Observer the
April 6, 2022
The Student Voice of Fordham Lincoln Center
The upperclass men residence ALICE MOREN hall currently O/THE OBSE RVER houses first-yea rs in its first si x floors.
VOLUME XLII, ISSUE 5
Welcoming Smaller Class, ResLife Expects Pre-Pandemic Occupancy By OLIVIA LEDUC Asst. Features Editor
As the 2022-23 housing registration process comes to a close, the Office of Residential Life (ResLife) projects that it will be able to accommodate all students who completed their housing applications, as well as the incoming first-year students, for the fall semester.
Gregory Jones, director of ResLife at Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC), reported that approximately 780 returning students registered for on-campus housing for the 2022-23 school year, which is on par with previous years’ registration totals. In the 2018-19 academic year, ResLife housed what is now considered pre-pandemic levels of building occupancy, straining
to accommodate residents and introducing forced doubles and forced triples. Many residents did not return to campus during the 2020-21 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing ResLife to de-densify dorm rooms and no longer have forced triples. For the 2021-22 academic year, Fordham over-accepted students based on enrollment predictions,
but more students than expected committed to the university. This over-acceptance of students resulted in an influx of first-years occupying the first six floors of McMahon Hall, the upperclassmen residence hall. Now, ResLife expects pre-pandemic occupancy — a return to normalcy — for the 2022-23 academic year. see FIRST-YEAR HOUSING page 5
Students Report Issues With Accessibility By EESHITA WADE Staff Writer
ANDREW DRESSNER/THE OBSERVER
The disability accessible elevator located on the SL level is the only accessible elevator in Lowenstein.
NEWS PAGE 4
LGBTQ+ Fund
Almost $61,000 was donated on Giving Day to the wellness fund
SPORTS & HEALTH PAGE 6
Baseball’s Cold Stretch Fordham baseball drops tough contest to Saint Louis University
After seeing the crowded elevators in the Leon Lowenstein Center in 2019, Cristina Pardo, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’19 and second-year law student at Fordham, and Lucy Clancy, FCLC ’19, became concerned with how the elevators may cause difficulties for physically disabled students. The university’s lack of accessibility for disabled students inspired Pardo and Clancy to form a club — Students for Disability Awareness (SDA) — with the mission of creating a community for students with disabilities and increasing accessibility on campus. Pardo ran the club as president for two years before it became inactive. “I heard it was sort of subsumed by the Office of Disability Services, and it became an inactive group support meeting,” she said.
Audience Acts in Fordham Theatre Show
Pardo added that many of the elevators in the law school are too small and crowded to be accessible. She has “found that law school is more strict about the standards of documentation necessary for accommodations.” Sarah Macy, FCLC ’22 and a student with non-physical disabilities, who is minoring in disabilities studies, said she witnessed some barriers to physical accessibility on campus, which is made worse by the attitudes of some students and professors. “People often complain when the Lowenstein elevators stop on the second and third floors. I sometimes respond to these complaints by gently reminding people that some people have disabilities and so they can’t use the stairs,” she said. Similar to Pardo, Macy said she feels that Fordham is lacking when it comes to accommodating disabilities.
The stage is a playground. In Nassim Soleimanpour’s “White Rabbit, Red Rabbit,” the lines between actor, writer and audience member become blurry. Soleimanpour creates a revolutionary theater experience where the actor becomes a vehicle of communication for him, the writer, and us, the audience. Soleimanpour was stuck in Iran after refusing to participate in military service and tells a cautionary tale of blind obedience and adherence to societal structure through these techniques of defamiliarization. The show is uniquely malleable, amplifying the experience and irreproducible nature of the theater.
see DISABILITY ACCESS page 4
see WHITE RABBIT page 13
CENTERFOLD PAGE 8
OPINIONS PAGE 12
Students protest and donate to aid Ukraine in the war effort.
Criticisms of the Supreme Court justice confirmation process
Community on Ukraine Confirmation Hearings
By SOPHIA GRAUSSO Contributing Writer
ARTS & CULTURE PAGE 15
Oscars Recap
The Academy Awards make headlines for all the wrong reasons