venue, Madison Square Garden can have some cons.

Juan Ardila, FCLC ’15, said, “Madison Square Garden is an awesome venue with a great atmosphere, however, it is tough to see concerts here because the food and tickets can be very expensive especially when a big artist comes into town.” Macht also added, “Since it is a large venue and the tickets are mostly for reserved seats, the general course of the show is everyone sitting and watching a large stage. Not as much dancing and jumping as one would experience in a smaller venue.”

4 Pennsylvania Plaza New York, New York 10001

Actors Stimulate and Challenge Themselves in ‘Phoebe in Winter’

By LOULOU CHRYSSIDES Staff Writer

“The role of Phoebe has been the most challenging role I’ve ever played,” Amanda Heiser, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’16, said, when recalling rehearsing the role of Phoebe in “Phoebe in Winter.” Fellow cast members in the play share the same experience as Heiser; all found their roles challenging, as they had to play roles that dealt with life after war. Starting on Nov. 12-14, and again from Nov. 20-22, “Phoebe in Winter” will be shown in the Pope Auditorium at FCLC. The play centers around a young woman, Phoebe, who has lost everything in the war. One day, Phoebe decides to take charge of her life, and travels a great distance in order to make a new start. Wielding a gun, she arrives at the home of the Creedy family, whose youngest son is also at war. Holding the family at gunpoint, she decides that they are going to be her new family, and that she will now be in charge of the household.

Dawn Saito, artist-in-residence at Fordham Theatre Program and director of “Phoebe in Winter,” is glad to have had the opportunity to work with such a devoted cast.

Saito said, “The cast has been a dream cast. [They were] fantastically committed, diligent, curious and passionate to dive into and interpret the wild world of “Phoebe in Winter.” The play has so many layers to uncover which requires the actors to consistently search, dis-

cover, raise questions, explore and test choices. I am grateful for how brave and generous they all have been.”

Heiser is also grateful to play the strong, demanding leading role of Phoebe. “She’s lost so much: her home, her family, her first love. And yet she has the strength to travel across the world to reclaim all that she has lost and start a new life for herself out of the destruction which has invaded her world,” she said. “Playing Phoebe has not only been mentally challenging in staying grounded within her drastic circumstances, but a physical challenge as well. To play a character as strong as Phoebe, you got to build up some muscle. I have learned so much about the global history of war, and how terrifyingly similar the tactics, weapons, effects and destruction seem to be through time and location.”

Like Heiser, Marshall Taylor Thurman, FCLC ’15, and Yaron Lotan, FCLC ’15, who play Jeremiah Creedy and Da Creedy, respectively, are also delighted to have had the opportunity to play deep and challenging characters. On playing the role of Jeremiah, Thurman said, “The biggest draw for this play was first and foremost, the beautiful and adventurous script by Jen Silverman. Her story, characters and themes were such exciting opportunities for an actor. Jeremiah has so many layers that conflict on a superficial level. He is very much an ‘alpha male’ and yet he is incredibly disturbed by his experience in

the war. He has a savage side that loves war and is not afraid to kill, but there is still a heart beneath that bloodlust. Discovering and balancing all those sides to Jeremiah has been an exciting challenge.”

Lotan added, “The challenging aspects of Da Creedy are what make him so fun to play. I was surprised when I was cast as the patriarch, and it hasn’t necessarily been easy to play a character of his age and stature, but navigating my way through and bringing myself and my humor into him has been a super rewarding experience.”

Perhaps what will shine through the most from this production is the hard work of not only the cast themselves, but also working alongside the director Saito.

Thurman said, “Taking everything Dawn taught me at the start of my education and applying it towards a full-fledged production has been enlightening and affirming; a wonderful transition from classroom to quasi professional production.”

According to Lotan, “Dawn is always open to explore any ideas we may have. With that, she encourages us to find the answers within ourselves, making it an influential learning experience.”

When asked what the audience should expect from the play, Saito added, “I think the audience will take away individual responses. For me, it is personal. It is a reflection of what Phoebe says, ‘The family is the microcosm of the world, after all.’”

PHOTO COURTESY OF KATHERINE BARTON

‘Phoebe in Winter’ will play in the Pope Auditorium starting Nov. 12.

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“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” is currently playing at The Walter Kerr Theatre.

Aaron Rhyne: Making His Way Up to Award-Winning Projection Designer

By RAMONA VENTURANZA Arts & Culture Editor

“I think a lot of shows I directed at Fordham gave me a strong base for storytelling that I always apply in my work now,” Aaron Rhyne, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’02, said, when looking back at college. Skills he learned from Fordham Theatre Program have helped Rhyne become the award-winning video and projection designer he is today.

After graduating from Fordham, Rhyne went on to become the video art and projection designer for a number of television and Broadway shows, as well as regional theaters and dance festivals, around the world. Rhyne is currently the projection designer for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” in which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Projection Designer.

Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Rhyne had always aspired to come to New York City for college and attend a theater program. According to Rhyne, Fordham’s Theatre program was the right fit. “When I visited Fordham, I really liked the feel of the program,” Rhyne said. “I liked the faculty; they all seemed to really care

about what the students were doing.

As a student at Fordham, you get to hands dirty and do a lot. I was doing shows all the time - I was acting, directing, designing. I did everything, many, many times. You graduate with a ton of experience, and it sets you up for the opportunity to work in the business if you want to do so.”

According to Rhyne, his favorite project at Fordham was directing Tennessee William’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” “We had a very abstract show, and we didn’t use props,” he said. “It was wild and fun and great to learn how to tell a classic story in a different way. In a way, this production relates to the story telling I do now in video projection.”

Although Rhyne focused on a directing concentration at Fordham, he decided to try something completely new. “Career wise, I ultimately ended up going into projectiondesign; essentially, I design video based sets. There certainly wasn’t a projection design program at Fordham or anywhere else,” Rhyne said.

“When I started working in the business, I had the opportunity to play around with video and design work.

I was able to teach myself a lot of that and learn along the way; I eventually

made a business from video projection design. I think a lot of the shows I directed [at Fordham] gave me a strong base for storytelling that I always apply in my work now.”

After receiving advice from Morgan Jenness, adjunct professor of theatre at FCLC, Rhyne decided to try out video projection design.

“A year outside of school, I ran into Morgan Jenness, who was one of my professors at Fordham. At the time, she told me that she just saw a production that used a lot of video; [Jenness] recommended that I go work for Big Art Group, which is the company that put up the show. I reached out and later got to work on video projections for them.”

“We worked on a bunch of shows downtown at theaters like P.S. 122, where all the plays were video based,” Rhye said. “I really loved it, and it was my first experience doing video work. I worked with that company for two years, and once that finished, I went off on my own and started doing it.”

In 2011, Rhyne gained more experience when working on his first Broadway musical “Bonnie and Clyde.” “The set was made up of some old, wood flat walls which

moved around, and I projected different backgrounds and photographs. It was really beautiful,” he said. “While the show didn’t do that well and run that long, I got a lot of attention from it. Working on ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ led me to do the next broadway show that is running: ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.’”

Rhyne started working on “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” three years before it hit Broadway. “I worked on the small production of the play in Connecticut first, and we spent time developing what it should look like. After Connecticut, the show did well, so we moved it to a theater in San Diego to further explore what the show should look like, because we thought we had a chance to get it to Broadway. Afterwards, the run in San Diego went really well, so we had the opportunity to move it to New York.”

According to Rhyne, he enjoyed putting together the whimsical graphics and projections for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.” “The play is a unit set, and the video background changes with each scene. Each of the musical numbers is a ridiculous staging of a murder.

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The most fun thing for me is showing the silly ways of how each character is murdered in each scene,” he said. “It can be as ridiculous as people falling off buildings, getting stung by bees - there are all kinds of crazy things.”

Rhyne currently has a lot of future projects for the upcoming year.

“The same creative team in ‘A Gentlemen’s Guide’ is working on a big opera in Los Angeles in January. The opera is called ‘Ghosts of Versailles.’

We are also going to tour ‘A Gentleman’s Guide’ around the country next year. I additionally have another big project with Disney coming up next year,” he said. “This is a busy year ahead.”

For anyone looking to work in theatre or any other business, Rhyne encourages students to hone in on their talents. “I graduated and tried to figure out my niche in the theatre industry. Later on, I found out that projections was what I did really well. I went for it, put everything into it, worked really hard and never looked back,” he said. “Whether you want to work in theatre or any kind of business, you want to find something that you do really well and become the best at it.”

Features

Features Editor Ian McKenna —ianmckennawmc@gmail.com

November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

NEXT AND THE CITY

Dating a Fordham Boy: From Top of the Rock to Rock Bottom

IAN MCKENNA/THE OBSERVER

Will the Fordham bells ring for this cross-campus couple? No. Definitely not.

PAYTON VINCELETTE Staff Writer

So I’m facing a serious ethical dilemma. How do I go about telling these guys that I’m writing about them and our date? Do I tell them?

Does it make me a terrible person and journalist if I don’t?

Every single guy that I have met up with so far has asked (usually middate) why I’m on Tinder, and I am always honest: to go on dates so I can write about it for my column in the student newspaper. The reaction has ranged from “wow, that’s really cool,” to “oh, crap, are you taking notes right now?” But no one has ever had a serious problem with it, and they all gave me their permission to write about the night.

Well this past week, I went on a date with a guy we’ll call anonymous because he really does not want me to reveal basically anything about him.

Out of respect for his privacy, I’m not going to tell you all that much, which I know isn’t very fun. But what I will tell you is that he is a student at Rose Hill, and as soon as I found that out, I knew that I had found my next victim.

We actually started talking when I posted a “moment” in my Fordham baseball hat that I was given at Orientation and usually wear on bad hair days. Anyway, he liked my “moment” and immediately messaged me. Our initial conversation was pretty good, and at the end of it, I gave him my number.

We texted a few days later and every day after that, and I enjoyed talking to him. He seemed to be really smart and had a good sense of humor; maybe a bit a frat boy since he brought up drinking every time we talked, but I could get over that.

He admitted that he had never met anyone from Tinder before because he never thought they were worth it, and then said he wanted to meet me. I melted a little; it was cute. We

decided to meet up here in Manhattan, since he says there’s not a lot to do in the Bronx. He wanted to go out to eat, and then maybe to the Top of the Rock, so that Thursday night we met in front of the school, where the Ram Van had dropped him off.

I saw him and walked up to say hi, pretty happy about the fact that I have once again avoided being catfished.

He was pretty cute and relatively tall, but when I introduced myself it got a little awkward. No hug, no nothing, he just jumped up and asked where we were going to eat. I decided that I wanted Wendy’s so that’s where we went. Then, he takes me to the Top of the Rock, which I have never been to and, on a side note, is absolutely amazing.

Overall, it was a good date—definitely the most “fun” date I’ve been on since I started this column, and I liked that he wanted to do something other than just go to dinner or see a movie.

There were times when I didn’t quite know what to talk about, but it really

was a decent time overall and I would have been open to seeing him again, but unfortunately that is never going to happen.

Let me tell you why: So it’s the end of the night, and we are waiting in front of the building for the last Ram Van to come and take him back. That’s when I realize I haven’t told him about the column yet, and I feel a little guilty. He hadn’t asked anything, but maybe I should tell him.

Would I like it if someone were writing about me without my knowledge?

No. So I tell him, and he is mad. Like, really mad and almost a little scared, even though I explain that I won’t use his name or say anything that might reveal who he is. Anonymous is going to work for the government after he graduates and says that absolutely nothing about him can be on the internet. (I want to point out that his Instagram, which is not exactly squeaky clean, is on the Internet and is public for that matter, but I’ll drop it.)

By the time the van comes, I’ve

calmed him down a little but he literally jumps up and practically sprints when he sees it—again, no hug, no anything. I’m a little disappointed but not really; he was a little too immature for me, and I was more anxious about his reaction than anything else. Like I said, I have never received a reaction like that before. I went on Tinder that very night and saw that he had unmatched me. I texted him, and a couple of days later, he gave me permission to write about the date as long as no one would know it was him, and sent me a picture from the Top of the Rock I was “allowed” to use. Other than that, we haven’t spoken since.

Now this all brings me back to my dilemma. Should I tell these guys before the date the reason why I’m on Tinder? Or will that change the way they act? Is it unethical journalism if I don’t? I’ve taken a few journalism classes but I don’t remember us ever going over the moral code for reporting on Tinder dates.

Pet Peeves at Fordham: What Makes You Tick?

By ALANNA KILKEARY Staff Writer

The crowded ascending elevator comes to an abrupt halt as a violent ding commands the doors to open on the second floor of McMahon Hall. A girl with a backpack hanging off one shoulder steps into the elevator and hits the fifth floor. The doors close as she proceeds to take out her iPhone and look down at it. Little does she know that right behind her, a crowd of upperclassmen are staring at the back of her head with angry eyes, unhappy with the fact that she’s taking the elevator up three floors. Some furrow their brows while others roll their eyes; this action is a carnal sin at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC). A minute later, the doors open, and the girl scurries out with iPhone in hand and leaves the rest of the upperclassmen having to endure extra elevator time on their journey up through McMahon Hall.

This situation is perhaps the most obvious pet peeve at FCLC, for we depend on our elevators to get us to where we need to be at the very moment we need to be there. Pet peeves lurk around every corner at FCLC and slither through the creaks and

cracks of every student’s experience here. I asked students what their worst FCLC pet peeves were, and this is what they said: FCLC Pet Peeve #1: The Library Jalen Glenn FCLC ’16 says that his pet peeve would definitely have to be the library. “It’s too small, and it doesn’t have any windows,” Glenn said. Glenn agreed that students would be more eager to spend time in the space if it had a better set up and a different location. As a worker in the law school library, Glenn said that “it’s perfect. There are windows, study rooms, outlets in convenient places, and above all, a café. Quinn is sorely lacking in providing an inviting place to study, so I think it should move into the old law school library.”

FCLC Pet Peeve #2: Wi-Fi Connection The be all end all of our technologically driven lives! When asked what her biggest FCLC Pet Peeve is, Gloria Bassani FCLC ’16, remarked with a furrowed brow and zero hesitation, “the Wi-Fi!” Bassani notes that it is custom to have to turn her Wifi on and off consistently until she finally gets connected. Bassani said that whenever this happens, “it takes [her] nearly 15 minutes to get everything

working up to speed.” Connecting to the Wi-Fi at FCLC is like playing a game of Russian Roulette, constantly uncertain of what you’re going to get.

“IT needs to figure out a better way to handle this” Bassani said.

FCLC Pet Peeve #3: Laundry Rooms and Hot Temperatures The horror story of every FCLC student: leaving your clothing in the dryer for 10 minutes too long and coming back to discover that someone has pulled it out and thrown it on top of a washer. Director of Public Relations for the Residential Housing Association in McMahon Nate Coffey, FCLC ’16, said that his biggest pet peeve is when “people move your stuff” in the laundry room. It’s understandable that you have the responsibility of timing your laundry and not leave it there for hours, but when someone pulls out your clothes toward the end of a dryer cycle, it’s not okay. This is a pretty inevitable feat, but Coffey agreed that students should be more aware and respectful of other people’s items.

There are also issues amongst utilities in McKeon Hall as well. “It took me three hours to do my laundry last night,” Annuziata Santelli , FCLC ’18 said. It is important to note that these

laundry machines located on the 11th floor of McKeon are brand new. Santelli continued, “The washing machines wouldn’t rinse my clothes so I had to keep putting them back in.”

Santelli also said that there is trouble with the heat in her dorm room and that it is extremely sporadic. These heating systems, like the laundry machines, are brand new as well, so it is troubling that there are already many kinks to work out.

FCLC Pet Peeve #4: Commuters visiting McMahon and Inconvenient Club Hours A sophomore and commuter from Queens, New York, Melissa Alamilla ’17 says her biggest pet peeve at FCLC would have to be “the policy about commuters signing into McMahon Hall.” Frustrated, Alamilla argued that it is unfair that commuter freshmen are allowed into the building with a sticker, while the rest of the underclassmen and upperclassmen have to be signed in traditionally. It brings up a good question: Why are only freshman commuters allowed to use the study and soft lounges in McMahon Hall when it is an upperclassmen residence hall?

Additionally, Alamilla noted that another one of her pet peeves is the

“fact that popular clubs do not meet during the allotted club meeting blocks on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.” This especially obstructs an FCLC commuter’s ability to participate in and attend clubs like Amnesty International or Soccer Club, especially because these meetings are held during the evening hours when trains and bus schedules do not run as often. In order to change these peeves, Alamilla agreed that Office of Residential Life should create stickers for all commuting students, and clubs should start using the midday block.

FCLC Pet Peeve #5: Vending Machines When asked his biggest pet peeve of FCLC, George Kostal, FCLC ’16 stated that it would have to be that “there are no regular Skittles in the 14th Floor Lounge vending machine in McMahon Hall, just Wild Berry.”

Perhaps not as pressing as other pet peeves, it still should be noted that snack variety is very important to any hungered and hard-working college student. When asked how he thinks this should be fixed, Kostal replied, “The student body should make administration aware of this, and hopefully they can contact whoever runs our vending services.”

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER

November 6, 2014

Features

13

S.A.G.E.S. Goes Public: Behind the Scenes

By IAN MCKENNA Features Editor

The automatic sliding doors of Hughes Hall open up and Wilmarie Cintron-Muniz, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’15, walks along the lobby until we see each other. I am sitting next to some Gabelli students working together on a project.

The refuse of the day’s edition of the Financial Times sits between us, and we both pick at it between discussions about midterms and what we are doing for the coming Halloweekend.

As we wait for the other members of the conversation to arrive, she tells me her family is visiting for Family Weekend, and she is planning a scavenger hunt for her little brother.

With modern furniture and young business professionals milling around the lounge in suits and ties, the setting doesn’t seem in harmony with the conversation we are about to have.

Cintron-Muniz is one of the core members of the Students for Sex and Gender Equality and Safety (S.A.G.E.S.) Coalition, a group on campus that has so-far operated anonymously in its fight for sex-positivity and safety on campus. I have been in contact with the group for a couple of weeks, having first met Cintron-Muniz at Ram Town, where she and other S.A.G.E.S. members had been collecting signatures on their petition. Now, on Oct. 29, they are discussing what it means to go public and just how they are going to do it.

As the rest of the group trickles in, we find that the noise in the lounge is becoming too much, or maybe that the distance between our congregation and the financiers’ group study at the next table is a little too close for comfort. It is a beautiful day for late October and we move outside, from the clinical interior of the business building.

I naively ask who the leader of the movement is. “Or is this an Occupy Wall Street type of thing?”

Rachel Field, FCRH ’15, laugh and tells me, while it isn’t Occupy Wall Street, there is no “leader,” but rather some people who are more involved then others. We sit at the circular table outside of Hughes with some of the “core” members of the coalition at Rose Hill. Field, who evokes a Rosie the Riveter style with a red patterned headscarf, sits to my left, Cintron-Muniz to her left, Alexandra Leen, FCRH ’16, to her left, and Beth Chang, FCRH ’15, to my right.

We begin with the origin story of S.A.G.E.S. Field says she has been an activist for six years, working with such groups as Women Organized to Resist and Defend (W.O.R.D.) and Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.). “I was talking over the summer with a bunch of my W.O.R.D. comrades and we were just talking about Hobby Lobby and everything that was going on with Hobby Lobby,” she says. One of the women makes a noise of disgust. “Don’t even get me started,” Field says. “[W.O.R.D. had organized] a protest and only about ten people showed up,” Field says. “We were really disappointed. These are huge issues that are really affecting us, so how is it that only ten people showed up? And it got me thinking about how Hobby Lobby is related to what is going on here at Fordham and it got the wheels going.

‘You know what, change starts from our communities.’”

The S.A.G.E.S. movement, then, is a very real reaction not only to the traditional value-influenced policies of Fordham but also the present political climate.

“This moment in time is very specific,” Cintron-Muniz adds. “We are closer than ever before of the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. I think that there have just been a lot of things building up over the past five or ten years that have been specifically targeted against women being able to access birth control, women being

IAN MCKENNA/THE OBSERVER

Core members of the S.A.G.E.S. coalition meet to discuss what going public means and what the next steps are. From left to right, Alexandra Leen, FCRH ’16, Rachel Field, Wilmarie Cintron-Muniz and Beth Chang, all FCRH ’15.

able to access healthcare and, in general, a lot of things with access and just our basic safety and health. Not just at Fordham, I’m talking about country-wide movement to limit women’s decision-making ability.”

“I feel like campus right now is ready for this to happen,” Leen says.

She mentions the findings of the Office of Postsecondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education which said Fordham led Jesuit schools in on-campus sexual assault claims filed between 2010 and 2012. “[The administration was] trying to figure out what to do, where to start, if something like this happened, how to help the person this happened to.

And I don’t understand how they can do that without promoting sex positivity and promoting birth control and condoms and basically general information about sex.”

This is one of their main points of contention; the lack of a basic dialogue, both when it comes to sex and sexual education and safety as well as the problems they, as a renegade club not approved by the Office of Student Leadership and Community Development partaking in “guerrilla activism,” as one Ram columnist wrote.

“Dean [of Students at Rose Hill Christopher] Rodgers talks a lot about the culture of campus, how we are the agents of cultural change on campus, because we create the culture here,” Cintron-Muniz says. “We are trying to build a culture that includes sex-positivity, includes people being able to make decisions for themselves, and having the tools to be able to make all the possible decisions that they could make, that are healthy in positive ways. And we can’t create that culture if it is outlawed on campus, essentially.”

Earlier that day, Dean Rodgers had canceled a meeting with S.A.G.E.S. At the time of our group interview, he or his office had not rescheduled.

A major issue with the Fordham administration for the members of S.A.G.E.S. is their seemingly long list of assumptions.

“There is an assumption by some of the deans that everybody just knows sex and knows how to take care of that,” Leen says. “And when you are recruiting from such a huge base of schools that are just like Fordham, that have had rules like this, some people have had no health education. We are in college now and if there were ever a time to do it, then it would be now, to learn about sex.”

Another assumption is the students’ willingness to reflect on these larger issues internally. “I think that there is an assumption that we can just talk about this amongst ourselves and obviously some people did do that and some people are ready for that and some people are super selfstudied or are in classrooms where they are discussing these types of things,” Cintron-Muniz says, but for

others, we have to make the conversation, she argues, “If we are going to be proactive about these things, it is super important because people get hurt because of these things, because they don’t know what consent is, because they don’t know how to put on a condom right.”

But making conversation and causing cultural change isn’t easily accomplished, and being an anonymous group doesn’t help. Aside from petitioning around campus, weekly meetings and posting fliers not approved by the Office of Student Leadership and Community Development around campus, the campaign has really been one fought on the web, through a Facebook page, a Change. org petition, a Twitter account and a Tumblr site.

“As an organizer for so long,” Field says, “one thing I’ll tell you is that you can’t organize on the Internet. You can’t organize on a blog. You can’t organize without having conversations with people, face-to-face. When we have face-to-face conversations, we build a movement.”

“We are also real people. Coming forward, the stories we tell are not abstract. They are not something that Dean Rodgers can write-off as some sort of willy, nilly, frilly thing,” Field says. “It is something that happened to somebody, it is a real issue that is in your face and you need to deal with it. It is not just me, my story, my personal story. It’s every personal story, of everybody in S.A.G.E.S. and all of their friends and everyone they know and they bring that to the table and it becomes real when people realize there is a name to a face and there is an experience to the face.”

The consensus seems to be, at least for the four women at the table, that going public can only strengthen their cause.

Field also hopes that it will allow them to stop operating in the shadows. “I think going public is really the big moment in which we say ‘We are here to stay.’ S.A.G.E.S. is not something that will go away. It’s not something you can push away. It’s not something you can stop. It is something that will keep going because there is such a huge power base behind us. It’s 1,000 student signatures.

The sun has just about set and the Bronx night chill is setting in. The DJ playing the contemporary hits is packing his stuff up as the rest of Campus Activity Board starts packing up the tables and activities set up alongside Edward’s Parade. Over by the McGinley Center, students prepare for a vigil for victims of police brutality. We begin to wrap up our conversation so the activists at our table can attend the event.

“I think that people will definitely try to stop us and it will be easier for them to try when they know who we are,” Leen, the only member at the table who won’t be graduating in May,

says before I turn the recorder off. “I don’t think that is going to stop us, though.”

They’ve finalized their plan to go public. The date and time are set; Nov. 3, 12:30 p.m.

It’s 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 3.

“I don’t want to have to call people,” Rachel Field, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’15, said as a group of S.A.G.E.S. members met in front of Cunniffe House, “but this is important and they should be here.”

The group of about five students at 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 3 doubled to about 10 before they had decided to enter the administration’s building to deliver their petition, calling for several changes to Fordham’s policies on sexual health resources and education, free speech policies and trans student treatment, to Fordham President Rev. Joseph M. McShane.

“We are representing the 1,100 students who signed our petition,” Field said, leading the group into the building.

Once inside, they found a huge set of double doors.

They knocked.

And then they knocked again.

“I guess he’s not going to be here.

Let’s begin the taping,” Field said, ripping a piece of tape off with her teeth.

“Does anybody have scissors?” another protester asked.

Halfway through posting all sheets of the petition on the double doors, a security supervisor arrived.

He allowed the protesters to finish.

“If you put it in the middle like that, it’ll rip when you open the door,” the security supervisor said as protesters were figuring out where to put the letter addressed to McShane which demanded a meeting between him and members of S.A.G.E.S. before Nov. 7.

“If we don’t get a response back by Friday, we are going to escalate the situation,” Field said. “When students speak, they must be heard, and if we aren’t going to be heard, then that’s what it is going to have to be.”

This escalation refers specifically to a Nov. 20 rally, “which will be called off if our demands are met,” Field said. They are planning on inviting organizations to Fordham for a protest; prospective guests include Women Organized to Resist and Defend (W.O.R.D.), Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.) Coalition and the Latina Institute.

W.O.R.D. has organized a letter writing campaign.

The protestors left Cunniffe house about five minutes after entering, preparing to host a speak-out to get students on campus involved in their cause.

Assistant Vice President of Public Safety John Carroll was alerted of the situation and was called to the scene.

Once he arrived, he asked to speak

with an organizer.

“He was like, ‘I can bring that to Father McShane if you want,’” Field said, retelling her interaction with Carroll. “If you want to go take it down, you can. That’s crazy. This is a f*cking police state.”

“Well, what happened is that Rachel asked that the petition be delivered to Father McShane, and I will make sure that happens for her,” Carroll said. “One of my supervisors went to get the petition, and I’ll make sure Father McShane gets it.”

While S.A.G.E.S. members were asked to move their protest from the middle of the street for their own safety, the administration and the office of public safety had no intentions of stopping their protest. Despite this, the group was followed by two security supervisors during their speak-out.

“The students … united … will never be defeated,” Field began chanting on her way to McGinley Center as other S.A.G.E.S. members answered her call-and-response.

Once organized in a circle in front of McGinley, other S.A.G.E.S. members, fresh out of class, joined the rally, each telling a personal story about why they support S.A.G.E.S. “I support S.A.G.E.S. because women’s health is human health,” one student, Sophia, said.

“I support the S.A.G.E.S. coalition because sexual health is a human f*cking right,” Monica Cruz, FCRH ’16, said. “I support the S.A.G.E.S. coalition because religion is not more important than my health.”

“Fordham recognizes that there is–and should be– a diversity of opinion on matters of faith at a Catholic university, especially a Jesuit one,” Bob Howe, senior director of communications, said in a written statement when asked for an official response from the administration.

“We are nonetheless committed to the teachings of the Church, and as a part of our mission, we model those teachings for our students, including those on contraception. In this we seek to strike a balance between individual conscience–our students are free to possess and use any form of birth control they choose–and endorsing behaviors that run counter to Church teachings.”

“For this reason,” the statement continues, “Fordham neither distributes, nor permits distribution of contraceptives. The only exception to this policy is the prescription of birth control pills for medical reason unrelated to contraception.”

During the protest, Field challenges this idea.

“I suffer from ovarian cysts. And because of Fordham’s policies, I had to get surgery for a hernia that was caused by ovarian cyst ruptures,” Field said. “I had repeatedly asked Fordham to give me contraceptives, with a medical letter, and was denied.”

Sports

Sports Editor Dylan Penza - dpenza@fordham.edu

November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

The Giants, the Yankees and Baseball Dynasties

By DAN FERRARA Staff Writer

By beating the Kansas City Royals in a deciding Game 7 and solidifying three World Series titles in five seasons, the San Francisco Giants have officially become the first dynasty in baseball since the Yankees of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The Yankees had a “Core Four” during that stretch and so do the Giants. Although some pieces have come and gone during this amazing run, four players have been there through it all – Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Pablo Sandoval and Tim Lincecum.

Posey can be looked at as a better version of the Yankees’ Jorge Posada.

A pure hitter who has had great success hitting in an unfriendly AT&T Park, Posey has quickly built up an incredible resume. The 27-year-old catcher already has won Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player and Silver Slugger Awards to go along with his three World Series titles. He is the game’s best hitting catcher and is a career .308 hitter – it would be interesting to see what he could do playing in Yankee Stadium, a much more hitter-friendly ballpark. Signed through 2022, however, the Yankees will likely have to wait a very long time to find out.

2014 World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner had one of the greatest postseason performances of all time, and solidified his place among the best pitchers in the game. The 6 ft. 5 in. lefty is building a resume that rivals that of Yankees’ playoffs legend Andy Pettitte.

Although Pettitte has a record 19 wins in the postseason, it took him 44 games to reach that plateau. For his career, Pettitte was 19-11 with a 3.81 ERA, while Bumgarner is 7-3 with a 2.14 ERA in just 14 games.

The big lefty will have plenty of postseasons in the future to catch up to Pettitte’s record, and if his early track

TESSA VAN BERGEN/THE OBSERVER

AT&T Park in San Francisco has become the newest home for a budding baseball dynasty.

record holds true, he could go on to be one of the greatest playoff pitchers in league history.

Bumgarner’s incredible performance this postseason defies logic.

He was 2-0 with a 0.43 ERA and a save in this year’s World Series, bringing his career numbers in the Fall Classic to 4-0 with a 0.25 ERA, an MLB record. You read that right, Bumgarner has only given up one run in 36 World Series innings. Also,

he closed the final game of the World Series out and clinched the championship for the Giants on an one out with a five-inning save on just one day of rest. His massive workload of 52.2 innings pitched in the 2014 World Series are an MLB record as well. Any way you cut it, Bumgarner is an animal, and he already has a playoff resume that rivals some of the greatest playoff pitchers in history like Curt Schilling and Pedro

Martinez Pablo Sandoval’s regular seasons haven’t always lived up to expectations, but “Kung Fu Panda” always plays well in October. The 2012 World Series MVP is a career .344 hitter in the playoffs and hit .366 in 17 postseason games this season.

He’ll be a free agent this summer and will likely use his clutch postseason hitting as his biggest marketing tool for some leverage, and with good

reason. Having Sandoval was a huge reason that the Giants were able to go on this improbable run and win their third World Series in five seasons.

The Giants aren’t the Yankees dynasty yet, but they can now be qualified as one. It’s too early to speculate whether they can do it again next season, especially with the possible departure of Pablo Sandovol, but one thing is for certain. In October, the Giants can never be counted out.

Why We Shouldn’t Blame Eli Manning The team has been struggling this season, but replacing Eli Manning will not solve all of the Giants’ problems.

By THOMAS O’CALLAGHAN Staff Writer

The season has been challenging thus far for the 3-4 New York Giants, and these struggles have led some to ask if it is time for the team to move on from two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback Eli Manning. But, there are several reasons why an attempt to find a new QB would be premature.

The truth is that Manning has improved after coming off one of, if not the, worst year of his career.

Even though the Giants are one game under .500, Manning has fit the new “West Coast-style” offense created by new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo. Following the 2013 campaign in which he threw a career-high 27 interceptions to only 18 touchdowns, Eli has fared much better up to this point in the season. He has thrown only five interceptions and has thrown for 14 touchdowns and 1,573 yards through the first seven games of this season. It is important to point out that Manning has been putting up solid numbers while the entire team encounters the growing pains of the adjustment to a new offensive system.

Also important to note is that Victor Cruz, a key wide receiver in the Giants offense for the past five years, sustained a season-ending knee injury in the Giants’ week six loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Along with the departure of other former star Hakeem Nicks to the Indianapolis Colts, the Giants are not particularly deep at the receiver

PHOTO COURTESY OF RON CORTES /PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER VIA TNS

Eli Manning may not be an elite quarterback anymore, but replacing him will not fix the Giants.

position. As a result of this deficiency, the team has run the ball on offense far more than the system would dictate. This is particularly strange, as McAdoo’s system should be emphasizing the passing game over running the ball. While the team is ranked 24th in passing yards this year, that is not to be seen as a reflection of Manning’s performance.

Some have called for Manning to replaced, but the question is: by whom? Ryan Nassib is currently the backup under center in his sophomore campaign, and he is not ready to start at the moment. So should the Giants draft or trade for a new quarterback? Manning is not a liability so neither of these is an advisable course of action for the foreseeable future.

Thus far in Big Blue’s 2014 season, inconsistency has been the issue on defense and offense. The Giants rank 25th and 22nd in opponent passing yards and rushing yards respectively. the Giants’ struggles lay more on the defensive end of the ball. The team has been struggling this season, but replacing Eli Manning will not solve all of the Giants’ problems.

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Sports

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Chasing a Patriot League Championship The Villanova game was a bad day for the whole offensive unit. We got dominated, but it humbled us and just made us more hungry. After that we knew how hard we had to work every day to be the best.

By DYLAN PENZA Sports Editor

Chase Edmonds, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’18, is the Fordham and Patriot League record holder for most single game touchdowns and rushing yards. He’s also a freshman with little more than half a season of college football playing experience. Edmonds has been selected as a candidate for the Jerry Rice Award, given to the top first-year player in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

He has also contributed to a Fordham football team on the cusp of a Patriot League championship and a FCS playoff berth. Edmonds sat down to speak on his beginnings, his individual success and the success of the team this season.

THE OBSERVER: On Oct. 25

against Lehigh, you set the school record with five touchdowns in one game. What was that game like, and how does it feel to hold such a record in only your first season?

EDMONDS: Any type of success I

have, I don’t take it for granted so I just feel blessed and give God the glory. It felt great, and I knew it was going to be a pretty good day day after I had scored the third touchdown. I was with Nebrich on the sidelines and we were joking around that I had taken all of his “money” that game because of all of my goal line carries.

THE OBSERVER: You’re from

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and you played high school football for Central Dauphin East High School.

What was it like growing up there?

THE OBSERVER: You’ve also been

nominated for the Rice Award given to the best freshman in the FCS. How do you feel your chances are?

EDMONDS: It was a blessing grow-

ing up and playing there. From when I was 6 years old, I played with the same teammates so there was a strong brotherly relationship between all of us. In fact, my coach from my senior year in high school was actually my head coaching when I was six too. We were all a big reunited family for my senior year.

It made it sort of difficult to leave and to come to Fordham.

EDMONDS: Our coach always tells

us not to read our press clippings, and he’s right because that’s when people can get conceited and content. I just want to be the best football player I can be and push myself every single day. I’m never satisfied or content with my performance, and I’m not focusing on individual awards or records. As long as we win out, everything will take care of itself.

THE OBSERVER: Why did you

decide to play for Fordham?

EDMONDS: When I was being

recruited by Coach [Joe] Moorhead and Coach [Andrew] Breiner, they made me feel at home. In addition to that, I love the spread offensive scheme and fast tempo that the team plays at. Also, after football you need to find something to do and in New York City, you can never be bored. That really attracted me.

THE OBSERVER: Over the last few

years, Head Coach Joe Moorhead has developed a team best known for its dynamic offense. How has it been learning from him and playing within Fordham’s offensive system?

EDMONDS: You don’t understand

how much you need to pick up at the next level until you actually

DYLAN PENZA/THE OBSERVER

Chase Edmonds, FCRH ’18, is ready to help Fordham’s football team win the Patriot League Championship.

get here, but I’ve learned so much from the coaches already, even though I’ve only been here about four months. They show us different schemes to diagnose and break down defenses where a team is running a Cover Two or a Cover Three.

It’s been a great learning experience.

THE OBSERVER: The team you

joined this year is filled with veteran leaders and seniors such as Sam Ajala, FCRH ’15, and Mike Nebrich, FCRH ’15, who have been playing together for a long time. How were you able to mesh so quickly with them and become an integral part

of the offense?

EDMONDS: When I made my of-

ficial visit to Fordham, Sam [Ajala] was actually my host, and I met other players like DeAndre Slate and De’Nard Pinckney so by the time I arrived to play, I already knew faces. Sam in particular really took me under his wing, and I consider him a big brother. Mike [Nebrich] is another guy who’s taken me under his arm and helped me learn which was really important because, as a freshman coming in, we didn’t have time during the spring to work and practice. Overall, it’s been great

working with these guys and bonding with them on and off the field.

THE OBSERVER: Against Villanova, you only ran for negative five yards, but the week after against Rhode Island, you set the school record with 231 rushing yards. How did you bounce back so quickly and put on such a historical performance when most first-year players might have had some confidence issues?

EDMONDS: I have to give all the

credit to my offensive line. They did a great job of blocking and opening up multiple running lanes for me.

THE OBSERVER: The team is 11-1.

The offense has the highest scoring totals in the league and is ahead of second place by 68 points. What do you envision for the rest of this season, and how do you believe you and the team can improve?

EDMONDS: I envision that we take

it one day, one practice and one rep at a time. We try not to look to far into the future because that’s when teams get too caught up. Coach Moorhead emphasizes process, so as long as we take everything one day at a time, we’ll be fine. It’s easier said than done and we don’t underestimate anyone, but as long as we keep working hard, we can win the Patriot League Championship. I think we’ll be alright.

New York City FC and the Future of American Soccer

By GIA DI LORENZO Staff Writer

For some time, it was almost inconceivable to any soccer fan that the Major League Soccer would become a competitive league, let alone the destination of tremendous soccer talent from Europe. That’s beginning to change, by and large due to the arrival of soccer superstar David Beckham in 2007, who shocked soccer fans the world over in a surprise move from Real Madrid to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Since Beckham’s arrival in the MLS, a number of his European counterparts have followed suit, most notably Irishman Robbie Keane (L.A. Galaxy), France international Thierry Henry (New York Red Bulls), and now 2010 World Cup champion David Villa and Beckham’s former national teammate Frank Lampard who are both set to join new MLS expansion team NYC FC in the upcoming MLS season.

The question now is how these new additions to the MLS, who have both made names for themselves in Europe, will impact their future club NYC FC and, potentially, the league as a whole as well.

The addition of these European greats to the MLS has, largely, been welcomed by American fans. More and more American soccer fans tune in to Premier League, La Liga, Serie A or Bundesliga games and become familiar with players in Europe. As

a result, the arrival of these players on this side of the pond has been welcomed by American soccer fans, and has also, in turn, resulted in an increase in interest in the game and league that has only continued to grow.

The only area of concern? These European legends come to the MLS either during or past their “prime” – by European standards at least. So what can players like David Villa and Frank Lampard offer NYC FC and the league as a whole?

Turning to the examples set by those before them (i.e. Beckham and Henry), what can be expected is a learning experience for homegrown players. Young, inexperienced players can draw on the experiences European pros bring with them, having played for major clubs, in major competitions, against the best of the best. That is what draws soccer fans to European soccer – it is the home of the beautiful game, and the home of some of the best in the game. It therefore only makes sense that players exposed to that level of competition are sought out to help develop the quality of the game in a new league, in a culture that is new to the game of soccer.

You don’t need to look any further than just across the Hudson River in New Jersey at Red Bull Arena. One year after signing with the New York Red Bulls in 2010, France international Thierry Henry was named captain of the squad. He doesn’t fly

solo despite his undisputed talent and years of experience playing in the world’s biggest soccer tournaments.

Instead, you’re more likely to see him spot opportunities and gracefully set up a cross to Bradley Wright-Phillips.

Incorporating the experience and talent of European pros certainly is helpful, however it’s not likely to completely change the caliber of the league overnight. Villa and Lampard, like Beckham and Henry before them, have the ability to get Americans excited and interested in the game. David Villa’s résumé includes a World Cup and European Championship title with the Spanish national team along with La Liga, Champions League, and Copa del Rey titles while at Valencia, Barcelona, and Atlético Madrid. England international and former Chelsea star Frank Lampard has also had a successful career in Europe while playing for the Blues, where he won multiple Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, and FA Cup titles in addition to his numerous individual awards.

There’s no questioning their abilities on the pitch or inciting interest, but it’s unrealistic to expect a group of individuals to change a team, let alone a league.

The goal would be to start from the bottom up, working on the development of youth academies stateside while building on the experience of soccer masterminds. Ultimately, the current situation consists of Euro-

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKICOMMONS

NYC FC is poised to be the new symbol of soccer in our city.

pean footballers towards the end of their career assisting inexperienced MLS players midway through theirs, thereby only affecting the present and immediate future. By investing long-term in youth academies, for example in coaches from renowned European clubs and leagues, the MLS

can work from the ground up and become more competitive. Who knows, with Beckham now owner of an MLS expansion franchise in Miami, perhaps one day we will see Henry, Villa, or Lampard in another position on the pitch here in the United States.

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November 6, 2014 THE OBSERVER

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