Issue 9 Fall 2021

Y 1981- 2021 SAR

@fordhamobserver

www.fordhamobser erver.com

th 40 ANNIVER

th 40 ANNIVER

Observer the

Y 1981- 2021 SAR

October 27, 2021 VOLUME XLI, ISSUE 9

Fordham Mainstage Returns With ‘Continuity’

By FABIOLA ARIAS Contributing Writer

MOLLY HIGGINS/THE OBSERVER

After a yearlong hiatus on in-person theater, starting college as a theater major is a task filled with nervousness, hope and a deep knowledge of the hard work that is to come.

As the first mainstage play of the Fordham 2021-22 season, Bess Wohl’s “Continuity” brings forth a very new experience for the first-year class of the Theatre Department.

Required to work on crew for at least one show their first year at Fordham, the students are given a glimpse into behind the scenes work, theater schedules and staging of a professional production. This year, however, had a very different view to it.

The first-year theater students are by no means strangers to the world of the stage, but even so, juggling schoolwork, social life, a new environment and the tight schedules that come hand in hand with a professional piece is not an easy task to undertake.

“Continuity” came to Fordham as the first in-person mainstage play in over a year. Masks were worn by the cast and crew, maintaining safety and audience connection.

McKnight Leaves Fordham for Hofstra

By INSIYA GANDHI Staff Writer

Mica McKnight began her career at Fordham Lincoln Center seven years ago and assumed the position of assistant dean for sophomores in 2017.

She served in this position for nearly five years and is now stepping down to work at Hofstra University.

“During the past five academic years that I have served as the class dean for sophomores, I have been inspired daily by your interests in the world around you and your campus, your passion for social justice issues, and your intelligence that surpasses the classroom,” she wrote in an email to the sophomore class on Oct. 6.

In this email, McKnight told the sophomore class that her resignation would go into effect this fall and that Yasmin Hussein will serve as the interim dean for sophomores.

McKnight said she did not intend on leaving Fordham until the opportunity to be the assistant dean for the Hofstra Business School in Uniondale, New York, presented itself.

“I originally was not planning on leaving Fordham whatsoever, and a really great op-

portunity came across my email box,” she said. “I decided, ‘You know what, I should go for it and just see what happens.’”

At Hofstra, McKnight hopes to boost students’ ideas focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship as well as supporting women and minorities with their educational pursuits.

She said it is important to her as a woman and person of color to be able to work at an institution where she can focus on supporting minority- and women-owned businesses in the local community.

“I was engaged in diversity issues at Fordham as well, serving on the Arts and Sciences Committee for Anti-Racism, but now I get to be involved in it in a different way that seems a little bit more concrete,” McKnight said.

Jelaney Wright, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’24 and one of McKnight’s advisees, appreciated McKnight’s presence as a Black woman in Fordham’s administration.

“I was always pleased to see Black representation in administration, and I thank her for her contributions,” she said. see MCKNIGHT page 5

see CONTINUITY page 13

Thousands of Students Attend President’s Ball

By TARA LENTELL Staff Designer

For the first time in a year and a half, Fordham students from both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses came together for the President’s Ball on Oct.8. Approximately 3,400 students attended.

First-year and sophomore students experienced the event for the first time, and many seniors returned for a bittersweet final “Prez Ball” dance.

The President’s Ball was first held in 2003 when the Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., began his work at Fordham. Eighteen years later, McShane hosted his last President’s Ball, shaking students’ hands on their way in the door. see PRESIDENT’S BALL page 4

ALICE MORENO/THE OBSERVER

Around 3,400 students attended McShaneʼs final Presidentʼs Ball this year.

Rose Hill Theater Club Performs Unmasked

By CHLOE ZELCH Asst. News Editor

The Mimes and Mummers, a Rose Hill theater club, performed a full production of “Footloose” on the weekend of Oct. 9 with the cast unmasked, prompting concerns from members of the

Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC) theatre program, which has been under a strict mask mandate for live performances.

Laura Auricchio, dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), said she spoke with Chris Rodgers, dean of students at Rose Hill; and Keith Eldredge, dean of

student services. Both Eldredge and Rodgers were unaware that The Mimes and Mummers performed without masks “They reassured me that it would not happen again,” she said. see THEATER CLUB page 5

News

Sports & Health

Centerfold

Opinions: Rubberneck

Arts & Culture

New USG VP

Football Escapes

Mask Violations

First-Time Football

Squid Game Review

Page 2

Page 7

Page 8

Page 12

Page 14

Pulatani succeeds Sundstrom as VP after his resignation

Rams avoid massive upset in comeback victory against Lehigh

Fordham prepares to increase enforcement of mask policy

Follow a LC student’s adventure to the great unknown: game day

The Student Voice of Fordham Lincoln Center

The Korean Netflix show taking over the world

2

News

October 27, 2021 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

Spotted Lanternfly Continues to Wreak Havoc in NYC

Fordham professors and students raise concerns about the lack of knowledge on the invasive speciesʼ impact

By ABHIPRI CHOWDHURY Contributing Writer

Indigenous to Asia, the spotted lanternfly has spread across 11 states in America, including New York. This invasive species could potentially wreak havoc on multiple U.S. industries such as agriculture and timber.

Although this is a growing issue, many Fordham students

reported being unaware of the spotted lanternfly and its accompanying problems. Maya Dawson, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25, claimed she had not heard about the growth of the spotted lanternfly population in New York.

“I hadn’t heard of lanternflies, but it seems to be a prevalent issue that we should know more about, especially because

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM VIA FLICKR

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive species that is increasing in number across several states. The USDA advises people to kill the insect on sight.

of how harmful its long-term effects are on our ecosystems,” Dawson said.

Other students who are aware of this issue believe that students must be educated on the impact this invasive species is having on our ecosystems.

Omi Mehta and Belen Gonzalez, both FCLC ’25, proposed the idea that Fordham should spread more awareness about the growth of the lanternfly population in NYC. “I’ve seen rows of them right outside my mom’s office, and the effects of them are disastrous.

It is important that students are aware to kill them immediately,” Mehta said.

Gonzalez added: “They’re just not a part of our ecosystems.

They simply don’t belong here.

Spreading poster flyers could potentially help slow down their reproduction.”

The migration of the lanternfly can be linked to the invasive species “ailanthus,” better known as the tree of heaven.

Ailanthus is also an invasive species from Asia that was prevalent in the 18th century. It is now considered a “weed tree without significant commercial value,” Robert Madden, Fordham professor of biology, said. “Over the centuries, it has become widely established in the U.S.” As the primary host species for lanternfly populations, the ailanthus is almost essential for the lanternflies to reproduce.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the lanternfly species was introduced to the U.S. through shipments of imported wood from China in 2014.

The USDA encouraged people to kill the insect on sight because if its population continues to grow, its existence is predicted to devastate multiple crop populations and industries.

The lanternfly is roughly an inch long with deep black spots freckled over its light brown front wings. In contrast, its hind wings are red with splotches of black, while its abdomen is a vivid yellow.

“ I’ve seen rows of them right outside my mom’s office and the effects of them are disastrous. It is important that students are aware to kill them immediately. ”

Omi Mehta, FCLC ’25

Although tiny, the invasive species is raising concerns about its agricultural impact across the nation.

“The biggest concern seems to be its impact on trees of agricultural value, including grapes and other fruit trees,” Madden said.

“It also attacks a variety of forest trees, including maples, birches and black walnuts.”

With few natural predators in the U.S., the lanternfly population could continue to grow if left unchecked. A high population of lanternflies could cause critical damage to forestry and agricultural crops.

They have already been recorded eating the plant sap of more than 70 different types of plants, all of which are vital to various North American ecosystems. Lanternflies feed directly on the sap of plants, leading to dead branches, wilting and a steady health decline. They also excrete a liquid that is a prime medium for many types of sooty molds and fungi to form and kill ground cover plants by blocking out sunlight.

“The extent of its impact on forest trees is a bit less clear at this point,” Madden said. “It appears to weaken trees but is not likely to kill an otherwise healthy tree. I would guess that this might cause lumber production to be reduced.”

Madden highlighted that biological control, a method of using other species to control an invasive species, can be wielded to efficiently control the lanternfly population.

“There has been more emphasis on trying to use biological control. For an invasive species, this can involve finding a predator or disease that controls it in its native habitat,” Madden said.

“Some fungi have been discovered that kill lanternflies. Also, control of ailanthus is useful since it seems to be needed for a sustained population.”

Unlike most insects that need specific conditions to lay eggs, lanternflies can lay their eggs anywhere. From plain concrete to car wheels, lanternfly eggs have been spotted in any place that gives them a hefty advantage to survive. The lanternfly population continues to grow in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

USG Elects Djellza Pulatani as New Vice President

Pulatani will be included in executive meetings after the former VP left due to exclusion from the same meetings

By LAURA OLDFATHER Staff Writer

United Student Government (USG) elected Djellza Pulatani, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’24, as the organization’s new vice president on Thursday, Oct. 14.

“I’m really grateful and honored to serve as VP, and I’m really excited for the endeavors that this year holds. I’m just excited to create a lot of change on campus,” Pulatani said.

Prior to the election, she served two terms as a first-year senator during the 2020-21 academic year and was elected as a sophomore senator this fall. She decided to run for the role of vice president when it became vacant.

The position opened on Sept.

30 after Robert Sundstrom, FCLC ’22, announced his resignation.

Sundstrom cited exclusion from responsibilities such as attending executive meetings with the president and adviser as the reasoning behind his decision.

“ Inviting the VP is

usually reserved as sort of a treat for the VPs that are doing their job, so if the VP isnʼt really fulfilling his duties, he's not invited. ”

Joe VanGostein, GSBLC ’22 and USG president

Joe VanGostein, USG president and Gabelli School of Business at Lincoln Center ’22, said that the

procedure of allowing vice presidents to be involved in executive meetings is something the president can decide to permit. Inclusion in these meetings will be reimplemented with Pulatani as vice president.

“ That will allow things

to go a little bit smoother because you have both the VP and president in those meetings, so I think it’ll be very beneficial to USG as a whole. ”

Joe VanGostein, GSBLC ’22 and USG president

“Inviting the VP is usually reserved as sort of a treat for the VPs that are doing their job, so if the VP isn’t really fulfilling his duties, he’s not invited,” VanGostein said.

“Because Djellza has been fulfilling her duties — and she’s been doing them really well — going forward, the VP will be invited to these executive meetings.”

Pulatani supported this change in procedure.

“That will allow things to go a little bit smoother because you have both the VP and president in those meetings, so I think it’ll be very beneficial to USG as a whole,” Pulatani said.

The election procedure that took place was unusual because of the mid-semester vacancy, but VanGostein cited precedent for the election that took place.

He said during the 2019-20

ANDREW DRESSNER/THE OBSERVER

Djellza Pulatani was elected as vice president for USG. She previously held class senator positions and is chair of the committee on sexual misconduct.

academic year that Tina Thermadam, former USG president and FCLC ’20, allowed Sundstrom to run for the facilities chair position without advertising it to the student body.

“Because that happened, we were able to do the same thing (with Pulatani). So we opened the position up to anyone within USG who was eligible,” VanGostein said.

Multiple members of USG were planning to run for the position, but at the meeting, it was determined that Pulatani was the only one who had the necessary qualification of being involved in USG

for two semesters.

According to the USG constitution, the president pro-tempore would traditionally fill the vice president position in the case of a vacancy, but that did not happen since the president pro-tempore has not been elected yet. The students running for the position do not fit the constitutional requirements for the position, according to VanGostein.

“Therefore, our only option was to look to precedent,” he said.

Dorothy Wenzel, adviser to USG, was not at the meeting when the election took place and said she cannot comment on the

decision yet. Wenzel added that she is excited to get to know Pulatani more in her new role.

In addition to her new role as VP, Pulatani is also chair of the committee on sexual misconduct and plans to make educating people on sexual misconduct a priority.

According to Pulatani, she still needs to be trained as she takes on the vice presidency, but she feels “really lucky that USG is very supportive and that the president is so easy to work with.”

“He really has welcomed my vice presidency with arms wide open,” she said.

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER October 27, 2021

News

3

LGBTQ+ History Month Begins with OMA’s Flags on the Lawn

The event was the first of many planned to celebrate and welcome Fordham’s LGBTQ+ community during October

By OLIVIA LEDUC Contributing Writer

The annual commencement of the Flags on the Lawn was one of the first planned events on Oct. 6 by the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) to commemorate this month, the LGBTQ+ History Month Committee has several other programs designed to commemorate the month.

Located on the Outdoor Plaza, the Flags on the Lawn represented the history of pride flags.

Event organizers created a circular formation on the lawn with a multitude of pride flags, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary and other broader umbrella flags that represent different sects of the LGBTQ+ community. Event organizers also handed out free flags and a board with information on the dimensions and history of each flag.

“To let the undergrad population understand a little more about pride flag history, its creators, notable figures related to the flags and to physically show something to the campus through the flags is significant,” Kenneth Tang, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’24 and the cultural program coordinator of the committee, said.

The event’s inclusion of pride flags was designed to show an “individual’s identity as a flag connected in a circle, to form some kind of physical bond between the students and the educational component,” Tang said.

Kokila Sharda, FCLC ’24 and a contributing writer for The Observer, complimented the arrangement of the event and the

OLIVIA LEDUC/THE OBSERVER

This year’s Flags on the Lawn ceremony was a positive experience for many students.

inclusivity of many identities within the LGBTQ+ community.

“The fact they were giving out flags makes me feel like the Fordham community is a lot more inclusive,” Sharda said.

Other students commented on the impact the event will have on the educational experience for students.

“It will impact (the community) in a positive way because you share who you are in a very visual way, which is important for people to see,” Ramsay Macdonald, FCLC ’25, said.

Maura Johnston, FCLC ’24 and an OMA committee member and event organizer, explained that it

is crucial for people to learn the origins and history of pride flags and what they signify when celebrating LGBTQ+ history.

“Because it is LGBT History Month, it is important to display the history of the identities and flags we have represented here today, showcasing what a great history we do have in this community ... There are so many differences in identities that you can find your community here and educate everyone about it,” they said.

In addition to the Flags on the Lawn event, OMA’s LGBTQ+ History Month Committee held other activities. The office hosted its

LGBTQ+ Kickoff Lunch on Oct. 1 and also initiated the Queer Letter Exchange for queer people at Fordham to connect with one another. They also hosted the Deeper Dialogue program on Oct. 12 aimed at facilitating discussions about different LGBTQ+ experiences. The LGBTQ+ Ally & Network of Support Training was held on Oct. 21, where participants obtained knowledge toward promoting inclusivity on campus.

Anisa Rahaman, OMA’s FCLC graduate intern, said the committee is “actively involved” in the preparations of these events. Open to all students, the LGBTQ+ History Month programs have been tar-

geted specifically toward Fordham members of the LGBTQ+ community to afford them a sense of belonging at Fordham.

“We want to make sure they feel a sense of belonging here on campus,” said Juan Carlos Matos, assistant vice president for Student Affairs for Diversity and Inclusion. Matos noted that the events are a window of opportunity for those who do not identify with the LGBTQ+ community to come in support, show their allyship and expand their knowledge on topics they may have not known about.

These events have been able to provide diverse student engagement on intersectionality, discourse on multicultural and intercultural competence and a welcoming and inclusive environment. “Based on a lot of student feedback, we are accomplishing that,” Matos said.

As mentioned by Matos, some students have reportedly had preexisting worries over the possibility of their identities being underrepresented at Fordham. “What we end up hearing from students is that it feels good to have this on campus, by making a sense of connection to Fordham,” Matos assured.

Matos has applauded the committee’s work thus far in planning events for LGBTQ+ History Month.

“The committee is trying to raise the momentum of having more and more LGBT+ students feel supported, heard and that they matter,” he said. “A lot of the programming really comes from that place and that sort of is where we have been growing for the past three years.”

Earn your master’s degree in only one year at Fordham.

Through our accelerated degree programs, Fordham undergraduates can get their master’s in one year after their bachelor’s, or two years for a law degree.

You can continue your studies at Fordham seamlessly through dual-degree programs with our graduate schools of arts and sciences, business, education, law, and social service.

Apply during your junior year for accelerated advanced degree programs. Interested students should meet with your academic advisers.

To learn more and see which program fits your needs, visit

fordham.edu/accelerated.

4

News

October 27, 2021 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

Polarized Political Discourse: A ʻLong Overdueʼ Conversation

Political science professor Monika McDermott leads discussion on causes, effects and solutions of polarization

By INSIYA GANDHI Staff Writer

Fordham University hosted a panel on political discourse in a polarized age on Oct. 7, featuring George Stephanopoulos from ABC News; Kristen Soltis Anderson, a founding partner at Echelon Insights; Roshni Nedungadi, a founding partner at HIT Strategies; and Robert B. Talisse, a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

Monika McDermott, a professor of political science at Fordham, facilitated the discussion during the panel, which was both held in person and livestreamed.

“ We believe democracy

can flourish only when everyone is on my side, which is profoundly anti-democratic, and only benefits political parties and candidates. ” Robert B. Talisse, philosophy professor at Vanderbilt

The panel was the first of Fordham’s 2021-22 Speech Acts Series, a collection of discussions focusing on questions relating to free speech, political polarization and the place of truth in the age of social media. There were 413 registrants for the event, including faculty, staff, students and alumni.

McDermott provided a brief description of how the panel was curated, mentioning how the organizers searched for those able to deliver both practical and philosophical insights into political polarization.

“We were lucky to get Stephanopoulos and Talisse to agree to participate as they are true experts in those fields respectively,” she said. “We also wanted public opinion experts, so we went for millennial experts (to appeal to Fordham students) on either side of the partisan divide.”

The panel opened with Talisse, who defined political polarization as “a measure of the doctrinal or ideological distance between two political units, and a measure of the ideological distance between

two parties, in which the common ground drops out and there are stalemates, frustrations, distrust and resentments.”

He also touched on belief polarization, a phenomenon impacting a like-minded group in which more radical versions of beliefs are expressed with more confidence.

“As we shift into more extreme views with our allies, our views towards them also shift; we see them as dangerous, ignorant and in need of diagnosis,” Talisse said. “We become more invested in the likeness of those who we see as members of our group; when the group becomes more alike, we become more interested in fixing the border between in-group and out-group.”

Talisse referred to Liz Cheney’s ousting from a leadership position in the Republican Party as an example of how belief polarization leads members of a party to become invested in punishing those whom they view as disloyal and expressing more negative and punitive views toward them than the opposing party.

“Partisanship becomes a lifestyle: Where you do your grocery shopping, what car you drive, and how many maps you own are all political choices,” Talisse said. “We believe democracy can flourish only when everyone is on my side, which is profoundly anti-democratic, and only benefits political parties and candidates.”

“ It may seem like

younger generations are loud and angry, but it’s because they are underrepresented. ”

Roshni Nedungadi, founding partner at HIT Strategies

Soltis Anderson, a political pollster and author, emphasized citizens’ concerns about their survival, specifically their belief that the other side winning would be damaging to the U.S. “There is this belief that the other side is not just out to get you but that they have the tools to get you. How do you signal to

INSIYA GANDHI/THE OBSERVER

Fordham hosted the first in a series of events on questions about free speech and polarization in the world of social media.

the other side that you are not trying to harm them? We as a country should try to listen,” Anderson said.

Nedungadi, a pollster who runs focus groups with young people, commented that political polarization among younger generations is declining because they are less likely to strongly identify with a major party. She attributes this decrease in political identification to a lack of generational representation in Congress and other electoral positions.

“It may seem like younger generations are loud and angry, but it’s because they are underrepresented; they believe that protesting and direct action are more effective than voting,” Nedungadi said.

A solution she believes in is electing politicians who can explain the provisions and policies they want to implement, while also factoring in the increasingly diverse populations that assign greater importance to racial and social issues.

Stephanopoulos, a co-anchor at Good Morning America and former senior adviser to the president for policy and strategy during the Clinton administra-

tion, recounted the contrast between the political climate while campaigning in 1992 and today.

“Clinton ran against the party from within the party; a big part of it was about persuading Republicans and Independents to vote for him,” he said. “In current presidential and congressional campaigns, the goal is to mobilize the voters who already agree with you. The effort to reach out and persuade the other side to vote for you is ineffective.”

He also spoke about the presence of feedback loops, in which individuals receive their news from one site or channel that circulates the same information from politicians of similar alignments.

“We cannot even come to an agreement on a common set of facts to have a conversation; lies take hold in a profound way. Even in a debate, we no longer feel the need to appeal to the other side,” Stephanopoulos said.

In regard to combating polarization, Nedungadi suggested leading with information.

“It’s tough because everyone sees their information as truthful and factual these days, but the more that we can get accu-

rate, truthful information out there into the public and have people thinking about it and understanding it, the better off we’ll be in terms of having a foundation for those conversations,” she said.

Adding to that, Talisse recommended engaging in activities other than politics to combat polarization.

“Politics is supposed to be an instrument for something; politics cannot be everything because it has to be in the service of something else, and that needs to be reaffirmed right now,” he said.

Jaylon Abad-Zaragoza, Fordham College at Lincoln Center ’22, attended the panel in person. He expressed his appreciation for the discussion, which he viewed as necessary and topical.

“I thought that it was a very necessary conversation to have today, especially after the last four or five years. We’ve had this dilemma that has been growing on us and, up until recently, it’s been something that we willingly and unwillingly choose to ignore,” he said. “It was a conversation that was long overdue.”

Fordham Hosts Biggest Event Since Beginning of the Pandemic PRESIDENT’S BALL from page 1

ALICE MORENO/THE OBSERVER

The Presidentʼs Ball was held outside under a tent on Edwards Parade.

The event began at 9 p.m. Bianca Ortega, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25, said her favorite part of the night was getting ready in her friend’s room and hearing each other’s opinions on their dresses, hair and makeup.

Lincoln Center students had the option to take a bus to and from the event, which left in front of McKeon Hall at 7:45 p.m. and arrived at Rose Hill by 9 p.m. Many Lincoln Center students stopped for photos before heading to the dance. Because of COVID-19 precautions, the event was held outside under a large tent. In the past, the dance has been held in Lombardi Center.

Fordham hired James Tubridy from DJs@Work.

Tubridy co-founded the company with his brother and Fordham alumnus, Tim Tubridy, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’99.

Abigail Robejsek, FCRH ’22, said that she last attended the dance her sophomore year. The biggest differences for her this

year were that it was outside, and that she had to greet a lot more staff coming into the dance.

“ I feel so old after a

year of COVID. I feel like a chaperone at a prom, I just feel like an old woman. I’m seeing all these kids who I’ve never seen on campus before. ”

Addison Kitrel, FCRH ’22

Another student, Addison Kitrel, FCRH ’22, said she chose to attend the event again this year because it was fun when she went during her first and second years and this year was her last opportunity to attend before she graduates.

“I feel so old after a year of COVID. I feel like a chaperone at a prom, I just feel like an old woman. I’m seeing all these kids who I’ve never seen on campus before,” Kitrel said.

For many Lincoln Center firstyear students, the President’s Ball was their first introduction to the Rose Hill campus. The first-years didn’t know quite what to expect from the event, especially since many did not experience homecoming, prom or concerts over the past two years.

Zoe Mwanza, FCLC ’25, said that she anticipated that there would be more tables. She also thought it would be a lot more formal.

With the event ending at 1 a.m., most of the students left by 12:45 a.m.

Michael Trerotola, special assistant to the president, was in charge of working with vendors and campus partners to plan and execute the President’s Ball. He said that “everyone seemed to have a great time,” and received a lot of thanks from students for hosting the ball again this year.

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER October 27, 2021

News

5

Theater Club President Acknowledges Safety Risk THEATER CLUB from page 1

Fordham Theater students at Lincoln Center are expected to wear masks in all performances unless they stand 12 feet apart on stage at all times and get tested for COVID-19 every night. Photos from The Mimes and Mummers performance of “Footloose” show actors touching and standing closely together on stage without masks.

“Am I to believe that there are different protocols for dealing with COVID-19 in performanc-

“ We believed we had

followed the policies and guidelines put in place by the University to its fullest extent, though we recognize our performances do not reflect the precautions and safety measures we undertook to protect our community. ”

Griffin LaMarche, GSBRH ʼ22 and president of The Mimes and Mummers

es at Rose Hill versus Lincoln Center? Is this because LC has a theatre program and Mimes and Mummers is a club?,” Orlando Whitcomb-Warden, FCLC ’22 and a student in the Fordham theatre program, said in an email sent to various school deans. “Why are our productions held to different standards, especially in a large space like Pope Auditorium with plenty of space for distancing on stage?”

Griffin LaMarche, Gabelli School of Business at Fordham College at Rose Hill ’22 and president of The Mimes and Mummers, said the executive board of The Mimes and Mummers emphasized that the unmasked performance was not a misstep by their directors, club members, cast, crew, or by the Rose Hill administration.

“Full responsibility falls on the executive board and the executive board only and we are reviewing our protocol with the Rose Hill administration to ensure we can best protect

ourselves in adherence to Fordham’s COVID-19 policy,” LaMarche said.

LaMarche said the group performed Footloose under the assumption that masks could be taken off for performances if all performers were vaccinated and adhered to strict COVID-19 protocols during the rehearsal process.

“We believed we had followed the policies and guidelines put in place by the University to its fullest extent, though we recognize our performances do not reflect the precautions and safety measures we undertook to protect our community,” LaMarche said.

He said the cast and crew participated in weekly PCR testing, mandatory mask wearing during rehearsals and at all times for non-performers, and a self-imposed quarantine for the full cast and crew during the tech week of our show.

LaMarche said the decision to adhere to COVID-19 policies during rehearsal but perform unmasked was made in line with a precedent the club leaders believed was set by other extracurricular clubs on campus.

“While we recognize this was not reflected in our performances, we want to emphasize that The Mimes and Mummers fully adhered to Fordham Rose Hill’s COVID-19 policy throughout the entire rehearsal process, and took extra precautions to ensure the safety of our cast, crew, audience, and University during our performances,” LaMarche said.

“We realize now that we were responsible for double checking with the University.”

Confusion in the FLC Theatre Department At FLC, a false rumor began to spread during the past two weeks that a student rehearsing for the theatre department’s mainstage show “The Drag” had a vaccine exemption, prompting new protocols for masking on stage.

On Oct. 21, the theatre faculty and staff sent an email to everyone in the program acknowledging the rumor and explaining new safety steps they had planned after hearing the rumor. They stated that they decided to pause rehearsal to have thoughtful conversation and “ensure the safety of those in the room and those they go home to.”

The email also stated that the theatre program immediately requested KN95 masks from administration, as well as a COVID-19 compliance officer (CCO) to be present at all rehearsals. A CCO enforces COVID-19 protocols during theater operations and works with members of the theatre department to develop plans in the case of a COVID-19 outbreak.

“We were immediately supplied with masks, but our requests for testing and a CCO were denied,” the email stated. “The Administration also informed us that with a vaccine-exempt person in the company, the performances had to be closed to the public.”

“ It makes sense to have a strict testing protocol during the running of shows that are open to non-Fordham audience members. ”

Eva Gelman, FCLC ’24

The faculty and staff also stated that they were discussing the possibility of hiring a CCO at their own expense and spreading the word that performances would only be open to the Fordham community.

Hours before sending the email to the theatre program, faculty and staff received word from the administration that verified there was no vaccine-exempt person rehearsing for “The Drag.”

“We are therefore moving forward asking the Administration to be able to proceed with the performances being open to the public and are confirming if we are able to move forward without a Covid Compliance Officer in the room,” said the email from Fordham theater faculty and staff.

The theater faculty and staff emphasized that they will communicate frequently with administrators and work toward more transparency.

Many FLC theatre program students still expressed discontent with the situation.

CLARA GERLACH/THE OBSERVER

The theatre in Collins Auditorium where Mimes and Mummers held their production of “Footloose” without any cast members wearing masks.

“I think there are a number of things that Fordham Theatre could do about COVID that would be far more effective than this, given that people in the department obviously interact outside of mainstage rehearsal. The biggest thing for me would be to implement a testing protocol for people that are in the theatre department,” Eva Gelman, FCLC ’24, said. “It’s just true that people in theater classes interact more closely than those outside of the program, and it makes sense to have a strict testing

protocol during the running of shows that are open to non-Fordham audience members.”

The theater faculty and staff reminded students to remain diligent with safety protocols to ensure the safety of “our community, invited guests, and their close contacts.”

The Mimes and Mummers will be performing “Rumors” late in the fall semester and Fordham Theatre will be performing “The Drag” from Nov. 10 through Nov. 20.

Allie Stofer and Joe Kottke contributed reporting to this story.

McKnight Announces Departure From Fordham After 7 Years

After serving as assistant dean for sophomores, Mica McKnight steps down to serve at Hofstra Business School MCKNIGHT from page 1

McKnight said her original interest in an administrative position at Fordham stemmed from her desire to simplify college life for students and ease the stressors that are associated with sophomore year.

“ I met the most amazing people that are just so impactful on my life. ”

Mica McKnight, former assistant dean for sophomores

“Being there to help students navigate that process (accessing resources and managing course load) was something that I found really really interesting, and what I really loved the most about the job,” she said.

Ash Daniels, FCLC ’24, noted a disconnect between students and the administration, stating, “we don’t really know about the re-

COLIN SHEELEY/THE OBSERVER

McKnight is stepping down after being the sophomore class dean for five years.

sources we can seek help from — we just speak to those who we directly interact with from classes.”

Daniels underscored that he

hopes for the best for McKnight in her future endeavors but wishes that he was introduced to her as a resource.

“I would’ve loved to have connected with her because she seems really accomplished, but unfortunately, I was never able to meet her,” he said.

Due to the inability to meet with students during the 202021 academic year, McKnight noted the personal responsibilities that she navigated, including giving birth to her son in February of 2020, while continuing to fulfill her professional obligations.

“It was a challenge, but I think that I’m the kind of person where I like to learn lessons through each and every challenge that’s presented to me,” McKnight explained. “There are so many different ways that we can connect with each other ... if we lean into that, we can really, honestly and truly tap into something that’s more dynamic than what we’re used to.”

While reflecting on her time as the assistant dean, McKnight shared that she will miss the relationships she formed with both students and faculty.

“I met the most amazing people that are just so impactful on my life,” McKnight said.

McKnight will continue to pursue her doctorate in educational leadership, administration and policy from Fordham and will serve as an adjunct professor until the end of the fall semester, teaching foundations of psychology.

Until the search for the new dean is complete, McKnight advised Hussein to be tuned in to the needs of the sophomore class and identify concerns that are unique to them.

Despite her departure, McKnight emphasized that she will continue to keep in touch with her students and colleagues.

“I just had so many great times at Fordham, be it from my wonderful colleagues that are now friends or my students that at some point will maybe be colleagues,” she said. “I’m still teaching this semester (at Fordham), and if I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t be still teaching there.”

Sports & Health

Sports & Health Editor Patrick Moquin sports@fordhamobserver.com health@fordhamobserver.com October 27, 2021

THE OBSERVER

The Opioid Crisis Is Still Here — Even in a Pandemic is widely used to treat an overdose patient by immediately blocking the effects of the opioid.

By ANUSHA IMRAN Staff Writer

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken over headlines for nearly two years, but ongoing epidemics in the world are still as relevant as they were before. For three decades, the opioid crisis has harmed communities around the country and continues to grow more severe.

Opioids are drugs synthesized from opium poppy plants and include heroin, synthetic opioids (fentanyl), oxycodone, hydrocodone and many more. As of 2019, 70% of drug overdose deaths involved an opioid, a rate that has increased sixfold since 1999.

Rates Since COVID-19

When It All Started The opioid epidemic has been divided into three waves which occurred in 1991, 2010 and 2013, years marked by exceptionally high rates of death from drug overdose. The first wave began when there was an increase in prescription opioids for pain treatments paired with misleading information from pharmaceutical companies on its low addiction rate.

Soon enough, opioids were promoted for non-cancer related pain, resulting in 86% of opioid users being non-cancer patients. Loose prescription tendencies caused vulnerable groups to become addicted to a strong drug despite little-to-no research on aftercare.

The second wave was characterized by heroin abuse as the drug was made harder to obtain by prescription and was largely sold in the illegal market. The number of deaths related to heroin overdose increased by 286% from 2002 through 2013.

ANDREW DRESSNER/THE OBSERVER

Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray, is a life-saving medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Unsafe heroin injections also caused an uptick in other diseases like HIV/AIDS, skin infections, and infections of the bloodstream and heart. This was due to the unsanitary and unsterilized methods of using heroin.

In 2013, the synthetic opioid market was introduced to fentanyl, which is very fatal in small quantities. When mixed and replaced with other drugs, it can cause immediate overdose.

The Mechanism Opioids and the euphoric effect they have on individuals can be understood by the neu-

robiology of dependence and addiction. Once the drug travels through the bloodstream and to the brain, the chemical components bind to proteins called mu-opioid receptors. These proteins are on opiate-sensitive neurons, which initiate a trigger response associated with feelings of pleasure, reward and relief.

Physicians prescribe opioids to help alleviate critical pain due to cancer, post-operational recovery or extreme coughing. When used in the absence of pain, the drug activates a reward process in the brain that causes motivation for repeated recreational drug use.

Opioids block any pain signals sent from the brain, resulting in large amounts of dopamine to be released. Opioid misuse can initiate a chain of possible effects from slowed breathing to hypoxia and even permanent brain damage. Hypoxia is described as a condition in which scarce amounts of oxygen reach the brain for proper function and circulation.

Medicines like buprenorphine and methadone can help people break their addiction to opioids as they bind to the same opioid receptors to minimize the withdrawal side effects and cravings. Injectable naloxone, or the nasal spray,

There has been a steep rise in the number of drug overdose deaths since the height of the pandemic. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, from December 2019 through December 2020, more than 93,000 Americans have died from an overdose, a 29.4% increase from the previous year.

The daily deaths from overdose were close to the daily deaths from COVID-19.

Years of misleading information from Purdue Pharma and other drug companies, economic recession and constant changes in pain management has led many to reexamine the opioid crisis response. Responses by state and local governments were questioned after an increased prevalence of cheaper illicit opioids like fentanyl and heroin.

Soon the initiation of medication-assisted therapies and overdose prevention workshops increased, and physicians were given approval to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder in April 2021. Rahul Gupta has been appointed the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under the Biden administration to increase financing for addiction prevention and treatment.

Opioid overdose continues to be a major health issue alongside COVID-19. Recent efforts by the federal government to curtail the impact of the opioids are just another chapter in one of the country’s most prolonged public health crises.

What Science Says About Self-Talk

It is perfectly normal to talk to yourself, although the practice can become unhealthy From an internal dialogue to audibly talking to your reflection in the mirror, we all communicate with ourselves in some form or another.

Those who vocally talk to themselves are no less

normal than anyone else. In fact, talking to yourself has been linked to sharpen memory and increase one’s overall self-confidence.

Self talk can become unhealthy, and it is important to distinguish when it crosses this line.

What It Means To Talk to Yourself Self-talk is defined as the constant internal dialogue that most, if not all human beings experience. Self-talk stems from the combination of our conscious and unconscious desires, coupled with our response to external stimuli. While psychologists and neuroscientists still struggle to fully understand the inner workings of the human brain, it is widely accepted that the prefrontal cortex and amygdala greatly influence one’s sense of identity on a personal and social level.

Human beings are inherently social creatures. Compared to other mammals, the human brain has a highly developed prefrontal cortex that houses our cognitive and social abilities. This segment of the brain houses our personalities and forms a major part of what constitutes our sense of personal and social identity.

Another uniquely complex brain segment, the amygdala, regulates our anxiety and stress responses, such as our fight-orflight response. Humans’ amygdalas play a major part in our social interactions, and are re-

sponsible for the feeling of anxiety, from “primal” instincts like sudden loud noises to complicated social events.

When Self-Talk Turns Bad Those with lower self-esteem and who experience more stress are more likely to foster a negative dialogue with themselves. This creates a positive feedback loop where one is consistently overwhelming oneself with stress and anxiety due to recurrent negative thoughts.

“ Recognizing, examin-

ing and re-shaping our internal worlds ... is one of the aspirational goals for counseling and therapy ”

Jeffrey Ng, Director of Counseling and Psychological Services

Jeffrey Ng, director of Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS), reassured that “we all have these experiences of ‘negative’ self-talk” due to our social nature as human beings. It is when we begin to believe these intrusive thoughts that they can degrade our feelings of self-worth.

“This kind of talk usually originates from external sources,” such as family members, friends

or even complete strangers, explained Ng. Social media and virtual forms of communication can be equally damaging for one’s mental health, as exposure to artificially tailored lifestyles seen online are inevitably internalized.

These self-directed criticisms often result in “anxiety, depression, decreased self-esteem, distorted perceptions, and general feelings of distress,” according to Ng. How to Promote Positive Self Talk Ng recommends building positive inner dialogue with yourself to “facilitate the repeated, non-judgmental awareness of our negative self-talk.” He recommended mindful activities like yoga, meditation or exercise which help build a positive self image and develop a better relationship with oneself.

Thought replacement, literally the phasing out of a typically negative thought with a more positive one, is a common technique taught in cognitive behavioral therapy, and has been proven to alleviate anxiety even in individuals suffering from anxiety disorders.

“Recognizing, examining and re-shaping our internal worlds (our thoughts, feelings, self-narratives, self-dialogue, perceptions, etc) is one of the aspirational goals for counseling and therapy, which is one of the primary services that we offer at CPS,” Ng said. The university offers therapy sessions with CPS staff members on weekdays.

GRAPHICS BY MADDIE SANDHOLM/THE OBSERVER

By GUS DUPREE Asst. Sports & Health Editor

CPS additionally offers counseling sessions and mindfulness workshops, which according to Ng, “focus on developing non-judgmental awareness of our internal experiences, increasing our moment to moment attention, and detaching from all the external ‘noise’ that contribute to our negative self-talk.”

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER October 27, 2021

Sports & Health

7

Football Escapes Lehigh Upset in 35-28 Comeback

Rams score 21 unanswered points in fourth quarter to take down winless Mountain Hawks

By PATRICK MOQUIN Sports & Health Editor

The Fordham football team avoided a massive upset against Lehigh University (LU) on Saturday, Oct. 23, overcoming a 28-14 deficit in the fourth quarter to win 35-28. In front of a sellout crowd at Coffey Field on Family Weekend, the Rams trailed throughout the contest but scored three straight touchdowns in the final 13 minutes to defeat the Mountain Hawks, who are now 0-7 in 2021.

After the game, Head Coach Joe Conlin said he was happy with the team’s last-ditch effort despite “a lot of mistakes” throughout the game.

“I think we came out with a lack of energy, like maybe the game was a foregone conclusion,” Conlin said. “Lehigh played a great game ... and outcoached us, to be honest. But we found a way to pull it out at the end.”

“ If you can keep

developing those habits, good things are going to happen, so we lucked out with a huge play in the game. ”

Joe Conlin, head football coach

Based on rudimentary statistics, the game between these two teams was not supposed to be close. In their two previous home games, the Rams outscored their opponents by 94 combined points. Meanwhile, Lehigh was entering off a bye week after six straight defeats.

The losing streak for the Mountain Hawks does not fully capture their ineptitude; as of Oct. 22, no Lehigh player had yet managed to score a touchdown in a 2021 football game.

But Oct. 23 was a new day, and on the team’s first possession against Fordham, running back Zaythan Hill, LU ’23, finished a six-play drive with a 28-yard scamper into the end zone.

In Hill’s last game on Oct. 9 against the University of Pennsylvania, he had -6 rushing yards and the team lost 20-0. In two minutes and 18 seconds against Fordham, he had 35 yards and a touchdown, and the Mountain Hawks were ahead 7-0.

After nearly two months without a touchdown for Le-

high, Fordham fans seemed unconcerned by the apparent fluke.

When quarterback Tim DeMorat, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’22, found Garrett Cody, FCRH ’23, for a 65-yard touchdown on the Rams’ first offensive play, the cheers were more expectant than ecstatic.

Fordham was doing what it was supposed to do, and after the first score came so easily, an avalanche seemed inevitable. Although they had overwhelmed Wagner and Bucknell after similarly explosive starts, it became increasingly clear that the Mountain Hawks would not be so easily daunted.

On every single completed drive of the half, Lehigh advanced the ball at least 50 yards down the field. In stark contrast to Fordham’s high-octane style, the Mountain Hawks depended on checkdown passes from quarterback Dante Perri, LU ’24, and a strong running game through Hill. It was extremely effective, and Lehigh could have easily won the game if not for multiple crippling errors.

On the Mountain Hawks’ second and fourth drives of the game, they drove deep into Fordham territory to set up easy field goals from 21 and 22 yards, respectively. Kicker Dylan Van Dusen, LU ’23, missed both attempts, losing the confidence of his coaches in the process.

In between the missed kicks, Lehigh managed to score another touchdown in the first quarter on a three-yard pass to take a 14-7 lead. With three minutes remaining in the second, the team had another chance to score at Fordham’s 2-yard line. On fourth-and-one, the Mountain Hawks elected to go for it instead of attempting another field goal. Running back RaShawn Allen, LU ’22, fell short, turning the ball over to the Rams.

After DeMorat’s first throw of the game to Cody, Fordham’s offense completely stalled for most of the first half. But as the second quarter came to a close, the Rams finally capitalized on one of their opponent’s mistakes, driving 97 yards down the field on just six plays and scoring a touchdown on a 17-yard pass from DeMorat to Dequece Carter, FCRH ’22.

The score was tied at 14, but there was no question that Lehigh was outplaying its favored opponent. Though DeMorat was still completing passes, Fordham’s running backs only managed 17 total yards from scrimmage. It was highly improbable that the home team could even manage

ALYSSA DAUGHDRILL/THE OBSERVER

Trey Wilson III, GSBRH ’23, struggled for most of the game but made the necessary adjustments in the fourth quarter.

ALICE MORENO/THE OBSERVER

Top: The Rams played for a sold-out crowd of Fordham students and their families during Family Weekend.

Bottom: Quarterback Tim DeMorat, FCRH ’22, prepares to pass to another player downfield.

a tie with 25% possession time, and if not for several costly mistakes, Lehigh likely would have been ahead by multiple scores.

The majority of the second half proceeded like the first, as Fordham’s offense continued to struggle and its defense became increasingly porous. Running back Zach Davis, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences ’22, briefly took over for Trey Wilson III, Gabelli School of Business at Rose Hill (GSBRH) ’23, and proved similarly ineffective in his first appearance since Sept.

4. In the entire third quarter, he managed to rush for two yards on three carries.

While the Mountain Hawks grounded Fordham’s backfield, Hill continued his incredible day with two more rushing scores for Lehigh. By the end of the game, the senior rushed for 162 yards and three touchdowns on 27 carries — the lion’s share in a 260-yard game on the ground alone for the Mountain Hawks.

His final score put Lehigh ahead 28-14 with 14:56 remaining in the fourth quarter.

With little time, Fordham had to respond immediately and drove down the field in less than two minutes before scoring on an 11-yard scramble by DeMorat. Down 28-21, the Rams kicked off to the Mountain Hawks in the hopes of a short drive.

Instead, Lehigh continued to employ its methodical style of offense, burning five minutes off the clock through short passes and long runs. But just as the Mountain Hawks reached their opponent’s 15-yard line with an opportunity to effectively end the game, they committed one final blunder.

On third down, backup running back Jack DiPietro, LU ’24, was stuffed at the line of scrimmage by linebacker James Conway, FCRH ’25, who forced the ball out as he

drove the runner deeper into the pile. Of Conway’s 21 tackles in the game, this one made the difference, and the bleachers shook while a frenzy on the field ensued.

Players from both teams jumped into the fray as Fordham players frantically signaled that they had gained possession.

“Defensive coaches had been saying to the guys all game, ‘strip attempt, strip attempt, strip attempt,’ so Jimmy went for it,” Conlin said after the game.

“If you can keep developing those habits, good things are going to happen, so we lucked out with a huge play in the game.”

With DeMorat under center, the Rams have demonstrated that they have a puncher’s chance in any situation.

With the ball back in DeMorat’s hands, the Rams began to march.

At three points in Fordham’s 13-play, 85-yard drive, the team faced third down without a hope of rushing to convert. Each time, DeMorat connected with Fotis Kokosioulis, FCRH ’22, to keep the comeback alive.

“I was just looking for an open guy,” DeMorat explained after the game. “But Fotis does a good job getting open.”

With 3:57 remaining, DeMorat tied the game at 28 on an 11-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jack Lynch, GSBRH ’22.

With the game in the balance, Lehigh failed to mount a challenge and could not gain a first down in its 30-second drive.

The Mountain Hawks punted the ball back to Fordham with 3:27 remaining.

Though DeMorat led the team through its comeback, Fordham only began to score when Wilson III finally came alive in the backfield. The running back earned multiple first downs to extend both drives and on the game-winning score, he rushed four times on five plays before DeMorat took it himself from two yards out to give the Rams a 35-28 lead.

With 1:45 remaining, the Mountain Hawks’ last challenge failed when Jesse Bramble, FCRH ’22, forced a fumble to end Lehigh’s possession. Wilson III earned one final first down on an 11-yard run to put the Rams in victory formation.

On a day in which the game script was completely against him, DeMorat threw for 401 yards, three passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns, including one in the air and another on the ground in the final eight minutes to win the game.

In the team’s fifth straight victory since Sept. 25, Fordham remained undefeated against Patriot League competition with three games remaining on the schedule. The Rams’ 0-3 start to the 2021 season has been long forgotten, as they now have a 5-3 overall record.

If Fordham emerges from its bye week without improving on this performance, the team’s chances against superior opponents like the College of the Holy Cross or Colgate University are remote. But with DeMorat under center, the Rams have demonstrated that they have a puncher’s chance in any situation.

The offense came alive and the defense was more timely than ever as the Rams barely escaped a humiliating defeat.

But as the Rams rest after eight straight weeks of football, the Patriot League championship remains firmly within reach.

Fordham Begins Stronger Enforcement of Mask Policy o

A study conducted by The Observer reveals that one-third of students in the Garden-Le Most students unmasked with food: 20 out of 49 seen on Oct. 14 at 12 p.m.

55

50

Most students masked: 25 out of 42 seen on Oct. 14 at 5 p.m.

45

40

35

30

25

Fewest students unmasked without food: 0 out of 20 seen on Oct. 13 at 12 p.m.

20

15

10

5

0 Wednesday 10/13 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

Thursday 10/14 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

By JOE KOTTKE News Editor

Fordham’s return to fully in-person operations for the fall 2021 semester was contingent on three factors: a vaccination requirement, daily health screenings and a mask requirement. Despite these precautions, Lincoln Center experienced a spike in COVID-19 cases in September, and the campus reached its highest case count of the pandemic so far.

As of Sept. 19, more than 99% of undergraduate students are vaccinated, and daily symptom screenings through VitalCheck are required to enter buildings on campus. The implementation of mandatory mask-wearing in common spaces is not as enforced — yet.

“ We are not looking to make this a police state. We are at the point now where we are trying to get folks in sync with the protocol and the signage is an initial gentle reminder. ”

Jenifer Campbell, dean of students at Lincoln Center

The Observer conducted a study of mask-wearing habits in the Garden-Level Lounge by Argo Tea from Oct. 13 to Oct. 22. Every weekday at 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., students were counted and grouped into

Friday 10/15 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

three categories: wearing a mask properly, not wearing a mask properly but engaging in active eating or drinking, and not wearing a mask properly and not engaging in active eating or drinking.

There were 549 people counted in the data collection period during the 16 observances. The percentage of individuals who wore masks correctly was 45.4%, while 22.4% of individuals were observed not wearing masks properly but engaging in active eating or drinking.

Almost one-third of the students observed, 32.2%, were not wearing masks properly and not engaging in active eating or drinking.

The university’s code of conduct states that masks must be worn indoors at all times unless the person is alone in a room or in their residence hall room. Students, faculty and staff who violate the policy may face sanctions by the university.

Jenifer Campbell, dean of students at Lincoln Center, clarified that if you are “actively eating” you are able to take your mask off.

“If you are a slow eater you need to put your mask back on between bites. If you are actively engaging in a bite or sip, you can take off your mask, but once that ends, the expectation is that you put it back on,” she said.

Several students included in the study shared their opinions on Fordham’s COVID-19 safety precautions and how they feel about the mixture of mask status in the Argo Tea area.

“I feel comfortable taking my mask off in Argo Tea to eat since it is one of Fordham Lincoln Center’s few indoor communal spaces,” Nusaiba Chakladar, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’24, said.

Monday 10/18 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

Lev Yakovlev, FCLC ’23, said he feels comfortable not wearing his mask in Argo Tea and that he feels “more comfortable in spaces without masks than with them.”

Another student, Abdelkader Faid, FCLC ’23, said he wears a mask everywhere on campus besides Argo Tea and believes that Fordham should make rules more apparent to students.

“ Where we are right now,

in Argo, the policy is that you can take your mask off to eat and drink but then replace it when you’re done because this is a dining area.

Students have taken that as ‘when I’m sitting at the table I don’t have to be wearing my mask,’ and that’s not the case. ”

Alden Kennedy, FCLC ’22

On Oct. 22, one week after Faid expressed the need for clearer communication of expectations, signage was placed around different communal spaces on campus. The signs read: “Masks must be worn at all times (unless actively eating or drinking),” four of which were placed in the Argo Tea Garden-Level Lounge.

Tuesday 10/19 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

W 12

Campbell said she worked with Facilities to place signage in common areas on campus where students’ adherence to the mask requirement is “more relaxed” than she is comfortable with.

Argo Tea, the Ram Café, the Student Lounge and the third-floor lounge of Lowenstein are some of the areas where Campbell said signs will be hung to remind students of mask-wearing expectations.

“We are not looking to make this a police state,” she said. “We are at the point now where we are trying to get folks in sync with the protocol and the signage is an initial gentle reminder.”

Natalia Zabala, FCLC ’23, agreed that a reminder could be beneficial, especially during peak times when “people need to be better at putting their masks on.” She said the spacing of the tables helps her feel more comfortable when Argo Tea is crowded.

The average capacity of Argo Tea during the 16 observances was 34 people. The highest capacity recorded was 52 people on Thursday, Oct. 21 at 12 p.m. during the activity block.

Alden Kennedy, FCLC ’22, said she is frustrated by the lack of enforcement of the mask-wearing policy.

“In Argo, the policy is that you can take your mask off to eat and drink but then replace it when you’re done because this is a dining area,” Kennedy said. “Students have taken that as ‘when I’m sitting at the table I don’t have to be wearing my mask,’ and that’s not the case.”

Some students, such as Boone Sommers, FCLC ’25, said they feel comfortable taking their masks off in Argo Tea when sitting with friends or roommates. Sommers said he always wears a mask when he is working with students he does not know as well.

on Campus

evel Lounge were violating university policy Masked

t f e d

t n s

t y e d e

a s .

s f

n t e g y

, g g d g

food or drink

Unmasked without food or drink

177

were not wearing masks and were not actively eating or drinking

Fewest students masked: 4 out of 17 seen on Oct. 22 at 5 p.m.

Fewest students unmasked with food: 0 out of 17 seen on Oct. 22 at 5 p.m.

Wednesday 10/20 2 p.m.

5 p.m.

n e n

Unmasked with

Most students unmasked without food: 25 out of 43 seen on Oct. 20 at 5 p.m.

Out of 549 students,

Thursday 10/21 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

After a grace period of one to two weeks of the signage’s implementation, Campbell said the university is going to move to fullscale enforcement of student conduct — placing sanctions on students who violate the mask-wearing requirement.

Campbell said that, along with her colleagues, she has been reminding students to properly wear their masks throughout the school year. They are going to transition to handing out indicators to students as a warning that they are in violation of university policy.

After receiving a warning, a first offense requires the individual to complete a learning project, such as writing a research or reflection paper on the role young people have played in the transmission of COVID-19 “We are trying to get students on board with our expectations, but after a certain point — without question — you will be given sanctions,” Campbell said.

“If we see individuals who are repeat offenders, that is going to kick in the student conduct process.”

As of Oct. 15, Campbell said she had not placed sanctions on any students. If an individual is in violation of student

ALEXA STEGMULLER/THE OBSERVER

A student is seen not wearing their mask properly while eating. Multiple students in the background are seen not wearing masks while not eating, as were 32.2% of students observed in the study. The university plans on enforcing mask policies more strictly in the future.

Friday 10/22 12 p.m.

5 p.m.

conduct, Campbell said their name and Fordham ID number will be collected.

After receiving a warning, a first offense requires the individual to complete a learning project, such as writing a research or reflection paper on the role young people have played in the transmission of COVID-19, according to Campbell.

She also said they will need to provide an action plan to follow the university’s COVID-19 policy.

A second offense is met with harsher sanctions, which Campbell said is in order to keep the Fordham community safe. If the student who commits a second violation of the mask-wearing requirement is a resident, they can be placed on residence hall probation, which means any future violation of residence hall regulations or the code of conduct will result in dismissal from university housing. If the student is a commuter, they can be placed on activities probation, prohibiting them from participating in on-campus activities.

Campbell said if the violations of a student become egregious, “it can go beyond that.”

Kana Seiki, FCLC ’24, said she encourages other students to be more mindful about wearing masks in common spaces.

As a theater student, she said risking a switch to virtual classwork after waiting a year and a half for in-person performances is not worth it.

As flu season approaches, Campbell also emphasized the importance of students being as safe as possible to reduce the possibility of a significant outbreak on campus that could run the potential of Fordham being unable to continue with in-person operations.

Allie Stofer, Chloe Zelch and Maryam Beshara contributed reporting to this story.

ANDREW DRESSNER/THE OBSERVER

Two students are seen following the university’s mask policies. Students are permitted to take off their masks while actively eating but must keep it on at all other times.

In total,

177

were not wearing masks without food or drink

249

were wearing masks

123

were not wearing masks with food or drink

Opinions

Vaccine Patent Protections and the Hypocrisy of US Health Care

AIDAN LANE Asst. Features Editor

This past May, President Joe Biden announced that his administration would support overriding the American-made COVID-19 vaccine patent protections to combat the pandemic more effectively.

Voiding patent protections would allow international manufacturers and governments to learn the development and distribution methods that have enabled Pfizer and Moderna to make effective COVID-19 vaccines so quickly.

One of the major reasons for the low vaccination rates in developing countries is that they have yet to make their own vaccines. Access to patent-protected development techniques would mean these countries could spend less time and money on development and more on production and distribution of vaccines.

When I heard the announcement, I was relieved. I thought the pandemic would finally end, and I was proud that Biden was choosing to support humanity over profits. With only 48.7% of the world population and 3.1% of people in low-income countries having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, overriding patent protections is an essential step to increasing COVID-19 immunity worldwide.

There’s one big problem, however: Undercutting patent protections is a nonstarter to executives at major pharmaceutical companies. Manufacturers like Pfizer and Moderna have refused to release patent protected information, even when they are pressured to do so by the World Health Organization and the Biden administration.

Why? The answer is extraordinarily simple: money. Their refusal gets to the root of why it’s absolute nonsense for these corporations to call themselves “health care” companies.

Health care executives want nothing more than to line their own pockets.

While these giant conglomerates have positioned themselves publicly as those who keep Americans and their families healthy, they do nothing but cut spending in the name of maximizing profits.

They have no ideological attachment to public health and are only interested in eradicating COVID-19 insofar as the endeavor is profitable.

If they truly care about public health, why do Americans spend more per capita for health care than those in any country on Earth? Why did it take the passage

Opinions Editors Clara Gerlach Ava Peabody opinions@fordhamobserver.com October 27, 2021 THE OBSERVER

Observer the

Editor-in-Chief Katrina Lambert

Managing Editor Grace Getman Online Editors Corbin Gregg Jill Rice Creative Director Roxanne Cubero

48.7%

Treasurer Adam D’Souza Fundraising Coordinator Shagun Rath Advertising Coordinator Luis Castellanos Layout Editor Maddie Sandholm Asst. Layout Editor Janine Baltazar Photo Editors Alyssa Daughdrill Andrew Dressner Asst. Photo Editor Ashley Yiu

INFOGRAPHIC BY AIDAN LANE/THE OBSERVER

of the Affordable Care Act to prohibit insurance companies from denying care to patients with preexisting conditions?

And why do U.S. consumers pay the most for prescriptions per capita than citizens of many other countries?

These questions have been asked by progressive political leaders ad nauseam.

Moderate Democrats, on the other hand, including Biden, continue to legislate as if health care corporations work in the best interest of the American people.

They declined to negotiate the prices of drugs with pharmaceutical companies before they are brought to market, knowing it will drastically reduce prescription costs. Some reasons for this are the constant campaign donations received from these very companies to Democrats and the unfounded fear that progressive policies are unpopular.

It’s important to note that in order for developing countries to actually make use of American vaccine development techniques, they need the expensive infrastructure required to turn that information into vaccinations. The lack of present infrastructure and its associated logistical problems will make it harder for developing nations to utilize overridden patents. Even so, giving foreign entities access to that information is one huge step the U.S. can make to implement the egalitarianism so often espoused by the Biden administration.

Biden’s refusal to declare COVID-19 a national security emergency — the only route he can take to mandate U.S. vaccine manufacturers to give up their

patent protected information — seems to be a political calculation. Although it’s true that such a mandate will result in a protracted legal battle likely to end up at the conservative Supreme Court, which may very well shut it down, the benefits are absolutely worth the risks.

Further, Biden seems more interested in keeping his approval rating from slipping than in supporting public health, even as he promoted such egalitarian rhetoric in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

“There’s a fundamental truth of the 21st century within each of our own countries and as a global community that our own success is bound up in others succeeding as well,” Biden said. “To deliver for our own people, we must also engage deeply with the rest of the world ... Our security, our prosperity and our very freedoms are interconnected, in my view, as never before. And so, I believe we must work together as never before.”

Clearly, this doesn’t apply to ending the pandemic. With this kind of rhetoric, the Biden administration continues to posture itself as aggressively progressive, touting its “Build Back Better” agenda as something that will substantially impact the American people and revive the American economy. But the reality is, as Biden said to the U.N., ending COVID-19 and the related economic crises requires a massive global initiative, like overriding patents. The 160 million vaccines the U.S. has donated across the globe is sadly not enough.

Head Copy Editors Emily Ellis Alyssa Macaluso Asst. Copy Editor Sophia Collender News Editors Joe Kottke Allie Stofer Asst. News Editors Maryam Beshara Chloe Zelch Sports & Health Editor Patrick Moquin Asst. Sports & Health Editors Gus Dupree Chris Murray Opinions Editors Clara Gerlach Ava Peabody Asst. Opinions Editor Jessica Yu Arts & Culture Editors Madeline Katz Olivia Stern Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Isabella Gonzalez Features Editor Mia Agostinelli Asst. Features Editor Aidan Lane Fun & Games Editor Kreena Vora Social Media Editor Samantha Matthews Asst. Social Media Editors Isabella Scipioni Diana Silva Multimedia Editor Alexa Stegmuller Retrospect Hosts Diana Silva Mia Swann IT Manager Zayda Bleecker-Adams

Visual Adviser Molly Bedford Editorial Adviser Anthony Hazell PUBLIC NOTICE No part of The Observer may be reprinted or reproduced without the expressed written consent of The Observer board.

The Observer is published on alternate Wednesdays during the academic year.

Printed by Five Star Printing Flushing, N.Y.

To reach an editor by e-mail, visit www.fordhamobserver.com

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

ADAM SCHULTZ/ BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT VIA FLICKR

Health care manufacturers are hoarding COVID-19 vaccine information; the Biden administration should pressure them to release it.

• Letters to the Editor should be typed and sent to The Observer, Fordham University, 140 West 62nd Street, Room G32, New York, NY 10023, or emailed to editor@fordhamobserver.com. Length should not exceed 200 words. All letters must be signed and include contact information, official titles and year of graduation (if applicable) for verification.

• If submitters fail to include this information, the editorial board will do so at its own discretion.

• The Observer has the right to withhold any submissions from publication and will not consider more than two letters from the same individual on one topic. The Observer reserves the right to edit all letters and submissions for content, clarity and length.

• Opinions articles and commentaries represent the view of their authors. These articles are in no way the views held by the editorial board of The Observer or Fordham University.

• The Editorial is the opinion held by a majority of The Observer’s editorial board. The Editorial does not necessarily reflect the views held by Fordham University.

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER October 27, 2021

Opinions

11

Baring It All: The Injustice of Female Birth Control ALYSSA MACALUSO Head Copy Editor

My mind and body haven’t been my own for over a year.

Violent mood swings sweep over my mind while random cramps rack my body. Migraines last for days, inducing the ingestion of troubling amounts of pain relief medicine and caffeine.

The semi-regular shedding of my uterine lining every month since I was 13 has disappeared completely, leaving me at a loss without this bodily ritual.

I was 19 when I first went on birth control, older than most women who get contraceptives, and I still wasn’t prepared for the extreme changes my body has undergone over the past year. I studied up on different contraceptive options and consoled myself with the knowledge that over 47 million women a year — or about 65% of all U.S. women aged 15-49 who use a contraceptive method — took the same step I was taking.

When I confidently strolled into the gynecologist’s office barely over a year ago, I didn’t realize that there were large parts of this process not explained in Google searches or superficial conversations about whether I’m better at taking pills on a schedule or if it’d be more effective to have an inchand-a-half rod inserted into my arm. My concerns about possible physical, psychological or physiological changes were brushed off by my doctor with a blasé, “You’ll be fine! Most people are.”

I was fine. And I am fine. I was one of the “lucky ones” — though my reactions to birth control sound dramatic, none of them truly inhibit my ability to live a normal life, and I didn’t have to switch contraceptive methods because mine was intolerable, unlike many women who have to “shop around” to find compatible birth control.

I was able to select the kind of birth control I wanted and wasn’t coerced into choosing one I didn’t think would be a good fit, another often-overlooked issue related to women’s reproductive health.

But I’m frustrated by what is not discussed, what is downplayed and dismissed. Getting birth control is no small act. Yet, the process is often pushed into the shadows, marked as taboo in family discussions, scorned and used to judge women for being sexually active.

Contraceptives, or any means used to prevent the sperm from reaching the egg, are a form of birth control.

It’s scary to go through these changes, especially when other women don’t seem to go through them.

Though contraceptives include everything from condoms to hysterectomies, hormonal pills (“birth control pills”) and other hormone-based means of regulation are some of the more widely used contraceptive methods and have even been labeled as a “lifestyle drug.”

According to a report by Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute, “14% of pill users—1.5 million women—rely on them exclusively for noncontraceptive purposes” and “more than half (58%) of all pill users rely on the method, at least in part, for purposes other than pregnancy prevention—meaning that only

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY ROXANNE CUBERO/THE OBSERVER

Health care manufacturers are hoarding COVID-19 vaccine information, even as the Biden administration has pressured them to release it.

42% use the pill exclusively for contraceptive reasons.”

Birth control is not given a place of proper discourse in society. It’s relegated to whispered discussions in school hallways between young girls and searches on private browsers for answers about whichever symptom that’s suddenly manifested after getting on the pill. If you aren’t bleeding abnormally or in incredible amounts of pain because of your birth control, the other side effects — like bleeding more or less or not at all, weight gain, more or less painful cramping, nausea, and headaches — however persistent, are just written off as “part of the experience.”

The unfortunate answer is that lessening the burdensome side effects of birth control for women is just not worth it to scientists or investors.

But they shouldn’t have to be part of the experience. It’s scary to go through these changes, especially when other women don’t seem to go through them. As a young woman on birth control, the people I felt I could confide in were my friends, who could empathize with me about the changes I was going through but who could not provide any clarity on why a drug meant to prevent pregnancy was affecting so many other parts of my body.

Though women go on birth control for many reasons — pregnancy prevention being just one — there is little discussion about the widespread effects of birth control and even less discussion about why there aren’t separate treatments for preventing pregnancy and soothing painful menstrual cramps, two disparate yet common applications of the pill.

Doctors, who are responsible for guiding women through this process, often don’t have these

answers themselves. Determining amenable birth control has been described as a process of “trial and error,” partly because the trial and error data gathered through research trials is absent, leaving doctors with a dearth of large-scale, detailed and accessible data to draw upon when advising women about birth control. The lack of data on birth control is compounded by how generally birth control is prescribed — for everything from painful menstrual cramps and endometriosis to severe acne and anemia prevention.

Contraceptives, especially hormone-regulating ones like most birth control options, often affect other systems of the body.

A 2020 study demonstrated links between women who take the pill and a smaller hypothalamus, the structure in the brain primarily responsible for regulating appetite, body temperature and emotions.

Another study from 2017 found that women taking oral contraceptives experienced a “blunted stress response,” “highlight(ing) that the effects of the birth control pill go far beyond sex hormones” and extend into other systems of the body. The cortisol levels of women taking oral contraceptives actually resembled “the pattern that you see in people with PTSD and people who’ve experienced chronic trauma.”

Why are we okay with this?

How do we live in a society where it’s just accepted that for women to protect themselves reproductively, they have to compromise their mental and physical health? If it were men who were expected to be on birth control, I doubt society would stand for it.

In fact, that’s the primary reason that male birth control isn’t on the market, despite numerous successful and safe trials — because men don’t have to contend with the possibility of pregnancy, there’s “a different risk-benefit analysis when it comes to men using a contraceptive,” one in which “male contraceptives aren’t really allowed to have side effects.” Simply

because women’s bodies contain the mechanisms for growing fetuses, the responsibility of controlling the means of reproduction fall upon us. If women are to be saddled with this responsibility, the least society can do is make birth control less of a wild (and sometimes traumatic) card for women.

So why isn’t there already more research into better birth control to protect women? The unfortunate answer is that lessening the burdensome side effects of birth control for women is just not worth it to scientists or investors. A Bloomberg article from 2019 broke the news of a gel that would act as a “sexon-demand contraceptive for women,” comparable to the ease with which men use condoms as contraceptives, but the product stalled at the production stage because of low revenues and red tape.

My symptoms, as trivial and common as they may seem, should not have to be a part of my daily existence in exchange for avoiding pregnancy.

Its story emulates those of other hampered improvements to birth control, as contraceptives are not as great a source of revenue as, say, cancer or Alzheimer’s treatments. Additionally, very little revenue from contraceptive sales goes back into research on the subject; where most other drugs have roughly 50% of the revenue going toward research and development of the treatment, contraceptives stand at only 2%.

Research on birth control is also not invested in because, at the end of the day, birth control does the bare minimum it was designed to do, side effects notwithstanding: It successfully prevents pregnancy.

In an article from The Conversation, researchers explained that

“Many women will also continue using birth control despite side effects because they don’t want to get pregnant — so many developers may not see improving formulations as necessary.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — that’s how the saying goes, right?

By not improving birth control so its application is more targeted and it creates fewer problems than it solves, we’re further contributing to harmful expectations that women can and should handle more pain than men. This simply isn’t true: There is no world in which a woman should move through her life in pain, however minor or slight, simply because she was prescribed a pill to prevent pregnancy, alleviate acne or relieve cramps. My symptoms, as trivial and common as they may seem, should not have to be a part of my daily existence in exchange for avoiding pregnancy.

I’m not arguing that women should stop using contraceptives or disregard all of the benefits that have come from them — having control over our reproductive systems has allowed women more freedom to choose the futures we want.

But not having information about birth control readily available, disseminated and destigmatized for women is a public health risk that should not be tolerated — and that isn’t tolerated for the opposite sex. Women shouldn’t have to put themselves at such risk just to ensure they won’t become pregnant or to mitigate acne or to help control depression.

We need more transparency when it comes to contraceptives. If the burden’s going to be put on women to look out for their sexual and reproductive health, then we need to normalize talking about the process and the side effects. We need more research to make birth control safer, more predictable and more targeted to the issue it’s meant to address — pregnancy prevention — rather than being a cure-all for a myriad of other medical conditions.

We need to stop forcing women to settle for the bare minimum.

12

Opinions

October 27, 2021 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

Don’t Beg for Oppression

Making space for more marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community JAKE ERACA Staff Writer

Recently, in a scandal-filled special, venerated comedian Dave Chappelle embarked on a transphobic rant, emulating the likes of well-known transphobe J.K. Rowling and embracing the ideology of trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or “TERFs,” as a whole. The hate-filled discourse — thinly veiled as comedy — displays yet again just how far away the LGBTQ+ community truly is from being accepted into mainstream society.

Chappelle’s words not only invoked feelings of anger at the discrimination faced by the LGBTQ+ community, of which I am a part, but led me to truly examine the state of it, especially in a place like NYC. Here, cisgender, white gays are as common as subway stops, and as one of them, I can attest to the density and equity of our section of the community. However, our privileged experience is not shared by all LGBTQ+ people.

In NYC, cis, white, gay men have wealth and protection and enjoy all the trappings of a normal life; there is often nextto-no stigma about the people we choose to love. Here, homonormativity is abundant, and we need to do better.

Why do we maintain the pretense of oppression under such utopian circumstances? As a community, centuries of gays have fought for equality and respect, and on these streets, we, for the most part, have it.

As a white, cis, gay man, I find NYC to be as unproblematic as life can be, with no qualms about whom I choose to love. Representation is abundant in the couples I see on the streets and on the

ALEKS MAGNUSSON VIA PEXELS

The LGBTQ+ community, like other communities, has intersectional differences.

advertisements plastered on every surface. Not a block away from Fordham Lincoln Center’s campus is a plethora of gay bars and restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen.

So for all the world on a silver platter, why are we still claiming to struggle as much as our counterparts who make up the rest of the community? Chappelle’s vicarious rant of blatant transphobia is something trans people are still dealing with in 2021. The same subtle criticisms and barbs thrown at cis, white, gay men would be met with a career ending maelstrom of cancellation.

The same existence in NYC is not afforded to gays of color, queer women or the rest of our community. We are a select overrepresented portion that benefits just enough from the racist, patriarchal systems that govern our society to stay heads and shoulders above the rest of our people. And yet, some white, cis, gay men act like we fight the same fight as them.

Don’t get me wrong, hate is real, and I, just like a vast majority of the LGBTQ+ community, have faced it head-on. However, we experience hate disproportionately less than our Black, trans and nonbinary counterparts.

People of color who experience anti-gay hate crimes find it harder to determine whether the crime was committed as an act of homophobia or as a racial incident. The same issue applies to trans and nonbinary people, as well as women.

As a white, cis, gay man living in a position of extreme privilege, I say it is time to give up the oppression act. I’m tired of the performative Instagram story posts about hate crime statistics referring to black trans women dying regularly and the surface-level acknowledgments during Pride followed immediately by white, cis, gay men doing designer drugs at racist clubs in the most gentrified areas of the city.

As gay men in positions of equity and relative freedom from

The

Rubberneck

the oppressive systems that suppress our community, we need to do better. Too often it i a white gay accepting apologies for hate crimes committed largely against marginalized sects of our community.

It is not our place to stand on a podium and preach about the oppression of our people when we do not bear the brunt of it. There is a fine line between elevating and talking over the voices that need to be heard, and as a sect of a community that is suffering, we have to recognize our position.

We must stop taking up space in the fight for justice and recognize the progress behind our apparent freedom while in NYC. We can attend the rallies, but we have no need to be speaking; as a group, we need to take a supportive stance rather than absorbing the support. Here is the place to bite the bullet and work to liberate and support our counterparts who identify as trans, people of color and nonbinary and to do real work

to help us all instead of just us.

Pride parades are just as much a protest as a celebration. We need to advocate for gender-neutral bathrooms, regardless of our need for them. We need to advocate for total and comprehensive reproductive health care for all people, not just cis people. We need to share our privilege and equity to the people of color and trans members of our community suffering greater struggles than us.

Note as well that while this may be the case in NYC and in choice metropolitan areas, it is not always the case, and being gay is still very much a real and dangerous stigma globally. I am well aware of the dangers I and other white, cis, gay men — and the rest of our community — face in other places. There is still ample discrimination in faraway places like Brunei and Saudi Arabia, and even a hop, skip and a jump to the deep South of the continental U.S. As much as it is seemingly a thing of the past in our locale, homophobia is alive and well.

However, this fact should only drive our efforts and inspire us to use our privilege to support and empower the parts of our community that need it, to move equity and wealth into marginalized LGBTQ+ spaces, and to normalize all facets of being queer — not just being cis, white men.

As a whole, our community is stronger united than divided.

On some base level, we have all encountered similar struggles as queer people that unite us, but there are different intersectional experiences within our community. As the most privileged of the bunch, it is our duty to stop the pretense of oppression and instead to lift up the parts of our community that are still very much left behind.

SATIRE & HUMOR

A Lincoln Center Student’s First Football Game

ISABELLA SCIPIONI Asst. Social Media Editor

My roommates and I did the unthinkable — we went to a Fordham football game. When I told my other Lincoln Center (LC) friends that we were spending our Saturday evening at Jack Coffey Field, they all asked us why. The reason we gave: We wanted to experience a college tradition and cheer on our school. The real reason: We had nothing better to do and it was free.

As someone who went to a large public high school where football was more important than math, I have attended my fair share of games, but not often enough to have an appreciation or a basic understanding of the sport. Although football and school spirit are not my core values, I did go into the game with some expectations about student sections, bands, school spirit and, frankly, the team’s skill level. For the most part, Fordham did not offer what I was expecting.

On Saturday, Sept. 11, Fordham played Monmouth at home and — spoiler alert — lost. We arrived late in the middle of the first quarter due to a detour that involved my roommate, Caitlin, getting her nose pierced at Chelsea Market, which is the most LC way to go to a football

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN BOCALAN/THE OBSERVER

game. We hopped on a Ram Van, sitting way too close to several sniffling and coughing Rose Hill students, and filed into the stadium filled with unenthusiastic, unmasked Ram Fans.

“Fans,” however, is a bit of an overstatement — I had never seen a crowd of people less excited for something in my life. Although the football team did not get much attention, one of the cheerleaders did. A group of 30 of her friends decided to celebrate her 21st birthday by coming to the game carrying megaphones and wearing

matching t-shirts with her face on them. Happy birthday, girl, wherever you are.

After coming to the horrific realization that there were, in fact, four quarters and the game would not be over after the first 15 minutes, my roommate and I promptly left. We explored the Rose Hill campus and discovered it is just as boring as we expected. After the obligatory Instagram pictures, we sat in a pair of out-of-place beach chairs on an overwhelmingly large patch of grass and waited for the rest of our friends to get bored of the game.

As we sat contemplating our life choices and longing for the sterile hallways of LC, my roommate, Caitlin, turned to me, and said, “I’m just too cynical for this.” I pondered: Am I incapable of having fun? Yes. But are college football games and other traditions overrated? Also yes.

By the fourth quarter, I had thoroughly established my superiority complex and was ready to go back to judging other students at the game. Excitingly, the stadium was so empty that my friends and I were put on the jumbotron.

About five minutes later, we

were featured again. By our third appearance, the fame had completely gone to my head, and I was toying with a spinoff reality series. Those who, for some reason, stuck around were given the distinct pleasure of watching Fordham lose once again.

On a slightly unrelated note, I tested positive for COVID-19 two days after the game. I’m not saying I got it at the game (or in the Ram Van on the way over), but it was the largest unmasked gathering at which my roommates or I had been. Either way, any fascination I had with football or the Rose Hill campus has since been obliterated.

However, if college football is your thing, all I can say is be prepared for a booing-fest of no more than two dozen uninterested fans watching Fordham’s attempt to imitate America’s favorite homoerotic pastime. If you are interested in seeing a sea of students wearing red and watching a home football team win, New Jersey Transit can get you from Manhattan to Rutgers in about two hours.

For me, this football game was a learning experience. I learned that I am definitely too cynical for fun, that I could not be happier with my choice of campus and that I would rather spend my Saturday nights watching “Concussion.” Either way, at least I can say that I have taken part in a traditional college experience despite anything but a traditional past year.

Arts & Culture Editors Madeline Katz Olivia Stern arts@fordhamobserver.com

Arts & Culture

October 27, 2021

THE OBSERVER

Balenciaga’s Collaboration With Fortnite Raises Eyebrows

The partnership with the luxury brand is its latest since the video game’s team-up with Ferrari sports car

By ERIKA TULFO and STEPHEN BRAGALE Contributing Writer and Staff Writer

When Fortnite, one of the most popular video games in the world, revealed its partnership with high-end fashion house Balenciaga last month, the collaboration left a lot of people scratching their heads. Why would a fashion company offering clothes with prices in the thousands join forces with a free-to-play video game enjoyed mainly by teens and young adults?

New Skins and $725 Hoodies Last month, Balenciaga Fortnite skins, cosmetic items that change a player’s character or outfit without giving them a competitive advantage, became available for 1,200 and 1,500 “V-Bucks,” Fortnite’s in-game currency. Players can buy 2,800 V-Bucks for $19.99 in Fortnite’s in-game store, putting the price of these skins at around $10.

The skins have varied aesthetics. “Unchained Ramirez” dons a scaly top that changes from silver to gold, complete with baggy black

jeans with large jagged sections torn out. “Game Knight” includes a helmet and gauntlets to give an otherwise tame techwear outfit a unique Fortnite feel. For gamers with an aversion to avant-garde fashion, Balenciaga offers “Shady Doggo,” a sartorially safe skin whose hoodie and black tech pants make it the most minimalistic ensemble in the collection.

Balenciaga’s Fortnite merchandise for the real world is much more expensive. The Fortnite hoodies were originally available for $725, but as of Oct. 25, the Balenciaga online store had both of them out of stock. The hoodie contains the words “Fortnite” and “Balenciaga” on the front and “Retail Row” on the back — a reference to an in-game location on the Fortnite Battle Royale map.

The hoodie also comes in white and is a replica of the one worn by Balenciaga’s “Shaddy Doggo” skin in Fortnite.

The resale market for these hoodies has turned a profit for some people. Search results from eBay show completed sales of Fortnite Balenciaga hoodies for up to $1,100. Another Fortnite hoodie sold for $900.

A History of Disruption

GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KYLA MCCALLUM/THE OBSERVER

The house of Cristóbal Balenciaga has always been one to make a splash, and its collaboration with Fortnite comes as one of many unconventional moves made by the fashion house in recent years.

In the early 2000s, when no self-respecting “it girl” was seen without a designer bag, Balenciaga released its iconic “Classic City” bag. The City bag set itself apart from its contemporaries by veering away from the typical glamour associated with luxury fashion at the time and into street-style terri-

tory. Though its slouchy form and heavy hardware initially kept it from being mass-produced, rejected prototypes were seen gracing the arms of models and celebrities alike. It soon cemented itself as a must-have accessory of the era.

Now, with creative director Demna Gvasalia at the helm, the brand’s rebellious streak is underscored by unlikely collaborations, including a ready-to-wear line featuring the Sony PlayStation 5 and, most recently, a cameo in an episode of “The Simpsons” that premiered in this year’s Paris Fashion Week.

Avant-Garde, or Cheapening Its Image?

Balenciaga has doubled down on collaborations since Gvasalia assumed his position and began working toward his vision of the brand as “an unexplored mode of creative freedom and a platform for innovation.” However, for many longtime fans, the creative risks do more to harm Balenciaga’s image than to help it.

So what does Balenciaga hope to gain from its collaboration with Fortnite? Aside from appealing to its growing Gen-Z consumer base, virtual, in-game versions of real designs render haute couture more accessible.

High-fashion enthusiasts aren’t too thrilled at this choice, as luxury brands like Balenciaga have built their reputations on a spirit of exclusivity. According to critics, collaborations such as that with Fortnite, while certainly subversive, serve to “cheapen” Balenciaga’s image.

The newly released “Sneakerhead Bag,” a top-handle handbag modeled after gym shoes and priced at $2,150, is another example of this “cheapening.” While

certainly indicative of Balenciaga’s trademark boldness in its deviation from what is typically associated with luxury styles, many within the fashion industry have come to view it as a desperate attempt to rekindle popularity with the younger generation.

Just Another Collab for Fortnite The Balenciaga partnership is just a drop in the ocean for Fortnite, a game that has thrived on collaborations with the likes of Marvel, the National Football League and Ariana Grande.

Fortnite uses these partnerships to create content like new game modes, skins and in-game music concerts. However, most of Fortnite’s crossovers are with brands that thrive on mass production. Balenciaga doesn’t fit that mold.

Ferrari is another luxury brand that partnered with Fortnite. In July, the Ferrari 296 GTB was placed in the game, and players could drive it for a limited time at no cost. Fortnite also released Ferrari skins that could be purchased in the item shop.

Data from Google Trends shows that searches for “Ferrari” saw a slight increase when the car was introduced in the game, only to return to normal levels in the following months. Similarly, Balenciaga showed a spike in Google searches during the week that its skins were in the Fortnite item shop. Though the skins have cycled out of the shop, there is potential for them to eventually return to the game.

While the lasting effects of Balenciaga’s experiment with Fortnite remain to be seen, Fortnite seems like it will continue to expand its repertoire of collaborators in the future.

‘Continuity’: Theater Through a Fresh Perspective

First-year theater students reflect on artistry, crew work and COVID-19 restrictions CONTINUITY from page 1

Whether in performance, design and production, directing, or playwriting, students here are encouraged to work in areas outside their focus. By working on the run crew, lighting or costuming, students have the chance to participate in college theater first hand. After experiencing the work on Fordham mainstage for the first time, a few first-year crew members shared a glimpse into the inner workings of Fordham Theatre, COVID-19 regulations and human connection.

Riley Halpern, a theater major on the performance track and Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25, had a lot to say about her personal experience as an actor working on the backstage run crew.

“I was a little nervous at first because I’ve never been on a run crew before, but my stage managers … have been incredibly kind and helpful. Once I got into a groove it’s been a really cool way to start off my Fordham theatre experience,” she said.

She pointed out that even though the play was not set under normal theater circumstances — with masked actors and social distancing — you could still hear the laughter in the audience and the love of theater from every person in the room.

Halpern also expressed affection for her fellow crew team

and audience members by saying that even while working, the humanity of theater is never really gone.

“We all wear masks and I am in charge of sanitizing the props, but the human connection with the audience is as good as ever,” she said.

Jaden Perez, another theater major on the performance track and FCLC ’25, also gave us fresh insight into the basics of working on his first Fordham Theatre show.

“The masks feel weaved into the play itself, and it’s interestingly reinvigorating to go to the extent we thought wasn’t possible only a while ago,” Perez said.

“Seeing how we were able to work with the masks instead of seeing it as a restriction was astounding.”

He emphasized the fact that even though the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to live performance for a long time, it has not stopped the impact theater can have on an audience. Even though the pandemic did change how theater works, the crew keeps finding new ways to adjust to the protocols required for a safe performance.

“Schedules could be vastly shifted if someone had gotten infected, so precaution and coordination was key,” Perez said.

Out of everything, it seemed that the most common topic between first-years is the connection between audience and cast.

Even with COVID-19 restrictions, the theater is able to bring back

MOLLY HIGGINS/THE OBSERVER

Fordham’s first mainstage production of the 2021-22 season, “Continuity,” ran from Oct. 7-9 and Oct. 13-15.

that feeling of community and artistry. The first-years were able to experience the feeling of harmony and love that theater brings while still being extremely mindful of the COVID-19 constraints.

With its basis on climate

change and how art impacts the world, “Continuity” may bring forth a feeling of worry or even dread in its audience. However, being able to sit in a room and share that experience is like a breath of fresh air. Thanks to

director Ryan Dobrin, the crew, the cast, the playwright Bess Wohl and everyone involved in the Fordham Theatre production, the Fordham community was able to return to another mainstage performance.

14

Arts & Culture

October 27, 2021 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

The Disturbing Yet Beautiful Message of ‘Squid Game’

Netflix’s most-watched series ever captivates audiences worldwide

By SANSAN LIANG Contributing Writer

Spoiler warning for “Squid Game.”

By now, word has gotten around about the hit Netflix series “Squid Game” that captivated viewers worldwide. At first, I was hesitant to watch this show because I had no interest in games, and the thumbnail of a colorful room with stairs covered in blood veered me away. However, after seeing “Squid Game” rank number one week after week, I thought I should try.

Soon enough it became one of my favorite shows in a while.

The first episode introduces our protagonist, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a broke middle-aged man who owes a great amount of debt. He meets a stranger at the subway station and is offered an opportunity to play a game and win 45.6 billion Korean won (about 38 million dollars).

Soon, Gi-hun joins 455 strangers in unknowingly signing a contract to compete against each other in risking their lives for money.

Immediately, the competitors are thrown into their first game — Red Light, Green Light (as hinted in the title of the first episode), which is a simple children’s game. However, it becomes apparent that the game is not as simple as it sounds — if a competitor fails, they are eliminated and die on the spot.

“Squid Game” does not shy away from brutal violence, death and gore. At the same time, it depicts visually pleasing landscapes and beautiful cinematography.

The second episode dives deeper into each character’s background and their life’s journey. The episode helps the viewers understand the characters’ choices and why they decide to play the game. The story that each character tells throughout the series eventually creates an

Come to the Traditional Latin Mass GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY JESSIE CHOI/THE OBSERVER

emotional bond between the character and the viewer and makes the viewers sympathize and feel, and, in the later episodes, brings the audience to tears. The actors delivered astounding performances and brought their characters to life by portraying real-life situations of struggling communities.

The show adheres to the injustices and concerns happening in South Korea today by bringing in important characters like Sae-byeok (HoYeon Jung), a North Korean defector; and Ali (Anupam Tripathi), a migrant worker from Pakistan. In a global perspective, both characters take on the role of bringing out stories of the many marginalized communities in many countries.

In an interview with Netflix Korea, model-actress HoYeon Jung explained that “‘Squid Game’ is a story about people” and that “each character’s thoughts and human nature are the things that you should focus on.”

As the series progresses, the games become more and more intense, and each competitor’s drive for winning the prize money becomes greater. Ultimately, the games test how far a person would go to obtain that large amount of money.

The universal message of capitalism is also a significant focal point of the show as depicted in the intensity of the games and the person’s willingness to play.

Throughout each episode, the number of competitors slowly decreases until the last game when it’s down to two people. The winner of the prize money leaves the game carrying the weight and guilt of all the lives lost.

People commonly think that once they obtain a great amount of wealth their lives will change drastically in a good way. Sometimes people are willing to do whatever it takes to get rich, especially if there’s a shortcut (such as winning the lottery or gambling).

However, we learn in the final episode that this common assumption is not true.

Despite all the gore, death and violence, “Squid Game” is a wonderfully thrilling masterpiece that is worth watching (I recommend, in the original language with subtitles) this season. As Bong Joon-ho, a South Korean Academy Award-winning director, once said, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

Sung Mass every Sunday at 9 a.m. at the Church of Saint Agnes 143 East 43rd Street (bet. Lexington and Third aves., near Grand Central)

Ram Reads: ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ Is Rooney’s Best Novel Yet Sally Rooney’s newest novel incorporates themes for readers feeling isolated or hopeless during the pandemic

By AMIRA MOTAIR Contributing Writer

Brace yourselves: Sally Rooney’s newest book — “Beautiful World, Where Are You” — is an even more challenging read than her previous books, “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People.” The novel follows the same plotless story that Rooney fans are accustomed to; however, it’s a refreshing approach to writing.

Alice Kelleher is a young, aimless Dublin novelist approaching her 30s, muddling this beautiful world with her friends — Eileen, Simon and Felix — through sex, romantic relationships and friendships. It examines the relationship between two eventual couples — Alice and Felix, and Simon and Eileen.

The dynamics between these characters are incredibly genuine and authentic. Readers can relate to and develop a connection with them on an emotional level through their dialogue. Rooney is famous for her dialogue and quotations, and this book best portrays the deeper meaning of this world through the characters’ very brief but extraordinary dialogue. It’s awkward between the couples, resembling everyday life when it comes to relationships, and the emails depict many profound thoughts that compel readers to absorb the ideas as well.

They start off with Alice and Eileen discussing their days to one another — eventually diving into their deep, profound thoughts

about how messed up yet beautiful the world is at times.

Readers get an omniscient view of these characters; it’s like watching a movie. Rooney focuses on physical descriptions, movements, backgrounds and facial expressions as she sets the scene. However, every chapter shifts tones, from the characters’ unfolding lives to thriving, never-ending messages among Eileen and Alice about the more mature subjects of everyday life; this allows the characters’ inner monologues to better highlight their dynamics. At times, the emails are more intricate than the present scenes of the novel and occasionally guileless yet bitterly intense and quite a bit nostalgic of those alcohol-fueled deep conversations in college.

The book touches on many subjects, ranging from capitalism and Marxism to social class tensions and climate change. The scenes between Felix and Alice depict the differences between individuals of different social classes very well; Felix works long, overwhelming hours at the warehouse, whereas Alice is home, checking her emails and reflecting on her life.

Rooney also projects her bitterness about book culture through Alice’s long rants. Alice states that “poverty, that misery, side by side with the ‘main characters’ of a novel, would be deemed either tasteless or simply artistically unsuccessful.” Alice believes that “the problem with

the contemporary Euro-American novel is that it relies for its structural integrity on suppressing the lived realities of most human beings on earth.”

Readers get a sense of Rooney in Alice herself; both are successful authors with two published books trying to find inspiration to write a third one during a pandemic. Rooney has been dubbed “the First Great Millennial Author” by The New York Times, and through this novel, she reasserts her authority as the author by embracing the criticism.

Rooney pokes fun at how modern fiction tends to suppress real life for entertainment. Storytelling has become more superficial over the years; however, through Rooney’s plotless and purposely awkward writing, real-life madness and dullness are portrayed on paper again.

I believe this to be Rooney’s best book. This novel is precisely the story we needed as we begin to ease out of a year-and-a-halflong pandemic. Being trapped at home throughout quarantine was a traumatizing period of mental deterioration for many — or, for some, an opportunity for self-reflection — which is a consistent theme throughout the novel.

The emails reflect Eileen and Alice’s wide range of emotions, whether they are lonely, confused or generally unhappy with their lives. They begin to have a heightened sense of self-awareness and critical thinking. For instance, they realize how “the air

ROXANNE CUBERO/THE OBSERVER

“Beautiful World, Where Are You” is Sally Rooney’s latest novel about relationships and alienation.

we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of microplastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals,” when they feel as if their life is going down the drain.

But when everything is perfect, Eileen “begin(s) to feel it all over again — the nearness, the possibility of beauty, like a light radiating softly from behind the visible world, illuminating everything,” portraying the complexity and range of emotions felt throughout the pandemic.

Rooney’s trademark style gleams among intriguing discussions about class-consciousness, language, religions and a myriad

of other topics that defined the quarantine era. The alienation theme of the novel was a perfect one because of how it related to the feeling of isolation during the pandemic. Rooney efficiently incorporates emails from the beginning of the pandemic — depicting how, despite our differences, all of us, including her, were in sync at a point in 2020. It was a very engaging writing style, and the emails between the two girls often had me talking to myself on the train on my way home.

This is a story of life, love, relationships and alienation, and it is exactly the story that Alice Kelleher would want to read.

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER October 27, 2021

Arts & Culture

15

Senior Year Through the Eyes of a Playwright: A Profile on Vivian Brown

Fordham’s only senior playwright opens up about the return to in-person theater, directing, her artistic lineage and future plans

By FABIOLA ARIAS Contributing Writer

As a senior in college, one is expected to be “done” with school.

The notion is that once you are in your senior year, there is little to do and learn, but for senior playwright Vivian Brown — a theater and medieval studies double major and Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’22 — there is little to be “done” with.

“ It was more out of

intention to write something that I would enjoy the process of writing than even thinking ‘I want to have something fun and comedic for the studio season.’ ”

Vivian Brown, Fordham College at Lincoln Center ‘22

After more than a year of executing her plays virtually, Brown found herself finally staging her first in-person production entitled “Accidental Murder Mystery,” diving back into her final thesis and

experiencing the post-quarantine college world.

Rooted in a terrible case of writer’s block, a love of mystery and a ghost-themed playwriting workshop taken during quarantine, “Accidental Murder Mystery” has now become Brown’s first in-person studio show not only as a playwright but also as a director.

“It was more out of intention to write something that I would enjoy the process of writing than even thinking ‘I want to have something fun and comedic for the studio season,’” Brown said.

“I think it’s a really funny play, but I’m also the person that it was specifically written to amuse.”

Brown’s show is, in a way, a love letter to herself, but even when working on a show like this, building a production from the ground up is a difficult and challenging experience.

“I could not have done it without Will Rossiter (FCLC ’23), our production manager, and Janae Beaver, (FCLC ’23), our production stage manager … but it was a lot more work than usual, I think, because the institutional knowledge has kind of graduated so really my class is the only class that has had a full in-person year here.”

Besides playwriting, Brown has dabbled in acting, directing, design and production, and even though she has directed two of

Vivian Brown, FCLC ’22, is currently in the process of her senior thesis project, “Savonarola: A Pseudohistory in Puppets.”

her own pieces — one virtually and one in person — she is now sure that she is not “a director,” at least for the time being.

“ It gives you so much

respect for other disciplines because every discipline is its own abyss of work. I was able to do this in an educational space where there was a safety net and where there were mentors and I was able to fail if I needed to. ”

Vivian Brown, Fordham College at Lincoln Center ‘22

“I have taken the direction classes that you need to take to direct in the studio, but I just don’t love it,” she said. Even so, she is happy to have ventured into directing because without trying, she would have never known whether she enjoyed it or not.

Working on different disciplines and understanding the ins and outs of each one created

a space where she could learn to appreciate every single facet of theater while trying things out in a safe environment. “It gives you so much respect for other disciplines because every discipline is its own abyss of work,” Brown said. “I was able to do this in an educational space where there was a safety net and where there were mentors, and I was able to fail if I needed to.”

Today, after trying everything there is to try, it is safe to say that Brown is “a playwright first and always.”

Now, months away from graduating, Brown’s gaze is set on her thesis project — “Savonarola, a Pseudohistory in Puppets” — which has been in the works since her sophomore year.

“It’s about this 15th-century Dominican friar named Girolamo Savonarola, who is a real historical person, and it’s about his rise and fall historically, but it’s called a “pseudohistory” because I’ve taken the finer points and changed them a little bit to my own liking,” Brown said.

A narrative about queerness and Catholicism, but also about what it is to exist in a power structure that you can’t escape, “Savonarola, a Pseudohistory in Puppets” mixes the power of theater with history and ends up asking the age-old question, “Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?”

Brown said, “Everybody is gonna

have to come see it to see what the answer is.”

With her artistic lineage stemming from playwrights Peggy Shaw straight through Paula Vogel and The Five Lesbian Brothers, and detouring into Eugène Ionesco and María Irene Fornés, Brown is nothing short of astounding. As an eager soon-tobe-graduate with a quenchless thirst for knowledge, she plans on getting her masters degree in medieval studies in the hopes of expanding the knowledge she has developed during her studies at Fordham. According to Brown, “Medieval studies is so intrinsic to the way we view our society, and I think it’s a really interesting lens to examine our world now, especially when you think of the plague, religious unrest and cataclysmic climate events: All of that was happening in the Middle Ages as well.”

It has been a hectic semester for Brown, but now that it’s all simmering down, she is excited to read new plays and dive back into some old favorites like “Brave Smiles...Another Lesbian Tragedy” and “The Secretaries” by The Five Lesbian Brothers and “Indecent” by Paula Vogel.

Listening to Brown was like a breath of fresh air, and just like “Accidental Murder Mystery” opened up the doors to a new studio season, she will open the doors to a new side of theater.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF VIVIAN BROWN

Brown (right) with “Accidental Murder Mystery” Production Stage Manager, Janae Beaver (left), FCLC ’23.

Fun & Games Editor Kreena Vora puzzles@fordhamobserver.com

un & ames

October 27, 2020 THE OBSERVER

Crossword: Trick and Treat

Across 1. This is kicked to make it someone else’s problem 4. “Made possible by ... support of viewers like you” org.

7. Rip apart, like a piece of paper 13. Top of the charts

Pumpkin Spice Loaf Recipe

By KREENA VORA and GRACE GETMAN Fun & Games Editor and Managing Editor

This rich loaf is closer to cake than it is to bread, but either way, it’s the perfect treat to share with friends on an autumn evening. As a bonus for all the dorm-room chefs out there, it’s also incredibly easy to make, only requires basic equipment and will make your whole apartment smell amazing. For those with dietary restrictions, this recipe can be made gluten-free and/or vegan, all without affecting the taste of the final product.

Dry Ingredients • 1 cup all-purpose flour Gluten-free flour will work just fine in this recipe

• 2 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice This can be store-bought, or made at home from 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp ginger, ½ tsp allspice, ¼ tsp nutmeg and ¼ tsp ground cloves.

• 1 teaspoon baking soda • ½ teaspoon baking powder • ½ teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients • 1 cup pumpkin puree OR mashed sweet potato • 1 cup 100% pure maple syrup OR brown sugar • ¼ cup oil (4 tablespoons) • 2 eggs Egg substitute should work fine as well, in which case nobody can stop you from eating the batter.

60. Home of Sandra Day O’Connor, Beto O’Rourke and Henry O. Flipper 61. *“Yeah, guys, of course your cow costume was unconvincing when you started neighing” 63. Filled (with) 64. Crookshanks, Hedwig or Scabbers 65. How many can keep a secret, colloquially 66. Emphasize 67. There are 168 of them in a wk.

68. Senator for 60 Across, along with John

Down 1. Identity for a man of Mexican descent in the United States 2. Apple close-range wireless communications 3. Unspecified ordinal number 4. Ordinary 5. Corner grocery store where you may be greeted by a cat 6. Text sent to a friend during a really bad date 7. Famous Bell 8. Cousin of Alexa 9. Someone having a real whale of a time

• 2 teaspoons vanilla GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAUREN BOCALAN

If you can’t find a proper loaf pan, the tinfoil containers you get at the halal cart or the deli are often the perfect size for this — just bend the edges up to make it deep enough.

Directions: • Apply cooking spray to your loaf pan, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

• Measure out all the dry ingredients into one bowl and the wet ingredients into another.

• Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir to combine. Stir until it reaches a smooth, uniform consistency.

• If you’re concerned that the mixture is too runny, you can add in flour a tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.

• Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes.

• You can check if it’s done by poking it with a toothpick — if the toothpick comes out clean, it’s ready to come out of the oven.

• Let cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Slice and serve.

You’ll want to make this the day of, since it doesn’t last long … particularly if you have roommates.

Sudoku

Cooking spray Mixing spoon Measuring cups/spoons Two bowls large enough for mixing 9”x5” loaf pan

Instructions: Each row, column and 3×3 box must contain the numbers 1-9 exactly once.

BY IRENE HAO

Equipment needed: • • • • •

10. Dislike 11. Bane of someone with PMS 12. Let slip 16. Heidi’s home 17. Clean Water Act agency 21. of salt mag, digital publication launched by Fordham students in 2020 with over 2.5k Instagram followers 24. Magnify 27. Hollow rock with quartz inside 29. “True ,” 2010 flick starring Hailee Steinfeld 30. Web travelers 32. Regretted, like in “iCarly” 33. Path drawn using a compass 35. Billboard features 37. Gifts for naughty children 38. Frequent site in a desert 41. Hammered 42. European splash zones 43. Talisman 44. What Prince Harry may put on when it gets cold 46. Simpler 48. Tilt 51. Units of electric potential 52. Majestic animal of Yellowstone Park 55. Honorific for a woman 56. Purposes 57. Online referees on forums, for short 61. Doc Brown and Marty had to reach 88 of this to travel in time (Abbr.)

62. The letter “e” in Morse code

Masked Halloween costumes ideas for a safe, fun holiday

BY GRACE GETMAN and CORBIN GREGG

14. No. 1 priority place in Britain 15. Genus of house crickets 16. *“Wow, how could you guys have forgotten your candy buckets to go trickor-treating?”

18. Annabeth of “Percy Jackson” and Chevy of “Community” fame 19. 15, for 1/3 and 1/5 (Abbr.)

20. Use for pumpkins, apples or pecans 21. *“Have to be honest, you guys have the dorkiest costumes at this party” 22. Expected number of strokes for a hole 23. Emotion personified by Lewis Black in “Inside Out” 25. What may be left at the end of a pencil after the eraser is gone 26. Two people may privately do this, in 14 Across 28. de Armas of “Knives Out” 29. Brave 31. “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” for example 34. Those with their pants on fire, say 36. *What 16, 21, 54 and 61 Across have in common 39. Apartment furnishings 40. Harness 42. Exposed 45. 18, to buy a fish at Petco 47. Name-dropper 49. Said prior to offering one’s perspective while texting 50. Word with shore, parental or medical 53. Charge for mixing vodka with a Volvo (Abbr.)

54. *“No you two, you don’t need a fishing rod to get Swedish Fish” 58. Latinx affinity club at FLC 59. Subject of study for Rosalind Franklin

9

1 2 3 3 9 8 7 1 1 6 7

2

7 8 4 3 6 4 4 7 9 2 1 8 3 6 4

1 6 4 3 7 7

9 2 7 1

8 9

GRAPHICS BY ROXANNE CUBERO